MVP7 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2019 3:58 pm
My problem is not that the infantry can't chase down and defeat horse archers, it's that they are expected to do so. Every FoG2 campaign requires you win your battles to progress, vast majority of the battles require you to defeat your enemy to win it.
Defeating horse archers armies, as required by the game, is already a major pain for many armies that lack any meaningful cavalry or shooting units. They require extremely cheesy and unauthentic tactics to produce victory even as it is. There currently seems to be a strong trend among the community that promotes the idea of making cavalry more and more loose and mobile, which can easily make those infantry-vs-cavalry encounters even more cheesy and unenjoyable.
I don't think anyone enjoys ZOC-locking or baiting the AI into attacking Limitanei so that you can slowly surround the cavalry unit from all sides with infantry. It's cheesy, silly and unauthentic; it feels more like Fire Emblem than a wargame but it's the only way to force a victory against an AI cavalry army that will not offer you fight or retreat if it can't achieve victory.
Also what I suggested here wouldn't be some massive warping of reality that would butcher the cavalry armies. I'm basically suggesting that the odds of chased-off unit returning were significantly reduced and that they would count for their full percentage value instead of safely depositing half of their point value out of the opponents reach.
When are you ever - required - to defeat a horse archer army as an infantry army? If you're talking about the tournament.........well, don't pick an army that overly relies on infantry to the detriment of cavalry and shooting. Of course, in the tournament, there's always going to be some army that hard or soft counters you by its very existence and unit choice. That's just life.
As far as horse archer armies........if it's annoying to beat them, then they're working AS INTENDED. Historically they were an annoying pain to face on the field of battle, so I really don't see the problem. As far as facing them in a tournament is concerned.........look, they have serious weaknesses. From a points perspective, each unit pays extra to combine shooting with movement and fighting capability. So at some point, you should be able to take advantage of that inefficiency. Bring as many foot skirmishers as you can. Support them with your infantry. And have some cavalry to charge them as necessary. Here's the thing, if you charge them with infantry, they sometimes don't evade - that - far, and if you're lucky, your cavalry is still in range, and can then get an automatic rear charge bonus. And then there's massed archers or archer-spears. Those units are pretty great counters to horse archers.
Yes, their ability is annoying. But they're far from perfect.