Training archers with the Bloodthirsty trait really helps to offset the low damage against high defense units.

Add on Heart Of Fire bonuses, and fire/ice rings if you have the crystal, and they have armor ignoring damage bonuses.

If you have the archers faction trait and reach the final tier bow, it has 50% armor piercing. Basically game over, but you've probably won at that point anyway.  

Except if you designed designed mounted swordsmen the same way they would have something like 8 more initiative and quickly close the gap and murder those archers. In a single turn if you made them Altarian and used rush. Your design is what is strong, it's not the bows.

I suppose the issue could come down to AI being terrible against bow users since they don't build decent units.  My wraith units never get troubled by archers due to the 60+ dodge and decent armor (Lucky + Wraith + Armorer).  Perhaps the AI should be able to understand how you build your armies and learn to counter?

They'd be pretty terrible melee units with only 3 armor and no defensive traits. If they ever got outnumbered they'd take very heavy casualties since they could only take out one unit per turn and after they've attacked they are left right in the middle of the enemy forces.

The AI doesn't use Rush or Berserk effectively, mounted units still take 2 turns to reach archers on most maps, which gives your archers two turns to kill said mounted units and another turn or two to kill any unmounted units ambling your way.

High init pure offense archers work because they can avoid getting hit. Melee units you are going to want to equip with armor and defensive traits, which lowers their damage and init.

I'm not saying bows are overpowered, but they certainly aren't underpowered.

it's nice to see that you can make archers useful by stacking some racials and traits in your favor, but that doesn't mean that bows are on par in the current system. you don't need specific racial picks to make decent melee units. if you don't stack the whole faction to make it an archer faction, you get a 7 attack shortbow with -8 initiative. with wargs and "fast" and +2 or 3 init from an essence fortress they barely make it back to a "neutral" 20 initative. this of course also reduces their damage, since with low initiative, finesse doesn't work reliably.

a melee unit of the same tech level doesn't need much help to make it fully viable - just horses and some metal. you don't even need an essence fortress - plain boar spears or battle axes are good enough to kill just about anything.

Swords are not OP.  They seem OP for champions just because of the sheer amount of them available compared to the other weapon types, but for regular units I think they are not as good as the rest.  I think they could use an on use ability of some kind.  

Bows are alright.  They require a bit more planning and customization to use as effectively but can be really strong, as noted above.  I think that they their tech location discourages early research, and it takes a while to get your first bow unit going, but once you get them rolling they are strong, esp with the faction trait.

I think it's staves that need a looking at the most.  Maybe instead of just a large initiative penalty with their ranged attack they should get something that keeps them placed in the back (or a weak ranged attack), but with a ranged attack spell that has a cast time or a cooldown.  This way the initiative penalty doesn't discourage us from putting them on caster heroes in favor of daggers time.  More caster bonuses on staves would be cool also.

PS: I think Aura of Grace is what's OP.

"Neutral" 20 init is still fast. Most AI troops are closer to 15-17 init.

Being able to attack 2-3 times before the enemy reaches is you is just so big of an advantage it doesn't even matter. Bows could be 1 damage and -10 init and they'd still nuke the crap out of AI armies without getting scratched.

I will agree that in the hands of the AI, bows are laughably bad. Tarth is a joke to fight.

Sanati- Ever fought one of your custom factions, with your high-init designed archers, used against you? The AI isn't truly capable of utilizing them, but it can make archers a threat, in my experience. 

At this point most of the AIs I fight against are custom, capable of building all my of cheesy min-max OP units, but I almost never see them do so. When they do, they ruin them, with armor "upgrades" and by building them in random towns with no training bonuses.

About the only race where I've found archers to be useless, is the Magnar (I think). They use slaves as the default race for their archers, meaning that they won't be able to get a hit in before the enemy puts up a defensive stance. Training them at a fortress with the Impulsive Trait on training cured this.

All other times, as long as my archers get the first hit in, they've already won half the battle.

Honestly I am not really happy about balancing right now. I am aware that this is a beta and things are going to change, but some design decisions seem really odd to me. In the following I'll try sum up some of my main issues I currently have with way the weapons work and what skills are a real problem with regard to the who-moves-first-wins-issue. Be warned though that my opinion is kind of biased as I do enjoy games like Hearts of Iron (Yes, the game that is graphically as appealing as an excel sheet.).

Abilities/Traits

There are two abilities, which were also mentioned above, that really bug me, because they work way too good with the current weapon abilities like Impale and cleave.

Impulsive - Removing this would actually mean you really have to think about what armor you wear. As it stands I basically get this for free (via fortress) and it really doesn't matter what race I initially picked or how heavy the armor is. Also, in combination with charge it really starts getting odd. But more below.

=> Suggestion: Remove completely or change fortress bonus to something less good (as suggested above).

Charge - Initially I didn't think that much of charge, but in FE:LH this is probably my favourite trait. Charge + Muscle + Bloodthirsty + Impale/Cleave means I can almost always hit multiple targets in the first round. Once I get Impulsive it really gets ridiculous.

