Archers and slingers underpowered

[ooji]

Here's a video from Rome 2 showing praetorian guards maxed out in gold armor and weapons and in testudo form vs eastern archers. There's about 4 archers sets for every praetorian guard. I always felt EB archers were unrealistically weak. This video proves it. This is how effective archers would be in an actual battle.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcemIPtU4nQ
I hate the fact that in EB, you fire with 10 sets of archers against legionnaires and the best you can do is about 15 casualties. I mean we're talking about thousands of arrows vs single unit composition. Any thoughts on this?

[athanaric]

You're using a video from one computer game to disprove another computer game? I'm sorry, that doesn't sound very convincing.
Also, the oddities of ranged combat have more to do with the RTW engine than with the EB stats.

[Entropy Judge]

*Doesn't watch video* Aside from the aforementioned stupidity of trying to "prove" the ahistoricality of a video game by posting a video from a different video game, I suppose you should make sure you go back and tell the Romans that they were actually slaughtered to the last man at Carrhae by the many hours of sustained arrow fire, and Alexander the Great that Persian archers cut down many of the soldiers he brought with him, resulting in him being forced to make peace with Darius III in 332 BC.

[yuezhi]

My thoughts? With that many archers vs. one unit its more effective to encircle them. Firing up front is just plain laziness in tactics.

Also for an even stupider comparison, what about the 300 Spartans versus "arrows that could blot out the sun"? Sure eastern bows are powerful but they have limits too. Xerxes only won Thermopylae after completely surrounding the Greeks and having his archers fire at their leisure.

[Brihentin13]

Arrow+Shield=blocked arrow. All joking aside, OP does have a point. Archer are a bit weak in this game, but I'd rather have it this way than having them be over done. In Medieval II the archers were just annoying and detracted from the experience more than adding any real gameplay value. And just for the record, I never click on links on forums lol. Everyone is a hacker. He's a hacker. She's a hacker. I hack myself? Is that even possible? HACKS EVERYWHERE AAAHAAGAHAGAHAAGAHAGAH

[yuezhi]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Me and ma hackin tools

[Boriak]

I didn't know Alexander and Darius signed a peace treaty in 332 BC. I always thought that at Gaugamela Alexander defeated a vastly superior but conscripted force of archers and cavalry with his outnumbered but far more coordinated and trained professional army. Hm. Maybe I need to go back and read those books again. ()

[yuezhi]

[ooji]

Before you start ridiculing my argument, think of the main point. Entropy judge and Athanaric, you're simply focusing on putting me down with your 'superior' words. You realize that I'm talking about how an actual battle would go? Be nice to people on the forum. The point of the video was to show you that the effects in Rome 2 are a bit more realistic. You're talking about battle of Carrhae and how it lasted for hours. You're also talking about tens of thousands of men. Can current total war engine, if at all in the future, support such scale? Of course it's going to take hours with that scale.
Given current engine, we're talking about battle with a scale of few hundreds. I just don't see it being very realistic when I shoot from behind of any type of heavy infantry at a nearly point blank range and I hardly even cause any casualties.
One more thing, what exactly makes you think that watching a video on Youtube is going to have your computer hacked? Even if I were a hacker, why would I go through the trouble of registering an account on a forum with limited audience just to post a link? You people make me laugh.

[Entropy Judge]

Before you start ridiculing my argument, think of the main point. Entropy judge and Athanaric, you're simply focusing on putting me down with your 'superior' words. You realize that I'm talking about how an actual battle would go?

Then provide actual, historical evidence of battles in which Archers played a significant role in utterly shattering the opposing army before they managed to close to hand-to-hand, don't try saying "Well, this video game has archers do this, therefore it's right!" You're making the same argument as the following: "Shotguns in FEAR make people explode, so that must be how shotguns work in reality."

Be nice to people on the forum.

I am.

The point of the video was to show you that the effects in Rome 2 are a bit more realistic.

You have yet to prove this assumption, which is what we're whaling on you for. You're saying something, and you're not even using physical fact as your evidence, but another video game! You'd have more legs to stand on if you took a modern bow and put an arrow through a garbage can lid at point-blank range than you do now.

[Principe Alessandro]

Well, firstly we need to know what archer unit has disappointed you, generally speaking the basic greek and western european archers are really weak, steppe, oriental and cretan archers instead are really good. But if you expect to beat a battle line of armored units only with archers I have to disappoint you.

[athanaric]

Before you start ridiculing my argument, think of the main point. Entropy judge and Athanaric, you're simply focusing on putting me down with your 'superior' words.

Actually, I used neutral register. I was attacking your method of arguing, because it is terrible. This has nothing to do with your character or intelligence or someone else's superiority.

