Light horse archers

[kronikel]

With the 1.1 update the ammunition for archers got heavily nerfed, affecting mostly ridiculous strategies that involved never ending kiting methods and other types of warfare that the AI could not handle or fight against very effectively. Other changes were made as well such as more variety towards range and rate of fire for horse archers as an example.

After numerous battles with Parthia during different stages of a campaign I have found myself to realise that light horse archers have very little to offer, if any, to an army that consist of 20 units. Light horse archers are dominated in every possible aspect except for speed and stamina, and I would argue that stamina is rather irrelevant for a unit that loses its usefulness very quickly. A unit such as the "Shivatir-I Pahlavig" (Parthian horse archers) is simply outmatched by all other horse archers Parthia has to offer which should not be the case.

One could argue that the upkeep for these type of 'very' light horse archers are low, if not extremely low compared to other types of horse units and therefore it should be outclassed. I would argue that the 'very' light horse archers units have lost their unique function in the game and are now more or less a skirmisher cavalry unit with worse damage, "less accuracy" and less to offer when it comes to utility. At this moment I see no reason why anyone would want more then two of these type of units in a full stack, and that is perhaps already stretching it.

To make these type of units as valuable as they were in history, and still keep the game as balanced as possible, I would suggest that light horse archers should be made more unique to create a more interesting gameplay. Buffing the ammunition for (very) light horse archers would create interesting dilemmas throughout the campaign as you are not always looking towards your elite units. More unique units leads to more strategies which leads to diversity between armies and more option for the player.

The last part was hasty written, I have a dinner to catch, I might rewrite/expand on those opinions.

Cheers

[KAM 2150]

I think about nerfing them more actually, Ive conqered 1/3 of the map in 100 turns only using them and two melee cav units. They are beasts.

I think light ones are ok if not too strong, the case is that elites are simply too good, especially hybrid shock/missile ones.

[kronikel]

I think about nerfing them more actually, Ive conqered 1/3 of the map in 100 turns only using them and two melee cav units. They are beasts.

I think light ones are ok if not too strong, the case is that elites are simply too good, especially hybrid shock/missile ones.

I can not comprehend how one defeats army after army using light horse archers of low quality (not certain light cavalry that can actually charge decent units) without abusing the AI to a ridiculous extent. I as well can force the AI to run in circles and cycle charge units that left the core army behind in order to chase horse archers, but if all these abusive things comes to mind when balancing is done I can hardly see how a player that tries to fight on even ground as much as possible benefits from balancing changes.

The core element of a battle in total war games have always been army Y marches towards army X, and the variety of such battles are heavily damaged when unique units transform into lesser versions of an already existing one. Creating an army consisting of only one or two different units in itself should be considered game breaking and almost cheating, since the AI cannot handle it, auto resolve and taking away formation attack is quite meagre in comparison.

[FlashHeart07]

Just a couple of questions to make sure I know what you mean.
-Is having the AI split up his forces, flanking and firing into their rear or flank is considered abusing the AI and cheating?
-Should battles only be balanced using battles where army X marches directly towards army Y and does battle?
-Building armies only consisting of one type of unit might be cheating, but there are a lot of features in the game/mod which can be abused by the player. it has always been like this. There is only so much we can do. So your suggestion would be to give light horses more ammo to avoid...?

[kronikel]

Just a couple of questions to make sure I know what you mean.
-Is having the AI split up his forces, flanking and firing into their rear or flank is considered abusing the AI and cheating?
-Should battles only be balanced using battles where army X marches directly towards army Y and does battle?
-Building armies only consisting of one type of unit might be cheating, but there are a lot of features in the game/mod which can be abused by the player. it has always been like this. There is only so much we can do. So your suggestion would be to give light horses more ammo to avoid...?

Outmanoeuvring the AI is not cheating, neither have I stated so. Abusing the AI to an extent where you have dead exhausted units all over the battle map after the sun has gone down I would say is to some extent is, sort of like beating a dead, dead horse, a thousand times over.
You are putting words in my mouth or you have other intentions, total war games were made like the way I described battles, I only talked about uniqueness in certain units to give you more choices in recruitment and field armies of several units where everyone is doing their part, in their own unique way, adding dimensions to your gameplay where you do not always look towards more expansive units simply because you afford them. I stated in my post that giving 'very' light horse archers more ammunition would separate them from their heavier counterparts, you could turn the boat around and give hybrid horse archers less ammunition for the same effect.

I am well aware that there are several ways to abuse the game into your favour in what could be called 'unethical' ways, what I questioned is that balancing around such matters (such as abusing the AI to the maximum, not inclining you have or will). When KAM 2150 talked about light horse archers simply being too strong because he conquered a certain percentage of the map I failed to understand how that was a just overall picture of what I tried to say.





The topic have shifted towards something I did not necessarily wanted to talk about.
To give you an example there is a game called DOTA 2. The person responsible for balancing in that game rarely if ever takes away what makes the hero ("unit") strong or unique, rather makes the weaknesses more apparent and thus balancing out the imperfections that way. When it comes to light horse archers their strengths have been weakened and making them too similar but just tiers below the heavy/hybrid horses that you can recruit, creating a grey zone with units that are too much alike and leaving a lot of units without a clear role.

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I do not think light horse archers should be used that way KAM 2150, but rather in a unique way that outshines the heavy/hybrid cavalry in swiftness and usefulness in archery, which is what light horse archers are all about.

[KAM 2150]

Simple, you just leave 3/5 of your army at the front of your enemy lines and use first and second 1/5 that is left on flanks. You do not even have to run in circles as AI uses the same tactic with horse archers. What makes light horse archers balanced is that they are very fragile to missile combat so they will be beaten by foot archers and their low morale makes they easy target for other cav that will run them down with single charge.

Unless you think that light horse archers should be only used frontally with increased ammo which make them the most OP units in TW history.

[KAM 2150]

What I think can be done is to simply reduce ammo on those top hybrid archers and reduce attack on some of them as it is more difficult to fire in that stuff even if you are master level archer.

Curious how I conquered 1/3 of the map with just light horse archers? Answer is simple, stuff like ammo, ranged damage etc stack when units gain experience, get buffs from generals and army traditions and on top of that get tech buffs. Also for a price of single elite horse archer units you can field and maintain many more light horse archer squads which will beat those elite with nubmers of arrows.

[Furgon]

In original Shogun which had a simple rock-paper-scissors system light melee cavalry were faster than horse archers and one of it's roles was to chase archers down.
Now, in more recent games it's not so anymore as HA generally is the fastest unit type on the board. Also addition of the parthian shot makes chasing not only fruitless, but lethal as well for the pursuer. So I guess maybe reducing their speed to medium cavalry standards could be an option.