What's more important for archers: damage or range?

[mickeyjim2]

So I'm currently working on another civ mod (this time for the Afghans) and I want to give them an archer UU. My idea was for a foot archer with a charged attack mechanic like the Coustillier - the idea being that it would make for an excellent archer unit for setting ambushes and hit and run tactics. Now, when the unit's charge attack is on cool-down it would have a normal attack. My idea to balance the unit was to give it +1 range compared to the normal archer line (to better distinguish the UU from the normal archer line, plus the extra range would also lend itself well to the ambush/hit-and-run tactic), but give the unit less base damage, again similar to how the Coustillier has less base attack than the knight line. But this got me wondering as to which one was more important: range or attack.

It's not something I've thought about that much since the blacksmith techs of course give you both range and attack so you don't have to choose, so to pose a hypothetical example: what would you rather have in castle age (after blacksmith techs)? An archer unit with 6 attack and 8 range (range>damage), 8 attack and 6 range (damage>range), as opposed to the regular crossbow's 7 attack and range.

Also, same story with imp age: range or damage?

Btw the numbers I provided are just guesstimates. I haven't done any editor tests yet since range is usually something that is hard to quantify that works better in practice than it does in editor match ups, hence I'm asking for people's thoughts on the matter.

[conqueror060]

Very interest question. I tend to believe that range is the most important for archers IF a player is good in micro. How much will be the charge hit?

[King_B]

I'd say range, because once you reach a critical mass, they are close to unstoppable, if they don't run into a castle or something like that.
I love to make 50-60 archers and go :D

[mickeyjim2]

conqueror060 eredeti hozzászólása:

Very interest question. I tend to believe that range is the most important for archers IF a player is good in micro. How much will be the charge hit?

Hard to say. Right now I'm thinking 20 and 25 for the elite, which is 5 less than the Coustillier's. I think it should be less than the Coustillier since, as a ranged unit, its much easier to avoid damage all-together whereas the trade-off of the Coustillier's charged attack is that they will usually take at least one melee hit from enemies in most situations, so they can be worn down.

Also worth pointing out that the UU will obviously cost more than a regular crossbow and need to be trained at a castle, so perhaps them being at least somewhat better than crossbows (even without factoring in the charged attack) balances it out.

[Buntkreuz]

Since you are trying to make afghans, its rather none of both really.

If i were you, i would find a middleground between Indians and Persians, as thats where the region belonged to at the time AoE2 plays in. More or less.

If focussing on archers, i would give them more movement speed. Similar to how the Mayans work.
Then adding more armor to simulate that they are harder to hit.
I would however cut their range by one.
If this wasnt already existing, i would give them the Tatar bonus of more damage when on high ground.
Theoretically this perfectly fits the Afghan Environments that they are used to and would also give you what you imagine.


If you want a hit and run unit, then movementspeed is possibly the way to go.
Another buff they could get was higher attack speed.
They run in, shoot a few times but with less damage and less range (so they are more vulnerable to other units) and can get out faster.

In short:
Faster Movement
Faster shooting
less armor
range -1
less damage

[mickeyjim2]

So this is what I'm thinking so far:

Khorasan Archer – foot archer with a charged attack (like the Coustillier). Good for ambushes and hit and run tactics.
HP: 35, 40 (elite)
Attack: 4, 5 (elite)
Charge Attack: 20, 25 (elite)
ROF: 2.0
Range: 6
LOS: 8
Attack bonus:
+ 3 vs spearmen
Melee armour: 0
Pierce armour: 0
Speed: 0.96
Cost 35 wood, 45 gold.

[mickeyjim2]

Argentum eredeti hozzászólása:

Since you are trying to make afghans, its rather none of both really.

If i were you, i would find a middleground between Indians and Persians, as thats where the region belonged to at the time AoE2 plays in. More or less.

If focussing on archers, i would give them more movement speed. Similar to how the Mayans work.
Then adding more armor to simulate that they are harder to hit.
I would however cut their range by one.
If this wasnt already existing, i would give them the Tatar bonus of more damage when on high ground.
Theoretically this perfectly fits the Afghan Environments that they are used to and would also give you what you imagine.


If you want a hit and run unit, then movementspeed is possibly the way to go.
Another buff they could get was higher attack speed.
They run in, shoot a few times but with less damage and less range (so they are more vulnerable to other units) and can get out faster.

This is the Afghan civ I currently have in mind:

New civ: The Aghans

Focus: Archers and Cavalry

Architecture: Central Asia set

Spoken language in-game: Pashto

Wonder: Great Mosque of Herat https://www.basicplanet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/maxresdefault.jpg

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Civ Bonuses:
- Fletching, Bodkin Arrow, and Bracer are free
- Camels get +1 melee armour in castle age, +1 in imperial age
- Mines last 25% longer

Unique Unit:
Khorasan Archer – foot archer with a charged attack (like the Coustillier). Good for ambushes and hit and run tactics.