=> Suggestion: Change to ability that can be activated every 3rd turn. Bonus would just be +2 Attack for the round and maybe +1 Moves. This would mean you will likely use it twice during a battle, but your foot soldiers can't beam over to the enemy in the first turn in 80% of all battles.

Weapons / Weapon specials

Impale - Yes, it's kind of fun, but it feels really wrong both with regard to gameplay and immersion.

=> Suggestion: Ability to attack a unit that is 2 tiles away, i.e. you can attack a unit that is for example 1 tile behind another unit. I also think that it would be OK, if the ability would be usable every or every other turn and/or +1 counter attack, when defending (e.g. a pike wall). I actually tried to do that, but giving bonuses on defense doesn't seem to be that easy...

Cleave - As above a fun mechanic, but kind of overpowered.

=> Suggestion: Cleave should cause daze just like crushing blow does. That would bring it closer to crushing blow

Crushing blow - Imho OK considering that maces have a hefty init penalty. Take away impulsive and tone done charge and there is imho nothing wrong here.

Counterattack - Seems really weak especially in comparison with the other skills. The damage reduction is imho not needed, when counterttack has to compete with cleave.

I am currently obsessing about weapon balance in general and will most likely come up with a thought out solution in the next days, if I can be arsed to...

I agree that charge and impulsive need to be removed as fortress bonuses. In general fortresses should be producing units quickly and cheaply, not producing super invincible units. Among other things this is too hard on the AI, and human abuse of this is what is killing the AI.

Impale is fine I think as it is rather hard to set up most the time. Cleave on the other hand is more then a little OP. I think it should be doing only 50% damage to adjacent units and only 100% to the main target. If that's too hard to implement  then make it something like 75% to all targets. Axe Mastery could then become a unit trait.

I think bows need a small buff anyway. Say reduce the initiative penalty on the lower level ones but leave it alone on the high level ones. There is no real reason to have higher level bows be faster. To address the current archer strategies the counters to archers such as spells, shields, and mounts could be buffed with higher ranged dodge. Also another reason archers are so good is the accuracy bonus from fortresses, which makes it almost impossible to miss even when facing units with ranged dodge. Like I said above the fortress improvements need a nerf.

I think every tier of fortress bonuses should be about strengthening trained troops, I think that mechanic is awesome. Don't remove it because the AI is currently too stupid to take advantage of it, fix the AI instead. They shouldn't be building troops in towns and conclaves, and they should always be buffing forts with training spells, these shouldn't be difficult things to fix. I think they are just still trying to make the AI decide to do this on their own instead of just locking them into certain behaviors. I'm sure they can get it done one way or another, eventually.

"Impale is fine I think as it is rather hard to set up most the time."

I find impale rather easy to set up and even easier with the special for "men", i.e. getting an immediate second move. Unless your enemy stands spread out. From an immersion point of view I really don't like the impale concept, but that might just be personal preference. In general there are imho way cooler mechanics that can be added for spears that also feel less cheesy.

"I think every tier of fortress bonuses should be about strengthening trained troops, I think that mechanic is awesome."

I agree and I actually always look forward to that tier for fortress cities, but I generally dislike abilities that completely bypass a stat and that's exactly what impulsive does. Charge is something that in most cases means being able to instantly get into melee range even when on foot, which is just silly.

A lot if not most of these are fairly OP though in certain situations. I already mentioned the accuracy buff as one of the leading reasons archers are considered OP. Why give a unit the accuracy trait if it already starts with a +20 bonus? Also horses give 25 ranged dodge and wargs 15, building from a fortress effectively removes the counter to archers. On high essence cities the bonus from enchantments can get pretty ridiculous, +4 initiative or fire damage goes a long way. I'm not saying they should be removed but removing the essence multiplier would make sense.

Maybe instead of a further initiative penalty an accuracy penalty could be placed on bows, but then that would make bows even more dependent on forts. 

What I don't understand, is how there can be a 2 page discussion about weapon balance that doesn't discuss weapons with purely elemental damage (e.g. fire/ice staves) being unable to receive ANY +damage bonuses, since these bonuses are added onto their non-existent weapon damage.

For balance purposes, elemental damage weapons should do 1 point of physical damage in addition to their elemental damage (which could be lowered by a point) so that +damage bonuses work on these units from traits, etc. A very simple change btw. I did it myself for my FE modded files.

What mechanics would make things less cheesy and just as fun?

I don't quite understand what direction the weapons are going.

In the previous game the weapons had more purpose and variety.....

For Example:

Each weapon had a 1 and 2 handed version, this allowed for a choice on unit design to go for raw power or to mix defense and power (aka having a shield).

Each weapon type had a specific damage type forcing people to build a variety of units and forcing players to adapt to the enemies being thrown at them.

Currently now that all the weapons are doing the same damage type, all that has really happened is now players only need to create one unit type at end game and you can annihilate ANYTHING you go up against. (don't believe it, try an army on horse back using Doom Mauls full chain or plate armor, Bloodthirsty and stack initiative trinkets... more then 95% of all units will one shot... In most cases I don't even need to use crushing blow)

Boss fights are no issue, my units usually survive the first round of boss attacks with little issue then kill the world boss in 2 to 4 shots......

