To start with to check if Promachoi is a weak upgrade, let's take a look at all other emblematic units that cost twice as much as the generic unit that share the same tech in parentheses. I have taken some liberties such as comparing Cuirassiers with Line Infantry who may be seens as two completely different units.

Ancient era

Mycenaeans Promachoi (Warrior): +2 CS and +4 CS first battle round

Assyrians Assyrian Raiders (Scout Riders):  +5 CS

Babylonians Ṣābu Ša Qašti (Spearman): +4 CS and +3 CS on friendly districts

Classical era

Mauryans Saṃnāhya (Horsemen): Class from cavalry to ranged (ranged attack, no melee penalty due to elephant platform trait and can’t ignore zone of control), +4 CS with 3 range and cost 2 population instead of 1 and need no resources.

Carthaginians War Elephant (Horsemen): Class from cavalry to heavy cavalry (+3 CS charge and can’t ignore zone of control), +5 CS with +4 CS against weaker units range and cost 2 population instead of 1 and need 2 copper instead of 2 horses.

Medieval era

No fitting units.

Early Modern era

Joseon Geobukseon (Carrack): +6 CS, +5 CS against adjacent targets and move faster in battle by ? amount. Need 2 copper and 2 saltpeter while carrack only needs 1 saltpeter.

Edo Japanese Naginata Samurai (Halberdiers): +5 CS, +1 move and Prevents its Army from retreating.

Industrial era

French Cuirassiers (Line Infantry): (Class from gunner to heavy cavalry), +7 CS, +9 CS charge, +2 movement, can rear attack for +4 CS, no ranged attack, no dig in, weak vs anti cavalry, cost 3 population instead of 4. Needs 3 horses and 2 iron.

Siamese Gatling Elephant (Heavy Machine Gun): +5 CS, +2 movement, can move and fire, can retaliate against melee attacks, -4 range.

Mexicans Soldaderas (Partisans): +4 CS and stay stealthed after attacking.

Contemporary era

Australians All Terrain PMV (Armored Personnel Carrier): +2 CS, ignore movement penalty but no suppression.

To me it looks like Promachoi is a weak improvement over the base unit (Warrior), just +2 combat strength is very low given the standard seems to be +4 or +5 CS, both other ancient era double industry cost emblematic units come with more raw combat strength. Promachoi fights with +4 CS on the first round, but that doesn't seem like that good given it only lasts 1 round and players could try to hide from your Promachoi for this first round. A suggestion for improvement would be to give Promachoi increased movement speed for the first round to make it easier to make use of their combat strength increase during the first round and make it harder for the opponent to simply hide this round.

However we need to be careful with making too many improvements to Promachoi as it only needs one technology and no resources making it possible to build it as soon as you reach the ancient era. Also Promachoi unlike many other units do get significant advantages from its culture legacy trait, its cost is reduced by -20% and starts with +25 experiences which I think is enough to give them the first veterancy level which gives them an +1 combat strength bonus. Also Mycenaeans Cyclopean Fortress give alot of industry which also help them make Promachoi more affordable. 

One unit that seems to be in much worse shape than Promachoi is Australians All Terrain PMV which only have the same +2 CS above the base unit (Armored Personnel Carrier) and while it also have a secondary advantage of ignoring terrain movement penalties, not having the suppression ability is a massive weakness and I don’t see any reason why a twice as expensive unit should not have this ability given the improvements to the base unit is rather minimal.

I will check Ta-Seti later, I need some rest. 

Ta-Seti archers are a pure improvement upon the regular archer that add +2 strength and remove the -4 strength indirect fire penalty that regular archers suffer. That mean in many situations Ta-Seti archers can fire with 6 more strength than archers, given the number of times regular archers would have the indirect fire penalty, you can maybe even consider Ta-Seti archers as archers with +6 strength.

Compare that to Olmecs Javelin Throwers who get the same +2 strength above archers and also have a +4 strength bonus, but that only apply when Javelin Throwers stand on forest tiles which is much rarer situation than indirect fire and also the Javelin Throwers lose the indirect fire ability that regular archers have which is a huge weakness, it is such huge loss that some players consider this unit as a drawback.

Sure Javelin Throwers on forest have a +4 strength bonus when defending and also attack at 23 strength which is can deal alot more damage than Ta-Seti archers will at 19 strength but in most situation Javelin Throwers is just 19 strength archers without indirect fire while Ta-Seti archers are 19 strength even when indirect fire.

Archers doing indirect fire will attack with 13 strength, similar to a scout and will pretty much deal minimum damage against anything, Ta-Seti archers attacking at 19 strength however will deal more than minimum damage against most ancient era units as it hit with the same strength as a warrior (and cost the same as a warrior with similar tech and resource requirement) and it is quite easy to stack up combat strength on archers with adjacency bonus from friendly units and high ground. Adding +10 combat strength to Ta-Seti makes them deadly against enemy archers and warriors, doing the same to regular archers makes them more effective but not as deadly as Ta-Seti archers by any means and good luck trying to do that with Olmecs Javelin Throwers.

In the worst case when both archers and Ta-Seti archers deal minimum damage, the Ta-Seti archers have no drawback over the archers unlike the Javelin Thrower who is crippled by the lack of indirect fire.

Ta-Seti archers seems very powerful, even regular archers is maybe considered one of the most useful ancient era units and Ta-Seti is better than regular archers by a lot, like by +6 combat strength, same as Promachoi get with the champion buff which only last one turn and Promachoi is twice as expensive as regular warriors while Ta-Seti archers cost no more than regular archers. Sure Nubians have less direct military bonuses to help their Ta-Seti archers out, but consider the same apply to Olmecs who get a vastly inferior unit and it don’t seem fair.

I think regular archers need to be more expensive like 120 industry or lose their indirect fire ability. Ta-Seti archers could have their strength reduced to regular archers 17 strength, have their cost increased to 150 or even 180 industry or maybe have their trait nerfed to reduce the indirect combat penalty to -2 or so. Ta-Seti should also not be so much more obvious better than Javelin Throwers, in fact it is possible to say those are worse than normal archers due to their lack of indirect fire, so maybe reduce their melee penalty or something to make them more useful.

shasho wrote:

I think the biggest reason why Archers are so strong in the game right now is due to the way the damage is calculated currently. Having a minimum roll of 5-25 damage means that roughly 7 Archers will kill anything regardless of how many Strength penalties they are receiving, since the unit anachronism scaling basically isn't a factor until you're fighting Early Modern units with Archers.

7? More like three, and that's at 16+ CS difference. They don't take any retaliation after all, and nothing outranges them until then either. But yes, I don't think its the unit being overpowered, just the formula behind combat favouring weaker but ranged units very heavily over stronger melee ones.