[Brainstorming] The Problem with Archers and in general the range units

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/23895/

Idk but it might be this one... it took me a long time to find it.

It does not give any justification, but maybe I am looking at the wrong thing. Archers being the longest range unit makes them the fastest infantry because they dont have to travel as far to "reach" the enemy. I care less about why it was introduced/implemented and more about why there is hesitancy to revert these ranged infantry walk-speed values to a23.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:

slingers is more or less a false dichotomy; they had similar roles

I agree.

in AoM there were equivalences between units at a distance.

 

 

4 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

https://trac.wildfiregames.com/changeset/23895/

Idk but it might be this one... it took me a long time to find it.

It does not give any justification, but maybe I am looking at the wrong thing. Archers being the longest range unit makes them the fastest infantry because they dont have to travel as far to "reach" the enemy. I care less about why it was introduced/implemented and more about why there is hesitancy to revert these ranged infantry walk-speed values to a23.

 

https://code.wildfiregames.com/D2884

Patches must be consulted before approval.

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@Lion.Kanzen

Thank you for finding and showing me that patch, it is great to see the discussion behind the change. I think most players agree that the ranged/melee balance is much improved this alpha, but that ranged/ranged balance is much worse.

I also don't think the turtleing issue can totally solved without reducing archer walk speed, but many more people will agree with me on the other argument for speeds: skirmisher>slinger>archer. That being the inability of every kind of infantry to outmaneuver archers. 

[alre]

1 hour ago, ChronA said:

I agree with this. Slingers seem to be in an ok spot in A24, even if they are not as shiny as they were in A23. We could possibly discuss bumping up their range to equal or slightly exceed the archer's, based on historical evidence (with compensatory nerfs), but that should be a much lower priority for this thread than figuring out the javelinist's identity and the archer's counter cycle.

Mmmh I don't totally agree. Slingers lose to archers. They are fine if covered by heavy infantry, but in general they are not so useful anymore. If the meta didn't have so many arrows, maybe they'd be good... maybe even too good, like in a23

1 hour ago, ChronA said:

I agree. Basically kiting and static defense (which in this context is both actively damage-dealing turrets and normal buildings and walls acting as pathing blockers) both greatly advantage the archer, breaking its intended counter cycles. Fix that and you fix a lot of what is wrong with the ranged unit lines. Question is: are these efforts meant to be part of that generalized fix you are alluding to, or separate? 

Yes. Main change is the nerf of fortifications. I think they are going to make it right with a25.

1 hour ago, LetswaveaBook said:

This is true, but the other side of the story is that the battles were decided in melee and that ranged units weren´t decisive. In 0 ad they are very important since they have a very high DPS and I think that is the core of the problem. I think ranged units should be weaker and mainly a means to provoke fights or force them to retreat.

Mmmh yes... sometimes. During all history there have been a lot of civilizations that relied almost exclusively on ranged troups, and they had their fair share of success.

1 hour ago, LetswaveaBook said:

I did some sandbox testing to to simulate an open field battle and then a combination of skrimishers and pikemen look really good. I challenge you to give this a try and to find a combination that performs better under these conditions. Pikemen are very good for soaking damage whereas skirmishers deal a lot of damage from behind. Skirmishers have a DPS of 12.8, which is a lot considering that infantry swordsmen have most DPS of all melee units with a value of 6.67. In most medieval/ancient RTS games, you see that ranged units have less DPS than melee units.

This is true, but the other side of the story is that the battles were decided in melee and that ranged units weren´t decisive. In 0 ad they are very important since they have a very high DPS and I think that is the core of the problem. I think ranged units should be weaker and mainly a means to provoke fights or force them to retreat.

The preferred role Javelins is doing damage(DPS=12.8) while supporting a melee fight.  I think we should encourage melee units more and then the preferred role of javelins will see more use, since there are more melee fights. If all citizen ranged units lost say 20% of their DPS, the skirmisher still has a good 10.2 points of DPS left and will remain to see use for this supporting role, while archers remain with only a DPS of 5.4 (and on top of that they miss shots, they miss 30% of their shots on 60m range). That way you only would use archers to provoke fights, but for the actual fights archers would not be so great.

One side note is that 20% would be on the more extreme side, but you can see that I think reducing ranged DPS for all citizen soldiers is my suggestion.

I don't know why melee troups deal so little damage in this game, it could be much increased, however, my fear is that that wouldn't change the game so much, because you can prevent them to do any damage now, by just avoiding them. Melee trooups are already most useful if used in large bulks, penetrating in dept if not stopped, and possibly escorting rams directly to the opposing cc.

