horse archers weak?

[iloveyourz]

tried playing huns and my horse archers sucked... the kill rate was soooooo low i had 6 horse archers ambush general in the rear and half its ammo gone before it even killed the general -_-?

[Zhayedan]

yep, after some kitties complained why they are so "overly powerful" ca seems to have decided to make them weak now. same as sassanid cavalry in barbarian invasion that some complaints led to the change of their unit size.

[iloveyourz]

fair enough but they are the first into battle and score only 50 kills full ammo usage...? i mean if you are getting flanked by horse archers its your own fault specially with this game and all this anti calvary light calvary*cough raiders speedhacks*
its just silly to see a whole volly hit a general in his flank and hes taunting me LIKE NOPE :/


guess ill hold off on my huns till a patch because right now they suck if i try to play historically and use horse archers.... i could uar spam but come on lol

[Keyser]

What shot did you use and on wich units ?

When your are in a good position in the rear with horse archers and the ennemy is busy in the front, it's better to switch to whistling arrows and launch a full charge rather than doing pot shots...

Especially with the huns as they are fast, do decent damage in melee and scare the ennemy units.

Against armoured target that you might want to "soften up" before a charge (like armoured spearmen or very heavy infantry), use heavy arrows before switching to whistling for the charge, they do better in that case.

Archers (both horse and foot) can do lots of kill if you micro them well, but i have to say that isn't really their role. They should be more used as a support (break a cavalry charge with a devastating fire arrows salvo, "soften" strong ennemy units by harrassing them from afar, use whistling shots in support of your melee troops, put fire to tower, cities, forest, disrupt or rout ennemy skirmishers and shooters etc).

Edit

The purpose of horse archers historically isn't to kill from afar, it is to harass, disrupt, tire and desorganize the ennemy until some of his men either rout or decide to give chase to the archers and doing so expose themselves to a devastating counter-charge from lancers or even the horse-archers themselves.
Their shooting is more a support or a way to unnerve the ennemy and make him do a mistake than to do damages by shooting.

I think that using them this way in total war too gives better result.

[Ecthelion]

Horse archers, despite the actual title character of the game, are quite useless. The Hunnic ones are the only ones even close to being worth the slot in a top end army.

The main issue that most infantry are not too vulnerable to missiles even when shot from the rear or the unshielded side, so you don't really get much from flanking.

Possible solutions:
1. Make infantry much more vulnerable from being shot from the side or rear
2. Make horse archers more viable in melee, cause right now their niche role is far too niche.

[iloveyourz]

so how would you build the hunnic army since horse archers are kinda bad... ok really really bad lol or should i wait for buffs for my historical run of huns :p

[Fanest]

I find HA very useful and easy to use. U can taunt the enemy to follow u into a trap u can slowly but steady destroy all his cav from afar (use flaming arrows) when u run out of ammo they are good at hunting down routed enemies on average full stack battle my HA get 150kills easily all this with simple Persian mercenary mounted bowmen. Huns on the other hand have even better HA with parthian shot and even more ammo, and these really are devastating on the open battlefield. Look for videos of Attila the Great on youtube he has some cool online battles with Huns.

[Totalheadache]

I disagree I found horse archers to be good. Once you get a few upgrades and your commanders has a few skills. Plus you get the tech bonus plus ancillaries.

I think my Hunnic horse archers were up to 26 ammunition plus I had some bonus which gave 10% bonus damage. Thats easily enough to cause lots of kills....

And there's fletching 2 as well to come...

[Ritterlichvon86]

HA are among the best units in game if used correctly. As supportive troops to flank quickly, they can avoid getting countered by any kind of cavalry. Even full Horse Archer armies can be useful.

I will get more replays later, for now I just have the first full-HA-army battle that I have used online against a conventional army.

Against Horses - Flaming arrows
Against armored units - Heavy shot
To kill morale of wavering troops - Combine Flaming with Whistling arrows.

Always shoot at flanks or the back of enemies. Take out key units (hostile skirmishers and cavalry) first. There will be more than enough arrows.

Here is the link to the replay:

https://mega.co.nz/#!GcYBHTrB!SudX8U...InidCkNnVL3scU


My opponent couldn't do much, I took out the crossbows first - my archers had the range advantage, and could decide wether to engage or retreat. Simply no way to get them, if you don't decide to charge them.

[Kjertesvein]

http://www.filedropper.com/hunnicdilema



Alright. Rules: Max 6 cavalry (he took 7, but ok), no tagmata, no arty.

This was a very representative game because his build is considered pretty decent for the current meta.

I had decisive infantry advantage. My 4 Uar Warriors (with their 20+ to inf) slaughter his 2 Germanic levy, 4 Germanic Swordsmen and 2 Sarmatian Warband in a 2 to 1 scenario. He also didn't use shield wall which was bad move by him. I knew I needed solid spearmen to last until late game, so I chose 3 Scirii Warriors.

He had the cavalry advantage with 4 Germanic Horsemen (heavy), 2 Noble Germanic Horsemen (heavy) as well as a Alani General (heavy). Some of which were upgraded to silver. I chose Steppe Chieftain (medium) and Steppe Noble Cataphract (heavy) in order to pack a punch. For those who read this and ask "why does he highlight the weight class?" See this video. His horses also have a 40% chance to block my arrows.

When it came to skirmisher advantage. His 3 Germanic Archers have 200 range and added dmg to my light horse archer, while my skirmishers have 150 range. I have number and mobility superiority. I upgraded my 4 Hunnic Horse Archers to help with rate of fire and fatigue resistance, which allowed me to outpace his cavalry charges multiply times. If I became Exhausted, then my speed and rate of fire would drop by 35%.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The stages of fatigue are:
Fresh - 0 no penalties
Active- 1000 -5% to speed - reached after about 11 seconds of running
Winded- 3000 -15% to speed, reload, melee attack - - reached after about 33 seconds of running
Tired- 6000 - 20% to speed, reload, melee attack - reached after about 66 seconds of running
Very Tired- 9000 -30% to speed, reload, melee attack - reached after about 100 seconds of running
Exhausted- 15000 -35% to speed, reload, melee attack - reached after about 165 seconds of running

The kills I got from my 4 Hunnic Horse archers does not reflect the gold I invested into it. I'm wondering what I did wrong in the 6 min skirmish that happened?

What I can say for myself, is that I think HA are a lot of fun if used properly in combination with the debug camera. The word frustration is a passive effect that you apply to your enemy all the time which is pretty cool. The 4 Hunnic Horse Archer have rapid advance and gold upgrades to help with burst speed, rate of fire and fatigue resistance, which allowed me to kite out of his charges and do constant damage. I ended up getting 2 of my HA trapped in the end. That might be due to him having 7 cavalry, small map-wide formations or simple bad micro by me. I'm happy about managing to sneak onto his general (who had no shields) and take out about 20 of his bodyguards. I also took out one of his Germanic Archers that was out of position, and escaping. 2 Hunnic Horse Archers trade vs 30% of generals unit + 1 Germanic Archers, is that a good trade? Maybe. Other than that I don't see what I could've done differently.

Looking over the replay. There is a short moment (7:45, my left flank) where my two Hunnic Horse Archers manage to get a 2 v 1 time with his lance general who keep chasing me. I can see that I spent 16 volleys and over 1:40 dedicated to pepper his lance general in close proximity with flaming projectiles. The Alani General had 0% Missile Block Chance. I managed to take 20 men.

~Wille

[Ryofu]

I love my Hunnic devil archers. i usually have 2 armies comprised mainly of devil archers and just kite huge blobs of infantry all around the map. against melee cavalry you need to micro properly. turn speed of horse archers is quite slow, so you need to start pulling back the horse archers early when you see enemy melee or shock cavalry moving towards you to engage. as long as you can keep your distance the parthian shot and fire arrows or heavy shot if you use radious will clear out any melee cavalry closing in on you. if the enemy has alot of ranged infantry you will need to split your horse archers into 2 grps one to pull away the melee troops and the 2nd will charge in and melee the ranged troops

[craziii]

you need to be in close range for the arrows to do any real dmg.

that range is the change that made most range units useless vs any good players. with the low number of horse archers per unit vs the ground range units, it s even worst. I completely understand arrows being mostly useless from the front, but not to the side without a shield or the back. the back and side shots are suppose to be the point of horse archers. mobility. lower numbers, higher cost/upkeep, but can be at the right place and time to inflict good dmg.

right now, it has all the cons but non of the pros.

