Should bows have negative accuracy rather than initiative?

Something like that yes. Am I missing something but aren't they MUCH weaker than staffs? Staffs can ignore armor and can literally do twice as much damage and yet has no negative initiative. Resistance/immunity is way too scarce and can be dealt with before the battle...

I do not like the way bows are currently implemented.  At all.  There should be slow, hard-hitting bows, and fast, weaker bows, both of which are unlocked and upgraded when you research ranged techs.  The starter bow should be fast and weak, not slow and weak.

I know the fire & ice staffs have a negative 6 initiative, not sure what the lightening staff gives - negative initiative makes a bit more since with staffs since they do go through armour

Actually, bows having a slow initiative makes good sense, even in the real world.  In an ideal situation, you can fire, at most, about 8 arrows a minute with a reasonable degree of accuracy.  Throw in the chaos of war, and you're down to about 6 arrows a minute if you want to hit the thing you're shooting at, and not your buddy in the front lines.  Longbows (traditional English ones, at least) are even slower, but make up for it in range and stopping power.  Shortbows are quicker to fire, due to the fact that they require a lot less strength to pull, but can't puncture good armor.  It's too late for anything to change about this, but when I stop letting the XML intimidate me, it's something I very much plan on modding.

I'm with lower initiative, too.  Plus it goes well in defining a certain kind of Clumsy archetype, someone who is inexperienced or just uncoordinated in melee, but from a distance, with a ranged weapon they've trained in, can shoot well.

This is exactly why I hate all the movement speed buffs in the current game, stuff like Bows lose they're feel.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

you'd have to factor in loosing volleys into masses of enemy troops.  If they're bunched up, you don't have to take much time to aim.

I say this alot, but my mod has that.

Shortbows have light damage, less weight, small init. penalty. Longbows have much better damage, more weight, big init. penalty. It's a perfect design concept and it was thought up months ago. The vanilla has it backwards.

OH MY GOD YES!  I have been saying it for months now, though it's possible someone mentioned it before me.

Thank you Sean, for implementing this, so that I don't have to learn XML to do so

Absolutely right. 

By the way, is it possible to make a trait that gives +5 weight limit, and +2 initiative when using a bow?  It would reflect the overdeveloped upper body archers get, and Tarth and Yithril would have it available after they research one of the archery techs.

It is if you use BG_unitstats mod.

One thing I'd like to see in an expansion is faction-specific promotions/perks you can give units.

I do think init of weapons period is messed up and needs to be reworked

Staffs, magic staves, daggers shouldn't give init bonus or penalty.  Weapons shouldn't give an init bonus period.

By the way, is it possible to make a trait that gives +5 weight limit, and +2 initiative when using a bow?  It would reflect the overdeveloped upper body archers get, and Tarth and Yithril would have it available after they research one of the archery techs.

Except that Yithril doesn't get ranged weapons (in the base game). Could work for a custom Trog faction, but not for base-game Yithril.

I do think init of weapons period is messed up and needs to be reworked

Staffs, magic staves, daggers shouldn't give init bonus or penalty.  Weapons shouldn't give an init bonus period.

I'd be perfectly happy with initiative bonuses on magical weapons, since the item type should not affect the type of enchantments you can put on the item (at least, in my opinion - if a necklace can cause your sword to deal more damage and a belt allows you to dodge arrows better, I see no reason why a magic sword couldn't make you act more rapidly). Having the initiative bonuses on non-magical items is harder for me to justify mentally, but I see it as an 'ease of use' bonus. If they did rework the system, then I would want to see a more graduated set of encumbrance penalties, and non-magical weapons that have initiative bonuses should then at best cover the initiative lost through encumbrance. Initiative bonuses would then fall into the category of 'even though this weapon is as heavy as that one over there, motions are so much more natural with this one or fast movements are not as restricted, rather than 'because I have a sword this heavy plate armor I'm wearing doesn't impede my motion as much'. However, I don't think that this is going to happen anytime soon, at least outside of mods (I don't know, is the encumbrance penalty system mod-able?).

Edit: I suppose I should say something on topic.

I'm fine with bows providing an initiative penalty rather than an accuracy penalty, as bows already do rather poor damage and making them less likely to hit isn't going to help with that, and I think the reason for the initiative penalty is to keep people from abusing the tactical AI with large groups of kiting archers. Moderate initiative and accuracy penalties I could go with, but not no initiative penalty and a (large) accuracy penalty. The magnitude of the initiative penalty might need some evaluation, but I'd say that the main problem bows have is the ease with which you can make things that can close with archers before they can get a shot off (footsoldiers and horsemen with charge can cover half or more of most of the battlefields on their first turn, and they'll probably act at least once if not twice before the archers do, and once they close the archers probably can't get away well enough for kiting to be a problem).

I was also thinkin that maybe we could have an initiative bonus for being really lightly encombered = right now starting at 40% we get negatives well what if we went less than 20% we get +1 init, less than 10% +2 init, 0% +3?