Unique Technologies:

Castle Age: "Insurgents" – Archery Ranges work 100% faster. Cost 300 wood, 300 gold.

Imperial Age: "Khwarezmian Cavalry" – Scouts and Steppe Lancers get +3 attack. Cost 500 food, 700 gold.

Team Bonus: Outposts cost no stone

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tech Tree:

Archery Range: Missing Arbalest.

Barracks: Missing Halberdier and Supplies. All infantry techs available at blacksmith.

Stables: Missing Paladin and Elephants. Have Hussars, Cavaliers, Heavy Camels and Elite Steppe Lancers.

Monks: missing Redemption, Atonement, and Illumination

Siege: missing Siege Ram, Siege Onager.

Defences: missing Treadmill Crane, Heated Shot, and Architecture.

Dock: missing Fast Fire Ships, Dry Dock and Shipwright

[Buntkreuz]

Charged shots dont make sense in context to what Civ you want to create.
This would mean Afghans somehow had access to high tech weaponry that pierces armor.
In context to what you want to create they are used to be fast, light armored to gain enough movement to traverse rocky areas and mountains.

Be reminded that Afghanistan isnt a good area for horse based combat. Its rocky, it has mountains, they just break their legs.
They also have generally not a lot of wood but a lot of animal farming.
So no farming bonus but a herding bonus could work.

[conqueror060]

Argentum eredeti hozzászólása:

Since you are trying to make afghans, its rather none of both really.

If i were you, i would find a middleground between Indians and Persians, as thats where the region belonged to at the time AoE2 plays in. More or less.

If focussing on archers, i would give them more movement speed. Similar to how the Mayans work.
Then adding more armor to simulate that they are harder to hit.
I would however cut their range by one.
If this wasnt already existing, i would give them the Tatar bonus of more damage when on high ground.
Theoretically this perfectly fits the Afghan Environments that they are used to and would also give you what you imagine.


If you want a hit and run unit, then movementspeed is possibly the way to go.
Another buff they could get was higher attack speed.
They run in, shoot a few times but with less damage and less range (so they are more vulnerable to other units) and can get out faster.

In short:
Faster Movement
Faster shooting
less armor
range -1
less damage

Charged shots dont make sense in context to what Civ you want to create.
This would mean Afghans somehow had access to high tech weaponry that pierces armor.
In context to what you want to create they are used to be fast, light armored to gain enough movement to traverse rocky areas and mountains.

Yes, this should be definately less then the Coustilliers for balance reasons even lower around 15 to 20

[mickeyjim2]

Argentum eredeti hozzászólása:

Charged shots dont make sense in context to what Civ you want to create.
This would mean Afghans somehow had access to high tech weaponry that pierces armor.
In context to what you want to create they are used to be fast, light armored to gain enough movement to traverse rocky areas and mountains.

Be reminded that Afghanistan isnt a good area for horse based combat. Its rocky, it has mountains, they just break their legs.

The charged shot is more meant to be a way of making a unit good for ambushes. I had the idea while envisioning campaign scenarios for the civ. Imagine a scenario where you have to kill an enemy army navigating a series of mountain passes. You can line up your Khorasan Archers on top of the cliffs and use them to spring deadly ambushes on the enemy. I thought it sounded quite cool and fits the Afghan theme.

I'm not really a fan of the faster movement suggestion because in my mind it would just turn them into Plumed Archers, plus the Afghans will have access to fully upgraded cav archers anyway.

[Buntkreuz]

mickeyjim2 eredeti hozzászólása:

Argentum eredeti hozzászólása:

Charged shots dont make sense in context to what Civ you want to create.
This would mean Afghans somehow had access to high tech weaponry that pierces armor.
In context to what you want to create they are used to be fast, light armored to gain enough movement to traverse rocky areas and mountains.

Be reminded that Afghanistan isnt a good area for horse based combat. Its rocky, it has mountains, they just break their legs.

The charged shot is more meant to be a way of making a unit good for ambushes. I had the idea while envisioning campaign scenarios for the civ. Imagine a scenario where you have to kill an enemy army navigating a series of mountain passes. You can line up your Khorasan Archers on top of the cliffs and use them to spring deadly ambushes on the enemy. I thought it sounded quite cool and fits the Afghan theme.

I'm not really a fan of the faster movement suggestion because in my mind it would just turn them into Plumed Archers, plus the Afghans will have access to fully upgraded cav archers anyway.

Imagine you have archers in the rocky areas of Afghanistan equipped with a bow.
You cant do high damage with such a bow, because that bow needed to be strong and large, with solid wood and top tier arrows.
None of that is to be found there.
They use recurve for faster shooting in short range.

