Horse archers ruin every game they are in.

The age old conundrum of the unit that may or may not be strong in real combat situations, but becomes absolutely gamebreakingly busted when added to videogames, because it's strenghts translate into overwhelming advantages with none of the real life drawbacks it had to endure, usually via game design, bad balancing or games putting said units in unrealistic situations.

Take for example anti-aircraft guns since WW2. Other than the obvious real example of the FlaK88 being turned into an AT gun by the Germans, several others of these become anti-infantry or even anti-armor rapid firing nightmares in war games, because they're put well inside their optimal range and within threatening range of infantry and tanks. Which would usually destroy them from afar. The OTO Melara gun is a good modern example. Italian radar guided 110mm naval gun, was never mounted onto a proper line vehicle that was adopted by any country. But the prototypes, like the OTOMatic, absolutely terrorize every game where they appear, as a hyper accurate, rapid firing, high damage anti-everything gun.

Horse archers are just the ancient ages example of that.

Repost. Stolen from an Asian news site in the 13th century.

IDK. I skipped horse archers in my latest dark elves playthrough of total war warhammer 3, because they are so trash. No shields + large targets means they die really easy to missile fire, And since you can't use a longbow on horseback they lack the range to engage other archer units without taking a few volleys first.

Basically they are only good for fighting factions like undead that that have no ranged units.

The horse archers in civ 6 are so pathetically lame that the only reason to build even one is to get 3 points toward a golden age. The computer builds swarms of them, of course, but anything can kill them, even a recon unit.

I like them in fire emblem, I suppose they have too much range in three houses but in most games (in the franchise) they're actually pretty bad.

It's chess where I find they're super op - I mean seriously, the ability to no scope bishops from across the map while moving like a knight is totally unbalanced and the Devs need to too back the update.

Horse archers are amazing lmao. If you're throwing them directly into the front lines they will be fucked several times over. Understand: they are merely archers that can quickly reposition. This makes them one of the best units in the game.

Deploy them to the far flank and reposition them frequently. They are excellent at drawing out the enemy cavalry so you can harass them, hit them with your own cav, etc. Big block of infanty? Harassing fire. Other horse archers? Wait for them to engage your footed archers and then deploy your horse archers to double up on them.

Their weakness, as you've noticed, is large blocks of powerful foot archers. That is what your cavalry or heavy infantry is for. Once your other forces engage, then deploy your horse archers. They're a reserve force and a force multiplier.

Chariot archers > horse archers