With the exception of hammers, I find little need or use in other weapons.... I will admit axes are a little over powered with cleave, but you have to have the units lined up for that, so hammers tend to work best for me because they one shot everything (even early in the game).

I would suggest the following:

First I would say bring back damage types like "blunt", "piercing", and "cutting", it would probably be the best way to fix some of the over powered issues with the new weapon abilities.

Since that is not likely to happen then I suggest these as well:

- Scale weapon damage back OR increase armor values

- Add two handed weapons for each weapon class (swords, maces, axes, spears)

- Add one handed variants of each weapon class (swords, maces, axes, spears)

- Make the 2 handed version do 20 to 30% more damage. Since you can't put on a shield you sacrifice defense. Also make the 2 handed version heavier for obvious reasons.

- Nerf cleave to 2 units, not 3.

- Spears with impale are only occasionally useful, would suggest something like a ranged attack (like throwing a spear at the enemy), but only at short range.

- Dual axes seems silly, who in their right mind would carry two axes into a fight (unless they are insane... Vikings were often seen with a one handed axe and shield...)

- Ranged weapons need a serious Boost, especially the hero versions. Make them powerful against units that do not use shields and weak against units that do use shields (which will add to the need for one and two handed versions of all weapons)

- Add more variety of magic weapons (like fire, ice, lightning) especially the high end weapons.

At the rate things are going, unit design is almost becoming pointless and would need to be scrapped and replaced with standard unit designs.... whats the point in designing a unit if they offer very little difference between each design and do not greatly effect the outcome of a tactical battle.

I should have a need for axemen, swordsmen, spearmen and blunt weapons (with and without shields), I should need to change and adapt my unit designs to the opponent I am fighting, not one size fits all.

More weapons and armor variates, more trait options, various types of damage would make for more creativity, challenge and tactics.

Finally, make hero weapons and armor separate from unit weapons..... hero weapons should be unique and have higher stats and damage then the regular army weapons. Army units health defense and attack is modified by how big the squad size is.... each time a group gets bigger it adds serious killing power, heroes do not get this luxury, so the stats would need to made up via equipment and levels.

Why is there no ability to create hero weapons... like in Master of Magic.... they would have a huge cost, but you could tailor weapons to your heroes when you can't get a decent one to "randomly" drop.

I've probably missed something here, feel free to throw in your thoughts.

I snipped out the stuff I'm either meh about or actually disagree with.  I also moved one of his sentences to where it fits better.

+1  I do think we lost a huge part of the game with the removal of damage types.

+1  Weapon variety can only add to the game.

I agree that there is too little choice for heroes.  At least add more hero drops that are higher than 10 damage.  It's way too random if you get a decent hero weapon or not.  The best weapon I've had 2 games in a row now was the Athican Longsword I bought.

Nobody ever used weapon damage types, ever. The problem was it was utterly pointless without armor types, which really didn't exist in FE. I see no way to re-add damage types without adding in some new armor so players have a real selection, and that would be a ton of work. 

As for Impale I think simply allowing it to target units 1 square away without having to hit a adjacent target would give it some depth, so you can reach over your own units.

Also when it comes to designing unit that you have to keep weight in mind. So there is a point to not always using shields or having 2 handed versions of everything. 

I think instead of spending 100's of hours trying to make the AI better or counter human builds they should just NERF or dumb down some of these builds players are reporting they get away with against the AI. Reduce init to cap at 25 or so, reduce dodge to cap out at 25 or so, reduce dmg to lower levels so battles last longer and take more tactics instead of 1 shots. Reduce armor values let's have some player units getting clobbered for a change like in the real world. :{P

Chain had cutting resist and Plate had blunt resist.

As far as Pierce goes...  The regular spears maybe not have a ranged attack, but have a Javelin which has an attack 1 or 2 less than the same level spear and has a range 5 or 6 attack with 5 turn cooldown.

Love the nerf talk!  Lets make the game bland and boring!  bah.

Rather than nerf fun mechanics, enhance the not so useful or not so fun.

Its a single play game, balance doesn't really mean anything.   If portions of the game are unattractive to play, change them so they become more popular.   If the AI can't handle min/max... either change the AI or make a personal decision to not min/max.  

I do like the arguments to make existing choices attractive and introduce new choices.  Blindly waving the nerf bat or over simplification is much worse than imbalance IMO.  

Juggernauts are bad ass.  Completely OP and completely fun.  Should they be nerfed, hell no! 

I agree with you, not really advocating to nerf more myself, just want them to put back in what they had and add more too it.

You are right, over simplification is boring and this is a single player game so "balance" is really a moot point. Just keep it challenging.

It should be geared for variety, should be fun, intuitive and interesting.... not over simplified like you said.

Me thinks DsRaider and Spitzvogel are making excellent points here.  Impulsive and Charge are clearly overpowered.  It's worse when you get them from Fortresses.

I think it would be great to see less 1 short kills.  So whatever the best way to achieve that is... making scaling back weapon damage I dunno.