Experience as playing horse archer dominant faction

[Cuong Vu]

I'd like to ask you guys opinion about archers and horse archers in our mod BC 2.0.

I have read here:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=435370&page=2

and I find some arguments rather interesting. As most of our factions will possess horse archers, perhaps this is something we can ponder for the sake of battle mechanics?

I have tried to do some tests on this, and basically I have three Seljuk horse archer units, one heavy ghulam while the computer has two khurasani heavy spearmen. I try to shoot at the front and after 3-4 volleys one guy fell dead. I managed to turn one seljuk horse archer to their back and one to their right wing and SHOOT, 4-5 volleys 2 guy lied on the ground. I think this is perhaps one of the reasons why many players don't wish to see so many horse archers in our Seljuk unit roster and instead insist on having a large number of heavy Ottoman infantry.

Basically every bow or crossbow will have two types of range, maximum and effective range. If you fall into the effective range, you will get hurt very very quickly, at some 40 m, you are gonna die or seriously wounded. I have practiced very basic archery back in high school and even my bow is not that strong like the Turkic bow, it can create a deep hole in a tree 20 m from my position.

IN Rome Total War, you have a mechanism which help you to get around this problem by flanking the enemy with horse archers and that surely cause more damage, but I notice this feature is no longer active in MTW.

If anyone of you have ever played another game called Mount&Blade: Warband, perhaps you will understand how effective archers can be. I mean basically no matter what kind of armour do you wear, the shield is the largest factor for defense. If you get close to about 100 m, you will receive multiple light wounds even with shield since arrows flight to you from every direction. At 50 m, your shield will finally break and you are exposed to archers in full form, you are going to die soon with arrows stuck in your eyes.

I mean most of our light units will die fast in the rain of arrows, but I have to say archers are a little ineffective against medium infantry. While shield like the daylami infantry could protect their bearer at some stage, if they are too close to archers, they should receive heavy casualties.

What do you guys think of this?

[Iguanaonastick]

You were shooting one of the most heavily armoured units in the game. Yeah, arrows aren't going to be terribly effective against them. In BC arrows are mostly good against lightly armed foes.

There are endless debates about the effectiveness of archery versus armour. Revisiting them doesn't seem very productive to me. I'm more interested in gameplay results. (Though I don't want results that feel very unrealistic either, but the current balance seems about right in that regard to me.)

Testing horse-archer heavy armies is a good idea, but I think results would be more interesting if you tested larger armies of mostly horse-archers against varied enemy infantry and cavalry.

I've used horse-archers in just about all my armies, but only in limited amounts. They are very useful there but certainly don't inflict massive damage kills-wise. Very good for harassing and luring the enemy though, and striking vulnerable targets. But I'd be interested to hear people's experiences with using them as a larger component of their forces. (I generally use 3-4 units per army only.)

As for shields/armour, either would be effective against arrows. Shields do still give double protection from the angles they guard against, even in M2TW as far as I'm aware. However, the heavy spearmen you were testing against have so much armour that their shields probably are redundant against low-attack arrows.

Just to clarify. You -were- using the new EDU, right? In the old one horse archers were more effective, though still nowhere near as overpowered as in some other mods or vanilla.

[Cuong Vu]

I most expect from this thread is if you guys can give me hints in using horse archers and foot archers in a manner that we can maximise their effectivity.

Basically, in terms of tactics, horse archers are never used in a fashion of shooting each individual enemy to death like some fearsome mobile photon cannons. Their purpose is to weaken enemy fighting possibility and formation to the point where heavy cavalry can perform multiple charges (hit then draw back and then hit). Thus co-ordination between light and heavy cavalry must be extremely fluid to maximize its effectivity. However, if you are playing full horse archer army, you will feel very soon that the current battle map is so restricted that your horse archer just slam into each other before they are cornered and slaughtered. Thus I am not sure the mod team can expand the battle map size, especially for flat terrain to favour horse archery.

About the classic "heavy infantry vs horse archer" confrontation, here is what we should be taken to our heart:

"To use an anachronistic term, a horse, a horse most of all a moving horse, is a highly unstable gun platform, making the firing of a moving horse archer highly inaccurate"

"The effectiveness of the Parthian army has been greatly overrated, largely because of the misunderstanding of the battle of Carrhae. One of the reason for the defeat was that Crassus controlled an unbalanced army. The army of the Principate included among the auxilia, high-quality cavalry and missile armed troops. If a balanced army kept together and made no mistakes, even move in battle formation, then a Parthian force could not hope to beat it even in the open."

Those are from:
The Roman army at war: 100 BC-AD 200 by Adrian Goldsworthy

So I am thinking if the team can differentiate heavy horse archers from light horse archers, that may be very important. Because we can actually increase the accuracy of heavy horse archer a little higher to reflect the fact that they move less than their light counterpart, thus gives them more advantage of delivering more accurate and devastating shot at the expense of mobility.

[Iguanaonastick]

From what I've found:

- The obvious. Take the high ground, but not so high your archers can't shoot in a low arc. Shoot vulnerable targets. It's better to kill a good few enemy levy archers than try to kill one or two enemy heavy cavalry. Armoured troops are not going to suffer any notable casualties. Look for enemies with high defence skill but little armour and no shield.

- Have your poorer quality archers aim for the largest concentration of enemies, use your better archers to aim at vulnerable but more isolated targets. Against big blobs of enemies, poor quality archers actually inflict more damage than high quality ones because they come in bigger units.

- Provoking the enemy to attack or luring some enemy units out of position is often just as or more valuable a use of your archers than inflicting kills. That's what the Mongols did with their horse-archers, after all.

- Most horse-archers can fight in melee. Many are quite good at it. Some even have a half-decent charge bonus, such as the spear-armed Roman hippotoxotai. Even if you run out of arrows the horse archers aren't done fighting yet by a long distance. I like to use them against enemy cavalry in particular. After all, most horse-archers are more expendable and easier to replace than your heavy lancers. The enemy cavalry will happily engage your horse-archers whilst your lancers get in position to charge them from behind and massacre them all. Choking enemy unkillable generals with cheap horse-archers also works fine. Or at least it's not as painful as losing half a unit of expensive lancers to one guy with a fancy helm.

- Finally, I've found that archers are a bit situational in their use. One battle the terrain cooperates and the enemy is in a position where my archers wreak havoc. The next the enemy charges in straight away and I never get a chance to have my archers do much. I get around this by not relying on archers alone. Winning battles by archery alone is probably not going to happen.

[Cuong Vu]

Did you notice how cavalry is fatigue too easily, after some three or four charges, they are completely exhausted.

[gamegeek2]

Did you notice how cavalry is fatigue too easily, after some three or four charges, they are completely exhausted.

How much do you expect of those poor horses? Especially if it's a heavy horse, carrying an armored rider. And it's even worse if the horse wears armor.

What iguana's saying makes sense. Don't rely on archers to win battles - it's just not going to work if you run into a prepared enemy, or the terrain isn't favorable.

[Iguanaonastick]

A better question would be "Why is the enemy still standing after 4 charges?"

It's true that cavalry will end a battle exhausted. Most units will. This makes sense to me, though. The enemy'll get tired too. (depending on difficulty)

[Cuong Vu]

What iguana's saying makes sense. Don't rely on archers to win battles - it's just not going to work if you run into a prepared enemy, or the terrain isn't favorable.

In my case most terrain is flat and suitable for steppe nomad warfare, with horse archers pouring deadly rains after rains of arrows, even with the tactic plunging close to the enemy and send arrows then right after that rolling back and shooting backward, the enemy stands like a firm rock without any considerable casualties. Many factions will have to rely on horse archer to win the day, since infantry selection is poor while heavy cavalry is back-breaking expensive. It makes sense that they did not die with all those shields, but what about at the back, at the front, in even as close as the length of the spear? What kind of protection can avoid all arrows coming from all sides and within a such a short distance?

Gamegeek, do you think it is a good idea to create another function, a button that allows horse archer to shoot armour penetrating arrows like a special ability?

A better question would be "Why is the enemy still standing after 4 charges?"

Because arrows could not weaken them to the point that heavy cavalry could break their formation?

Basically, I have tried all tactics that I learned from RTR as Parthia, advices from here:
http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...-Cavalry-Guide

And my horse archers will not do much damage before they are slaughtered with their quiver emptied. It is very hard to manage a mobile army like that. I have no doubt that the old team must create so many stacks for the Mongols, because historically, the Khwarazmians outnumbered them.

