Talk:Britons/Strategy/@comment-24444169-20150716073307

"Britons can optionally switch into Longbows in the Castle Age, but Crossbows and Arbalests are generally more effective" Care to explain?

I checked multiple times both units' stats, and the ELB is far superior in all of them (as I'd noticed years ago while playing them) - +1 attack, same hitpoints, 1 pierce armour (the Arb has none), +1 range. It costs only between 2.45 and 2.85 times more to upgrade it compared to the CB>arbalist upgrade. (I guess like all UU the upgrade costs more than the non-unique ones that take their niche)

The unit cost itself is (in my advice) even better than a regular arbalist's. That -5 gold makes the unit more affordable late in the game, so what I would suggest is that the player either sticks to the ELB or mix* them with arbalists if he's got the money for it.


 * Castles are expensive, so producing huge armies of UU is not an affordable choice for most players. Mixing in Arbalests (sorry for spelling it arbalist earlier above, but the weapon itself has multiple names) in multiplayer games or against a hard AI can help building up a huge force.

Apart from that, I'm not really seeing anything that makes the Arbs any better than ELB, they are more cost-effective for sure (+10 wood doesn't even count, it's the most farmable resource in the game). If you play against a standard or medium AI a spam of ELB should be your choice. I only mix in Arbalests for unit variety, similarly to playing the Celts and massing Champions along with woad raiders.