the forester warband is actually a tier 3 unit, and requires 2 turns to recruit. making it more of a mid/late game unit considering how hard it can sometimes be to get to city status for barbarians
@Michael Anderson The thing that i really find odd is that for the Gaul’s it takes two turns to recruit each unit, but the Germanic’s only require 1 turn. That is a MASSIVE difference in the speed to get enough archers into a stack to make them feel worthwhile.
top two levels of elephants and elephant mercenaries use archers. Slingers are also very powerful in protracted combat, with much more ammo (40 vs 30 for Balearic slingers vs Cretan archers), so as units in a part of very large army early game, slingers may actually be superior in terms of damage done. Unfortunately I have found that they have more of a problem with causing friendly fire because they loose more horizontally and archers loose more vertically.
I think the pontic heavy cav is slept on. They have a strong javelin attack, and in melee no other horseback missile unit can hang with them. En masse, they're able to distrupt infantry armies not as well as horse archers, but well enough, and they can be relied upon for melee charges to break those armies much more so than horse archers can. They can benefit from the pontic chariot archers and cappadocians as well.
Agree with this mostly, Foresters and Nobles are crazy good. But what about Cataphract Archers?? They BY FAR have the strongest melee stats of any ranged unit in the game (the same or very close as normal Cataphracts), and the same range as Nobles, and only require Minor Cities to build. I'll admit they're slow for a horse archer unit, but everything else makes up for it and they certainly should have ranked.
To be honest, I like all archers. Especially in Barbarian Invasion I find that even the worst archer unit is deadly when allowed to use its ammunition (although you may need more of them). But I'll say I always prefer archers on foot. I know horsearchers can be really effective, their speed allowing them to avoid melee and making them superb at flanking. But I never fear them when facing them, which is not the case with elite foot archers.
They are soooo much harder to get as Gaul. They tear shit apart, true, but with all they have to deal with? Your campaign is often over already.... victory or defeat.
I'm playing as Gaul now and my army are just 100% Forester Warband. + 3 experience, Armour +1 and weapon +3 from my Temples. Nothing and I mean Nothing can stop you. The computer hold its ground, they die. If they charge they die faster! Entire units are wiped out and broken in a single volley! Even if cavalry charge you they fall before you! I have 18 missile Attack, that's enough to kill most infantry outright head on... and 18 close combat Attack so if anything gets close enough it's really not a problem. If the enemy run, I'm fast moving and just run and shoot them down... it's very satisfying to shoot a until to death in their backs... I do very little mopping up after a battle... almost nothing survives my army.
this sounds interesting. will have to try it. his video said you are able to train those archers as a tier 2 unit. if memory serves me right you need a city to recruit them? and its a 2 turn recruit time as well?
@@Albtraum_TDDC It does not. The barbarian are only able to level up settlements to a minor city, two less than the Mediterranean civilisations. The developers therefore decided to give them more variation in their units in order to make them worth playing or possible to play at all. Berserkers are incredibly strong in melee, but you lose control of them as soon as they charge. Gallic archers are incredibly strong early game, but that is basically the only thing Gauls have going for them that keeps them alive. Brittonic chariots are novelty based. Scythian archers are backed up by no economy and can be forced off of the map easily, so the scythian AI is one of the easiest to beat on the battle map even with trash units, and a Scythian player will have an extremely boring game until they crack open a few cities. The spanish are like a mix of Romans, Carthaginians and Gauls without many of the useful units of any. They are wiped off the map before Rome even meets them. The Dacians and Thracians are dog water. Germania is the strongest Barb faction in the game, but is frequently destroyed by other barbarian factions and which are then also destroyed by Rome. The most top 5 most powerful factions are: 5) Scipii 4) Carthage 3) Julii 2) Brutii 1) Egypt Carthage and Scipii can be swapped. OP is only playing against the computer. If you're using experience with the computer to claim a unit is overpowered, I can defend a city with one unit of Sacred Band Infantry and 5 units of peasants against a full egyptian stack. You can use three or four phalanx of any unit to defend against anything any AI throws at you (besides elephants perhaps) on any map by just putting them in the corner. You can take a full army of just elephants into battle and never lose. OP's own army can easily be destroyed by a cavalry charge. It might actually be countered easily by an army of half onagers/ half cavalry. An army of Scipii wardogs would wipe his army out with ease. Experience with the AI's inability to respond to what you have does not mean that all or any barbarian factions are overpowered.
The Cataphract archer is also available from a tier 2 stables...at 190 gold upkeep...60 shots..it is the most powerful...cost effective for city size unit in the game
The biggest issue with mercenary units in the original was the inability to retrain them and of course limited availability. Not sure if you can retrain mercenaries in the remake but if not than it's still their biggest weakness. Still obviously amazing units but with glaring weaknesses. Speaking of mercenaries, Baeleric Slingers are also pretty amazing ranged mercenary units that unlike the Cretan Archers are very underrated.
If memory serves you can retrain them but it doesn't replace lost individuals, it just retrains them with better equipment. ie a Cretan archer unit card with 30 individuals when retrained will go from bronze to silver gear but still only have 30 individuals in the unit.
@@jackbizzell7136 that has always worked since the original. The question is with the remake if they added the ability to retrain a mercenary unit and add the missing men to it, if you are in a province with that mercenary available.
I would have not mixed cav archrs/ Chariot archers with foot archers. Totally different thing. Foot archers with light cav. HA with Spears, Chariots with swords. and SKITHIAN, not SCYTHEian.