I dont get where they get their cavalry archers anyway.
They didnt use horses as they arent suited for the environment.
They use a lesser horsebreed and donkeys for transportation only. Camels at the most.
Again, horses just in masses in Afghanistan would just not be suited for the environment and thus not a good idea for an Afghan Army.
They simply break their legs all the time when trying to move through the mountainous areas.
So how would a cav archer fit at all here?

Hey you are free to go with what you want, but im not really seeing the theme right now.
As said, i suppose the unique buff of causing more damage from high grounds would be a perfect fit, but thats already part of the Tatar Civ.

I see what you want to do, but imagine you are an Afghan Archer.
Your daily task is to traverse rocky areas, climb and moving around in mountainous areas.
You wouldnt have:
a large bow
heavy equipment
medium-heavy armor
a horse

You would have:
A short bow that is eas to draw and light to carry
a few arrows
light clothes and barely any armor, nothing that hinders movement
a donkey/camel for transportation

All in all, their strength is not reflecting the theme you seem to search for.
Their strength is that they can climb, move fast, have cover, be able to move through rocky areas.
Basically when they fight a knight in heavy armor, they have an advantage because the Knight cant move there but has to accept that he gets shot down.
He cant ride his horse around, he cant climb or move fast.

Now i know thats hard to implement into AoE2. But thats their theme.
I personally would increase their speed but limit their tankyness to mimick their real life strengths.
Its not sexy, but its accurate.
Your decision seems to be "do i want it cool or do i want it with theme?"

Imagine your king told you to wear a medium-heavy leather armor, a crossbow or large bow, bodkin, leather bracers and then go riding on a horse to patrol afghanistan.
Youl rightfully tell him to bugger off because that man is an idiot.
You can do this when being assigned as a palace guard, but not when moving through Afghanistan.

Its not an easy decision. Do what you like, maybe it works fine.
If you want to go charged shot, make it slow but higher ranged.

[mickeyjim2]

Argentum eredeti hozzászólása:

mickeyjim2 eredeti hozzászólása:

The charged shot is more meant to be a way of making a unit good for ambushes. I had the idea while envisioning campaign scenarios for the civ. Imagine a scenario where you have to kill an enemy army navigating a series of mountain passes. You can line up your Khorasan Archers on top of the cliffs and use them to spring deadly ambushes on the enemy. I thought it sounded quite cool and fits the Afghan theme.

I'm not really a fan of the faster movement suggestion because in my mind it would just turn them into Plumed Archers, plus the Afghans will have access to fully upgraded cav archers anyway.

Imagine you have archers in the rocky areas of Afghanistan equipped with a bow.
You cant do high damage with such a bow, because that bow needed to be strong and large, with solid wood and top tier arrows.
None of that is to be found there.
They use recurve for faster shooting in short range.

I dont get where they get their cavalry archers anyway.
They didnt use horses as they arent suited for the environment.
They use a lesser horsebreed and donkeys for transportation only. Camels at the most.
Again, horses just in masses in Afghanistan would just not be suited for the environment and thus not a good idea for an Afghan Army.
They simply break their legs all the time when trying to move through the mountainous areas.
So how would a cav archer fit at all here?

Hey you are free to go with what you want, but im not really seeing the theme right now.
As said, i suppose the unique buff of causing more damage from high grounds would be a perfect fit, but thats already part of the Tatar Civ.

I see what you want to do, but imagine you are an Afghan Archer.
Your daily task is to traverse rocky areas, climb and moving around in mountainous areas.
You wouldnt have:
a large bow
heavy equipment
medium-heavy armor
a horse

You would have:
A short bow that is eas to draw and light to carry
a few arrows
light clothes and barely any armor, nothing that hinders movement
a donkey/camel for transportation

All in all, their strength is not reflecting the theme you seem to search for.
Their strength is that they can climb, move fast, have cover, be able to move through rocky areas.
Basically when they fight a knight in heavy armor, they have an advantage because the Knight cant move there but has to accept that he gets shot down.
He cant ride his horse around, he cant climb or move fast.

Now i know thats hard to implement into AoE2. But thats their theme.
I personally would increase their speed but limit their tankyness to mimick their real life strengths.
Its not sexy, but its accurate.
Your decision seems to be "do i want it cool or do i want it with theme?"

Imagine your king told you to wear a medium-heavy leather armor, a crossbow or large bow, bodkin, leather bracers and then go riding on a horse to patrol afghanistan.
Youl rightfully tell him to bugger off because that man is an idiot.
You can do this when being assigned as a palace guard, but not when moving through Afghanistan.

Its not an easy decision. Do what you like, maybe it works fine.
If you want to go charged shot, make it slow but higher ranged.