[Ritterlichvon86]

No mate, that's wrong - Horse Archers do not have "all the cons but non of the pros".

If you claim something is this or that, at least provide some evidence. That applies to everyone here crying to "buff this" or "nerf that". Give us replays or footage of you using Horse Archers. Then we can tell you where your mistakes were, and how you can learn from them.

[Fanest]

@ craziii
Most cav doesn't have shileds so only armor counts toward damage caused by arrows, thats why in most cases it doesn't matter from which side ur hitting them. Beside armor there is also HP and its normal that heavily armored cav units with 250HP wont fall after two volleys of arrows, when u know that each arrow does 45damage+15(fire arrows). However when u wear them down after 5 volleys they will start falling like flies and since HA have lots of arrows this can make them very cost effective.

[gord96]

All 3 of my Hun hordes have 90% horse archers. They rule. I split into two stacks of 8 or so and send them off each flank. Any cavalry that tries to intercept is destroyed in seconds by 8 units putting arrows into it. Once enemy cavalry is gone, it's just a game of widdling away the infantry. The remaining 4 units in my hordes is the general and 3 lancers to break stubborn units and go after enemy archers/slingers.

[Caligula's_Horse]

A great deal of the game's horse archer units, and most of the javelin throwers as well, are rendered semi-useless simply by virtue of lacking parthian shot (including most of those belonging the Parthian's successors, to add insult to injury). Even the ones with stats high enough to compensate are a pain in the rear end to use because of it. This pretty much makes practical horse archery exclusive to the Huns, and even then you need to be careful what units you recruit.

Other then that, I'd say infantry is too resistant to missiles from the flank and side, and the Alans suffer from a disappointing lack of horse archers for a steppe nomad faction, but otherwise, horse archery is fine.

[Kjertesvein]

@Ritterlichvon86

If you are very confident in your micro then you can always try your luck in the tourneys. The existence of Horse archers is literally non-existent as far as I've seen. They're either beaten when tried or the Huns player rely on infantry and melee cavalry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeBeV9UEuuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2uQfQgIvsU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwhkbEUqRCo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5uJrK0nVyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ANtEnNE20

I once saw a quick battle once of a guy who got about 200 kills on his HA in the same scenario as you replay. Basically, Hunnic roster with 3 HA vs a inf advantage with Crossbow as only skirmish.

~Wille

[Fanest]

@Ritterlichvon86

If you are very confident in your micro then you can always try your luck in the tourneys. The existence of Horse archers is literally non-existent as far as I've seen. They're either beaten when tried or the Huns player rely on infantry and melee cavalry.

MP is whole different matter cuz AI has never been very good and HA are perfect for exploiting stupid AI. Because of that HA are very powerful in SP campaign

[Sacerdos]

Campaign wise, Hunnic Mounted Bowmen/Horse Archers are extremely effective because they have good ammo and decent melee stats (10 melee attack base, 40 damage, its easy to get bonus XP to bring the melee attack up to the 20s on recruitment). You can effectively break melee units with a charge after heavily weakening them with a few volleys.

But other faction horse archers often lack Parthian Shot and have terrible melee stats. The Persian Mount Bowmen does 6 melee damage, does less missile damage, does not have Parthian Shot, and costs twice as much in recruitment and upkeep as the Hunnic Mounted Bowmen.

[RGA]

From the gameplay's point of view, HAs are fine. They are not as OP as in Rome 2, which is a good thing. They need to use in coordination with other types of troops though.

From the historical point of view, HAs fare much worse compared to its real life's counterpart. The reason is mobility. In game, HAs very often fire from standing (run-an-gun style), which they almost never did in real battles. And in the game where everyone can sprint like Olympic athletes, the advantage of HA in mobility is severely reduced.