Why do my horse archers suck?

[Cold_Spartan]

Hi, I've read a lot of people recommend an army of horse archers as they seem good for a number of obvious reasons, both in game and historically.

As a Khergit vassal with around 80 horse archers, I can easily kill looters but god forbid I am at war with The Empire! Their heavy infantry barely take any damage while their archers constantly pick away at my force, who are barely tickling the enemy, even if there are more of us.

This happens if I command the horse archers to follow me in circles around the enemy, if we stay in one position and shoot until the enemy closes, or if I just tell them to do what they want.

Is the hype real?

[Reef]

i was downed but the fight was over so i switched to a horse archer to watch. he was circling a cataphract , unloaded his whole quiver and missed every single shot wide right. if that was me he was shooting he would of hit almost all of them lol

[Dan]

Horse archers seemed to have taken a hit, AI wise. They use to skirmish around their targets, rarely if ever getting into melee combat, and usually were pretty accurate with their shots especially tier 3+. I'm in 1.5.6 and my horse archers are just charging at other cavalry and even meleeing some infantry units, when they definitely have quivers full of arrows. They've been dumbed down a bit it seems to me, and suffer casualties now. Anyone noticing this or it's just me?

As with the OP, when I take command and have them follow me so they won't melee cav or infantry, they shoot their arrows and aren't particularly accurate anymore honestly. Even full tier 4,5,6 horse archers seem to be missing a whole lot more. Regular cavalry on the other hand is what I've switched to now. My army is over 50% cav, since I like faster movement and cav charges are still king in mowing down infantry.

[redcossack]

Horse archers are very good as auxiliary to foot ranged. For example, to provoke enemies.

[Rozpierdalacz]

Horse archers are not killers, more like tactical tool IMO.

go heavy foot archer, use f3 and then f4 on your horse archers to make half of enemy troops run around pointlesly.
10-15 horse archers is enough for any battle

If you insist on having lots of them try f3 and f4 (saergant command) anyway, its much better than follow me thing as they will be running trough enemy lines constantly trying to reach you.

[Cold_Spartan]

Originally posted by Rozpierdalacz:

Horse archers are not killers, more like tactical tool IMO.

go heavy foot archer, use f3 and then f4 on your horse archers to make half of enemy troops run around pointlesly.
10-15 horse archers is enough for any battle

If you insist on having lots of them try f3 and f4 (saergant command) anyway, its much better than follow me thing as they will be running trough enemy lines constantly trying to reach you.

Thanks for the response guys, I think I'll keep a few horse archers around to confuse the enemy, and switch the bulk of forces to heavy infantry / archers or just heavy cav. Will experiment!

[Alpharius]

i am not a historian but i belive historicaly thats how you combat horse archers, infantry that can tank their relatively weaker bows and regular archer
regular archers have better aim, shoot faste, have better bows, better organization in formation aswell as denser formation, are more easily supported by infantry
use horse archers as skirmishers, to pick out enemy melee cav and maybe to place them behind enemy's backs cause they got hella nerfed

[Hoady]

Originally posted by Rozpierdalacz:

Horse archers are not killers, more like tactical tool IMO.

go heavy foot archer, use f3 and then f4 on your horse archers to make half of enemy troops run around pointlesly.
10-15 horse archers is enough for any battle

If you insist on having lots of them try f3 and f4 (saergant command) anyway, its much better than follow me thing as they will be running trough enemy lines constantly trying to reach you.

This is very true. The most important role of horse archers imo is to draw the enemy to a killing ground of your choosing. Particularly if the enemy has decided to wall-up and try to get you to attack them.
As soon as the battle starts, choose where you will make your stand, and configure your defences. Send out the horse archers to antagonise the enemy and force him to break his lines and launch an attack. you can then harrass him as he moves, without his shields up, before running ahead to join the defence. later you can use them as a reserve and for chasing down fleeing enemy.

[Zhorge]

Originally posted by Cσℓ∂_รקคгtan:

Hi, I've read a lot of people recommend an army of horse archers as they seem good for a number of obvious reasons, both in game and historically.

As a Khergit vassal with around 80 horse archers, I can easily kill looters but god forbid I am at war with The Empire! Their heavy infantry barely take any damage while their archers constantly pick away at my force, who are barely tickling the enemy, even if there are more of us.

This happens if I command the horse archers to follow me in circles around the enemy, if we stay in one position and shoot until the enemy closes, or if I just tell them to do what they want.

Is the hype real?

No, they hype is not real. They do well against poor ranged/lousy cavalry enemies like the Sturgians, but when they go up against a heavy-cavalry/heavy-infantry force with ranged support, they get whittled away soon enough.

What is real is that you need combined arms. I run fairly balanced with all four groups though I'm a bit top-heavy in cavalry right now because I'm building the garrison in a city I just took. Buy my basic breakdown (of my current army) is something like this:

• 84 Cavalry (34%), of which at least half are Tier V & VI troops.
  
• 31 Horse Archers (11%), of which most are Tier V & VI troops.
  
• 86 Infantry (35%), most mid-tier.
  
• 48 Archers (20%), mostly mid-to-low tier.

Normally I have a higher proportion of Horse Archers and Archers and fewer cavalry & infantry. But I've been pushing archers into the garrisons pretty heavily and I was kind of low on horse archers when I formed my kingdom and I haven't been able to get out to the Khergit's to recruit new troops.

What seems to work best for me is 30% heavy cavalry (Vlandian & Imperial), 20% Khergit Horse archers, 25% heavy infantry (Imperial, Sturgian & Vlandian) and 25% Archers/XBow (Empire, Vlandians, Battalians).

I don't use the Aeseri for anything though maybe they've buffed them since I last played and I should give another shot. But they really sucked last year at this time and nothing has convinced me they've got much better.

[redcossack]

Originally posted by Zhorge:

Normally I have a higher proportion of Horse Archers and Archers and fewer cavalry & infantry. But I've been pushing archers into the garrisons pretty heavily and I was kind of low on horse archers when I formed my kingdom and I haven't been able to get out to the Khergit's to recruit new troops.

What seems to work best for me is 30% heavy cavalry (Vlandian & Imperial), 20% Khergit Horse archers, 25% heavy infantry (Imperial, Sturgian & Vlandian) and 25% Archers/XBow (Empire, Vlandians, Battalians).

I don't use the Aeseri for anything though maybe they've buffed them since I last played and I should give another shot. But they really sucked last year at this time and nothing has convinced me they've got much better.

What units do you use as infantry for the main party? I use Battanian Wildings.
Imperians and Vlandians have not javelins. Legionary has pilum but only one and I do not know if he uses it as throwing. Battanians and Sturgians have pack of 4 javelins

[Teralitha]

Galloping horse archers cant aim very well.

[Urmel]

horse archers in AI-command make fast hit & run tactics and are very powerfull.

if u only command "attack", all your horse archers will die ...