Slitherine

I am playing a mirror battle of Hydaspes against an opponent , and we both have noted just how easily the Macedonians slice through Porus's army - this is very different to playing hydaspes pre patch when they put up much sterner resistance, and as they did historically.

I get the reasoning for making bowmen more brittle when in charge range of a melee unit, but it seems now they just get totally creamed. This is not a problem in most battles as there are normally only a few bowman units , but as they form the basis of most Indian armies, it is seems that they are going to form the bulk of the 'line' troops so its not always possible to stay out of the way.

Anyone else finding this to be a problem ? are there any possible solutions to make - maybe Indian bowmen a little less brittle, maybe i am a bad general and need some pointers on how to play the Indians properly. Thanks in advance.

India is not the super army in sandbox multiplayer (equal points) anymore... which was the intent of the change.
To be successful as Indians, the terrain is now a key consideration.

Maybe Hydaspes scenario needs rework to balance out these changes since it was created using the better shooting bowmen.

The thing with massed bows is they can still do a lot of damage. Place a unit of massed bows on the flank on rough ground and support them army-side with some tough melee units and they will ruin the day of any cavalry trying to get round the side. Unlike skirmishers, they can block enemy progress, the forest, town or rough ground will impede the progress of the cavalry (obstacles also work for this with the added bonus of the archers being immune to flanking anywhere there's an obstacle shielding that flank) and while they're standing around getting shot down or trying to crawl round the flank, supporting skirmishers or reserves can move up and start attacking the beleaguered cavalry. A single unit of massed bows in a forest tile can hold up a cavalry force vastly greater in points cost than the archers themselves. I say this as someone who has been on the receiving end of that strategy on at least two separate occasions, and lost both times.

Archers on rough ground can also still be effective, as can archers placed in forest (a unit of Roman archer auxillia can quite capably hold up a warband in forest for a long time assuming they don't get a freak bad result).

If bad ground isn't available, placing strong impact units like legionaries, cataphracts or chariots in a chequerboard formation in front of the archers (formation shock:archers:shock:archers:shock) can result in any enemies that do get into melee having to hit the impact units and risk disruption or even fragmentation before they can even access your archers. Long story short, the one formation that seems guaranteed or almost guaranteed to fail is placing long lines of unsupported archers next to one another on open ground. The archers may score a few disruptions before the enemy hit, but unless they are Persian sparabara or immortals, they aren't going to deal enough damage to stop the infantry from rolling over them afterwards. Even disrupted infantry can devastate lines of archers.

A follow up warning related to this is that medium infantry screened by skirmishers are the bane of massed archers, especially impact mediums who can follow up their attack (I think; can massed archers escape attacking impact foot?). They ignore the rough ground and get the same penalty in forests, meaning that against mediums archers are once again up against melee-capable foot that can murder them almost at will. This means that you can't just stick a group of archers on rough ground and forget about them if there are mediums prowling around.

Archers are also rather ineffective against heavily armoured infantry, even from rough ground. If you're facing the later Romans, it might be a good idea to leave the archers at home and break out the elephants and cataphracts instead.

Ludendorf wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 3:17 pm A follow up warning related to this is that medium infantry screened by skirmishers are the bane of massed archers, especially impact mediums who can follow up their attack (I think; can massed archers escape attacking impact foot?).

No

thats great info Ludendorf thanks - i will bear that in mind for the future.
With regards Hydaspes , maybe the scenario does need tweaking , since all the bowman are lined up on open ground.