You also have a big problems with unit straggling far away from their formation, not standing in good position, thus when enemy heavy cavalry reaches you, those units will pull the whole formation to fight and slaughter, perhaps I will present this issue to the current team to find some solutions for this. Horse archers are also less "smart" in MTW2 compared to RTW since they either don't do the timing correctly, running too late when the enemy reaches them, resulting in being hit quite hard.

. After all, most horse-archers are more expendable and easier to replace than your heavy lancers.

Considering the current recruitment system, it is sometimes, and it is not sometimes.

[Iguanaonastick]

As I understand this it -was- a concern of the original design. In the current system horsearcher-only armies really struggle against more heavily armed foes. That's why they introduced the somewhat a-historical "close-range horsearchers" who have shorter-ranged bows but armour-piercing arrows, to represent exactly what you describe above. (I don't think it can be done with a custom special ability?) They're still in custom-battle rosters for factions like the Seljuks, but I don't think you can recruit them on the campaign map anymore.

Have you tried playing custom battles with these units? Maybe that would solve your issue. It should certainly let you kill armoured troops more easily.

Another part of the problem is that the armies in Broken Crescent tend to include a larger proportion of heavily armoured troops than armies in reality did, I think. This of course cuts archery effectiveness down by quite a bit.

I also agree that skirmishing seems to work much worse in M2 than it did in Rome, which would make horse-archers even harder to manage.

I do think it's historical that horse-archer's struggle to break a disciplined, well equipped infantry army even if they bombard it with arrows first. The Romans' battles against the Parthians and Persians demonstrate this quite effectively. Roman armies were able to march across Parthian territory at will, virtually unstoppable despite endless harassment by horse-archers, but unable to bring the mobile enemy to battle or ever decisively defeat them. The issue with Broken Crescent, though, is that even if the enemy splits up all over the place you can't charge and run down isolated infantry units if they're high-tier, because they won't break even if charged from multiple directions. A more realistic morale-system like Europa Barbarorum had would help cavalry armies a great deal in this regard.

[Cuong Vu]

I do think it's historical that horse-archer's struggle to break a disciplined, well equipped infantry army even if they bombard it with arrows first. The Romans' battles against the Parthians and Persians demonstrate this quite effectively. Roman armies were able to march across Parthian territory at will, virtually unstoppable despite endless harassment by horse-archers, but unable to bring the mobile enemy to battle or ever decisively defeat them. The issue with Broken Crescent, though, is that even if the enemy splits up all over the place you can't charge and run down isolated infantry units if they're high-tier, because they won't break even if charged from multiple directions. A more realistic morale-system like Europa Barbarorum had would help cavalry armies a great deal in this regard.

Yes, and I quote from Adrian Goldsworthy on this issue in my first post.

Although you have to take into account that such an empire as Parthia was essentially a feudal state with very unstable recruiting system. They were at constant civil war when Trojan marched through their territory. I doubt that the Romans could do the same with a full nomadic Empire like the Xiongnu who possessed 400,000 horsemen at their peak. When the Sassanid was established, you can see how more challenges were presented for the Romans.

Regarding a very good scenario between Roman-Parthian clash, the best example is the Battle of Nisibis (217):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...ibis_%28217%29

A tactical draw but strategic victory for the Parthians. Both sides were unable to force another to surrender, but it is clear the Parthians gained a minor upper hand.

You can also quote from the battle of Arsuf, how the army of Richard could hold together against constant pressure by horse archer and mounted javelin launcher, though they were also at the brink of collapse too.

Historically, cavalry charge is much more formidable than in the ancient times since you have the stirrup. Several account in Far East Asian history revealed how deadly a good combination of lancers and horse archers could be. An account taken from Sung dynasty suggested that a group of 30 m Jurchen with 15 horse archers and 15 lancers were too fierce that they put to flight a small infantry contingent of 1500 men.

Just write down what you think and I will collect more opinions to report to the team when appropriate.

I have tested the Seljuk vs Byzantine with the new EDU Stat provided by gamegeek, the result is still a disaster. My army composition included: 1 Heavy Ghulam, 1 Senior Ghulam, 1 Junior Ghulam, 4 Seljuk Horse Archer while the enemy has: 1 Royal Kataphractoi, 2 Skutairoi, 1 Spatharoi (or something like that), 2 Toxotai, 1 Anatolikoi Hillmen.

They are unbeatable!