It's not all mountains you know. Just Google Afghanistan countryside, or look at a topographical map which shows terrain variance, and you'll see that the western part of Afghanistan is mostly composed of river valleys and large open plains. I didn't just make this stuff up, I did a lot of reading up on the Afghans to put this civ together. The Afghans were known for their cavalry, it made up the bulk of their armies in almost every battle they were involved in. The Afghans even made use of war elephants for crying out loud, though not extensively enough for me to consider adding battle elephants to their stables. Consider the battle of Tarain which, fun fact, is the battle depicted in the "Fate of India" mission for the Indian's Prithviraj campaign. The Ghorids (Afghans) army consisted of 120 000 cavalry, and 40 000 archers. The Afghans also contributed cavalry to the Persian empire, and they also conducted several raids into northern India, hence the steppe lancers. The Afghans were also known for their excellent blacksmiths, hence the free archer techs and the camel armour, which also gives them their early game identity as an archer rush civ. Afghanistan was the largest source of gold, gems and minerals like Turquoise and Lapiz Lazuli (which incidentally is why the domes in the central Asian architecture set are the colour they are) in Asia in the Middle Ages, hence the mines bonus, plus the extra stone is nice for extra castles to represent their mountain forts.

Its the same story with Tibet. Everyone just thinks of Tibet as nothing but mountains, but a large part of Tibet is a massive plateau. Most of the suggestions I've seen for a Tibetan civ seem to be based on people's modern day perceptions of Tibet i.e. very religious and mountainous, so they inevitably make defensive monk civs, when the reality is that the Tibetan empire, which existed from the 7th to 9th centuries, was a very aggressive cavalry civilisation which waged war against the Tang dynasty in China, was famous for its armour, made use of siege weapons, and raided as far west as Afghanistan and as far south as Burma, hence I made the civilisation which you can see here https://www.ageofempires.com/mods/details/25014/

You're making it sound as if Afghanistan is nothing but inhospitable mountains, and tbh it also sounds like you are describing the Taliban more than you are the Ghaznavid or Ghorid dynasties. Also, I think you're fixating too much on real life accuracy. Let's not forget this is the game where the definitive heavy cavalry unit - the knight line - uses a sword when in nearly all medieval warfare mounted soldiers used lances. And then you have the Coustillier, which is a cavalry lancer unit despite the fact real life coustilliers were infantry who got their name from the short sword they used, not a lance.

[Buntkreuz]

Im not thinking its "all" mountains.
But a majority of their topography is rocky, mountainous, snow or deserted.
I mean, if we went for total accuracy, we possibly had to increase the cost of farms by 3x but have every farm spam sheep.

Im just saying that a few things on the theme mentioned above doesnt quite hit.
But i also said that its possibly hard to hit properly with what AoE2 allows you to do and what it doesnt already have.
A few things that would fit are already there with other civs.
Mostly Afghanistan was Persian anyway. We already have Persia.
If we were to make a separate Afghanistan thats totally fine, im just not seeing a strong sniper archer as a proper theme for it while most of what they have even today is fabric clothes.
The possibly most proper depiction right now in the game would possibly be the Imperial Skirmisher.
Light armoured ranged attack. Cavalry heavy? Nope.

I think the Rattan Archer would be what i imagined an Afghan Archer to look and feel like.
Strong vs archers, but mostly not more than that.
In my personal opinion an Afghan Civ would possibly focus less on Military Bonuses but rather on economical bonuses.
A bit more like a mixture between the Huns and Indians.
I like the idea of mines getting a buff for them. Maybe a unique Castle tech that buffs their trading capabilities (stone is worth more when sold or whatever).

But i mean, then theres stuff in AoE that doesnt fit either, like all those civs that shouldnt have a knight in their stables.
So im not here as the "historical accuracy police", just noting that if you want it to be thematical as much as possible, then Sniper Taliban Inspired Archer isnt really what i see as their focus and it sounds a lot like thats what you imagine them in medieval times.
If not then consider me confused.

Yet i repeat, you are the modder and if you want that, all power to ya.
This is just my opinion and you are ofcourse absolutely free to ignore it, or just take a few notes and keep them in mind, maybe reconsidering a few things.
If not, no issue.

[CHI LONG QUA]

I think for an "ambusher" archer with a Coustiller charge mechanic, the most important boost for them to have is movement speed. If they move as slowly as crossbowmen, they will play more liek a high damage marksman or hand cannoneer, not a unit that ever "ambushes".

I would give them higher speed, but -1 damage and range compared to crossbow/arb for nonelite/elite.

[yuzhonglu]

This will be OP if your micro is good enough. Unfortunately, it's a pain to micro. What you would do is micro multiple small groups of 5 archers at a time so they don't waste all their charge killing 1 knight, and then dying to the remaining six knights.

So instead microing a ball of 20 archers, you're microing 4 balls of 5 archers each, lol.

[TheDiaper]

Against cavalry / infantry : Attack
Against archers / siege (with micro) : Range
Against archers / siege (without micro) : Attack