Archers, skirmishers and siege all perform the same basic functions with varying degrees of effectiveness and novelty. It makes sense to cut siege weapons out to a degree, but to cut horse archers out would be stupid. A horse archer is just a faster moving archer (archers are already too fast for infantry to catch generally) with less range, less ammunition that can fire while moving. Light cavalry can counter all types of archer. Also the common pronunciation is "Sithian".
Siege onagers are busted. Take 4 of them into a battle as Carthage and you can snipe the enemy general and wreak havoc on whatever part of the enemy line you choose. They have the highest range of any unit in the game, and can technically duel well against archers on this basis.
Armenian Cataphract Archers can skirmish arrows but also charge. So one unit can smash into the enemy while the rest shoot down the unit stuck engaging the charged unit.
Why would you take a unit that can skirmish and charge with moderate effectiveness rather than several that specialize in those areas? Take a Spartan Hoplites unit to pin down enemies and surround it with Cretan archers and you have exactly what you're talking about. Or take a Gallic heavy cav unit to charge and pin while Forester War bands tear it up.
@@johnirby8847 That does not answer why the mix would not be more effective, especially in the case of the Spartan Hoplite + Cretan archers. It also does not explain why other horse archers would be better because they are faster, have more ammo, more stamina and can just not engage when the cataphracts charge. Your argument is that the Cataphract archer is one of the best archers in the game because it is practically a melee unit. It's alt attack can be outshone by a Selucid Companion Cavalry unit, or Scipii Praetorian cavalry if the tactic of pinning while taking fire is even necessary.
@Gammonator Companions and Praetorians require tier 5 stables and huge cities! Do you get what I'm saying now? Do you see how powerful and cost-effective it is to have a large town capable of producing units like that!? You can beat the game before anyone gets a chance to do anything. This is on VH/VH. They are just too overpowered...you can just overwhelm everyone before they can do anything 🤷🏼♂️
Fan favourite. But mix with regular HAs. So you have some medium archers that can do both ranged and good on melee, and Quick HAs. Armenia lacks regular light cav, so Cata Archers have to do that.
@@johnirby8847 Anything can stomp anything in RTW depending on context. In Auto battles and on the field they are generally inferior to everything on the list, especially the foot archers for versatility.
I've been playing the original Rome Total War lately and it is so damn good that I'm really thinking hard about picking up the remaster to compare the two. I find it funny because I grew up playing Diablo 2 all the time and I still haven't bought the remaster for that yet here I am thinking about getting the remaster for Rome. Lol
Have them in at most a 2:3 ratio with melee units. Skirmisher units require more micro to keep alive and effective because of their short range. Use infantry and cav to protect skirmishers from enemy cavalry, be careful with slingers because while they are very strong, they will almost invariably hit whatever is between them and their target because their projectile trajectory is much less vertical than other ranged units. Ranged cavalry units tend to be useful on the open field where they can retreat but not elsewhere. Siege is for sniping other siege units and enemy generals, morale destruction, and for making it really easy to attack settlements. The archers on elephants are largely a vestigial novelty, but do help in pursuit. One of the main things foot archers/ skirmishers are good at with their range is attacking fleeing enemies because of high speed and range. Obviously mounted archers are better at this, but not much better than their melee cav equivalent. There are some ranged units with a decent melee attack and vice versa. If you're defending and do not intend to charge, make sure you set Roman melee units (besides Auxilia and Triarii) to auto-fire, because they have two pila per soldier which are good for softening a charge or softening for an enemy to receive a charge. Some Peltast units are skirmishers which have much higher armour and melee attacks, but less ammunition and lower movement; units like Peltasts are supposed to be used to reinforce melee breaking points/ extend lines after they're done skirmishing, which is shown by their tight formation by ranged unit standards. Skirmishers are very strong against elephants. If you're able to, put them in loose formation and intercept elephants that charge towards your melee line (you may need to turn of auto-skirmish and micro manage a lot to minimise damage). Against elephant expect to take damage. There is no coming out of a battle with elephants unscathed without overwhelming firepower. The goal is to trade economically. Elephant units take two turns to train, cost at least 1300 to create and have a 280 upkeep cost and can cost twice as much at later tiers. With this in mind, the fact that skirmishers can counter them at less than 200 recruitment and upkeep per unit is pretty insane. Fire ammunition is strong against siege and good for inflicting low morale. It also does more damage, but makes missiles far less accurate. it should not be used in siege duels, as siege weapons are already accurate enough and deal enough damage to each other without it. Fire ammo increases the splash range and damage of Onagers, which can easily kill 15 units in one shot (if they're able to hit). Be careful while using slingers. They have less range and a little less damage than archers generally, but much more ammunition, so can be strong in protracted battles. They are most useful for fighting on hills though, as their projectile trajectory is much less vertical than archers and skirmishers. It is highly likely that you'll lose a few soldiers on a flat battle to your slingers shooting them in the back of the head. This is generally inconsequential, but could add up if you aren't conscious of it.
