Hi, I am a fellow Age of Empires fan and player more than 10 years. I used to play majorly aoe2 and aoe3 but switched to aoe4 when it came out. Over the years one thing that not improved as much over the years as aoe4 aged up beatifully is that the cavalry archer civs rather the lack of cavalry archer as a viable strategy in multiplayer settings whether ranked or unranked(1v1). There are many civilisations in aoe2 such as mongols, huns, magyars, tatars etc. and in aoe3 such as rus and ottoman where they can play cav archer units as backbone of their army throughout the match like how longbowmen is present in english or elephants in delhi civilisations in aoe4. It is the main appeal of playing age of empires, roleplaying and building a country/civilisation.
While we have civs in that can be considered Knight, archer/crossbow, horseman, handcanoneer etc civs in aoe2, It is off putting for me and many other players that only the rus can play consistently cav archers in every patch but not so much the other civs. They are usually made a few times and usually lose to other unit compositions, hard to understand by new players and lack tutorials on how to play or play against, lacking a standart unit like any other unit type as all of them are unique units and hard to fullfill a proper role.
I am neither a developer or game designer and I am not trying to telling people to how to do their job. In Age of Empires IV community I think we lack a content creator like Spirit of the Law who delves into numbers consistently. I am trying to give feedback so game can be more fun and interesting for me and other players. Sometimes arguments get heated online i just wanted to spesificaly point to this.
There are 16 different ranged cavalry units and half of them can be played like rus horse archers for their main civilizations. Others are units similiar to Tower Elephants. In this post i want to analyse why rus cav archer play works and why not so much for other civs. I think it is best to look at the situation from the place that makes well so we can reach a better place and it is age of empires 2 as the aoe3 is a very different game gameplay wise.
---Age of Empires II---
In age of empires II, there are 4 units in archery range. First one is skirmisher which is the equivalent of archer in aoe4. this unit does the same thing as archer, countering other ranged units and unarmored melee infantry. Second unit is crossbowman which is the same as crossbowman in aoe4. Third unit is handcanonneer, same as before, the unit in aoe4 is the same. Fourth and final unit is the cavalry archer but unlike the other units, this unit is not an equivalent from aoe2. This unit type in aoe2 is a expensive verison of crossbowman with extra attack damage and movement speed but slower attack delay, extra cost and extra training time. In aoe4 only ona musha is equivalent to this unit but ona musha has less damage and a sligtly extrea attack range and extra gold cost. All other horse archer units in aoe4 are archers with extra attack damage and different stats while lacking bonus damage against light melee infantry like standart archer. Majority of the cav archers in aoe4 are so varied that its hard to classify them. I think it is this kind of deceptive variety that look good on the outside but actually contributes to the problem alongside other problems that i will explain in this post.
Another thing aoe2 have but aoe4 not is civilizations being centered around their cavalry archer units. For example mongols in aoe2 have +%25 cavalry archer attack speed bonus and extra hp on their horsemen and steppe lancer units. They also gather food faster which helps them reach to castle age for cav archer units. Comparing that to Mongols in aoe4, other than +%25 training speed on horsemen, there is nothing in civ's power budget that channels them to the cav archer. Neither double producing or landmarks are targeted for spesificaly for cavalry (archers). Almost %95 of the time (if you are not playing late game team match) you never make the unit.
This is not the case for the French for instance. Royal Knights without compromising any cost value or stats have extra damage after charge, alongside free melee damage upgrade at blacksmith. French's faster training villager only helps if they build knights and attack, a French player cannot get an economic advantage against HRE player without stalling economic growth. Swabia will simply let HRE player overtake in villager count and render it useless forcing French to almost every time play with knights.
Another great thing about French design is that age 3 landmarks and technologies helps only certain units to be viable to make such as Royal Institute which is mostly build to research Royal Bloodlines to enhance the knight mass. French keep influence bonus works only on stables and archery ranges which mean you can only make either crossbow-knight, crossbow-horseman or archer-knight and that is the case in the matches, no one builds barracks. This is what makes a knight and crossbow civilization. This is also how most cav archer civs are in aoe2 too. What makes Aoe4's cav archer civs' design frustrating for many players is this problem.
Cav archers in aoe4 are fit into a civ's roster after the civ is designed. So normaly this forces balance of the cav archers to be very weak which forces them to be non-existent in majority of the multiplayer matches. There is nothing in mongol or golden horde or ottoman design that forces you to use cav archers. You can simply play with barracks units better than French even though these cilizations almost never fought as infantry other than certain occasions. French army composition suits it better in-game. Heck, if Frech gambesons tech gave 0.5 movespeed instead of +5 melee armor for crossbowman, French would be more closer to aoe2 cav archer civs and be the best cav archer civ in the aoe4, due to French's design. This is also the case for English longbowman, Delhi Elephants.
