Missile Units Overpowered

[Captain Arrrgh!]

I think they're just right. I hope CA doesn't 'patch' this and rather a mod is available for people who want to nerf them.
It was so annoying in Rome and Med 2 to have archers launch a cloud of arrows into a unit and only have one or two guys go down.

[Lugiahua]

I think they're just right. I hope CA doesn't 'patch' this and rather a mod is available for people who want to nerf them.
It was so annoying in Rome and Med 2 to have archers launch a cloud of arrows into a unit and only have one or two guys go down.

reminds me levy archers in SS mod....after fired several thounsands arrows into enemy forces, scored 45 kills

[Eikki]

agree about the ineffectiveness of med 2 archers. Especially longbowmen who are supposed to do more than getting about 20 kills in the entire battle after unleashing god knows how many arrows. Although I would still be interested in the archers being pulled back a bit in Shogun 2.

[Inhuman One]

It only makes sense that more damage is done with archers compared to any archers in Medieval 2 considering the armor that is used.

[Captain Arrrgh!]

Japanese armour seemed relatively effective against the yumi, compared with other cultures, I think.
From my own experience the Korean compound bow was several magnitudes more powerful than the yumi, requiring a thumb ring for proper draw, and shooting much further.
I've only tried out a replica of a European lon bow that had about an 80lb draw weight. The thing was beast, I'd hate to be on the recieving end of it.

[Garmon]

It only makes sense that more damage is done with archers compared to any archers in Medieval 2 considering the armor that is used.

This, archers in that period were highly effective. Although from a gameplay perspective they might need a small nerf in one way or another. But there are obvious cons to their pros.

Altough when talking about previous total war games, i found the archers there to be rather crap besides a few situations...

[xccam]

I jsut tested a custom battle, Katana Cav against bow ashisgaru. The bow ashigaru used fire arrows and my cav lost just 7 men before combat. In combat they lost 0.

This doesnt seem so bad to me, this was on flat gournd, maybe you are charging up hill as that would make things worse?

[Grimreapo]

Wait, the one in in S2 are powerful than the "Kreeeeshon Arrrachors"[sic] in Rome? THose guys would murder units so hard it not even funny!

[Radiso-FIN]

I agree with OP, archer units are way too powerful now. Their damage should be decreased and overall armour values of units should be increased.
This combined with slower unit speed and higher morale would make this game perfect.

[M2TWRocks]

I agree with OP, archer units are way too powerful now. Their damage should be decreased and overall armour values of units should be increased.
This combined with slower unit speed and higher morale would make this game perfect.

Modders have agreed with this basic idea for just about every TW game that has had archers. And most of the time, they initially reduce the damage, and increase armor, and reduce unit speed, just like you suggested. But what tends to happen, is that archers then because completely pointless. You're better off having an entire army of melee infantry, than having ineffectual archers. This was the case with RTR and Stainless Steel at one point, as well as other mods which names escape me right now.

As they stand, archers are a risky proposition. If you create an army that is a majority archers, then you will sometimes slaughter the enemy based on their unit makeup. But other times, you will get your arse handed to you depending on the enemy's units.(I've experienced both, since I like archer heavy armies.) I think they're fine as is.

[Radiso-FIN]

Modders have agreed with this basic idea for just about every TW game that has had archers. And most of the time, they initially reduce the damage, and increase armor, and reduce unit speed, just like you suggested. But what tends to happen, is that archers then because completely pointless. You're better off having an entire army of melee infantry, than having ineffectual archers. This was the case with RTR and Stainless Steel at one point, as well as other mods which names escape me right now.

As they stand, archers are a risky proposition. If you create an army that is a majority archers, then you will sometimes slaughter the enemy based on their unit makeup. But other times, you will get your arse handed to you depending on the enemy's units.(I've experienced both, since I like archer heavy armies.) I think they're fine as is.

