Is it me or do archers suck?

[Defotare]

I'm having a blast with the game! Some raiders wiped out my first settlement. I thought I had a decent defensive force, though it was a bit heavy on archers. The archers ended up doing ♥♥♥♥ all. Fire at will was turned on, and they were shooting, just not killing. I feel like archers are a waste of villagers, and they should be spent on spearmen or something. Am I missing something?

[MOBIUS_01]

they basically do no damage for me

[Panzerechse]

Same here. I moved my 30 archers behind the raiders fighting my militia and retinue. No real effect. They maybe killed one out of 60 raiders.

[The Irish Ripper]

i was going to make archers so thats good my first settlement got wiped just now because i couldnt figure out how to get any militia i had my 2 plots making shields and spears but it said i needed 36 of each to make like 18 guys... i got to like 32 spears and 22 shields when they arrived =[ also i had 40 regional wealth but wouldnt let me buy mercs. im sad any advice on how to actually get warriors?

[Nayenezgani]

Yeah, archers seem to do no damage at all. You can have a full squad of them firing at a group of bandits from max range, and the bandits will 100% close the distance before even a single one of them dies.

[Nayenezgani]

Originally posted by APtheSAVAGE:

i had 40 regional wealth but wouldnt let me buy mercs. im sad any advice on how to actually get warriors?

You have to buy mercs with your personal wealth, not your regional wealth. Regional wealth is for building and trading.

I find that 20 spearmen and 5 retinue troops (you get them for free when you build your first manor house) is enough to beat the first bandit invasion on default settings.

[Charnel]

I suspect it's a bug much like the notification that storage is full when it's not

[ShepherdOfCats]

I guess it was done for balance reasons. An archer-only army would be kind of meme, but I think maybe they *shouldn't* be completely useless in close combat, maybe a short-sword or seax, but then you'd have to make two kinds of weapons to equip them.

If anyone's familiar with "Going Medieval", it's a game where there's really no reason to use anything except archers (melee villagers just suffer unnecessary danger and casualties), and I think maybe the developer was trying to avoid that?

[Selig]

Watched a little of DeadlySlob playing earlier and he mentioned that the archers weren't doing damage. That's why I haven't played yet. Seems they need to fix some stuff still.

[Someguyinhere]

Considering the sheer amount of people reporting archers doing no damage, I'm going to say it's a glitch and not a balancing choice, lol.

[dermiserable]

perhaps until we have a real counter like cavalry they are heavily nerfed?

[Squaul]

Originally posted by Nayenezgani:

Yeah, archers seem to do no damage at all. You can have a full squad of them firing at a group of bandits from max range, and the bandits will 100% close the distance before even a single one of them dies.

It's literally written ... that archer accuracy depends on the distance and that they start being really accurate only around 25% of their max range ... tho as i didnt see all of your playthrough and that im myself not yet at the stage to try out archers i cannot know if it a players issue or a game issue or a mix of both.

Truly i think something might be over nerfed and wrong but i bet that also alot of people don't try to understand either.

Tho i 100% agree that it make no sense that archers have no melee weapons and that soldiers don't have enough customisation and variety and polyvalence unlike real life or in fiction.

Wich is sad when you know for a fact that their was another soldier army unit system at the earlier stage and that it was aimed to customise the equipement entirely (more or less but more than now) for EACH soldiers but apparently it wasn't "realistic" so now we have a less fun and less complete thing ... and thus no archers with melee weapons or soldiers without side things or more variations.

Also just a guess but even if archers doesnt kill surely having a rain of arrow coming at you even more from behind or while engaged should impact the ennemies still like becoming tired quicker or destroying morale so it should still help but archers should be then considered for now as light support and not main weapons or strategy .

[LHL Radzui]

Originally posted by dermiserable:

perhaps until we have a real counter like cavalry they are heavily nerfed?

Originally posted by Someguyinhere:

Considering the sheer amount of people reporting archers doing no damage, I'm going to say it's a glitch and not a balancing choice, lol.

Tbf there were alot of videos about the combat and ngl Archers seemed to do nothing really so kind of an waste.

[Tak]

Archers is bugged atm

120 archers shooting at bandits, 0 kills with 7 volleys

[akaplan1]

Dev posted on twitter that he reduced their power because of so many reports that they were originally OP, but he obviously has more balancing to do because many people are reporting they're now useless.

[Someguyinhere]

Originally posted by akaplan1:

Dev posted on twitter that he reduced their power because of so many reports that they were originally OP, but he obviously has more balancing to do because many people are reporting they're now useless.

Frankly he should just do it like Stronghold. Archers should be OP against unarmored or very lightly armored enemies. Shields should function to block damage or reduce it. The more heavily armored an enemy is, the less damage regular arrows should do to them. Simple.