Try again with 4 more Seljuk Horse Archer, I still become a dead meat. It is very very very hard to operate (though you can say it is a nice challenge too )

This time, without much hope, I did the most stupid test: 20 Seljuk Horse Archer with Regular Bow (RB) unit against 1 Khurasani Heavy Spearmen, guess what, it works just fine. (still I suffer from friendly shot) And it takes each of my horse archer half of their quiver just to kill only 1 heavy unit. This is a true nightmare!

That's why they introduced the somewhat a-historical "close-range horsearchers" who have shorter-ranged bows but armour-piercing arrows, to represent exactly what you describe above. (I don't think it can be done with a custom special ability?) They're still in custom-battle rosters for factions like the Seljuks, but I don't think you can recruit them on the campaign map anymore.

Just like the foot archer can perform fire arrows, I am thinking if it is possible to fill the empty special ability of horse archer to this category. The most serious setback is once you get your horse archer at the back of the enemy and shoot, they don't die anymore like in RTR. Basically, in RTR, if you manage to divert those Silver Shield Phalanx men (Seleucid) from one direction and shoot them at the back, they die more. In front, horse archer is as roughly ineffective as in our current game.

Another part of the problem is that the armies in Broken Crescent tend to include a larger proportion of heavily armoured troops than armies in reality did, I think. This of course cuts archery effectiveness down by quite a bit.

Since gamegeek has to adjust defence so that the battles do not end in a minute, troops will tend to die less too, at the same time he must also struggle not let archer units shoot Ak-47 at troops (try Rusichi TW and you'll understand), and tons of other balances that he is trying his best to correct, thus we have these problems.

With the current effectiveness of archery, plus only 30 arrows for those poor horse archers, my conclusion is that you can build up an army with all melee units and you will win no matter what, it is just a matter of time before you are gonna slaughter horse archers.

[trollface]

in version 2.02 they are very strong... mounted horse archers that is. Foot archers tend to run out of arrows very quickly. With a horse archer army use their mobility to fight on a hill, they are very deadly like this. Even elites will fall quickly, plus most horse archers have alot of arrows

[Iguanaonastick]

Historically, cavalry charge is much more formidable than in the ancient times since you have the stirrup. Several account in Far East Asian history revealed how deadly a good combination of lancers and horse archers could be. An account taken from Sung dynasty suggested that a group of 30 m Jurchen with 15 horse archers and 15 lancers were too fierce that they put to flight a small infantry contingent of 1500 men.

This actually appears to be an old misconception. The stirrup does not aid cavalry charges much, it's the saddle that provides support for the lancer. Lance-charges were quite effective in antiquity as well as in the middle ages. The stirrup does however make cavalry better in mêlée, since they can stand up and strike down with all their strength without toppling themselves from the saddle.

As for that battle you mention, leaving aside the issue of possible exaggeration it was quite common for one side to withdraw or flee without striking a blow if they had low morale and had no will to fight. For example during the 4th crusade there's a report of 80 Frankish knights putting 500 Byzantine cataphracts to flight. (Likely describing heavy cavalry less elite than in the mod, though.)

As for the battles, I'll run some tests myself. Still interested to find out if the close-bow archers will make a difference.

[Cuong Vu]

Even elites will fall quickly, plus most horse archers have alot of arrows

They only have 30 arrows in their quiver, which means each has one quiver, trust me it is not that long before they are slaughtered.

This actually appears to be an old misconception. The stirrup does not aid cavalry charges much, it's the saddle that provides support for the lancer. Lance-charges were quite effective in antiquity as well as in the middle ages. The stirrup does however make cavalry better in mêlée, since they can stand up and strike down with all their strength without toppling themselves from the saddle.

I see, thank you!

As for that battle you mention, leaving aside the issue of possible exaggeration it was quite common for one side to withdraw or flee without striking a blow if they had low morale and had no will to fight. For example during the 4th crusade there's a report of 80 Frankish knights putting 500 Byzantine cataphracts to flight. (Likely describing heavy cavalry less elite than in the mod, though.)

That's why they said "put to flight", not "killed" or "slaughtered".

[Iguanaonastick]

I tried the custom battle you mentioned. Only I couldn't find heavy or junior Ghulams in the Seljuk custom roster, so I used one unit of Royal Ghulams and one unit of Seljuk Askari Horsearchers instead. That gave me a total of 7 cavalry units, 5 of whom were horsearchers.

