Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightypeon
As an actual change for the next CBM, at the moment, Sappers are by far better choices than Arbalests for nearly everything:
reasons:
Arbalest fires every 3 turns, does 14 AP damage, range 45 precision 1.
Crossbow fires every 2 turns, does 10 AP damage, range 30 precision 2. It also has 2 more shots.
Already here, the Crossbow is imho a better weapon, after 6 turns, the "total damage" of the Crossbow is already better (since 3 Crossbow Bolts likely deal more tha 2 Arbalest Bolts), the crossbow is more precise which is usefull. The Arbalest has some uses when it comes to strong alpha strikes, and against masses of units who are resistant to 10 AP. Which is not a lot of units.
But the most important things in favor of the Sapper:
Map Move 2 and Siege Bonus of 5.
In Sieges, each Sapper is worth 5 Arbalest guys. A modest amount of 40 Sappers (something 2 normal forts can get in a single turn) is enough to instapop most 150 def forts, a main army with a contingent of 100 sappers will blow through any non Pan fortification in a shockingly quick way.
Imho, increasing the precision of the arbalest and or reducing the Siege Bonus of the Sapper would be nice for internal balance.
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The sapper is a great unit, no doubt about it, but you might want to look over your calculations again.
As Soyweiser mentioned, the massive range of the arbalest opens up for some interesting tactics. When it comes to ammunition, arbalests fire every third round, so they are good for 30 rounds as opposed to the sapper crossbow, whose ammunition make them good for 24 rounds. Contrary to what you seemed to imply, the arbalest comes out ahead here.
When it comes to damage, the arbalest lower fire rate means that it must do half again as much damage as a crossbow per shot to be on even ground. The break-point is at 4 protection (12 and 8 damage respectively). Higher protection than that and the arbalest comes out ahead. Protection values over 4 are not exactly uncommon.
Now, the crossbow higher fire rate makes for a better damage distribution, which is a point in its favor, but as protection rises, the extra damage of the arbalest makes up for that in spades. As protection creeps upward, the extra damage of the arbalest will be an ever larger part of the total damage done.
Consider some 10hp infantry with 14 protection (not exactly uncommon in MA). Crossbow and arbalest damage, not counting DRN, would be 3 and 7 respectively. If you do consider DRN and the resulting distribution in case of a hit, you see that about 1/12 of the crossbow bolts will kill the unit instantly, while about 1/4 of the arbalest bolts will do the same. The numbers for a unit emerging unscathed is exactly the opposite.
On top of this you have the price difference of the sapper and arbalest.
If you want to take out heavy infantry or infantry helped with protection increasing magic - wooden warriors perhaps - arbalests are clearly better at it than crossbows.