Biggest snub in this list are the Chosen Archers. Sure, their range damage is lower than Cretan or Foresters but they win every ranged duel due to their great defensive stats. They also have amazing melee attack, great bonuses, use swords and have the stats of a medium infantry. With a bit of XP, they even beat pre-Marian romans in hand to hand combat. They're on par with Pharaoh's Bowmen, only much cheaper, taking 1 turn to recruit and having half the upkeep. When it comes to archers, here's everything that you need to know: Best one stat-wise: Pharaoh's Bowmen Best one in the pure-archer role (you don't expect enemy to fire back or reach you): Foresters Best one in terms of bang for the buck/efficiency as well as versatility: Chosen Archers Mixing horse archers and regular archers is stupid as they serve completely different purposes. A correct top 5 archer tier list for Campaign, taking everything into account, would be: 1. Foresters - you have the temples to get them to 17 attack out of the gate, they are simply OP as hell. using spears in melee means that they do better than expected against their direct counter (cav). only downside is that they take 2 turns to recruit. their upkeep however is very very reasonable at 200 gold per turn. 2. Chosen Archers - very well rounded, versatile and very cheap to recruit and upkeep for an elite unit. With a faction like Dacia that has great temples, including for morale, you can boost them to insane power levels. They out-trade every other ranged unit (outside Pharaoh's Bowmen in desert) and are also very useful even after running out of ammo as they are a legit medium infantry. 3. Pharaoh's Bowmen - very pricy but with amazing stats, you have the temples and upgrades to get them to Gold/Gold. just like Chosen, they are great even in melee. 4. Cretan Archers - very oppressive early on for the factions that can get their hands on them early. Biggest advantage is that they require no tech and are available to every faction that goes through their area. It's a mistake not to recruit them as often as you can if your faction lacks elite archer units. 5. Archer Auxilla - weakest of the bunch and comes in very late into the game, but has the elite range and benefits from the Roman temples and upgrades, which depending on your faction, can get this unit to pretty oppressive stats.
Horse archers and foot archers serve identical functions. The only distinction is that horse archers can be made into an effective army with no other unit type necessary. I'm fine with having separate lists for foot archers and horse archers, but to deride the concept of an archer/ ranged unit tier list is ridiculous. Clearly the designers and AI treats them like the same fundamental thing/ just look at how the army compositions. I do agree with your list generally. I think you're putting gold trading value too high in terms of relevance though, which is only reliably relevant in battles with a gold limit. It is not a likely scenario that a Greek or Egyptian (and likely not Gallic either) player would have less money available to them than the Dacian player. This is not taking into account the effect that the unit army limit has on battles. If Pharaoh's bowmen are twice as expensive and lose in each battle where they are outnumbered two to one, that's all well and good if you're sending up half an army of Pharoah's Bowmen against a full army of Chosen archers. But if you're sending a full army of Pharoah's bowmen against three consecutive full armies of Chosen archers, it should break each one, meaning that over the course of those battles it has paid itself back. This is why the statistically strongest unit is most desirable, because it has a compounding effect on gold value, and overpowering the enemy in a campaign or battle setting.
@@gammonator8913 you're contradicting yourself heavily. if horse archers and normal ones are fundamentally the same, it means you don't value mobility much. on that case, no horse archer should be on the list, as horse archers are worse both in ranged duels and against melee infantry than all elite archers in the game. if it's all about total strength, then you should have armored elephants on the first spot and then the elite archer units, as well as cataphract archers; anything else being much worse. in regards to pharoh's bowmen vs chosen archers, what you're saying would make sense if the gold ratio would translate on the field; but it's not, PB are not twice as good, they are 5-10% better at most, possibly even losing to chosens in woods or snow. also, chosens have a higher melee attack than ranged so, as a backup infantry may be just as good as pharoh's bowmen (haven't tested it myself yet). however, I feel we're missing the point here. point is regardless how you're looking at this, the list is complete trash and makes no sense. there are only 5 on foot elite archers in this game, 3 of them are amazing for various reasons and 2 of them are way worse. putting in cretans, and snubbing chosen archer warband is a blasphemy that only people that don't know the game make. it's the dunning krueger effect that make people overestimate cretans. they see that high attack and automatically assume they are an amazing unit. the fact that you get them very early into the game, when they won't face any other archer units (let alone elite ones), makes them appear stupid OP, but in the grand scheme of things, they are simply not better than the really elite archer units this game has to offer. even by your own arguments, the top 5 should he: Armored Elephants Cataphract Archers Pharoh's Bowmen Chosen Archer Warband Forrester Archer Warband
the noble archers have one big upside, they require one turn and only tier 3 to build, that isn’t only in scythia itself but in other cities too, and what is below scythia? greece, and what has greece? big cities. and what do big cities have? good barracks😊
i feel like egyptian chariot archers are close to top 5 as well. no they don't output a ton of ranged damage at speed but good luck dealing with them with anything besides a flood of your own arrows, and they're also, well, chariots though in a perfect situation (on top of a mountain) balearic/rhodian slingers are the deadliest missile unit rome 1 has to offer
Agreed. Slingers tend to do massive damage if they're able to go for ages. In a siege defense they will wreck anything so long as they stay on the walls. I tend to prefer onagers to any other ranged unit though. They have long enough range to take out any other siege unit without being challenged, and the ability to snipe a general from half the map away. There's also the added bonus of being able to auto resolve/ siege on the first turn. Their crazy range will also force a besieging army off the map in almost any siege scenario, from village to huge city to General-army fortification, at least with the AI.
@@MauriceTarantulas lol yes. I think it's probably pronounced "Ars-eh" with the e at the end, like in German. But I always just stick with the English pronunciation lol it's funnier
They're weaker and have less range than Cretan archers. They are strong in protracted combat where they get to make use of more ammo and better accuracy (maybe) but are worse for the fact that they shoot your own troops in the back (for bonus damage too) if you use troops as cover. They're most effective in elevation battles and siege defenses, but only if the battle was already very close. The foot archers on this list would generally outclass them when the enemy is using anything that isn't sappers, siege ladders, or onagers to breach your wall, as they can destroy siege weapons with fire arrows. Balearic slingers are the best ranged option available early for Julii, Spain, Carthage and maybe Gaul/ Scipii, but in practicality and availability they get replaced very quickly for most of those in terms of ranged options, or in terms of ranged necessity.
Scythian is pronounced "Sith-ian" even though we call the tool a scythe and not a "Sith." Also Seleucid is pronounced Cell-Lew-Cid not cell-u-cid. Cheers.
being a cautious and defensive guy i don't seem to like the diplomacy in rome and medieval and them moving around my lands then declaring war with no notice unlike in "majority" of my time on 3 kingdoms, yeah sometimes someone Ylike Sun Ce will march through my lands when I'm Cao Cao to hit Yuan Shao and declare war on me while in my lands but most times only 3 kingdoms has some modicum of logic with diplomacy like they somewhat care to be careful, its turning me off from rome and medieval, how does one defend his land if he thinks everyone is going to attack him just because they have armies near me? im not a psycho i dont declare war on everyone for a This is Total War! achievement I can only take on 1 or maybe 2 if possible but taking on France, Spain, Portugal and The entire Holy Roman Empire, Logic declared me dead at that point, im not complaining, I dont want to quit but there has to be a way most people play i dont see and dont want my first impression being terrible diplomacy, or do I have to keep using diplomacy more frequently then I would in 3K? _ I am liking Rome most of the two but I hear the same problem will exist more often then not
I haven't played Rome 1 in a long time, but I did play Medieval 2. From my experience, as long as you don't expand too rapidly, often pick Occupy rather than Sack and Exterminate, and also keep a strong enough garrison, most factions won't mess around with you. Edit: You can look up "Medieval 2 Conquering as English gentleman" forum if you want to try something like that out
In my Range Infantry-only hard campaign as France, I ally with both England and Papal states early on and rarely expand due to how few my range infantries are. Despite that, no one attack me until I'm already well-prepared with my stacks of cheap Crossbowmen, recruited from either Castle's 2nd tier range building or Cities' City Watch. And even then, there still aren't many factions that did attack. Only Milan at first, then HRE, and after I crusade for Egypt and take Genoa Venice also attack. Finishing them off can feel a bit tedious though, since the wars stop once in a while since I want to keep a good relationship with the papacy. On the other hand though, the AI also seems to follow the pope's orders.
Ok, first of all, I have like 500 hours on Rome Total War, and I never really considered unit stats, I think you could just look at two units and understand which one would win, just from the name and the appearance. And secondly, I remember Cretan Archers having better range than any other Archer unit, why did they do my boys like that.
Have you ever played the game Roman infantry is better than literally anything the only thing even remotely better is cav and really only on hard difficulty and higher because flanking
@@kainwittrig2180 the Greeks are way under-powered, you have stupid chariots OP in manual and auto combat, barbarians with better stats and morale than civilized armies, head throwers that are like Grenadiers, druids, shrieking women, barb cav and infantry that are way too good for price. Even the unwieldy phallanx made so buggy to excuse the weak stats with the long range you almost never get vs competent opponent... I mean the game is super easy (and so many exploits in combat or economy/diplomacy), but the bias is obvious in the stats.
the forester warband is actually a tier 3 unit, and requires 2 turns to recruit. making it more of a mid/late game unit considering how hard it can sometimes be to get to city status for barbarians
I was wondering why it's stats are so good but it doesn't tell you the build time and stuff in the custom battle section.
@Michael Anderson The thing that i really find odd is that for the Gaul’s it takes two turns to recruit each unit, but the Germanic’s only require 1 turn. That is a MASSIVE difference in the speed to get enough archers into a stack to make them feel worthwhile.
"Archers are the backbone of any military army"
*Cry in Carthaginian*
top two levels of elephants and elephant mercenaries use archers. Slingers are also very powerful in protracted combat, with much more ammo (40 vs 30 for Balearic slingers vs Cretan archers), so as units in a part of very large army early game, slingers may actually be superior in terms of damage done. Unfortunately I have found that they have more of a problem with causing friendly fire because they loose more horizontally and archers loose more vertically.
I think the pontic heavy cav is slept on. They have a strong javelin attack, and in melee no other horseback missile unit can hang with them. En masse, they're able to distrupt infantry armies not as well as horse archers, but well enough, and they can be relied upon for melee charges to break those armies much more so than horse archers can. They can benefit from the pontic chariot archers and cappadocians as well.
holy grail of elephant killing
Love it bro!
LETS EAT HOT DOGS!!!
Scythian horse archers: we totally rock!
Parthians: Are we a joke to you?
Cretan archers
Armenian cathaphract archers: Hold my beer
Agree with this mostly, Foresters and Nobles are crazy good. But what about Cataphract Archers?? They BY FAR have the strongest melee stats of any ranged unit in the game (the same or very close as normal Cataphracts), and the same range as Nobles, and only require Minor Cities to build. I'll admit they're slow for a horse archer unit, but everything else makes up for it and they certainly should have ranked.
Their attack is super weak though. Only 7 attack vs 11 for foresters. That’s a whole 5 point difference !
@@bingingbinging8597 four*
So...Forrester Warbands are basically Battanian Fian Champions and Scythian Noble Guards are just Khuzait Keshigs. Word.
To be honest, I like all archers. Especially in Barbarian Invasion I find that even the worst archer unit is deadly when allowed to use its ammunition (although you may need more of them).