I don't think that archers are completely useless in mods like RTR or SS, use them correctly and they can deliver some serious damage.
They are good against all sort of cavalry, infantry without shields and very good in sieges.
If deployed to flanks they can shoot rear of the enemy units and ignore their shieds and when the enemy engages your main battle line you can make a flanking move with archers covered by cavalry and do some serious damage.

And also bow really isn't that powerful weapon what it may look like in movies. In mods like SS archer units are what they are supposed to be, in Shogun 2 they are far too powerful.
A group peasants armed with simple bow and who have gone through quick basic training shouldn't be able to decimate entire unit of experienced samurais equipped with high quality armor.

Fighting against archers is now extremely annoying and not fun at all, even if you use loose formation and cavalry. But I know, this is partly a matter of opinion. I hope we'll see a mod that fixes these issues soon.

[SnowRaven]

so lets say you place a unit of yari samurai vs a unit of archer ashigaru what do you guys think the outcome would be? yari samurai -> loose formation -> rapid advance at right time = dead ashigaru?

I think most of the complaints for a archer nerf would be when the AI uses a large archer based army hence decimating your inf. heavy army? Notice this time you dont have to pay to replenish your stacks? using yari ashigaru to head in before your samurai help too.

Honestly i dont see why there is need for a nerf remember in this era no one uses shields and bows are by far the most deadly weapon there is.

[Thefallenhun]

Honestly i dont see why there is need for a nerf remember in this era no one uses shields and bows are by far the most deadly weapon there is.

Yeah, next to the bow the ICBM is about as deadly as a raindrop.

[M2TWRocks]

I don't think that archers are completely useless in mods like RTR or SS, use them correctly and they can deliver some serious damage.
They are good against all sort of cavalry, infantry without shields and very good in sieges.
If deployed to flanks they can shoot rear of the enemy units and ignore their shieds and when the enemy engages your main battle line you can make a flanking move with archers covered by cavalry and do some serious damage.

And also bow really isn't that powerful weapon what it may look like in movies. In mods like SS archer units are what they are supposed to be, in Shogun 2 they are far too powerful.
A group peasants armed with simple bow and who have gone through quick basic training shouldn't be able to decimate entire unit of experienced samurais equipped with high quality armor.

Fighting against archers is now extremely annoying and not fun at all, even if you use loose formation and cavalry. But I know, this is partly a matter of opinion. I hope we'll see a mod that fixes these issues soon.

I'm assuming you're talking about RTR and Stainless steel now. What I described was what transpired from the earliest versions of the mods to now. Originally, the archers were diminished to the point where they were pointless. But they did this by doing exactly what you have suggested.

There's a very fine line between something being overpowered, and something being useless. I think the way archers are implimented now is fine. Overall, I feel the balance between all units is pretty good.

Also, Samurai's are not super human. They are just as susceptible to arrows and death as anyone. I think there's a huge misunderstanding when it comes to how difficult it is to train a farmer to use a bow effectively. I was in the Army and saw some of the most incompetant people learn quite quickly how to do complex maneuvers, and learn complex skills. It's not that difficult. I think that the trends in warfare at that time are reflective of this. Numbers became more important then super awesome swordsman because no matter how good a samurai is in martial combat, he's a complete waste of resources if 100 impoverished peasants can shoot and kill him with a stone age weapon.

[Thefallenhun]

I do object to how accurate they are against high level castles. Being in cover on the highest tier of a massive castle seems to offer 0 protection. It doesn't help the AI has a bow unit fetish, and in one siege I faced LITERALLY 20 units of bow samurai. I had matchlocks, buuuut they were pretty much useless until the AI ran out of arrows.

[Thefallenhun]

It's a balance, I will need to do some playtesting on normal, as on hard the archers have disgustingly high morale. However in multiplayer, many players don't even use archers.

I think the archers are ok, except when the AI uses 20 of them in a stack.

[STRATOPS]

they arnet overpowerd its medevial 2 arrows that were pathetic. plz dont remind me the usless archers there.

