Originally Posted by
Roach
The Nomadic tribes and Parthia both have strategies that rely in part on their horse archers. All four factions start with the same basic horse archer, and then unlock several other better armed and armored variants. Parthia's elite horse archers are a bit weaker from the start, since they carry recurve bows which do 29 damage rather than composite bows which do 32 damage, and their melee weapons are cheaper, but otherwise there is not a big difference in terms of unit stats. In a single campaign, however, it turns out that the Nomad horse archers have a far higher ceiling than their Parthian counterparts.
The reason for the Nomadic advantage is their place as a barbarian faction rather than an eastern faction. As an eastern faction, Parthia has access to a Tier III workshop called the Marksmen's Range which gives units 40% more ammo and +2 to experience upon recruitment. Parthia also has the Temple of Great Fires which at Tier IV gives another +2 to experience. Parthia can pump out very experienced units (its horse archers get +2 to experience from culture/faction as well), but while that experience increases firing speed and accuracy, it is not enough to make its horse archers great.
The Nomads (and every other faction that is not Parthia) get a Tier IV workshop which increases ranged damage by 20% and ammo capacity by 80%. The Nomads also have a temple called the Sanctuary of Goitosyros, which at Tier IV increases damage by 10% and gives +2 experience upon recruitment. Even the Tier III Shrine of Goitosyros which is available in the smaller towns increases damage by 5% and gives +1 experience. It is possible to build a workshop and a temple in every city of a province, and all the damage and experience bonuses stack. Obviously, building this kind of recruitment focused province takes a large empire, but it is not impossible to pull off.
I tested this using Royal Scythia, which starts in a province containing four cities. I built up this province into the ideal Nomad recruitment center (using mods to speed up research and building times), and here is what I was able to build when I was finished (all tech researched, giving a total damage bonus of +120%):
Starting Damage: 32 (2 AP, 30 base/normal)
Upgraded Damage: 68 (2 AP, 66 normal)
The Royal Horse Archers start with two silver experience chevrons, and the cheaper horse archers with three. At that experience level, basic horse archers start with a firing rate of 10 shots per minute and at the top end the Royal Horse Archers shoot at 14 shots per minute.
Ammo capacity is up to 35 from 15 at the start.
These Royal Horse Archers do more than twice the damage, fire at more than twice the speed and carry more than twice the arrows compared to the horse archer you start the game with. The actual damage per minute these elite archers do is between 400% and 875% higher than that horse archer you can recruit on turn one, depending on the armour of the target. Each arrow does more damage than a falxman against any unit with armour below 110 (that means almost everyone).
If you were to recruit cheaper horse archers in this province, they would do just as much damage, but they would fire more slowly - Noble 12 shots per minute, Armoured 10-11 shots per minute, Steppe HA 10 shots per minute. If you want the best, though, go with the Royal Horse Archers and let them rock your world. You don't even need Heavy Shot - it would only slow you down.
(Note - the cost of the province that built these is immense. The fully upgraded province, with most cities left at Tier II, runs at a food deficit of -45, and that is with extra food from the Edict and a Tier IV food city and port in the province. You can save 22 food by sacrificing elite horse archer availability and some experience bonuses but without affecting damage.)
I tested to see how many max exp Royal Spartans in hoplite wall formation would die to a single unit of Steppe Horse Archers at various damage levels (base 15 ammo):
32 damage - 83 kills on average (out of 160 Royal Spartans)
37 damage - 101 kills on average
44 damage - 131 kills on average (Royal Spartans rout)
68 damage - 209 kills on average (vs two units - 320 - of Royal Spartans)
Once I increased the ammo to 35, the kill count increased as well:
68 damage - 514 kills on average (vs four units - 640 - of Royal Spartans)
All the damage was done from the front, where the hoplite shields blocked 50% of the missiles. I did not use Heavy Shot. Units not protected by shields (and heavy armour) would obviously fare much worse. I believe it takes about three arrows to kill a Royal Spartan thanks to their high armour and HP. I tested one horse archer unit vs 6 Royal Cataphracts and the cataphracts all routed before the horse archer ran out of ammo. A quick test against a unit of foot archers showed that it took three volleys to make them flee the field. Given that experienced Royal Horse Archers fire twice as fast as your base archer unit and wear heavy armour, a lot of battles with an elite army of these would be laughable. In a custom battle with a full stack of high damage, high ammo Royal Horse Archers easily crushed an elitish Roman army just as expected.
I have not taken military tradition into account here. A lvl 2 army can add an extra 5% ranged damage for a total of 70 damage, etc.
Obviously, not many people will have the fortitude to build an empire that can support the production of so elite an army of horse archers, but if they do it is my personal opinion that they deserve to take over the world.
Maximizing the Damage Potential of the Nomad Horse Archer
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