But I'll say I always prefer archers on foot. I know horsearchers can be really effective, their speed allowing them to avoid melee and making them superb at flanking. But I never fear them when facing them, which is not the case with elite foot archers.
They are soooo much harder to get as Gaul. They tear shit apart, true, but with all they have to deal with? Your campaign is often over already.... victory or defeat.
I'm playing as Gaul now and my army are just 100% Forester Warband. + 3 experience, Armour +1 and weapon +3 from my Temples. Nothing and I mean Nothing can stop you.
The computer hold its ground, they die. If they charge they die faster!
Entire units are wiped out and broken in a single volley! Even if cavalry charge you they fall before you! I have 18 missile Attack, that's enough to kill most infantry outright head on... and 18 close combat Attack so if anything gets close enough it's really not a problem.
If the enemy run, I'm fast moving and just run and shoot them down... it's very satisfying to shoot a until to death in their backs... I do very little mopping up after a battle... almost nothing survives my army.
this sounds interesting. will have to try it. his video said you are able to train those archers as a tier 2 unit. if memory serves me right you need a city to recruit them? and its a 2 turn recruit time as well?
Sounds OP. This game feels like it has some barbarian bias, maybe the creators were Northern Europeans jealous of classical civilizations.
Be careful. Cataphract archers will mess your day up.
@@Albtraum_TDDC It does not. The barbarian are only able to level up settlements to a minor city, two less than the Mediterranean civilisations. The developers therefore decided to give them more variation in their units in order to make them worth playing or possible to play at all.
Berserkers are incredibly strong in melee, but you lose control of them as soon as they charge. Gallic archers are incredibly strong early game, but that is basically the only thing Gauls have going for them that keeps them alive. Brittonic chariots are novelty based. Scythian archers are backed up by no economy and can be forced off of the map easily, so the scythian AI is one of the easiest to beat on the battle map even with trash units, and a Scythian player will have an extremely boring game until they crack open a few cities. The spanish are like a mix of Romans, Carthaginians and Gauls without many of the useful units of any. They are wiped off the map before Rome even meets them. The Dacians and Thracians are dog water.
Germania is the strongest Barb faction in the game, but is frequently destroyed by other barbarian factions and which are then also destroyed by Rome. The most top 5 most powerful factions are:
5) Scipii
4) Carthage
3) Julii
2) Brutii
1) Egypt
Carthage and Scipii can be swapped.
OP is only playing against the computer. If you're using experience with the computer to claim a unit is overpowered, I can defend a city with one unit of Sacred Band Infantry and 5 units of peasants against a full egyptian stack. You can use three or four phalanx of any unit to defend against anything any AI throws at you (besides elephants perhaps) on any map by just putting them in the corner.
You can take a full army of just elephants into battle and never lose. OP's own army can easily be destroyed by a cavalry charge. It might actually be countered easily by an army of half onagers/ half cavalry. An army of Scipii wardogs would wipe his army out with ease. Experience with the AI's inability to respond to what you have does not mean that all or any barbarian factions are overpowered.
@@gammonator8913 OP sounds way more convincing than you tbh.
Honorable mention for Baeleric slingers?
and Rhodian Slingers.
The Cataphract archer is also available from a tier 2 stables...at 190 gold upkeep...60 shots..it is the most powerful...cost effective for city size unit in the game
Balieric slingers are pretty dam good
The biggest issue with mercenary units in the original was the inability to retrain them and of course limited availability. Not sure if you can retrain mercenaries in the remake but if not than it's still their biggest weakness. Still obviously amazing units but with glaring weaknesses. Speaking of mercenaries, Baeleric Slingers are also pretty amazing ranged mercenary units that unlike the Cretan Archers are very underrated.
As far as I know you can only retrain mercenaries if there are any of that mercenary type available for hire in the province they're in.
@@HouseOfAlastrian does it use up the merc for hire if you retrain your other unit?
If memory serves you can retrain them but it doesn't replace lost individuals, it just retrains them with better equipment. ie a Cretan archer unit card with 30 individuals when retrained will go from bronze to silver gear but still only have 30 individuals in the unit.
@@jackbizzell7136 that has always worked since the original.
The question is with the remake if they added the ability to retrain a mercenary unit and add the missing men to it, if you are in a province with that mercenary available.
@@Albtraum_TDDC Nope. I said that in my other comment lol
I only play as The Seleucid Empire! Never heard of them in any history class until Rome II, introduced me, now I am obsessed!
Am I missing something? I thought all archers can use flaming missiles
Confusing putting both Foot Archer and Cav Archers in the same Top 5 listing
I think that armenian cataphact archers are better than scythian noble archers. Better armor, easier access, same range
They are! I have no clue how he came to the decision that noble archers were better than cataphract archers
I would have not mixed cav archrs/ Chariot archers with foot archers. Totally different thing.
Foot archers with light cav. HA with Spears, Chariots with swords.
and SKITHIAN, not SCYTHEian.
Archers, skirmishers and siege all perform the same basic functions with varying degrees of effectiveness and novelty. It makes sense to cut siege weapons out to a degree, but to cut horse archers out would be stupid. A horse archer is just a faster moving archer (archers are already too fast for infantry to catch generally) with less range, less ammunition that can fire while moving.
Light cavalry can counter all types of archer.
Also the common pronunciation is "Sithian".
Love it! keep these videos coming
One more coming out tomorrow! :)
Are archer auxilia not in the game anymore? They used to be comparable to cretans with better armor.
How are seige engines in rome 1, worth including for more than wall breaking?
Artilery does do alot of damage though the bigger the siege engine the less accurate they tend to be
Siege onagers are busted. Take 4 of them into a battle as Carthage and you can snipe the enemy general and wreak havoc on whatever part of the enemy line you choose. They have the highest range of any unit in the game, and can technically duel well against archers on this basis.
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1 more day boys!
No rhodian slingers? 😢
Armenian Cataphract Archers can skirmish arrows but also charge. So one unit can smash into the enemy while the rest shoot down the unit stuck engaging the charged unit.
Why would you take a unit that can skirmish and charge with moderate effectiveness rather than several that specialize in those areas? Take a Spartan Hoplites unit to pin down enemies and surround it with Cretan archers and you have exactly what you're talking about. Or take a Gallic heavy cav unit to charge and pin while Forester War bands tear it up.
@@gammonator8913 because the alt attack is the highest of any cavalry in the game...including cataphracts
@@johnirby8847 That does not answer why the mix would not be more effective, especially in the case of the Spartan Hoplite + Cretan archers. It also does not explain why other horse archers would be better because they are faster, have more ammo, more stamina and can just not engage when the cataphracts charge. Your argument is that the Cataphract archer is one of the best archers in the game because it is practically a melee unit. It's alt attack can be outshone by a Selucid Companion Cavalry unit, or Scipii Praetorian cavalry if the tactic of pinning while taking fire is even necessary.
@Gammonator Companions and Praetorians require tier 5 stables and huge cities! Do you get what I'm saying now? Do you see how powerful and cost-effective it is to have a large town capable of producing units like that!? You can beat the game before anyone gets a chance to do anything. This is on VH/VH. They are just too overpowered...you can just overwhelm everyone before they can do anything 🤷🏼♂️
Do cataphract archers belong on this list? What do people think?
Very low damage and range :( also quite slow so get locked in combat quickly
Fan favourite. But mix with regular HAs. So you have some medium archers that can do both ranged and good on melee, and Quick HAs. Armenia lacks regular light cav, so Cata Archers have to do that.
@@italianspartacus bs....it is 190 upkeep, can be recruited from a large town tier 2 stables and can absolutely stomp noble archers
@@johnirby8847 Anything can stomp anything in RTW depending on context. In Auto battles and on the field they are generally inferior to everything on the list, especially the foot archers for versatility.
@@gammonator8913 I've never used autobattle.
Can't wait for your playthrough of this amazing game 🤗
Can you do best infantry and then best faction
Best faction out tomorrow :)
Great video my dude.
I've been playing the original Rome Total War lately and it is so damn good that I'm really thinking hard about picking up the remaster to compare the two. I find it funny because I grew up playing Diablo 2 all the time and I still haven't bought the remaster for that yet here I am thinking about getting the remaster for Rome. Lol
Duuude she is singing Latin (with American pronunciation btw), not Greek :D
Hahahaha I know I'm just having fun :)
Please teach tactics on how to use ranged units effectively.
Have them in at most a 2:3 ratio with melee units. Skirmisher units require more micro to keep alive and effective because of their short range. Use infantry and cav to protect skirmishers from enemy cavalry, be careful with slingers because while they are very strong, they will almost invariably hit whatever is between them and their target because their projectile trajectory is much less vertical than other ranged units. Ranged cavalry units tend to be useful on the open field where they can retreat but not elsewhere. Siege is for sniping other siege units and enemy generals, morale destruction, and for making it really easy to attack settlements. The archers on elephants are largely a vestigial novelty, but do help in pursuit.
One of the main things foot archers/ skirmishers are good at with their range is attacking fleeing enemies because of high speed and range. Obviously mounted archers are better at this, but not much better than their melee cav equivalent.
There are some ranged units with a decent melee attack and vice versa. If you're defending and do not intend to charge, make sure you set Roman melee units (besides Auxilia and Triarii) to auto-fire, because they have two pila per soldier which are good for softening a charge or softening for an enemy to receive a charge. Some Peltast units are skirmishers which have much higher armour and melee attacks, but less ammunition and lower movement; units like Peltasts are supposed to be used to reinforce melee breaking points/ extend lines after they're done skirmishing, which is shown by their tight formation by ranged unit standards.
Skirmishers are very strong against elephants. If you're able to, put them in loose formation and intercept elephants that charge towards your melee line (you may need to turn of auto-skirmish and micro manage a lot to minimise damage). Against elephant expect to take damage. There is no coming out of a battle with elephants unscathed without overwhelming firepower. The goal is to trade economically. Elephant units take two turns to train, cost at least 1300 to create and have a 280 upkeep cost and can cost twice as much at later tiers. With this in mind, the fact that skirmishers can counter them at less than 200 recruitment and upkeep per unit is pretty insane.
Fire ammunition is strong against siege and good for inflicting low morale. It also does more damage, but makes missiles far less accurate. it should not be used in siege duels, as siege weapons are already accurate enough and deal enough damage to each other without it. Fire ammo increases the splash range and damage of Onagers, which can easily kill 15 units in one shot (if they're able to hit).
Be careful while using slingers. They have less range and a little less damage than archers generally, but much more ammunition, so can be strong in protracted battles. They are most useful for fighting on hills though, as their projectile trajectory is much less vertical than archers and skirmishers. It is highly likely that you'll lose a few soldiers on a flat battle to your slingers shooting them in the back of the head. This is generally inconsequential, but could add up if you aren't conscious of it.
Hey Italian, just to say I did receive this in my notifications
I am also here because hype!
Thanks dude really appreciate it right now
I always thought the lady was singing in latin!
She is Hahah
No Baeleric slingers? That’s blasphemy!
i remember getting foresters on to captured cities stone walls and just wrecking house on any seige attackers
Biggest snub in this list are the Chosen Archers. Sure, their range damage is lower than Cretan or Foresters but they win every ranged duel due to their great defensive stats. They also have amazing melee attack, great bonuses, use swords and have the stats of a medium infantry. With a bit of XP, they even beat pre-Marian romans in hand to hand combat. They're on par with Pharaoh's Bowmen, only much cheaper, taking 1 turn to recruit and having half the upkeep.
When it comes to archers, here's everything that you need to know:
Best one stat-wise: Pharaoh's Bowmen
Best one in the pure-archer role (you don't expect enemy to fire back or reach you): Foresters
Best one in terms of bang for the buck/efficiency as well as versatility: Chosen Archers
Mixing horse archers and regular archers is stupid as they serve completely different purposes. A correct top 5 archer tier list for Campaign, taking everything into account, would be:
1. Foresters - you have the temples to get them to 17 attack out of the gate, they are simply OP as hell. using spears in melee means that they do better than expected against their direct counter (cav). only downside is that they take 2 turns to recruit. their upkeep however is very very reasonable at 200 gold per turn.
2. Chosen Archers - very well rounded, versatile and very cheap to recruit and upkeep for an elite unit. With a faction like Dacia that has great temples, including for morale, you can boost them to insane power levels. They out-trade every other ranged unit (outside Pharaoh's Bowmen in desert) and are also very useful even after running out of ammo as they are a legit medium infantry.
3. Pharaoh's Bowmen - very pricy but with amazing stats, you have the temples and upgrades to get them to Gold/Gold. just like Chosen, they are great even in melee.
4. Cretan Archers - very oppressive early on for the factions that can get their hands on them early. Biggest advantage is that they require no tech and are available to every faction that goes through their area. It's a mistake not to recruit them as often as you can if your faction lacks elite archer units.
5. Archer Auxilla - weakest of the bunch and comes in very late into the game, but has the elite range and benefits from the Roman temples and upgrades, which depending on your faction, can get this unit to pretty oppressive stats.
Horse archers and foot archers serve identical functions. The only distinction is that horse archers can be made into an effective army with no other unit type necessary. I'm fine with having separate lists for foot archers and horse archers, but to deride the concept of an archer/ ranged unit tier list is ridiculous. Clearly the designers and AI treats them like the same fundamental thing/ just look at how the army compositions.
I do agree with your list generally. I think you're putting gold trading value too high in terms of relevance though, which is only reliably relevant in battles with a gold limit. It is not a likely scenario that a Greek or Egyptian (and likely not Gallic either) player would have less money available to them than the Dacian player. This is not taking into account the effect that the unit army limit has on battles. If Pharaoh's bowmen are twice as expensive and lose in each battle where they are outnumbered two to one, that's all well and good if you're sending up half an army of Pharoah's Bowmen against a full army of Chosen archers. But if you're sending a full army of Pharoah's bowmen against three consecutive full armies of Chosen archers, it should break each one, meaning that over the course of those battles it has paid itself back. This is why the statistically strongest unit is most desirable, because it has a compounding effect on gold value, and overpowering the enemy in a campaign or battle setting.
@@gammonator8913 you're contradicting yourself heavily. if horse archers and normal ones are fundamentally the same, it means you don't value mobility much. on that case, no horse archer should be on the list, as horse archers are worse both in ranged duels and against melee infantry than all elite archers in the game.
if it's all about total strength, then you should have armored elephants on the first spot and then the elite archer units, as well as cataphract archers; anything else being much worse.
in regards to pharoh's bowmen vs chosen archers, what you're saying would make sense if the gold ratio would translate on the field; but it's not, PB are not twice as good, they are 5-10% better at most, possibly even losing to chosens in woods or snow. also, chosens have a higher melee attack than ranged so, as a backup infantry may be just as good as pharoh's bowmen (haven't tested it myself yet).
however, I feel we're missing the point here. point is regardless how you're looking at this, the list is complete trash and makes no sense. there are only 5 on foot elite archers in this game, 3 of them are amazing for various reasons and 2 of them are way worse. putting in cretans, and snubbing chosen archer warband is a blasphemy that only people that don't know the game make.
it's the dunning krueger effect that make people overestimate cretans. they see that high attack and automatically assume they are an amazing unit. the fact that you get them very early into the game, when they won't face any other archer units (let alone elite ones), makes them appear stupid OP, but in the grand scheme of things, they are simply not better than the really elite archer units this game has to offer.
even by your own arguments, the top 5 should he:
Armored Elephants
Cataphract Archers
Pharoh's Bowmen
Chosen Archer Warband
Forrester Archer Warband
the noble archers have one big upside, they require one turn and only tier 3 to build, that isn’t only in scythia itself but in other cities too, and what is below scythia? greece, and what has greece? big cities. and what do big cities have? good barracks😊
Cretan archers are ultimate and alyways stack up if possible
i feel like egyptian chariot archers are close to top 5 as well. no they don't output a ton of ranged damage at speed but good luck dealing with them with anything besides a flood of your own arrows, and they're also, well, chariots
though in a perfect situation (on top of a mountain) balearic/rhodian slingers are the deadliest missile unit rome 1 has to offer
Agreed. Slingers tend to do massive damage if they're able to go for ages. In a siege defense they will wreck anything so long as they stay on the walls. I tend to prefer onagers to any other ranged unit though. They have long enough range to take out any other siege unit without being challenged, and the ability to snipe a general from half the map away. There's also the added bonus of being able to auto resolve/ siege on the first turn. Their crazy range will also force a besieging army off the map in almost any siege scenario, from village to huge city to General-army fortification, at least with the AI.
Cretan archers have the same range as any other elite archers
Persian Cavalry is very interesting
Especially in online battles
I agree but they just can't hang against cataphract archers...same missiles at 60...same speed...same stamina...but less armor.
Think you arent saying Scythian right but just a minor thing...😉👍👍👍
(I might be wrong ofc)
He also pronounced Pergamon like "Perjamon," like Pajama with j, instead of the hard g, like gamer lol kinda cracked me up.
@@alexseferiades515 How do you pronouce Arse?😜 The Turdetanis favourite place....
@@MauriceTarantulas lol yes. I think it's probably pronounced "Ars-eh" with the e at the end, like in German. But I always just stick with the English pronunciation lol it's funnier
I thought Cretan Archers are number 1.
what about Balearic slingers?
They're weaker and have less range than Cretan archers. They are strong in protracted combat where they get to make use of more ammo and better accuracy (maybe) but are worse for the fact that they shoot your own troops in the back (for bonus damage too) if you use troops as cover. They're most effective in elevation battles and siege defenses, but only if the battle was already very close. The foot archers on this list would generally outclass them when the enemy is using anything that isn't sappers, siege ladders, or onagers to breach your wall, as they can destroy siege weapons with fire arrows.
Balearic slingers are the best ranged option available early for Julii, Spain, Carthage and maybe Gaul/ Scipii, but in practicality and availability they get replaced very quickly for most of those in terms of ranged options, or in terms of ranged necessity.
Scythian is pronounced "Sith-ian" even though we call the tool a scythe and not a "Sith."
Also Seleucid is pronounced Cell-Lew-Cid not cell-u-cid.
Cheers.
If you played RTW's multiplayer you'd know that this hasn't changed lol.
Archers of yeet.
Persian cavalry
being a cautious and defensive guy i don't seem to like the diplomacy in rome and medieval and them moving around my lands then declaring war with no notice unlike in "majority" of my time on 3 kingdoms, yeah sometimes someone Ylike Sun Ce will march through my lands when I'm Cao Cao to hit Yuan Shao and declare war on me while in my lands but most times only 3 kingdoms has some modicum of logic with diplomacy like they somewhat care to be careful, its turning me off from rome and medieval, how does one defend his land if he thinks everyone is going to attack him just because they have armies near me? im not a psycho i dont declare war on everyone for a This is Total War! achievement I can only take on 1 or maybe 2 if possible but taking on France, Spain, Portugal and The entire Holy Roman Empire, Logic declared me dead at that point, im not complaining, I dont want to quit but there has to be a way most people play i dont see and dont want my first impression being terrible diplomacy, or do I have to keep using diplomacy more frequently then I would in 3K?
_
I am liking Rome most of the two but I hear the same problem will exist more often then not
I haven't played Rome 1 in a long time, but I did play Medieval 2.
From my experience, as long as you don't expand too rapidly, often pick Occupy rather than Sack and Exterminate, and also keep a strong enough garrison, most factions won't mess around with you.
Edit: You can look up "Medieval 2 Conquering as English gentleman" forum if you want to try something like that out
In my Range Infantry-only hard campaign as France, I ally with both England and Papal states early on and rarely expand due to how few my range infantries are.
Despite that, no one attack me until I'm already well-prepared with my stacks of cheap Crossbowmen, recruited from either Castle's 2nd tier range building or Cities' City Watch.
And even then, there still aren't many factions that did attack. Only Milan at first, then HRE, and after I crusade for Egypt and take Genoa Venice also attack.
Finishing them off can feel a bit tedious though, since the wars stop once in a while since I want to keep a good relationship with the papacy. On the other hand though, the AI also seems to follow the pope's orders.
I disagree. Cataphract archers beat Scythian noble archers. 60 shots vs 30 shots. Much better armoured and better missile and melee attack stats
Cata archers have 30 ammo as well. If they take longer to run out of narrows it's because they fire more slowly.
@@perrymeril ok thanks!
Ok, first of all, I have like 500 hours on Rome Total War, and I never really considered unit stats, I think you could just look at two units and understand which one would win, just from the name and the appearance. And secondly, I remember Cretan Archers having better range than any other Archer unit, why did they do my boys like that.
Algorithm
To see my barbarian factions getting 3 of the top 5 is beautiful... One could kill Rome to this video...
Good vid but loaded with mispronunciations.
This game feels like it has some barbarian bias, maybe the creators were Northern Europeans jealous of classical civilizations.
Have you ever played the game Roman infantry is better than literally anything the only thing even remotely better is cav and really only on hard difficulty and higher because flanking
@@kainwittrig2180 the Greeks are way under-powered, you have stupid chariots OP in manual and auto combat, barbarians with better stats and morale than civilized armies, head throwers that are like Grenadiers, druids, shrieking women, barb cav and infantry that are way too good for price. Even the unwieldy phallanx made so buggy to excuse the weak stats with the long range you almost never get vs competent opponent...
I mean the game is super easy (and so many exploits in combat or economy/diplomacy), but the bias is obvious in the stats.
I thought people thought Rome 1's Phalanx is OP
@@Hell_O7 the phalanx is so buggy and weak stats, it's only good against AI. Competent opponents can exploit it easily.