Slitherine

During my extensive, but none the less unrewarding search for a revolt that began because Fluffy the Clown put in a sub-par performance, I came across an interesting article regarding archers vs skirmishers.

In Empires as Antigos, for example, form the very first turn, you would never, ever build another skirmisher because you have access to archers, which are so superior to skirmishers in every respect.

I have seen multiple battles in multiple games where inferior armies with inferior generals fighting with the ridiculous defender penalty, kick-arse because they had archers and the other side didn't. I never saw the skirmish army win unless it had overlapped with say calvary and some lucky die.

This equation gets even worse where the archers have an equal or superior army/general and or the attacking bonus.

One way, historical way, to make skirmishers more relevant in-game, and hopefully, see a balance of archers and skirmishers in armies is to provide a big penalty to archers fighting in forests, thus giving the skirmishers the advantage in this terrain.

It makes sense to me in close quarters someone with a javelin and possibly a shield will be more useful than a guy with a bow.

The article is below.

https://www.quora.com/Why-did-ancient-a ... ng-archery

Might be an interesting twist indeed, having a unit always superior in all circumstances to another is bad. Although archers cost more and skirmishers are good in siege (in the game at least)

Pocus wrote: ↑Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:51 pm Might be an interesting twist indeed, having a unit always superior in all circumstances to another is bad. Although archers cost more and skirmishers are good in siege (in the game at least)

Don't archers also receive a siege resistance bonus? It's true that if you can afford to build archers, there is basically no reason to build skirmishers. Unless you're going for many weaker armies rather than a few big strong armies.

The point of skirmishers was to have the enemy disperse his arrows and javelins on the ground that you occupy (and occasionally hit a skirmisher), rather than the richer, more important and densely packed heavy infantry line behind it.

The point of archers (sorta) was to hide away somewhere and shoot the enemy, sometimes as skirmishers, sometimes as formed troops.

The problem is that skirmishers don't do their job and take the hit for the front line.

Penalties in forests for long-range missile troops makes perfect sense. Perhaps missile cavalry, which is also currently strictly superior to its foot counterparts outside of defensive siege rolls and a few niche circumstances, should also be similarly penalized in forest, mountains, marshes and assaults. A javelin thrown from a battlement should not be more effective just because the guy throwing it normally fights from atop a horse.