Nothing? The point is a decent swordsman would kill your archer 100% of the time. Either cut your string. You try to parry with the bow and unless you are some freak of muscly nature you will have to use both hands and that will break the bow quickly. Or you straight up get gutted. Real life arrows also have like zero metal penetration unless it is a heavy bow with a heavy arrow head and it would be so awkward up close and little damage overall unless it hits a vital point because it doesn’t hit a whole arc like a swing. It takes a lot of poorly placed arrows to be fatal and any up front person can push your bow to one side or the other and their head and body the other way preventing you from getting a good shot. A smaller quicker bow will break or just be inadequate under the arc of the swing. Also an entire village is nine squares. Your scaling is inconclusive at best. You do spend time inside. A whole castle or temple. A national work.
comparing FE to real life is very hard. Tiles we can’t even try to compare because units can cross 2-3 entire forests in a turn. One castle = 9 people standing next to each other etc etc etc.
As for not countering at close range, if an enemy is running at me. I’m not gonna stand there and prepare to defend with my bow, I’ll grab an arrow and try to get a shot off before they reach me. If they are within 3-5 feet of me I’m running trying to reload to snapshot them.
If we are going realistic stat growths. Then archers either are two stats unless they are a god.
High Spd, low skl, low str. OR High Str/Skl, low spd.
Ideally the high speed one is just firing arrows willy nilly. Not aiming for anything in particular, but just AoE cover fire. And the High Str/Skl archer is actually making pinpoint shots so they can’t shoot twice in one combat that would be crazy.
I am talking if they have already attacked you not rushing you. Given the distance of 3 meters and time of 5 seconds you could quite easily be distracted as they close in. So if you make some distance you are pulling away square to counter and you have to turn your back to run. You can run backwards but it is much harder and slower and either way you will have no real offense. Of course you won’t stay there. That was the point close range combat is impossible.
If we’re talking open field or siege warfare, no archer with an even half-way competent commander is just going to let their archers get charged at like that. They’ll be well aware that the infantry have broken through the fortifications or whatever and will either be instructed to retreat or to have their bows drawn and ready for an attack.
If we’re talking something closer to, say, the forest-based combat of wars in Norman-era Ireland (where bows were very prevalent), then yeah, any archer that gets within range of a close combatant is probably dead if they aren’t on horseback. Which is why most of them were on horseback and tended to fight very cautiously because they knew how important and expensive the horses were.
If we were going about this in Fire Emblem terms, an archer could either have the option to attack as normal during player phase and have no 1 range during enemy phase, or prepare themselves for an enemy phase through some kind of menu command, maybe something that they can only do a limited number of times (like 3H spells). Especially skilled archers (in FE, especially skilled means “superhuman”) would probably be able to shoot at 1-2 range in any circumstance, which is something that is already possible in 3H with skills.
How to make archers worth using:
Step 1: give good stats
Step 2: profit
If you give archers 1-2 I will knock on your doorstep with a spiked bat
Bows should range of 2 + str/4 with hit rate drop off and only half strength added to the damage. Bows didn’t really have all that much penetration power and were usually only really really deadly in volleys. That is the most realistic.
realism
Archers shouldn’t shoot through walls
Archers should have an option other than standing there awkwardly if surrounded by four units that aren’t doing anything
Mages shouldn’t shoot through walls
Mages shouldn’t exist
Fliers shouldn’t exist
Lord Hausen would be dead from tuberculosis
Did someone suggest just giving them a knife yet?
can we not turn this into a conversation about grooming, thanks
My b, have replaced with a different period-appropriate joke
The archer wouldn’t do nothing, it would die.
Mounts and armor would be equipable.
Silver swords would be useless compared to steel.
Plate male would be impenetrable almost.
Steel would be a little known technique.
Spears and bows would be the best equipment overall.
Rape would be cannonically common.
Damage would be body part based with many lasting injuries most of which are permanently debilitating.
There would be no monsters or dragons.
No legendary weapons.
Items aren’t stored in chests.
No mobile supply.
Sieging castles is mostly famine and strategy not combat.
Your entire unit wouldn’t be made of super humans.
Etc etc. What is your point?
Any attempt to parry with a knife would do almost nothing the reach of a sword is too long.
My point is none of that would be fire emblem anymore so realism without knowledge of game balance is extremely silly and derailing for a thread about archers in fire emblem
The knife tho, that 1-1 range mm
Half strength bonus is a good balance with the higher crit and speed for most of the game until you get to the end where bows would realistically be useless. It would go up to 7-8 range.
To use a knife well in close range you need to use both hands for martial arts purposes but you will be holding a bow. The knife will be almost nothing in most cases. Unless you are freakishly skilled.
Bows should also have simplistic range and atk calculations : P
Every character in FE can change weapons at lightning speed on player phase with blatant disregard to item bulk/weight.
There’s no knives in a lot of the games so it would probably just be a sword lol
Half strength with higher crit speed and 7-8 range would be extremely bad from a gameplay perspective if the enemy had archers and the player had mages/fliers. Low def units combined with a high range crit lottery = extreme sadness
1/4 strength and 1/2 strength is pretty simple.
It would mean knights and vanguards have real value. It means you would have to plan. Not every unit will be a one man army. It would be good for the game.
You can’t change when attacked, what you end with is what you got.
No one said anything about changing when attacked lol, I think there’s like one game that even does that.
You said a bunch of vague stuff with no justification. Assuming that archers are changed but nothing else particularly is, cavalry units would still be overwhelmingly good one-man armies. Knights would still be awful because they wouldn’t even be able to reach the archers with their terrible movement. You’ve given no examples for how massive range enemy units that can crit would force planning, which I am curious about. Would you plan around crit? Bait archers with high HP high luck units? Pegasi are already not one man armies. You haven’t at all addressed how they would get pretty dunked on late game, unless enemy archers are so weak that they don’t threaten any units whatsoever.
If your response is “well we would just need to change more stuff”, that’s pretty far outside the context of the thread.
So you just want to hear yourself talk. Neat.
The average enemy archer would be 4-5 ranged btw it won’t get longer until late game.
I said no vague things. You just want to be right but you aren’t. And Calvary would be much different to stay in the range of healers but keep the healers out of range of archers you would have to plan differently. It is actually a very reasonable change. It is really about how you use it and balance the numbers. It changes a lot and makes it more interesting. I am sorry you don’t like interesting things. All I did was explain why bows don’t have a range one attack now here I am with this. I am tired of you. You can let it go now. If you can’t listen you aren’t worth my time.