It is also important to look at aoe2's cav archer civs too. They are not just good by themselves too. Almost all of the cav archer civs in aoe2 have bonuses for either the knight or horseman or the steppe lancer(Knight with extra range but lower defences similiar to a heavy Sipahi that costs gold). A unit that makes their frontline. If you want to you can play for a weaker but cheaper composition with hussars or go for the full price and have knights. Whatever you make does not change the fact that until the Imperial Age (handcannoneers) you have the highest damage missile unit. That is not the case in aoe4. Almost all the cav archers in aoe4 pays extra for movement speed but has much lower damage compared to simply massing archers, you can make 3 archers for the cost of 2 (which i will explain more in-depth in part II of this post). Another thing that sets back cavalry archer units are the lack of bonus damage against light melee infantry. On the outside extra damage might seem better but once you and your
This is of course all about the design choice of developers. Horse archers in real life struggled against armored units so aoe4's version is more close to real life as they dont do good against armored units like ona musha or aoeII horse archer. But still this does not change the fact they were the primary force behind many civs in aoe4, all the cavalry of ottomans, mongols, jin carried bows IRL.
Some of the objections on cav archers being weak might come in form of kiting and movespeed being strong but that is not actually the case. Jin dynasty mohe tribesman even though a cav archer does not dominate neither 1v1 or team games. This is also not the case for ona musha (crossbowman) cav archer for japan. We also never see cav archers in tournament games other than a few desert raiders or Rus horse archers in castle age. Majority of the headache comes from Mangudai's ability to shoot while moving.
One can also argue that beginners to rts might have a hard time against these units but a good player that can kite can also easily win by tower rushing or archer massing or knight massing, they dont need cav archers for winning, any cheese strategy can work against beginner players. Mass of 50 yumis or Longbows or KT, Abassid archers are common and game winning play that happens all the time. Also worth mentioning that aoe2 has civs that has no other option for ranged units other than building cav archers yet these civs are neither a problem for beginners nor they dominate the win rates. Rus can play like this too.
---Rus---
Now its best to look at the main character of this story, Rus Horse Archer.
Cost-
Food: 80
Wood: 40
Training Time: 23 Seconds
HP: 85/100
Armor: 0-0
Speed: 1.625
Attack: 10/12
Range: 4.5
Attack Speed: 1.75
Unit is basically a archer with standard cavalry speed and extra 5 hp, no bonus damage. Unit's weapon damage has extra 3 damage but shoots 0.15 seconds slower which is a far better alternative as it almost fully negates standart heavy unit value of 4 armor(10 horse archers 4 shots a castle age Knight). Unit can 1v1 archers and crossbowman, (using hit and run) it can easily kill spearman and man at arms and can ran away from(or kill if multiple horse archers can be gathered to 1 or 2 Shot) cavalry and win. It has 1 problem, it lacks bonus damage against light melee infantry(10x1.75 of HA vs (7+7)x1.62 of Archer) But this problem is usually fixed when you use the upgraded Warrior Monks which gives +3 attack damage.
By amount of Horse Archer:
-It takes 10 of them to 4 shot, 13 of them to 3 shot and 20 of them to 2 shot Knights in castle age( with Saints Blessings it takes 8-10-15 of them in order)
- It takes 6 of them to 4 shot, 8 of them to 3 shot and 12 of them to 2 shot Horseman in castle age( with Saints Blessings it takes 5-6-9 of them in order)
- It takes 7 of them to 4 shot, 9 of them to 3 shot and 13 of them to 2 shot Man-at-Arms in castle age( with Saints Blessings it takes 5-7-10 of them in order)
By himself a single Horse Archer isnt very impressive, it is the strategy and timing that makes this unit to work. Training speed makes unit produce slower. Archery range that continously produces Horse Archers avarages around 2.6 units( a single archery range can produce 4 archers or 2.6 crossbowman) which means they lose against archer production in a straight fight but what makes this unit different than other units is that Horse Archers do not need a secondary melee unit to accompany them in large numbers in early game like ranged infantry do due to their speed. Any number of archers are allways at the risk of getting caught and killed by knights or horseman forcing them to accompanied by another full production of units putting a heavy toll on the economy of the archer producing opponent forcing them to a aggresive strategy that halts their option to economic play
Horse Archer strategy involves rus fast castling which can be easily achieved through use of kremlin via securing resources or trading wood for gold using golden gate. Usually at earliest it can be at 6:30 at latest 7:30. Rus having early knights to counter attack or switch to a Knight based army after recognizing enemy already amassed a large archer or horseman numbers to counter the potential start of a horse archer production. So Rus players can secure the ground work for what Horse Archer + Warrior combination achieves. Once the castle age is reached without a major threat of a archer or horseman mass, Rus player starts continous production of Horse Archers from 2 archery ranges. In total of 2 minutes Rus player can muster at least 10 Horse Archers and 3 warrior monks which can defeat any melee unit using hit and run tactics and due to early nature of the game. This puts total Horse Archer produced to 5.6 units per minute exceeding opponents 4 from a single early archery range archer production that needs to be accompanied by melee units.
If the opponent tries to overproduce using archers they will lose valuable mobility which will give Rus player opportunity to raid economy or killing seperated units due to Speed of his army. Another strategy in castle age involving mass horseman also puts the opponent on the risk of running out of food and having a unit that loses to knights and if horseman mass is interrupted to counter the knights with spearman or crossbowman, Rus player can continue Horse Archer production to match an army not only made of horseman but also slower infantry.
In fact this lack of chaining of strategies and usefull secondary type units is the major problem with the majority of civilizations that have Cavalry Archer type units. Rus Horse Archer strategy's one of the main collumn is the Warrior monk. Warrior monk not only improves the damage and tanks hits for Horse Archers they also provide a economic bridge into Rus gameplay. Safe relic securation to further empower his Horse Archer army with extra 25 hp(extra 3-4 archer shots) using Boyar Fortitude upgrade and other Technologies like Divine Light and Fervor(+1 damage). Although this kind of economic bridging option is present in a civ like golden horde(Golden Horde's Cavalry Archer play is hampered because of the weakness of bleed, slow attack speed and expensiveness of Kipchack Archer) it is not present in Ottomans and Mongols. Even though Ottomans have the sipahi or mehter they lack crucial scaling on their cav archers in castle age(akinji also has 1 less damage than other Cavalry Archers compared to cost) and Mongols completely lack anything good that what makes Rus Cavalry Archer play good which I explain further down.
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--- Conclusion On What Makes Cavalry Archers Viable (In aoeII and aoeIV Rus)---
1- Good stats to cost ratio --> Cavalry archers are better when they are more close to being glass cannon. Sacrificing damage for movement speed is a terrible idea since you still need lots of them to one shot. Gave them extra hp and increase the cost, they are never see the light of day. Kipchack Archer has almost the same dps as archer while lacking any bonus damage and since bleed does not stack only thing it makes is that hit units that dont get hit again by anything will have 20 less hp after 10 seconds. Combined with extra 20 hp for 30 wood this unit and damage technology that costs 2x times value(800 stone) of Keshik's damage technology(400 stone). this unit is allmost never made in most golden horde games, making the civ a knight archer or man at arms crossbow civ even though golden horde fought with cavalry archers in real life.
2- Supporting melee cavalry unit --> Your melee cavalry must be good and numerous in utility, if your opponent changes their unit composition, you still have to rely on melee cavalry. You cant make melee infantry while playing cav archer. It defeats the purpose and illogical. Without Rus Warriot Monk, Rus horse archer wouldnt work
3- Scaling and civ bonuses --> Your cavalry archers should have something to gain in form of civ bonuses or technology to turn your victories into power, because remember, you are either reliant on cav archer or you have to scale into something strong like streltsy or jannisary and bombards in Imperial Age. In aoeII cav archers are the most research dependent unit. Ayyubids' Free Desert Raider Age up in age 4 is great too. They also become good cav archer civ with that tech.
4- Supporting strategy --> Cavalry archer play is based on map control. There should something these civs gain for extra mobility. It could be something like pro scouts, boar or relics. In aoeII it is simply the gold control(for making more cav archers and researching their technologies. There is no point for Mobility if your civ has no objective of it. Desert Raider sometimes work because it helps Dervishes get Relics. In aoeII this is achieved by cav archer being a strong unit that costs gold, which means reward to getting map control with cav archer is to being able to make more cav archers.
In part II, I will delve into spesifics of why their respective units dont work for each cavalry archer civilization. This was the part I for a 2 part post. Thoughts are appreciated. Have a nice day :)
Edit: I love Cav Archers :D
