Useless or redundant units?

[Leif_-]

Gandalf Parker said:
The idea of redundant or worthless units keeps popping up but there isnt much agreement on what they are. What you think of as worthless might better be phrased as "worthless for the way I play".

While that's generally true in Dominions, I don't think it holds for mounted archers. Here we don't have a unit or two with some slightly odd stats, but rather we have a class of units that nobody, to my knowledge, has found any real role for.

[Action]

The Tien Chi medium horse archers with

14 prot
11 morale
12 defense
10 str
10 Attack
3/23 move

Light Lance/Hoof/Composite Bow/Buckler
for 35 gp 21 resources

seem like they might be useful, in small numbers anyway. For example, you can place them in front of your normal archers or commanders to protect them from melee a bit, since they will just stay in place and shoot rather than charging forward.

I haven't tried these particular units but the Bakemono Samurai Archers with longbow and no-dashi are nice for that multi purpose role.

I think medium cavalry could be made pretty useful in small numbers if they eliminated the -2 precision penalty.

True light cavalry will probably always be pointless due to the nature of the battle engine. Giving them surival for every terrain and less supply need (small steppe ponies can just graze unlike warhorses) would be a good start though, along with the +2 precision.

[B0rsuk]

Action: you conveniently left out Precision, which is rather important for archers. I can't check it myself with just demo. I'm still at mercy of Tuxgames.

[Action]

B0rsuk said:
Action: you conveniently left out Precision, which is rather important for archers.

Its 8

Sorry, I mentioned they got "-2 precision" a couple times but I didn't mention the exact number, I should have thrown it in.

This precision penalty does not make too much sense since they don't really shoot on the move anyway in this game. I think if they didn't have this penalty medium horse archer cavalry at least would be viable, although that probably wouldn't be enough to make people buy light horse archers.

[Quietly]

honestly, given their stationary nature, they should have a precision bonus if anything, as they have a better view/evation relative to their targets than regular ground archers

concievably they exist for fire and flee, but they are just too expensive... the chariot archers are more rediculous than the standard ones =/

[Sir_Dr_D]

When a chariot archer is killed, then it becomes anormal chariot and tries to trample the opponents, doesn't it? At least that is what the description makes it sound like. If that is the case they could be used defensively. Give them a command to just fire, then should infanrtry approach and kill an archer,t he chariot will then trample the attackers. It could be worth experimenting with.

But to make it worth the cost the chariot should have two archers in it.

[Teraswaerto]

I think chariot archers on "hold and attack" will first stay put firing a bit and then charge the enemy for some trample action. If so, they are not useless at all.

[Nerfix]

I like the Tien cavalry since they get comp bows, Falchions and lances. All good weapons.