[rdonj]

The main thing samurai archers need to be more viable is a lower resource cost so that they're actually massable, rather than costing more resources than every single other unit you can recruit. So if you're going to change them, I would suggest finding ways to lower their resource costs.

Samurai armor takes 8 resources. The kabuto takes 2 resources (and is the helmet with the worst resource to protection ratio in the game under vanilla, at 6 resources). The longbow takes 5. And the katana takes 7.

This is all a lot of resources for things that an archer doesn't really need. That said, you would basically either need to create entirely new equipment for them (ashigaru armor isn't really very thematic, you could maybe replace the katana with a wakizashi for 3 less resources), or just make them completely unarmored, possibly with a precision bonus. They would still cost 13 resources (10 with wakizashi), but I can see no realistic way to lower their resource cost sufficiently other than the complete removal of any armor given the insane resource costs of all samurai weaponry.

Although come to think of it if you wanted to make an archer with no armor it might be better to make an entirely new unit.