Hello. I'm of the opinion that Archery units fail unfortunately at static defense compared to melee for a few reasons

same hammer and near same tech cost to produce as Axemen

Terrible at attack, unlike axemen

no more combat range than melee units

Requires an additional tech to get City Garrison unlike vanilla


In vanilla, Archers came earlier than Axemen and did not cost the same amount, however that is not the gist of why I create this thread, only tangent.


I would like to suggest that archery units be granted a Ranged Bombardment ability. You can see this in other mods given to Catapult units, where an ability is clicked with the unit selected and a 3x3 grid ( or 4x4 for latter, more advanced units) is laid down and the player may click in one of these tiles to affect that tile without engaging the unit in direct combat.

Such a system would accurately simulate archers firing from protected positions and as such, I believe it should be something enabled by having your archers stationed in a city with Walls built, or a Fort. Not elsewhere.


Volley! Thwip thwip thwip.

Have you tried playing the Age of Ice scenario? That's exactly how it works there.
This is not desired for FfH2 since the niche of "I damage you with no risk to me" is already filled by caster units.

I'd argue that it's precisely what the archery line needs to have any edge over just going Bronze and Beyond though.

I won't even go into the fact that the melee technologies give OTHER stuff while the archery sciences really just open up units( ability to chop wood, ability to build forges, machinist shops, etc)

An idea brought up by almost everyone who winds up actually vocal on the forums and eager to help :) Welcome to the club ;)

As Alazkan stated, doing damage without personally attacking belong completely to the spells now. Other ideas have had hearty merit for improving Archery though. You have to always keep in mind though that it needs to be something strictly defensive (which you obviously thought of by restricting it to in city or fort...).

Among the other ideas (from what I recall) were:
Give archers more first strikes
-A nice idea, but makes them also strong on offense. Now, if they could grant defensive first strikes only... That would rock.

Reduce all non-archer units from being an OPTION to defend.
- Decent idea, but sends us BACK to Civ 3 mechanics with seperate strength and defense scores :( And cripples you early game against barbarians when all you HAVE is a warrior to defend with.


Given the fact that some proposed ideas have been decently balanced, and recieved minimal team attention, I believe that the soon to be implemented Morale mechanic is where archers will start to shine.

Ranged like that is too good, if anything I think something like that should be moved to Siege weapons.

The only problem with Archery is that it doesn't lead to useful industry techs, like the Bronzeworking line does.

What I'd like to see for Archers is for them to be very resistant to collateral damage, maybe as a bonus along with City Garrison so that it's only in effect when defending cities, not all-purpose. That'd make them supreme city defenders, and have the ability to hold out against fireball/meteor storms a while longer (although they would eventually crumble form the direct damage alone, if reinforcements were not sent).

Speaking of which... that'd be cool for Assassins as well, make them immune to collateral damage.

Doesnt really impact the way Archery comes at the same tier in tech for about the same amount of beakers as bronze, yet is so much less versatile much less so much less powerful at it's base, and missing the industry bonuses.

I haven't even bothered with the archery line until late-late game when it all costs just a couple of turns forever, even before Shadow. A few uses was enough to see that units that suck at attack + have no hammer enhancing were no good.

I'm rather tired of fighting copper with copper, so to say.

Maybe make archers such that, if a unit tries to move past an archer, it takes damage. Like, if my axeman is standing in front of an archer and I try to move to the archer's left, the archers can unleash a volley of arrows once per turn per archer. The idea here is that archers provide static defense; sure you can run around them but your units take damage in doing so.

Maybe even give this ability +1 range if the archer's on a hill.

I know damage without risk is the province of spellcasters, but this way it'd be limited to defensive use only and can't really be targeted.

How about allowing the City Garrison promotion to be accessed at Archery, rather than Warfare? It's not enough as a stand-alone tweak, but it would make it a clearer decision between defensive (Archery) and offensive (Axemen) paths.

I've always thought that the catipult collateral damage and retreat mechanic was more suited to archers. In historic terms, catipults were used to pound down walls and archers were used to rain down arrows upon the enemy soldiers. Having catipults cause collateral damage from pounding city walls is one thing. Having catipults cause collateral damage in the open field is borderline rediculous.

Archers, on the other hand, were used for just this purpose in the middle ages. They would loose a volly of arrows that would kill a few enemy soldiers and wound several more.

Here is a suggestion that might give each line of unit a more defined niche.

Catipults bombard city defenses and cause a minimal amount of collateral damage to units inside the city. Their effectiveness ends when the city defenses reach 0.

Archers cause collateral damage to units that are outside of a city. This would include archers firing from within a defending city or archers that fire a volley of arrows at a stack of units in the open field. This would be similar to the current mechanic of catipults where an attacking archer unit has a high withdrawl chance and deals out collateral damage. To limit its exploitability by having hige stacks of archers, there should be a cap on the damage that can be done by collateral damage.

Arcane Units should be changed to split up bombard and collateral damage. Fire magic should continue to do collateral damage. Bombardment of city defenses should be moved to another sphere of magic...maybe Earth. When magic bombards city defenses, it would just reduce the defenses and not cause collateral damage.

By splitting up the abilities to bombard and deal out collateral damage, a player would have to mix unit types more to have an effective force. Archers, as they are described above, would have a stronger role to play, but not be units that can take out a city themselves.

As it is now, all a player really needs is melee units and Mages with access to Fire magic to effectively do combat in FfH. The Fire magic can both bombard and deal collateral damage, and the melee units can mop up the damaged defenders when the barrage of fireballs/meteors is done. There is no need for siege weapons or archers in the current scheme, and no need to have mages that specialize in anything other than Fire.

Well, to be fair to Catapults (and cannons) until exploding ammunition was implemented, all of their damage was collateral. Actually having a lobbed rock or a cannonball hit you is pretty rare. But if it lands within 5 feet of your horse the shock is enough to buckle his legs. And then there is the chance for the rock to break apart and spread shrappnel.


Collateral, even in the open field is fairly realistic from them. Being likely to retreat, not so much. Heck, actually hitting the unit you meant to attack is a bit of a stretch even ;)

Reduce archer cost to 40? That way they are cheaper than axes, and you can fort them on your cottages or whatever to prevent pillaging.
Either that or let them use weapons, its the bronze, Iron, Mithril that obseletes them. Normal Axe is only str 4 and loses to an archer.

Although I understand where the OP is coming from, I think they do make good defenders. Especially if you build cities on hills.

They have a natural +25% city defense bonus vs the axeman +10% attack. Their +25% hill defense can make a hill top city extremely costly to break.

25% city def + 25% hill def + 25% hill terrain bonus + 25% fortify bonus

We're looking at a 100% bonus unpromoted. I'd suggest building your outer cities on a hill, or any other strategic city.

I also feel that archers are balanced by the fact that you get hunting on the way to archery. So you can add hunters to complement archers. I'd favour a mix of both for defense instead of relying solely on archers. With 2 move, hunters can easily ferry around to cities that are under attack.

How about adding collateral immunity/resistance to city garrison as well as drill? It's been suggested before but it's the best way to take the city attack sting out of fireballs and meteors, while not completely depowering them.

Doesnt really impact the way Archery comes at the same tier in tech for about the same amount of beakers as bronze, yet is so much less versatile much less so much less powerful at it's base, and missing the industry bonuses.

I haven't even bothered with the archery line until late-late game when it all costs just a couple of turns forever, even before Shadow. A few uses was enough to see that units that suck at attack + have no hammer enhancing were no good.

I'm rather tired of fighting copper with copper, so to say.



I have to agree here, archers need to be like in vanilla civ, cheap and easy to make, they don't need any special abilities, but the tech line needs to be cheaper for the lack of economic benefit compared to other lines (for example in civilization archers are about 30% cheaper then axemen), and to help defend against a more advanced person without using the exact same units.


Little offtopic, you didn't play oblivion, did you Cuteunit?


How about allowing the City Garrison promotion to be accessed at Archery, rather than Warfare? It's not enough as a stand-alone tweak, but it would make it a clearer decision between defensive (Archery) and offensive (Axemen) paths.
I like that idea, single unit technologys need side benefits to be useful, in normal civilization archery was the only technology that only only gave access to one unit (if you don't count the other units it enables later) every single other military tech has added benefits, like macemen has irrigation and a civic, longbowmen have vassals and 2 civics horseback riding has horse archers and now elephants, railroads has railroad and machinegun and industrialism has battleships/tanks/marines in one.

There are just to many single benefit technologys.

Although I understand where the OP is coming from, I think they do make good defenders. Especially if you build cities on hills.

They have a natural +25% city defense bonus vs the axeman +10% attack. Their +25% hill defense can make a hill top city extremely costly to break.

25% city def + 25% hill def + 25% hill terrain bonus + 25% fortify bonus

We're looking at a 100% bonus unpromoted. I'd suggest building your outer cities on a hill, or any other strategic city.


The problem is, a warrior is around 60-70% cheaper then a archer so you have 3 or 4 warriors to one archer, doesn't require a special building to make, also has the 25% city defense bonus, gets stronger as the game continues with bronze and ironworking and not every single city can always be on top of a hill, for the minor 25% hill bonus, where a warrior still excels because of access to guerilla promotions with 40% defense, and the warrior has the benefit of being able to be upgraded into something stronger like a axeman or maceman at any point for counterattacking or higher strength.

A good idea might be to make the archery range optional like a stable in Civ4, so you don't need to waste a large chunk of production to make your city defense, but you have the option of getting them more experienced.

1) homeland like promo
how about giving the defender/homeland promo to all archers ??

(I mean the one coming with defender trait)

thus, with a bit more attack and withdrawal in your own country, archers will be able to repel pillagers and be more effective. but being a homeland promo, they would be useless to attack a nearby civ.

It would be a defense only unit, mixing passive defense (cities/hills) and active defense (anti pillage) in your borders.


2) active defense
another idea would be to implement a bit of what was proposed for forts in some vanilla modes :

give archery units +1str +10% withdrawal (or+20%) when they attack FROM a city or a fort. (maybe you can link it to the city garrison promotions)
(ex : CG1 gives +20% withdrawal, CG2 gives +1str ; limited to when unit attacks from city or forts lvl2 and3, limited to archery and siege lines)
it would allow archery units to have an effective ZoC arrounds cities and forts, and can repel pillaging units but would be useless in the field.

this idea would permit a builder to invest into a purely defensive army (ie go archery) without being vulnerable to pillaging (at least no more than any other line)
I imagine such an empire with archers in cities, and many forts, in range of any vital ressource with some archer CG2 in them.
archers won't need new xp system as they get xp by attacking pillagers...

EDIT: with reflexion I prefer the second Idea, because it doesn't reduce the defender trait and seems cool :)
What do you think about it ? (and as it powers the archery line, there won't be any need to reduce their cost : expert archers were always sparser than effective sword wielders)

3) EDIT 2 : two other ideas I read and like :
-removing the archery range as necessary for early archers... early archers learned by hunting !!! just make it so it gives xp ...
-tweaking the tech tree to make the tech line more useful especially removing the need to research the melee tech tree in order to make LB !!!

Please combine these (THIS & THAT (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=259463)) threads.

Why not go for the obvious route? (at least, imo)

Allow archers to use bronze/iron as well (I never really understood why warriors can but archers can't)

And rather than the ranged line getting +1:strength: from bronze, give them +0/+1:strength: with +15% city defense. And instead of iron giving +2:strength:, +1/+3:strength:, with +10% versus bronze, and +25% city defense.

hehe, reading the FFH forum is like reading newpaper headlines now with all the cuteunit thread titles.

On Improving Archers: A page from Fireball? Or even better...

Empyrean. Is there a point?

Axemen too strong too early?

Law 1. My vote for least useful spell in the game?

etc...

There is some good discussion coming out of some of them but I just liked the lol factor

What if archers just simply offered a offense/defense buff to units with in 2 tiles? Maybe make it stack per archer up to 3 or 4.

Archers are "useless" because they are expected to do too much.

Their main use is to prevent small stacks from taking your cities, and for that purpose they are very hammer-efficient. In a medieval setting, castles were for delaying attackers until reinforcements arrive, a staging point for attack, and generally making it costly to take over. Archers, combined with cultural defenses and city defense bonuses, do this job quite well. 5 longbows do not stand against 15 units, but it shouldn't - it's there to make a castle or city defense functional, not a national military. In a defensive war, cities give you a LOGISTICAL advantage, and archers maintain this function, quite well in fact.

Firebows, on the other hand, are an entirely different ballpark. These guys are siege, offense and defense in one neat hamme-efficient package. I love'em.

Little offtopic, you didn't play oblivion, did you Cuteunit?

Yes I'm the same person. Hiho.


Firebows were the inspiration for the thread titles. Firebows don't suck. Though when you get them it's a bit late and you probably have mages with much better fireballs out there...

So archers are always secondary. You may rely mainly on melee and rush metal promos, may emphasize recons with sinister-poisoned blade-Aeron's guild, may use disciples with spiritual trait - Spiritual hammer - Altar, may rush mounted as Hippus, but archery line is never so universal and you just research them when have some free beakers. But if the game is difficult you never have them.

Have you tried playing the Age of Ice scenario? That's exactly how it works there.
This is not desired for FfH2 since the niche of "I damage you with no risk to me" is already filled by caster units.

not really, no. Very few mages can do that (have to wait for archmages for most), and very few priests either.

Their main use is to prevent small stacks from taking your cities, and for that purpose they are very hammer-efficient.

Problem is in ffh the early archers cost the exact same as the horsemen and axemen, and the later longbows can't easily get the experience for defense while it's easy to get city raider 2 or 3, also archers lack the benefit of the aggressive trait.

And I knew I remembered Cuteunit from somewhere, was looking forward to your mods, but they never came out.

In case anyone wants to know, I've gone ahead and implemented a barrage ability like the one in AoI my modmod (plus a few improvements, like making the ability stronger in forts, castles, citadels, cities with citadels of light/walls/walls of stone, on hills/peaks, and in forests if the archer is elven. Also, the barrage ability of an archer with flaming arrows has a chance of causing smoke, thus eventually fires, in forests/ancient forest/jungles.)

I also made it so that archers have a small chance to gain free xp in cities with archery ranges/Ljosalfar archer ranges (recon get a similar bonus from hunting lodges, siege from siege workshops, mounted from hippodromes), and longbowmen/firebows/flurries get twice as much (when they get any).

I removed the weapons promotions from archery units except for Javelin throwers (which I let use iron weapons, previously they had no weapons) and crossbowmen. I made Crossbowmen a little weaker and cheaper, and longbowmen a little stronger and more expensive. The units I improved never go obsolete.


Unfortunately I'm having a few major bugs with my modmod, otherwise I'd go ahead and release it.

Edit: barrage was working perfectly before I tried to make it stronger based on forts/castles/citadels/walls/walls of stone/hills/peaks/forests, but that apparently broke it. I'm trying a new way of giving the bonus now (changing how much damage it does, rather than changing the limit to the damage or to the number of units it can hurt), and hoping that will work better.

MC, your thought processes caress me.

And yes, Bethesda drove me out of my mind with frustration so Adrenaline never materalized as envisioned :/ Well, that and buttnose forum moderators.

The problem is, a warrior is around 60-70% cheaper then a archer so you have 3 or 4 warriors to one archer, doesn't require a special building to make, also has the 25% city defense bonus, gets stronger as the game continues with bronze and ironworking and not every single city can always be on top of a hill, for the minor 25% hill bonus, where a warrior still excels because of access to guerilla promotions with 40% defense, and the warrior has the benefit of being able to be upgraded into something stronger like a axeman or maceman at any point for counterattacking or higher strength.

A good idea might be to make the archery range optional like a stable in Civ4, so you don't need to waste a large chunk of production to make your city defense, but you have the option of getting them more experienced.

I'm not sure comparing archer vs warriors is fair, especially since warriors can't get city garrison. You could compare warriors vs axemen and come to the same conclusion. Axemen only have a +1 strength and +10% city attack over warriors. We should keep the comparison to units of the same tier, ie: axemen vs archers.

I didn't suggest building every city on a hill, only the ones of strategic importance. Like border cities, or ones near strategic resources. The hill defense bonus with archers is quite significant in the case of hilltop cities. In those cases, the defensive bonus is worth the less than optimal city placement.

Archers are "useless" because they are expected to do too much.

Their main use is to prevent small stacks from taking your cities, and for that purpose they are very hammer-efficient. In a medieval setting, castles were for delaying attackers until reinforcements arrive, a staging point for attack, and generally making it costly to take over. Archers, combined with cultural defenses and city defense bonuses, do this job quite well. 5 longbows do not stand against 15 units, but it shouldn't - it's there to make a castle or city defense functional, not a national military. In a defensive war, cities give you a LOGISTICAL advantage, and archers maintain this function, quite well in fact.


I tend to agree. Everyone expects archers to be the staple defensive unit like in vanilla. An archer defending a city usually kills a copper axeman of the same level. But you can't expect handful of archers to hold off a horde of axemen +5 level higher. In FfH you can't build just a bunch of archers and expect your cities to be impregnable, and maybe that's ok.

As it stands, the only civs that should use archers as their staple unit are the Ljosalfar.

In FfH you can't build just a bunch of archers and expect your cities to be impregnable, and maybe that's ok.
But you CAN build just a bunch of axemen and expect your enemy to fold like a house of cards.

But you CAN build just a bunch of axemen and expect your enemy to fold like a house of cards.

Only if that enemy doesn't build a proper defense...

I'm beginning to confuse this thread with this one :lol:

Personally when I do use archers alot, I only get them after warfare, for the CG. Then I go for an enchantment mage for flaming arrows.

But why would you want to build alot of archers unless you're Ljosalfar anyway? Building alot of archers is only worth it if you're gonna research archery techs all the way (actually building alof of any unit is only worth it if you're gonna research that tech line all the way). There's only a few civs you'd wanna go archery all the way with.

I tend to agree. Everyone expects archers to be the staple defensive unit like in vanilla. An archer defending a city usually kills a copper axeman of the same level. But you can't expect handful of archers to hold off a horde of axemen +5 level higher. In FfH you can't build just a bunch of archers and expect your cities to be impregnable, and maybe that's ok.

As it stands, the only civs that should use archers as their staple unit are the Ljosalfar.well If I understood correctly the idea from Kael & co, the idea for the archer IS the ultimate defense unit.

melee units are do all units : that is why archers are less interesting.
siege, disciple, mounted lines were created sufficiently different so that in their field of work they are better. (mounted is better for raiding)
but archers are not better for defense :
comparisons :
warrior + iron : 5str, + 25% city defense : # 6.2str
archer : 3/5 + 25% city defense : # 6.2str
axe + iron in city : 6str
-for defense only, archer in city (save on hill) is almost the same as a warrior and the same as axe !!
-axe is better than warrior because it attacks with 6 (normal)
-warrior is better than archer because you can defend your countryside with 5str vs only 3 and identical for city defense. + costs less + no building (needs iron and smelting though)
-axe is better than archer : same City defense, + can defend country-side + can attack ennemy, costs the same in tech and in hammers.

the aim is to make so you can defend with archers only if you are a builder-type.
but :
- with archer you can only marginally protect your cities !!!
- you cannot proctect your country side, (with axes you can because you can attack the raiders + gain more xp)
- archers are not on the builder tech path (save X-bow), while melee units are : forges and all are needed for a builder

conclusion : either melee line is too strong, either the archer line needs a unique mechanisme to balance it. (currently archers are melee line units -1attack/+1defense, while melee gets weapon promos...) the archer line need another mechanisme, different than this.

so archer is the ultimate defense units if you can't have any metal is right and gives a purpose to the line, but in my book, that doesn't make the line worthwhile in FfH where you can switch to disciple or mage if you can't get metals.

Well, maybe this recap was not interesting for some people, but maybe it was ...

Make AI use archers as they do in normal civ and you will see that they are actually quite ok at making it take harder to take cities(starting with archery etc). They do suck in any humans hands though. Just like in normal civ. The very advanced units might be ok sometimes and lojsfar units might be ok and firebows are obviously playable. Other than that they aren't of much use however. Of course the biggest problem with improving archers is that defense is not actually fun. If it was possible to build an impregnable fortress/cities the game would be less fun and stagnate as noone would be able to do anything..

the aim is to make so you can defend with archers only if you are a builder-type.
but :
- with archer you can only marginally protect your cities !!!
- you cannot proctect your country side, (with axes you can because you can attack the raiders + gain more xp)
- archers are not on the builder tech path (save X-bow), while melee units are : forges and all are needed for a builder

conclusion : either melee line is too strong, either the archer line needs a unique mechanisme to balance it. (currently archers are melee line units -1attack/+1defense, while melee gets weapon promos...) the archer line need another mechanisme, different than this.

so archer is the ultimate defense units if you can't have any metal is right and gives a purpose to the line, but in my book, that doesn't make the line worthwhile in FfH where you can switch to disciple or mage if you can't get metals.


This brings up an important point. If you were a builder going down the metal tree, the bulk of your defense should be melee units. You'd save tons of production just using iron warriors, though they can't get CG or have a first strike. That's good vs AI but vs human they'd just give shock II to all their attacking troops. I think the main difficult people face with archers is the huge gap between archers and longbowmen.

I'm not sure the archer being the ultimate defender means that it's most appropriate for builders. It might actually be more useful to warmongers, who are at war more often. Better defenders means need for fewer units to defender your cities, which translates to being able to field a larger army for attack.

If I were a builder going metal, I'd be focusing more on melee units and cats since you want to be able to defend your improvements from raiding anyway. Defending your cities doesn't imply huddling behind city walls. It's more effective to destroy invaders before they get to your cities or have a chance to raid your improvements. An effective (non-arcane) defensive army is moslty melee, with some cats, archers, hunters+hawk. The archers in your cities are mainly to discourage cavalry from maneuvering around your melee units to get to your cities.

comparisons :
warrior + iron : 5str, + 25% city defense : # 6.2str
archer : 3/5 + 25% city defense : # 6.2str
axe + iron in city : 6str

Unless you are playing the Khazad, Archers come a lot sooner than Iron. A better comparison would be with Bronze weapons, or none at all.

Even so, the Archery line could definitely use a few enhancements to make it more attractive. I noticed the Archery Range gives +5% defence to the city, maybe that could be beefed up a bit, or changed to something more generally useful, such as a free Drill I promotion to all Archer and Recon units.

well, not my fault the archer line was tagged "the defense line" by one of the team... and that was a reason the shieldwall was removed (the best defender comes from the attack line) and the flurry went elf only (one of the best attacker is from the defense line ?) -the words in brackets are "almost quotes"-

so if for playing a defense-only style you need the melee line and not the archery line, you make my point : it shows that while your playstyle agrees with mine and is the one adapted to the current working of the game, it is not The One That Is Supposed To Be.

Oh Nefelia: I disagree,
taking the effecitve power a warrior or axe will gain, without spending gold, is to be taken into account. just a tech to pop, or RoK to found and intantanely, all your warriors get +1str...

when you get LB, your archers do not upgrade to LB while when reaching iron, your Axes and warriors become respectively 6str and 5str
So maybe you can temperate my math by saying : "may gain +1" but that is still something the archer will never do.

and in all my games, iron comes before archers... because the units sucks, and the tech are not attractive. (Longbows are good -5/6 +weapon promo, but I will always get champion instead of LB ... if LB were 5/7 + copper/iron promo it might be different) but at the axe-archer level, the choice is obvious.

Four of the best suggestions from this thread (and many others) for making Archery useful again:

1. Reduce the Archery tech cost from 300 to 200
2. Move the requirement for the City Garrison promotion to Archery tech from Warfare tech
3. Improve the Archery Range to be more useful in a city as well as for producing Archer units by increasing to +10% defense, +2XP for Archery units(currently provides +5% and allows archers to be built)
4. Reduce Archer unit build cost from 60 to 50, making them cheaper than the comparative Axeman / Horseman

Every one of these is easy to implement, adds value to archers, requires no new game mechanics to be created, and together imo would be easily as effective at balancing the Archer vs. Melee unbalance

100% Agreed with Jenks.