UNIT - Creature Balance + Visual Changes

What specific players are you referring to?

“Practice” isn’t quite the right word; it would be more accurate to say that it was “established through experience.”

Yes, put these archers against each other in duels, say 10 versus 10.
The Imbarians make the first volley, dealing 6-10 damage, halved. That’s an average of -4.
Then 6 of them respond with 5 shots from a longbow. That’s an average of -3.
That leaves 7 Imbarians against 6 longbowmen, and that’s just after the first volley. Moreover, in this direct confrontation of archers against archers, the longbow dealt exactly double damage, i.e., the longbowmen should have won by a large margin.

Regarding the initiative of 9, I said earlier that perhaps it was an excessive buff. If we return the initiative value to 8 (i.e., make it equal to the value of the upgraded and alternate versions), then with a high probability, the creature that shoots first will win the duel. Also, I’m not entirely sure about the correctness of such a comparison. You could just as easily put upgraded pitfiends against alternate-upgraded pitfiends in a duel; what do you think, who would win? However, both types of creatures have their place and will be effective under certain circumstances.

For convenience, let’s take 10 archers. Damage of 4-9 is:
20-45 at long range, 40-90 at medium range, and 20-45 in melee.
Damage of 2-8 for longbowmen is:
20-80 at long range, 20-80 at medium range, and 10-40 in melee.

As a result, we have:
20-45 at long range (almost twice as low a range), 40-90 at medium range (powerful damage, but you still have to survive until then; the stars have to align in the right order), and 20-45 in melee (slightly more than the alternate version, provided that no creature is killed from the stack, which practically never happens).

20-80 at long range (very good damage), 20-80 at medium range (also good damage, but without any additional advantage), and 10-40 in melee (again, provided that no creature is killed from the stack, and there’s not much point in a low-level archer retaliating with a penalty, as is the case with the upgraded version).