Archers need to be nerfed.

[Pyrate]

Jut spent the past few hours playing this game and I am unable to continue. Archer are just way to powerful. Even when I select the "weaker archers" in the game play options they are still completely destructive.

One battle I recently played the enemy army had three units of archers compared to one, in one volley he knocked my unit down from 38 to 6.

Does anyone know of any way to mod this game so that archers are not overly deadly?

[Clayman66]

As far as I know, they're only overly deadly early game. Try to use terrain & formations to counter them, for example forests give one helluva defense against archers. Only just got the game myself so I can't help you much more there.

If it makes you feel any better, archers often were the cause of megarape throughout history, one of the more famous examples being the battle of Agincourt.

[tappex]

What bugs me most is that enemy units generally seem to have a (way higher) level than the player units. This makes battles kinda unfair, in my eyes.

The good news is that although the developer claims the game is unmoddable, modding in fact seems to be possible: With quickBMS (http://aluigi.altervista.org/papers.htm#quickbms) and this script (http://aluigi.altervista.org/papers/bms/king_arthur.bms) you can unpack the PAK-files of the game. I've found some unit attributes and difficulty modifiers in the [gamefolder]\Configuration\Files.pak archive. Modifiers for "weakened archers" are in the file PROBA1_CORE.CFG (visible after extracting the pak-file). It's a plain text file; unfortunately, a lot of the variable names are in Hungarian. From what I figured out so far (got the game today, haven't played around the files for too long) "IJASZ" means "archer" and "IJASZ_GYENGITES" means "weakened archers". So these would be the lines of interest for you. After editing, by copying the modified proba1_core.cfg to the "Configuration" folder (where the pak-file is), the modified file should be loaded by the game instead of the default one in the pak-file.

So hopefully some (Hungarian-speaking) guy will contribute a rebalancing-mod sometime! :)

[Squid3d]

As Clayman66 said, formations (everything should be in hoard mode when facing archers) and forrests are excellent defenses.

The game gives you a good anti-archer unit at the very start (lvl5 cav with dodge) but neglects to show you how to use them.

Until you get a good combination of units and spells to hard counter archers then you'll need to avoid shooting matches with them :)

try using the starting cav to charge the archers (dodge + horde formation). don't actually engage them as they will often be guarded by strong anti-cav soldiers. the idea is to keep them shifting positions. the more they move the less they fire. flank them with heavy inf (hoard formation for the approach, switch to triangle just before you engage).

putting sir kay (or balin/balan, depends who you have at this point) as the leader of the cav will make a huge impact on their survivability (if you want to go in hard with the cav). the defense perk/skill is useful here.

once you learn a couple of ways to deal with archers you'll find they aren't actually overpowered.

of course, if the game had a decent tutorial then we'd never see another OP archer thread:)

[Squid3d]

What bugs me most is that enemy units generally seem to have a (way higher) level than the player units. This makes battles kinda unfair, in my eyes.

there is a xp modifier var in the .cfg (gives huge xp boost to the enemy when a faction is at war) file. i can't remember the actual var name (no access to KA atm)- i do remember it's pretty obvious though

[oakbeba]

I am near certain I saw a "nerf Archer" click box in the game options screen...

could be wrong...

[Codine]

I am near certain I saw a "nerf Archer" click box in the game options screen...

could be wrong...

Yeah there's a weaker archer setting.

The biggest problem with archers is that its too easy to just spam them and annihilate almost any unit without any real trouble.

[darthgandalf666]

At the beginning of the game they are powerful but not much of a treat, use fog of avalon and try to flank them. Some turns later you'll get Sir Gareth from a quest (The Wounded Knight), he is a mage, use curse of shadows spell on them and you can wipe up to 2 archer units with it (if they are close). Atach him to a cavalry unit so he can move fast on the battlefield and cast his spells.

[Clayman66]

At the beginning of the game they are powerful but not much of a treat, use fog of avalon and try to flank them. Some turns later you'll get Sir Gareth from a quest (The Wounded Knight), he is a mage, use curse of shadows spell on them and you can wipe up to 2 archer units with it (if they are close). Atach him to a cavalry unit so he can move fast on the battlefield and cast his spells.

These are also a couple of good points - if enemy archers outrange/outnumber your own, the fog spell is a godsend. Plus, you get Sir Gareth really quite early and he spawns with the spell darthgandal mentions, plus another handy one too :)

I like the way archers are much more powerful than a lot of other games. Makes a nice change to needing half a million of them to stop 3 charging units :cool: