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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.