Javelins are too OP and its nearly imposible to stand against mass Javs as Maurays

[UltraMan]

Archers are basically useless. They are outrun by Javs and they do very little damage. Elephant archer is pure wastage of resources.

Please balance these Units

[Player of 0AD]

I don't know. In Alpha 24 archers made the same amount of damage but they have been the OP ranged unit. So if we buff them again they might be suddenly OP again. And cavalry archers are not useless.
I've already seen successful rushes with elephant archers. When they reach rank 3 they are very tanky.
Maurya has a special upgrade which makes sword units stronger. So you can try to counter javelineers with sword cavalry, and you can use sword infantry against spearmen.

[UltraMan]

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So if we buff them again they might be suddenly OP again.

So we should just leave them like this ?

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I've already seen successful rushes with elephant archers

That is overall bad idea to begin with. Your opponent have to stupid. 3 Archers are so much better than 3 pop elephant archer

1 hour ago, Player of 0AD said:

Maurya has a special upgrade which makes sword units stronger.

which dies easily by Javs who can outrun it. Also enemry also have spear/pike mans who are protecting javs.

 

1 hour ago, Player of 0AD said:

sword cavalry

That is not the answer. it does not collect resources like Javs and its also very expensive. It not infantry. Yes they are useful but thats not the point cause we are talking about archers and javs.

Pls fix archers.

Also Persians have access to Javs so why only Kush and Mauryas dont ? Maurays historicaly did used Javs more than archers

In reality, Javs only used to throw 3 or 5 javs and retreat quickly or became meele fighters while archer troops used to carry load of archers with them. Also archers were/are more powerful than Javs in reality.

Edited February 24, 2022 by UltraMan

[faction02]

Part of the issue with archers is that they have a lot of micro potential, so their strength might feel different depending on how they are used. With Maurya or Kush, a few players are trying to mix in their army cavalry (jav or sword), they select the archers to manually target javeliners one by one while the cavalry should try to flank the enemy ranged units, therefore, in both cases, avoiding the melee units protecting them. Some also tries to spread archers over a long line to take advantage of the better range of archers, minimize overkills and do hit-and-run attacks. Using map obstacles (buildings water, mountains...) can also be useful.

Balancing archers with javeliners will always be an unpleasant question. If you try to balance them assuming no micro, then a player with good micro will give the impression that archers are op, if you try to balance them assuming that both players have advanced micro skills, the archers will feel very unpleasant to any player who don't want to use too much micro. Expecting them to be well balanced from everyone perspective might be unrealistic.

Having said that, I would agree that archers are struggling a bit too much currently, especially with pikemen. In any case, archers/javeliners balance should definitively be checked with the impact that the introduction of unit acceleration might have on the game. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

@faction02 @Player of 0AD

I think that archers, by their attack stats do fine against skirms provided there is no micro and no melee.

The issue with plainly buffing archers will be that people who can micro around pikes to damage other ranged units will be dominating.

I think the best way to solve the issue would be to decrease hack armor of pikes by 1 and increase melee infantry dmg by 9% as proposed by @LetswaveaBook. This would increase swords and spear dmg more than pikes, and make the damage of melee inf units less negligible in a battle.

Another option would be to introduce an attack ground system, but this seems to be a long way off.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

@UltraMan When there are only skirms and archers, the skirmishers win because they do more damage and closed the range to reach the archers. If you add melee, the skirmishers will be busy with the spears and swords (good for mauryans because of extra sword dmg). That said, archers are pretty weak at the moment, mainly because their range is not utilized by default (archers also attacking closest unit, which is often melee).

long story short: archer's strength is their range, but it is very difficult at the moment to take advantage of their range.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

4 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

In Alpha 24 archers made the same amount of damage but they have been the OP ranged unit.

I think a lot of this was also to do with the slower inf speed and strength of forts,towers. It made it very easy to sit under a fort and temple and keep massing.

[LetswaveaBook]

5 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

In Alpha 24 archers made the same amount of damage but they have been the OP ranged unit. So if we buff them again they might be suddenly OP again.

In A24 we had inefficient pathfinding for groups. In A25 units in groups almost move like there aren't any obstructions at all.

I also think the speed difference between the units is to much. The long range of archers makes it seems as if they are meant to do hit and run tactics and their speed prevents that.

[chrstgtr]

2 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

In A24 we had inefficient pathfinding for groups. In A25 units in groups almost move like there aren't any obstructions at all.

I also think the speed difference between the units is to much. The long range of archers makes it seems as if they are meant to do hit and run tactics and their speed prevents that.

If you don’t have speed differences then it does become hit and run and it’s impossible to beat except through spam. The lack of speed differences was one of the major causes for archers being OP in a24