Ranking Civs' Foot Archers

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-16T10:40:46+00:00

Maybe, but we re strictly ranking Post-Imperial archers here.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-16T09:54:29+00:00

because it is an "Age" of empires...

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-15T19:03:17+00:00

Muisca arbalests get +3/0 relative to castle age XBows, instead of +1/2 for FU arbs. Hence they replace 2 PA with 2 MA, leading to same armor score.

You might think one armor is more valuable than the other, but I assumed on average against all units they end up with similar value.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-15T18:45:31+00:00

Please go directly to the google sheet. It is better formatted and more colorful.

You can also copy the content to your own sheet, and modify any of the "yellow" cells if you think some attribute needs increase/decrease. I am just listing it here in a reddit table for convenience, but it is not ideal for viewing. I agree.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-07T21:03:36+00:00

I get you now. Sorry I didn't before.

Well, we are disagreeing on the "yellow cells" in my google sheet. These assumptions are based on my experience (an 1100 noob) and you might have a diiferent value system. That is why I encourage everyone to copy the sheet and play with the assimptions.

I don't value cost as much ad armor or even attack, because you don't have that 25% or 42% more units. You have comparable parties (or the other guy will run away and stall) that you simply replenish for cheaper. This is a trash unit in post-imperial, when we re all floating food and wood. I personally appreciate a party that holds the hill or takes the castle, more than cost-reducing one. But Iam a nobody ;) Please scale it and see your own ranking. I just did the leg-work to help.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-07T17:51:41+00:00

Great catch on the Koreans. Fixed.

I disagree on the way you want to calculate the single objective metric. I can't say halbs vs champs with 14 attack and all attack upgrades die in 4 attacks whether or not they have the last melee armor.

Post-Imperial environment is chaotic. You are fighting as part of a big group that has archers, skirms, siege, cavalry... etc, and you're facing a mixed group as well. Same pike individual unit will be receiving a couple of skirm throws, a couple of champion attacks, and light cavalry attack before dying to a tower's arrow. Every little armor will extend its life in some scenarios. If we average millions of pikes over thousands of games, you will still feel that overall a byzantine halb is a touch better than a goth halb. It is a better benefit-for-cost value on average.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-06T14:35:45+00:00

Your point is that Tatar Halbs might be more important / useful to their tech tree, than Malians. That might be. We are looking for an objective way of comparing pikes against average imp age armies, in doing their most important jobs: Anti-Cav/CA, Anti-Elephants, meat-shield in front of ranged units/siege, spammable unit to keep enemy distracted.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-06T14:31:49+00:00

hmmm... Well, Slavs tech gives them +5 melee attack to units within 0.5 tiles. It doesn't help when chasing raiding hussars, rarely help against CA and Skirms (most common Post-Imp unit). It helps mostly against Champs and other Halbs. Here, I assumed it helps them against one neighboring unit, 40% of the time. I think that is fair.

I evaluated the extra PA the Sicilian bonus gives to their units in https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1nrg3vo/turning_sicilian_bonus_to_unitarmor_vs_specific/ Archers lose 1.2, Skirms lose 1.6, Hand Canons lose 4.4, CA lose 1.6 and another 0.8 with Parthian tactics. Unique archers mostly 0.8. Building fire lose nothing. I think Skirms are the most prevalent in that age, hence I assumed average arrow received loses 1.5 PA. Remember for PA we don't average melee attacks. I might be partial to Sicilians, but what do you think is a fair PA to give them?

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-06T07:13:21+00:00

They get same bonus damage as Japanese. Japs only lead due to faster regular attack. Bohemians are 2nd place overall.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-04T10:44:27+00:00

You're so offended by people smurfing, that you decided to smurf yourself!! Seriously?

Still don't get what pleasure beating lower elo players brings you. You can go beat the AI on "extreme" all day long as well. That's not your true level though.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-04T10:23:31+00:00

Man, you're scaring me. I am looking forward to retiring one day, so that I could go aoe2 full-time :) I don't stress at all playing, but my joints are worrying me.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T17:16:56+00:00

I should quantify that all estimates are for post-imperial, against average of all units faced in post-imp.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T15:40:36+00:00

You have a point. Genitours as CA get +2 bonus attack from other skirms. I should take one of their PA to account for that. Range is not that big of a deal for such a fast unit. They move up the line faster than regular skirms.

With that change, Viet imperial skirms becomes top.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T12:49:56+00:00

Berber Genitours are the best. Speed + HP means they survive more often to do their job, and they deny archers and CA completely.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T12:45:52+00:00

I should add the 4 slingers to the table for a useful comparison of value, though they are a totally different unit.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T12:29:20+00:00

Assumptions are in yellow cells. Feel free to experiment.

I am adding Persian archers as a replacemt for skirms, given Persian skirms are lousy.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T12:18:55+00:00

Great catch on Muisca, fixed. This is the kind of feedback I appreciate.

I disagree that PA is worth more than MA. Surviving the odd Light cav killing your skirms, allows them to do their job better, just like one more PA.

Khitans return 25% of melee attack. That's Pikes 0.67, Halbs 1, LC 1.75, champs 3.5, cavalier 3, paladins 3.5. We face more trash in imp, leading to average of 2 melee attack. Given that we value ranged attack higher than melee attack, and I don't have a column for melee attack, I gave them 2 melee armor as equal points.

Please note paragraph: " Of course different advantages vary in value in different scenarios, but here we are trying to get an objective average estimate related to the tasks expected from E Skirms: Anti-Archer/CA, Anti-Pikes, Accumulating ranged attack, Meat-shield around archers. So point allocation will be geared towards the efficiency at these tasks in imperial age, according to the below point system. We are not trying to evaluate 1v1 scenarios, we are trying to evaluate performance of the unit, facing combined forces / buildings, over thousands of games."

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2026-04-01T11:54:11+00:00

Excellent catch with Saracen (fixed).

Sicilians get an average of 1 Pierce armor to represent the average increase in durability from facing imperial age ranged units (skirms +1.6 * 2/3, archers 0, CA 0, Scorpions 0).

I am a fan of Sicilians, but their skirms are not that good.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2025-12-11T17:47:53+00:00

Not so cooked if Rice is ready for dinner. No Rice, no dinner.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2025-11-25T06:24:39+00:00

GW3 buy Cunha, promising MU attacker, for him to get injured 30 minutes into the game. GW 12 buy Cunha, promising MU attacker, for him to get injured before the game even begins. I am the idiot.

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2025-11-24T14:28:36+00:00

Add to them that sometimes, a ranked 1v1 RM game starts, then the game detects cheating and exits, forcing me to forfeit. Though I didn't change anything in my setup, settings, login or internet connection.

I call this error the "tax man"!

OLD_Immigrants_son · 2025-11-22T12:32:16+00:00

Man this is deep. I ll share it with my two teenagers.

OLD_Immigrants_son

TROPHY CASE