Archers - are they worth it?

[Jools]

I stopped my bowsmith and demolished one a few day ago as my remaining 18 archers never seem to do anything. After a disastrous attack yesterday I lost 35 recruits and all 18 archers. Starting up my bowsmith again I quickly ran out of logs for my coking plant, so put it on hold again.
But I'm now thinking, are they worth all the resources, yesterday when they got wiped out was the only time they fired a shot, but didn't actually achieve much.

[Rohab]

I find archers are benefical if you have more recruits than scavangers.
Reason being that if you have 60 recruits against 60 scavangers, you'll lose equal amount on your recruits, but the likelihood is that your archers will finish them off while taking no damage.

I've had 50 archers for about a week now, not lost 1 in a battle because my recruits are cannon fodder leaving my archers to finish off the bandits.

[Jools]

that's what I thought, but if you don't have enough recruits then they simply get wiped out as they have so few HP. It would be better if they were first strike so they could take out a lot of the scavangers and reduce your loses.

[Zavvy]

Oh man I cant believe it.. I just made a really long post about the cost of archers and my browser flipping died on me.

Anyway the conclusion was this:

Cost of a recruit: 10 bronze swords (30 coal, 10 copper) + 5 beers
Cost of an archer: 10 beers + 10 bows (80 pine wood logs)

Now in the castle empire site theres a trade calculator that lets you translate other materials into e.g. pine wood logs. lets call their worth pine wood log equivalents (pwle)

1 beer = 12 pine wood log equivalents
1 coal = 4 pwle
1 copper = 2 pwle

Now heres where the calculator comes to fault.. it says that because 2 coal and 1 copper are worth 10 pine wood log equivalents, 1 bronze bar should be worth 10 pine wood logs. This is obviously faulty but we can live with it for now.

Cost of recruit = 30*4+5*12+10*2 = 200 pwle
Cost of archer = 10*12+80 = 200 pwle


So, calculated in pine wood log equivalents a recruit and an archer both cost the equivalent of 200 pine wood logs. If you dont factor in time and buildings needed what youre left with to look at is damage done and HP.

DAMAGE
The average damage of a recruit is 22.5 dmg (15-30), an archer 30 dmg (20-40). This makes the archer do 0.0375 MORE damage per pwle than the recruit. ([30-22.5]/200=0.0375)

What this means is that for the same amount of pine wood logs (or equivalents) you get MORE damage from archers, basically they are better than recruits under the assumption that they arent attacked in the fight.

HP
Lets factor in HP. Recruits get 40 HP, Archers get 10 HP. This means you get:

1 recruit gives you 40/200 = 0.2 HP per pwle.
1 archer gives you 10/200 = 0.05 HP per pwle

No news there really, 4 times as much HP on the recruits. But if you look at the combined worth of the archer and the recruit it gets more interesting:

Combined worth
1 recruit gives you: 0.2+0.1125 = 0.3125 "HPDMG" per pwle
1 archer gives you 0.05+0.15 = 0.2 "HPDMG" per pwle

Suddenly the recruit starts to shine. Basically this is because while the recruit has 4x as much HP as the archer, the archer doesnt do 4x as much damage as the recruit. The combined worth of the recruit is therefore higher if you factor in HP.

Additionally, there's a convenience benefit to just making recruits, too. Having that bowmaker suck vital pine from your sawmills and coking plants can be a strain on your cutters. In the end its up to you to decide whether theyre worth it. I havent gotten that far yet but Im sure there comes a point when the amount of damage from 200 recruits wont suffice and youll need units with more damage, then the archer (and other units) might be needed. But for level 16-17-18 ....

In my opinion its simply better to just focus on recruits.

[Jools]

thanks zavvy, just need to make sure I don't get them wiped out in future;
Patience is a virtue

[sparkz]

Comparing the costs of making the unit woudlve made sense, if you produced both types of units constantly. A group of well used archers are one time expense, which is also why theres no need to factor the time needed to produce bows/ archers.

The problem is, starting from around 21-22 level plenty of fights will include guard dogs that kill archers before they have a chance to shoot. That is why its better to make militia instead - same damage, more resilience, costs are once again irrelevant long as you dont lose any of them.

[Jools]

OK thanks for that, I suppose when you get to that levels you need to choose who you send to each battle rather than just sending everyone.

[Zavvy]

Comparing the costs of making the unit woudlve made sense, if you produced both types of units constantly. A group of well used archers are one time expense, which is also why theres no need to factor the time needed to produce bows/ archers.

The problem is, starting from around 21-22 level plenty of fights will include guard dogs that kill archers before they have a chance to shoot. That is why its better to make militia instead - same damage, more resilience, costs are once again irrelevant long as you dont lose any of them.

I def agree with you that archers are a one-time expense since if you lose them youre doing it wrong. For guard dog camps, I havent gotten that far yet, maybe its better to bench the archers for recruits and militia?

I havent made any militia yet but from what Ive understood they are quite pricy. If you can just grind your way through with recruits maybe militia arent worth it? They need iron so you need to sub your entire bronze industry for that, it takes a lot of res. I cant really make a calculation either cuz I dont even see the requirements for militia.

[Jools]

Militia depends on whether they are a one-time expense too. You can't really get rid of your bronze industry, you need it for tools

[Zavvy]

Militia depends on whether they are a one-time expense too. You can't really get rid of your bronze industry, you need it for tools

ah right, my bad. tho you can downsize it