But is there anything an archer can do that a magic staff user can't? Ignoring archery alltogether saves considerable research time that can be better spent elsewhere (like in the Magic tree). 

Both bows and staves give -init  .... About equal

Bow damage gets mitigated by armor vs Staff damage gets mitigated by elemental resist ...Staves win, as armor is more prevalent.

Staves require Crystals vs Early Bows require nothing ... Bows win.

Imho staves are better because they ignore armor and do not require a whole separate Staff-only research branch unlike the Bows.

aye ... I tend to find that Archery research costs are more expensive than Crystal resource requirements. Not sure if the Archery tech needs to be a bit cheaper or what, maybe its just my playstyle

I appreciate that the macro gameplay seems a bit slow in order to allow your adventures to matter a bit more (or perhaps its due to my slow playing ... I only had 2 cities for half the game)

---> but yea, you can pick a variety of playstyles ... I guess you could just turtle without having any crystal, focus on research, and then bows are your best friend. Or you play a large crusading empire, get tons of crystal, and never build an archer in your life.

If you remember, the maul has a chance to knock down opponents.  Granted, it's not for sure, but if it works then you can cripple a very useful unit before they have a chance to do any damage.  The downside is of course the -Init, but you can work around that.

I find that one of the specific trait of this game is that the world you play in will dictate to a large extent what strategies you can develop.

You have to adapt your playstyle to the randomness of the map. In my last game, I didn't have any crystal mine nearby so I didn't have a choice but to go for archers for my range troops. And even if you have some crystal mines, as Kalin pointed out you still have to make some choices on what to spend them on, range magical troops or trinkets to buff your champions and your regular troops.

I don't use any units, just a super sov

The spreadsheet is in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 *.xlsx format. Do you need a different format for compatibility reasons, or will *.xlsx work for you?

Also, this spreadsheet contains only the weapons available in the Warfare Technology tree and in the prebuilt factions. Same deal for the armors. This means that if Umber or Capitar have any special weapons, or if there are weapons available through faction traits that are not used in the default factions, I have not included them in the file.

Try this link for the file:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0nt15g0y4kx5v4m/mOgfl03p5A

If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll see if I can fix it.

Edit: one more thing - I have not included production costs or shop value for any of the pieces of equipment in the spreadsheet, because I didn't want to spend the time adding them. I might add those details in the future, if I have time to kill, but probably not anytime soon.

Is finesse working properly now?

If it is then a lightly armoured unit of rogues with daggers and finesse is cheap and effective in the early game, especially if combined with a champ that has the tactics perk

Yes it is, (Just tested it 10 minutes ago)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

That is true, the spreadsheet just help give a basic idea of what happens. The reason I wanted to relook at it (looked at an old spreadsheet which data have become outdated), is that some of them are rather specific. Axes are pretty rock bottom IMO, since they're backswing ability doesn't really work. Next come maces since they give a double penalty to initiative, and bash chance being awkwardly low (if you deal 5 damage you will have a 5% chance to bash)...

Also usually faster weapons take the bacon due to +2 damage from traits (earlygame) and various amulets and rings gives a fixed boost. (the fastest being swords, next after comes spears).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I'd agree that axes need some additional incentive to be worth having. Backswing triggers far too rarely on trained units for it to be worthwhile, and moreover the unit is still vulnerable to counterattacks despite having chosen a poor primary weapon with no clear upgrade path. I think axes get upgraded to swords, which is counter-intuitive, but I'm not sure as I don't usually use axes on my trained troops, and the chances of performing a Backswing are so low unless you're fighting high dodge units, at which point the second attack will probably miss anyways. Bash actually works on occasion, and even though I'd like for it to trigger more often it's still useful enough that I'll at least consider making a heavy unit that uses blunt weapons. I don't think it makes up for the weight and the initiative penalties, though, since the trigger chance is generally very low.

I think each weapon type and armour type should be sown out more thoroughly in the tech tree, and hopefully I start with a crude version of each.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej