Are Composite Bowmen too strong?

[ridjack]

I think they are.

They're legitimately the only unit I care about if I'm wanting to conquer anyone early on, not counting super strong uniques like the Legions. I don't care if my enemy has Archers, Spearmen, Swordsmen, Catapults or Skirmishers, but if I see Composite Bowmen that's generally a hard stop until the next wave of unit upgrades. Even if I have my own Compies, it's rarely worth the headache of trying not to accidentally let two enemy Compies get shots off on your melee units.

Crossbowmen don't even have this kind of suppressing effect. Aside from certain uniques, no single unit stops me dead the way sighting a single Compie will.

I'm even playing with Pdan's Tweaks, which slightly nerfs the Comp Bowmen, and they're still out of control.

Just me?

 

[dostillevi]

Have you tried using mobile units as counters? Not saying this will work, just curious about your experience. You certainly will have a tough time taking unmounted melee units without double cover promotion against them.

 

[ridjack]

Have you tried using mobile units as counters? Not saying this will work, just curious about your experience. You certainly will have a tough time taking unmounted melee units without double promotion against them.

Horsemen don't do all that much damage to them (13 CS vs 11/10 with tweaks) without a strong flanking setup, which isn't terribly common to achieve. Skirmishers do even less and are more easily killed in a counterattack.

 

[dostillevi]

How would you feel if mounted melee units had a bonus towards unmounted archer units, similar to how spearmen have a bonus against mounted units? Thematically and perhaps practically, they seem like the right unit to counter archer power, but this is also an aside as to whether composite bowmen specifically are overpowered.

 

[ridjack]

How would you feel if mounted melee units had a bonus towards unmounted archer units, similar to how spearmen have a bonus against mounted units? Thematically and perhaps practically, they seem like the right unit to counter archer power, but this is also an aside as to whether composite bowmen specifically are overpowered.

I do still feel like mounted melee could use some love in general.

 

[Stalker0]

C bows serve an interesting place. On the one hand yes they are quite strong for their time in the tech tree. On the other, they are often your only defense if the enemy manages to get into the medieval units before you.... and its not a great defense. Knights still mow them down.

 

[dostillevi]

It's something I've considered before, but the lack of distinction between light and heavy cavalry means knights are extremely powerful. If light cavalry existed alongside knights, I'd consider reducing knight movement by 1, while giving light cavalry lower CS but a bonus against archers and the ability to move after combat.

 

[rsc2a]

It's something I've considered before, but the lack of distinction between light and heavy cavalry means knights are extremely powerful. If light cavalry existed alongside knights, I'd consider reducing knight movement by 1, while giving light cavalry lower CS but a bonus against archers and the ability to move after combat.

The bonus to archer units could just be limited to horseman and be lost on upgrade.

 

[Delvemor]

The bonus to archer units could just be limited to horseman and be lost on upgrade.

Horsemen counter archers convincingly already they don't need a buff against them. It's ok if they don't destroy composite bowmen, because knights do and the AI usually beeline for Chivalry.

As for dealing with enemy composite bowmen, I find swordsmen to be good enough for the task, while the horsemen and spearmen watch their flanks.

 

[Delvemor]

Horsemen don't do all that much damage to them (13 CS vs 11/10 with tweaks) without a strong flanking setup, which isn't terribly common to achieve.

I find flanking to be easily done on a Pangea map. Looking at many other players screenshots, I notice that the maps they play often have very narrow ways which prevents mounted melee units to shine as much. Maybe that's the issue, more than the units themselves.

 

[Rosete]

I disagree that comp bow are too strong. They are strong compare to other units of the same era, but their strength doesn't last long. On the offense, they are pretty good at killing units, but taking cities are another matter. Walls shut them down pretty hard. Unless you got an overwhelming number of comp bow taking a city with walls is very unlikely.

On the defense, they are the only thing letting me hold down my cities against the AI. They deal just enough damage to drive away spearmen, needing ~4-5 shots to kill.

 

[pineappledan]

I agree that comp bows are too strong. I reduced their CS by 1 in my tweaks mod

 

[Rekk]

I'm even playing with Pdan's Tweaks, which slightly nerfs the Comp Bowmen, and they're still out of control.

I agree that comp bows are too strong. I reduced their CS by 1 in my tweaks mod

Did you reduce them again?

 

[pineappledan]

No. I just figured I would reiterate that I believe CBows are too strong and I have tried to do something about it.

 

[notaspambot]

I agree that comp bows are strong, but to say they're too strong is unwarranted, in my opinion. Composite bowmen work well into the units they're up against, at first. But their dominance is surprisingly short- tech progression means that they quickly find themselves struggling against Swordsmen and suffering even worse against Knights, all the while Crossbowmen are a whole three tiers away.

Horsemen also work fine against Composite bowmen. They don't have the pure CS of Knights, but they still contribute substantially in securing kills, and losing a unit or two is no small thing in that era.

Peronally, the most OP unit in Classical is the Scout, because of how easy it is to snipe workers and trade routes in that era.

 

[ridjack]

they quickly find themselves struggling against Swordsmen and suffering even worse against Knights

But they don't really struggle against Swordsmen, in my experience. A single Comp Bowman does low damage to a single Swordsman, sure; at the same time, that Swordsman will do surprisingly little damage against the Compie, and takes more damage in doing it. 1v1 it's honestly a bit of a toss-up, since the C. Bow doesn't have to take damage to deal it. Once you get even two Compies up against two Swordsmen, the Swordies have no chance. The Compies will focus fire one and then the other and 9/10 times deal more damage than they risk taking.

Just a reminder, I'm using the tweak @pineappledan mentioned above and they still feel too strong to me.

 

[notaspambot]

Units don't work in isolation though. The comparison here should be Composite bowmen + Swordsmen comps vs. pure Composite bowmen comps and the former is much more likelier to win than not. Same reason why Horsemen, and mounted units in general, are as valuable as they are.

 

[zeofig]

They might be the only classical unit that I would build in 100% of games. However I think that's OK. All the units are still good, including catapaults, and classical war feels good to me.

 

[Laz0r]

in good defensive terrain any ranged unit completely outclasses same tier melee units (barring archers maybe). also given they are among the last of the ancient/classical unit upgrades they are reasonably some of the best. Swordsmen with cover do a great job at absorbing their hits though, and can annihilate them if they are exposed and in combination with other ranged units

 

[Grassland Farm]

I mostly agree with what's been said (I also play with pdan's tweaks) but I don't see an elegant solution somewhat.
Possibly Horseman getting bonus damage vs archers units (lost on upgrades) but they already BUTCHER Archers (the ancient era one) while "only" being 1 column of techs above them