Against the same 2 Toxotai, 2 Skutatoi, 1 Spathatoi, 1 hillmen and 1 Cataphract. (And a unit of peltastai I don't remember adding but was there anyway for some reason.)

I won a heroic victory, losing 90 out of 275 Seljuk cavalry and killing all enemies.

The infantry wasn't much of a threat, it was the cataphracts that were the nightmare. With their javelins, skirmishing was not an option, with their armour shooting them was ineffective, with their cavalry-killing spears mêlée was a recipe for disaster. I think they accounted for over half my casualties, with the Roman missile troops and one mistake where I let a unit of regular horsearchers be caught by charging spearmen accounting for most of the rest.

I dealt with the cataphracts via the "bog down in horse-archers, then rear-charge with lancers" tactic I describe above. Once that was done the rest was easy, though admittedly by the time I had killed the last pesky 5 cataphracts (who could, for some reason, out-pace my horse-archers even though my guys were only "warmed up.") there wasn't much of a battle left.

So, horsearcher armies seem quiet viable if you don't get a headache from the immense micromanagement workload...

But I admit that I did very little skirmishing and my horse-archers had about a third of their quivers left at the end of the battle. I'm not sure how many troops I actually killed with arrows, I mostly just ran the enemy down under my horse's hoofs.

So horse-archers armies work if you turn off that pesky shooting and charge instead? Doesn't feel quite right. I'll test again without the uber-cataphracts and with fewer lancers, against more infantry. See how that goes.

[Cuong Vu]

Which terrain did you choose, open flat map as default?

But I admit that I did very little skirmishing and my horse-archers had about a third of their quivers left at the end of the battle. I'm not sure how many troops I actually killed with arrows, I mostly just ran the enemy down under my horse's hoofs.

I used to play like you, horse charge, not skirmishing, but...
Yeah, I will try again.

Edit:
I replay the battle, and I have a heroic victory, with 135 casualties with the enemy escaped 20 men.
My army: 5 Seljuk Regular Bow Horse Archer, 1 Royal Ghulam, 1 Senior Ghulam

Enemy:
1 Cataphractoi, 2 Skutatoi, 1 Spathatoi, 1 Anatolian Hillmen, 2 Toxotai

I used the Royal Ghulam to nail their Cataphract while Senior Ghulam performed repeating charge, they were reduced to 5 men and withdrew. I must also withdrew my heavy cavalry to avoid infantry support. Then a second clash and their cavalry were reduced to 1. I drew focus to defeat each Skutatoi then Spathatoi unit, then finished the last Cataphract before ordering all my horse archers to charge those Toxotai, they ran away quite fast anyway, so done the battle.

It is all credited to my Royal Ghulam and Senior Ghulam Bodyguard.

Before the battle was opened, I placed all horse archers in left wing and concentrated their shot at the Anatolian Hillmen and Toxotai, and that's all their deeds, nothing more.

I am not sure how did you achieve 90 men were killed, since most of my horse archers were shot down by those two Toxotai. One unit was reduced due to my carelessness for leaving them free-lanced with their Spathatoi.

I tried the custom battle you mentioned. Only I couldn't find heavy or junior Ghulams in the Seljuk custom roster, so I used one unit of Royal Ghulams and one unit of Seljuk Askari Horsearchers instead. That gave me a total of 7 cavalry units, 5 of whom were horsearchers.

My bad, the last unit was 52 men, they were Ghulam Cavalry, that's all, no Senior or Junior. Last time instead of Royal Ghulam Cavalry, I had 1 Ghulam Cavalry. The enemy was smarter than this time. They did not sent their Cataphract first but led the infantry moving in, then suddenly released the Cataphract to charge my Ghulam Cavalry while 2 Skutatoi charged my Senior thus avoiding me from freely rear-charging their Cataphract.

[Iguanaonastick]

Flat open default map.

I tried another battle, this time with the Khwarezem against the Roman. The Khwarezem had 3 units of Turkoman Tribal Cavalry, (very light horse-archers) 3 units of Turko-Persian horsemen (light-medium horse-archers) and 1 unit of Khwarezmian Guard. (Heavy horse-archers/lancers)

The Romans this time had no cavalry but even more infantry. A well-balanced force of 1 Spatharioi Emperor's Guard, (Elite spearmen) 2 units of medium Skutatoi spearmen, 2 units of Kontaratoi Pikemen, 2 units of Spathatoi medium swordsmen, 2 units of Toxotai light archers and 1 unit of peltastai.