The point of the video was to show you that the effects in Rome 2 are a bit more realistic

. Not really, the legionnaires in the video get killed by arrows through their segmented armour. From the shielded frontal side, no less.
To my best knowledge, archery in ancient battles was meant to suppress the enemy's movement and drain their morale and resolve. Scoring a few kills along the way didn't hurt either, but you can't kill large numbers of well-armoured and shielded soldiers with arrows, unless you have an unlimited supply of both arrows and time. Also, a bow and arrow is not an instrument of precision, and not every archer can be expected to be an expert marksman. Hence the use of volley fire, usually in a ballistic arc. It's bad that archers in EB can't target ground, because they should be able to.
Also archers in EB really shine in defensive siege battles or sallies. It's not difficult to rack up 350 kills with one unit of Cretan archers in such a scenario.

I just don't see it being very realistic when I shoot from behind of any type of heavy infantry at a nearly point blank range and I hardly even cause any casualties.

That's because the engine doesn't take into account wounds in exposed bodyparts such as legs. In any case, you will have better results with slingers or peltasts. Archers just aren't very good against heavy armour, and they shouldn't be.

One more thing, what exactly makes you think that watching a video on Youtube is going to have your computer hacked? Even if I were a hacker, why would I go through the trouble of registering an account on a forum with limited audience just to post a link? You people make me laugh.

He was just trying to lighten up the mood.

[Principe Alessandro]

Also, a bow and arrow is not an instrument of precision, and not every archer can be expected to be an expert marksman. Hence the use of volley fire, usually in a ballistic arc. It's bad that archers in EB can't target ground, because they should be able to.
Also archers in EB really shine in defensive siege battles or sallies. It's not difficult to rack up 350 kills with one unit of Cretan archers in such a scenario.

Well not really the truth, the original bows were hunting weapons, in this case you need to approach closely your target and place a shot or otherwise if you miss your prey will run away. The bows and the practice of archery in Western Europe didn't evolved so much like in the steppe, in the Middle East or in Crete.

I doubt very much that European archers in ancient times could act like the Medieval longbowmen or the steppe archers.

[Boriak]

Also archers in EB really shine in defensive siege battles or sallies. It's not difficult to rack up 350 kills with one unit of Cretan archers in such a scenario.

Oh hell, I sieged an Eleutheroi Chersonesos with my Pontic army not so long ago. I sent my Classical Hoplites in to conquer gates, opened by a spy, thinking "Of sure, heavy infantry can walk into archer fire without getting any kills". Before my hoplites reached the door, they were completely taken out by Scythian foot archers.

Question while we're on the subject: I know how defense is calculated if fired upon from the left, right, front or back. What about from above?

[Ryoga84]

Oh hell, I sieged an Eleutheroi Chersonesos with my Pontic army not so long ago. I sent my Classical Hoplites in to conquer gates, opened by a spy, thinking "Of sure, heavy infantry can walk into archer fire without getting any kills". Before my hoplites reached the door, they were completely taken out by Scythian foot archers.

Question while we're on the subject: I know how defense is calculated if fired upon from the left, right, front or back. What about from above?

Damage from above: You're so dead


Anyway, I remember 3 units of greek archers (not creteans, the greek archers usually not even good as cannon fodder) making a butchery when Epirus sieged their city

like 300 phalanxmen dead before even reaching the walls

[Boriak]

Damage from above: You're so dead.

That's not exactly the formula I was looking for since I already described the effects myself.

[TWWolfe]

If anything, the problem is that Archers and slingers in rome II are incredibly overpowered, rather than the other way around in EB. THe bow has never been a mass killer in batles, despite what hollywood portrays. I'll use a movie example to illustrate.



People seem to expect archer to be like the elves from the lord of the rings movies. One shot, one kill, massive death everywhere. but up until the middle ages, they would have been like these poor orc archers at Pellenor. yes, they would have killed people, but they were more an annoyance than the main killers, or even minor killers in an army.

edit: for some reason, the video doesn't show up, so I'll leave this here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8yOdAqBFcQ

[Ryoga84]

People seem to expect archer to be like the elves from the lord of the rings movies. One shot, one kill, massive death everywhere. but up until the middle ages, they would have been like these poor orc archers at Pellenor. yes, they would have killed people, but they were more an annoyance than the main killers, or even minor killers in an army.

I agree

and as Principe Alessandro noted, western/barbarian archers were quite weak, while others (creteans, nomads and easterns) were more deadly,
but anything more strong is no more a bow, is an AK47

[yuezhi]

On a separate note what makes you think slingers are underpowered? In hindsight I've complained about basic slingers being OP simply because they have the AP ability.

EDIT: Ninja'd. beaten by a brony again!
And referencing any hollywood movie goes against what I believe but don't forget 300. An Armageddon of arrows, meant to fallon the men in speedos facing eastern potency head on, didn't go so well in the first volley for the men in silk pajamas and wicker baskets for shields; the persians who didn't see it coming got their asses handed to them literally.

[Glaive]

I'm pretty sure this guy is trolling.