[oldboyhammer]

I don't find them so bad either. In fact it's probably the first time in a total war game where I've enjoyed using archer units and also cursing the enemy when they bring them along. You should be very afraid of archer units and this was somewhat missing from the other total war games. If an archer unit fired down upon me in any other total war game, I wouldn't bother with them until my own units were wittled down to about 50%, which could take a very long time so I just ignored the enemy archer units for the most part. In Shogun 2 though, as soon as the enemy starts firing down on me, I know I need to get the hell out of their range or counter them as quickly as possibly before I suffer huge losses. It's actually quite exciting to field archer units this time around and to fight against an enemy that has them. But that's just me.

[Radiso-FIN]

I'm assuming you're talking about RTR and Stainless steel now. What I described was what transpired from the earliest versions of the mods to now. Originally, the archers were diminished to the point where they were pointless. But they did this by doing exactly what you have suggested.

I must have missed that point in your original post. I myself can't now remember how archers were in the earliest versions of SS or RTR, even though I played both of them years ago.
Archers might have been useless then, but now they are fine in those mods. In Medieval (the first one) I remember archers being most useless than any other TW or mod.

But also increasing armour values makes archers less powerfull, but makes battles longer as well which are now too short in S2. There is little room left for tactics and flanking.

There's a very fine line between something being overpowered, and something being useless. I think the way archers are implimented now is fine. Overall, I feel the balance between all units is pretty good.

As I said previously I think this is a matter of opinion. Personally I don't like archers the way they are now.

Also, Samurai's are not super human. They are just as susceptible to arrows and death as anyone. I think there's a huge misunderstanding when it comes to how difficult it is to train a farmer to use a bow effectively. I was in the Army and saw some of the most incompetant people learn quite quickly how to do complex maneuvers, and learn complex skills. It's not that difficult. I think that the trends in warfare at that time are reflective of this. Numbers became more important then super awesome swordsman because no matter how good a samurai is in martial combat, he's a complete waste of resources if 100 impoverished peasants can shoot and kill him with a stone age weapon.

I got your point, been in the army as well. Even the dumbest people can learn how to work in a mass and as a mass.

But I'm not really familiar with how powerful Japanese bows were in that period. By size it looks pretty similar to Welsh longbow, but I have really no idea how well it could penetrate quality armour and how long it took to train a competent archer in Japan. And yes samura isn't now a superhuman, that wasn't what I was meaning, I was merely wondering how powerful bows actually were. If someone can clarify me about his I would be most grateful.

[M2TWRocks]

I must have missed that point in your original post. I myself can't now remember how archers were in the earliest versions of SS or RTR, even though I played both of them years ago.
Archers might have been useless then, but now they are fine in those mods. In Medieval (the first one) I remember archers being most useless than any other TW or mod.

But also increasing armour values makes archers less powerfull, but makes battles longer as well which are now too short in S2. There is little room left for tactics and flanking.

As I said previously I think this is a matter of opinion. Personally I don't like archers the way they are now.

I got your point, been in the army as well. Even the dumbest people can learn how to work in a mass and as a mass.

But I'm not really familiar with how powerful Japanese bows were in that period. By size it looks pretty similar to Welsh longbow, but I have really no idea how well it could penetrate quality armour and how long it took to train a competent archer in Japan. And yes samura isn't now a superhuman, that wasn't what I was meaning, I was merely wondering how powerful bows actually were. If someone can clarify me about his I would be most grateful.

Yeah, balancing is such a difficult thing to do, because it doesn't take a lot of factors into consideration. In both versions of Medieval Total War, there were literally hundreds of threads arguing the nuances of longbow warfare. People would attempt to mod longbows to reflect how powerful they thought they should be, without taking everything else into consideration. So you'd end up with machine gun longbowmen which could kill everything. Or you'd have the opposite effect like the examples I listed earlier.

I'm just glad I'm not the guy trying to sort all this out at CA. Poor guy probably dreams about pounds per square inches, minute angle variations due to the wind, and armor penetration. I would lose my mind.