Another heroic victory, suffering far fewer casualties than last time. I lost 38 out of 326 men, mostly in the units of Turko-Persian horse-archers I used to pin down the Emperor's Guard before rear-charging them with my bodyguard cavalry. (I didn't even try shooting that unit)

For the rest, their infantry chased half my cavalry while the other half of my cavalry ran down their missile troops in the first five minutes of the battle. The light horse-archers then kept drawing half the medium infantry after them while skirmishing while the rest of their troops turned around to deal with the cavalry attacking their missile troops. They were too late.
I then pulled the pin-and-charge tactic on the Emperor's Guard a few times, the rest of my medium horse-archers distracting the rest of the Roman infantry. My guard-cavalry then ran down the swordsmen units, my medium horse got a lucky rear charge at one of the spearmen units, and the rest of the Roman infantry broke and fled under the hail of arrows without even being engaged in mêlée.

On the right flank of the battlefield, my light 3 horse-archers killed only around 1/3rd of the medium infantry that kept chasing them, but did exhaust and weaken them enough that they broke soon after the rest of my cavalry came to threaten their rear. My light-medium horse-archers had spent less of their ammo as they were busy charging the archers and pinning down the Emperor's Guard, so they then had enough shots left to break the slow-moving pikemen units.

Total casualties inflicted by archery still weren't terribly high but otherwise it was a classic case of "Light cavalry surrounds, harrasses, weakens, exhausts and then breaks enemy infantry."

I think horse-archers do seem to work. My main issue would be fighting enemy super-heavy cavalry (you'd need a lot of good cavalry of your own, without spearmen/pikemen to pin them down) and the stress of micromanaging a 20 unit stack.

Edit to reply to your edit: I don't engage in missile duels. I charge the enemy foot-archers, then withdraw and skirmish with their mélée infantry. Rock, paper, scissors. This avoids casualties.

[Cuong Vu]

I think horse-archers do seem to work. My main issue would be fighting enemy super-heavy cavalry (you'd need a lot of good cavalry of your own, without spearmen/pikemen to pin them down) and the stress of micromanaging a 20 unit stack.

True, though it is a little awkward to go to battle with a horse archer dominant faction without cavalry.

1 Spatharioi Emperor's Guard, (Elite spearmen) 2 units of medium Skutatoi spearmen, 2 units of Kontaratoi Pikemen, 2 units of Spathatoi medium swordsmen, 2 units of Toxotai light archers and 1 unit of peltastai.

This won't work well since Kontaratoi Pikemen should not pursue your cavalry but defend and wait for your cavalry to charge them, may be you can replace them with some more missile units.\

Now increase the number of troops from 7 to a large number, and see how things are going. I am waiting.

10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and finally 20. Also the proportion unchanged, I guess.

@Iguanaonastick: Thank you for your continual testing and perhaps you can try a bit further to expand your advises, I will bring them to further discussion to help players in future to adopt with new gameplay in BC 3.0.

Also, don't choose just full infantry army, at least give the enemy 2 cavalry units if possible.

[Iguanaonastick]

Frankly, I'm not looking forward to managing an entire army of horse-archers. I imagine that's the same no matter how strong the horse-archers are, though. Too much micromanagement and not enough battlefield overview. If I played the Seljuks or Khwarezem I'd still bring some infantry just so I'd have an anchor to fight around.

I'm well aware the kontaratoi are are poor choice against horse-archers, that's why I brought them. To demonstrate that while horse-archers struggle against many foes, there are some who don't stand a chance against them.

If I did fight a full battle I'd bring a heavier proportion of lancers. Historically no steppe-army ever fought without some lancers to complement their horse-archery. And they would end up doing much of the heavy lifting, I think.

[Cuong Vu]

If I did fight a full battle I'd bring a heavier proportion of lancers. Historically no steppe-army ever fought without some lancers to complement their horse-archery. And they would end up doing much of the heavy lifting, I think.

True, but armoured lancers are another different story.

[gamegeek2]

The problem isn't really my stat system giving good armor stats, it's that basic Armenian spearmen wear chainmail in this, which is kind of silly. Among other things...