I had a game against a player that employed that strategy while I only had archers, plus a very small batch of axe cavalry, and I lost my cc, but I won the game because the other player had lost his/her whole army to my archers, I was lucky that my cav could kill a lot of rams, and I archer-rushed all around his/her city befoure building back (then my teammate arrived and well... I think I would have won anyway).

That player also had some javeliner, but I think he couldn't manage them with enough care, because they got killed very fast. I think this is the problem: spearmen are slow, pikemen slower, and skirmishers have a short range, so it's hard to manouvre them effectively. But yeah, if melee was more common, skirmisher would find their spot maybe.

Archers, on the other hand, require less attention in general, just as slingers do when archers are not around. This is a considerable advantage, especially for nubs and for players that like to focus on economy.

14 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

@Lion.Kanzen

Thank you for finding and showing me that patch, it is great to see the discussion behind the change. I think most players agree that the ranged/melee balance is much improved this alpha, but that ranged/ranged balance is much worse.

I also don't think the turtleing issue can totally solved without reducing archer walk speed, but many more people will agree with me on the other argument for speeds: skirmisher>slinger>archer. That being the inability of every kind of infantry to outmaneuver archers. 

Slowing down archers won't prevent them from pivoting a defensive position, just gives them less effective range around it. This large range archers have to make hit and run strikes is the one unique thing that makes archer so fun to play. I'm against taking it from them. I'd rather lower their damage (against melee, not skirms).

[ChronA]

Patch notes make good arguments in favor of regularized unit speeds, IMO. Unfortunately then I must conclude that BreakfastBurrito is correct: unless their speed or range is nerfed, the archer must remain the king of infantry. That limits their multiplayer-viable direct counters to cavalry, static defense turrets, and artillery engines. Personally I think that means job is done for archer and slingers. It's mainly on whoever is working on cavalry buffs to bring balance to the infantry types.
Of course, if it transpires that the way to do that is nerfing all ranged units DPS or something there may be more work to do.

The other thing that may be worth considering in the context of archers and ranged units though, is indirect counters. These would be units that can't hurt the archers but neither can the archers hurt them. Right now that's just rams right? But if you gave heavy infantry enough pierce armor they could also qualify. Buildings and static defense could also gain that relationship if you took away the archer's capture attack. Put those together and you could seemingly restrict archers to a much more niche role: skirmisher-slinger-and-villager hunter. That's a pretty radical concept, but maybe not outside our Overton window?

Regardless, the main question remains: what role is the javelinist for? Right now it can't be anti-melee-infantry, because that is a job archers already do incidentally in their primary role as ranged superiority weapons. Making javelinist anti-cavalry would be too absurd! Anti elephant they already do, but is too niche. Maybe make them anti-building?

Edited May 12, 2021 by ChronA

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

17 minutes ago, alre said:

Slowing down archers won't prevent them from pivoting a defensive position, just gives them less effective range around it. This large range archers have to make hit and run strikes is the one unique thing that makes archer so fun to play. I'm against taking it from them. I'd rather lower their damage (against melee, not skirms).

Archers have always been (and should be) quite good at defending buildings like fortresses. However, the main change in a24 is that archers are the fastest infantry, so they can pull a turtle-like defense of a huge area. In a24 you can not be over-extended with archers, because archers are effectively faster than every other infantry. 

To be honest, ranged infantry balance only needed a nerf to slingers from a23, and archers needed a slight buff. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 minutes ago, ChronA said:

The main question remains: what role is the javelinist for? Right now it can't be anti-melee-infantry, because that is a job archers already do incidentally in their primary role as ranged superiority weapons. Making them anti-cavalry would be absurd! Anti elephant they already do, but is too niche. Maybe make them anti building? 

Anti-Ranged as their general role. 

Anti-Elephant and Chariot as their niche role. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

11 minutes ago, ChronA said:

artillery engines

These no longer can counter archers because 1 archers can kill them quite quickly and 2 no more splash damage :I.

The best siege against archers right now is siege towers. So in a24 Rome has worse siege overall than ptol.

Edited May 12, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[ChronA]

34 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Anti-Ranged as their general role. 

You thinking an anti-ranged attack damage bonus like in AOK? Kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It seems a bit arbitrary and a bit ahistorical. I mean... IIRC this kind of skirmisher was sometimes used against other ranged infantry, but that seems like that's a case of fighting fire with fire for lack of water. Their gear wasn't really designed to counter archers or slingers, arguably the opposite, but they were nimble and expendable enough to do a job that no one else could, so that's how they were used. I guess you could simulate that by making them cheap, but that would scramble the economic balance.

41 minutes ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

These no longer can counter archers because 1 archers can kill them quite quickly and 2 no more splash damage :I.

 Right I forgot about that item in the changelog. Thanks for the correction.

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, BreakfastBurrito_007 said:

These no longer can counter archers because 1 archers can kill them quite quickly and 2 no more splash damage :I.

We have to reverse that.

Could you look for the changes in the Trac?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

1 hour ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Anti-Ranged as their general role. 

Anti-Elephant and Chariot as their niche role. 

I liked the way skirmishers worked in a23, a unit that did lots of damage, but died fast, moved fast and was good for surprise attacks and accompanying heavy infantry. They would not win vs heavy infantry in a fight, but would help one group of heavy infantry beat another, more so than archers. In a23 archers were slightly underpowered but were great for putting concentrated pressure and for defense. Players like me learned not to make whole armies out of skirmishers and we acknowledged that slingers were op. 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, ChronA said:

You thinking an anti-ranged attack damage bonus like in AOK?

Well, I mean they were used to break up enemy infantry formations (famously at the Battle of Lechaeum), and to deal with specialty enemy units such as elephants (Battle of Zama) and chariots (Battle of Gaugamela). As well as perform special operations over broken ground. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

23 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Well, I mean they were used to break up enemy infantry formations (famously at the Battle of Lechaeum), and to deal with specialty enemy units such as elephants (Battle of Zama) and chariots (Battle of Gaugamela). As well as perform special operations over broken ground. 

I agree with that.

[ChronA]

27 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Well, I mean they were used to break up enemy infantry formations (famously at the Battle of Lechaeum), and to deal with specialty enemy units such as elephants (Battle of Zama) and chariots (Battle of Gaugamela). As well as perform special operations over broken ground. 

Yes that was my general understanding too. I guess when you put it that way, since archers and slingers also favored broken ground as a natural defense against heavy infantry and cavalry, you could justly say that skirmishers are anti-ranged! However I still think you'd also be equally justified to call archers and slingers anti-skirmisher. (I believe that is called a paradox!) I wish there was a way to represent that terrain interaction systemically, instead of abstracting it out as a goofy damage multiplier bonus... that would sit with me much better.

Also, this gives me an idea for a truly eccentric counter cycle: cavalry > skirmishers > archers/slingers > cavalry
I doubt the community would accept that, since cavalry beat ranged infantry is like one of the ten commandments of RTS design... but it might be more historically accurate than the other way around.

[Lion.Kanzen]

48 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Yes that was my general understanding too. I guess when you put it that way, since archers and slingers also favored broken ground as a natural defense against heavy infantry and cavalry, you could justly say that skirmishers are anti-ranged! However I still think you'd also be equally justified to call archers and slingers anti-skirmisher. (I believe that is called a paradox!) I wish there was a way to represent that terrain interaction systemically, instead of abstracting it out as a goofy damage multiplier bonus... that would sit with me much better.

Also, this gives me an idea for a truly eccentric counter cycle: cavalry > skirmishers > archers/slingers > cavalry
I doubt the community would accept that, since cavalry beat ranged infantry is like one of the ten commandments of RTS design... but it might be more historically accurate than the other way around.

Not bad but the archer does not defeat the cavalry the slinger and the skirmishers if they could, in certain cases, stop or delay .

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

I didn't bring up those historical examples to justify skirmishers being anti-ranged. The discussion here seems to indicate the desire to have archers fill that purpose. In Delenda Est, I kind of make skirmishers into a unit with targeted bonuses. 1.5x vs. Spearmen, Elephants, and Ranged Cavalry (chariots fall under this), while other units have more general bonuses.  

Edited May 13, 2021 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Lion.Kanzen]

Any "anti ranged infantry" melee cavalry? I think this would close the cycle.

[Yekaterina]

First, remove slingers from the argument because they are a cheap unit that does nothing apart from being cheap and weak.

Secondly, I like @Lion.Kanzen's idea. I can give melee cavalry 1.5x hard counter against archers

[Yekaterina]

Also skirmisher have very high accuracy because it's hard to miss something at this range and you are throwing stuff with your hand which should be accurate

 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

28 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

First, remove slingers from the argument because they are a cheap unit that does nothing apart from being cheap and weak.

Secondly, I like @Lion.Kanzen's idea. I can give melee cavalry 1.5x hard counter against archers

I think a great option is to make “archery tradition” a free trade off tech available in p3 that would no longer be an absolute buff, but instead  make archers more vulnerable to melee cavalry and melee infantry.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

36 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Any "anti ranged infantry" melee cavalry? I think this would close the cycle.

Spear Cav 2x vs. Ranged Infantry

Sword Cav 1.5x vs. Ranged Infantry, 1.5x vs. Cavalry

Bow Cavalry 1.5x vs. Melee Infantry

Javelin Cavalry 1.5x vs. Support Units

 

Spear Infantry 2x vs. Cavalry

Pike Infantry 3x vs. Cavalry

Sword Infantry 1.5x vs. Infantry, 1.5x vs. Elephants

 

Bow Infantry 2x vs. Melee Infantry

Javelin Infantry 1.5x vs. Spearmen, Elephants, and Ranged Cavalry

Slingers 1.5x vs. Swordsmen, 1.5x vs. Ranged Infantry

 

This is generally what DE does. Now, EA doesn't have to do this with attack bonuses; it can try to do it with stats and maybe a few targeted hard bonuses where stats fail, but the chart gives a general idea how it could look in practice. 

[LetswaveaBook]

8 hours ago, alre said:

Mmmh yes... sometimes. During all history there have been a lot of civilizations that relied almost exclusively on ranged troups, and they had their fair share of success.

There are some myths that tell about ranged troops prevailing over melee troops in battlefields, but as far as I know, most of them are untrue. For example the mongols, they decided battles in melee, not in range contrary to what people think. It is true that ranged troops were an important tool, but the deciding factor was melee troops beating opposition that was lured out of position. Also in the battle of Agincourt, the French knights were bested in melee. Maybe we should invoke our historians to judge on the matter, but I think your statement is wrong.

8 hours ago, ChronA said:

Regardless, the main question remains: what role is the javelinist for? Right now it can't be anti-melee-infantry, because that is a job archers already do incidentally in their primary role as ranged superiority weapons.

I disagree with this reasoning. When you see that javelinists deal lots of damage at short range it seems logical that its role is killing melee infantry (but requires a meatshield). In sandbox mode, it already performs that role very well. On the other hand, such a description seems like they should be vulnerable without meatshield, which is also currently the case. I think the problem is that archers/slingers are too good at performing the role of skirmishers and therefore you don´t need skirmishers.

8 hours ago, ChronA said:

that is a job archers already do

For me the problem is that archers do a job that they shouldn´t be doing and that is the core point on which I disagree with the statement.

The role of the archer should be doing damage from a large distance. If archers and slingers are nerved, then skirmishers will probably become very useful. I think the javelineers problem is on the fact that slingers and archers are too strong. I think the environment is flawed and the skirmisher itself is not flawed as much.

Edited May 13, 2021 by LetswaveaBook

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 minutes ago, LetswaveaBook said:

The role of the archer should be doing damage from a large distance. If archers and slingers are nerved, then skirmishers will probably become very useful. I think the javelineers problem is on the fact that slingers and archers are too strong. I think the environment is flawed and the skirmisher itself is not flawed as much.

Indeed, ranged troops should be (mostly) relegated to a support role. They can be useful by themselves in niche situations, but in pitched battle they're just support units. The melee infantry should be the primary force, supported by ranged or skirmishing troops, with cavalry used for flanking maneuvers. 

The chief benefit of infantry is a slow rolling brute force. Cavalry's chief benefit is speed. Ranged infantry's chief benefit is, well, range (and the relative safety range provides; this allows them to support the heavy infantry from afar). 

[Lion.Kanzen]

12 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Spear Cav 2x vs. Ranged Infantry

Sword Cav 1.5x vs. Ranged Infantry, 1.5x vs. Cavalry

Bow Cavalry 1.5x vs. Melee Infantry

Javelin Cavalry 1.5x vs. Support Units

 

Spear Infantry 2x vs. Cavalry

Pike Infantry 3x vs. Cavalry

Sword Infantry 1.5x vs. Infantry, 1.5x vs. Elephants

 

Bow Infantry 2x vs. Melee Infantry

Javelin Infantry 1.5x vs. Spearmen, Elephants, and Ranged Cavalry

Slingers 1.5x vs. Swordsmen, 1.5x vs. Ranged Infantry

 

This is generally what DE does. Now, EA doesn't have to do this with attack bonuses; it can try to do it with stats and maybe a few targeted hard bonuses where stats fail, but the chart gives a general idea how it could look in practice. 

yes I know I play your mod a lot.

 

I know that EA Must have soft mechanic with this. But the basic roles must work.

So melee cavalry needs get rid the artillery and ranged infantry.

[Lion.Kanzen]

9 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Indeed, ranged troops should be (mostly) relegated to a support role. They can be useful by themselves in niche situations, but in pitched battle they're just support units. The melee infantry should be the primary force, supported by ranged or skirmishing troops, with cavalry used for flanking maneuvers. 

The chief benefit of infantry is a slow rolling brute force. Cavalry's chief benefit is speed. Ranged infantry's chief benefit is, well, range (and the relative safety range provides; this allows them to support the heavy infantry from afar). 

How do we make it work like this?