I can't handle Elephants. Oh yes, I've tried.

[Colovion]

I was doing a custom battle. The enemy was Carthage, I was Julii. I was trying to defeat their elephants. It was a small pitched battle with equal amounts of infantry for each of us, Gen Cav, me with archers and them with one 27 unit of War ELephants. I couldn't neutralize the elephants at all. Every time out of about 10-15 tries the elephants would make my army run away. Each time I'd try something different.... use flaming arrows, use the light infantry, use the spears - try drawing the elephants into my army and just mass assault them, surround them and make them rout... no avail.

Every unit was vanilla. One time the elephants chased a routing unit away from the battle for a while and I made a come back and started winning, until the elephants came back and crushed me.

Has anyone else been pretty frusterated with the lack of direct counters for elephants? I'd rather not have to mass units to beat them seeing as sometimes you only have a few units... does this mean that the elephants are going to be worth their weight? MTW equivalent of 1500 for each unit?

[Sjakihata]

sounds like you are missing fried pork ~:wacko:

[CBR]

I ran some testbattles with 4 60 men Velites v one 9 elephant unit (both armoured and war elephants was tested) and I must say Im not happy about the results..

It seems like its nearly impossible to kill them even. Having 3-4 units throw all javelins at them doesnt mean much. I had one battle (out of 6 or something) where I actually defeated them with a desperate charge that killed the general plus another elephant and then they routed, in the other battles I managed to kill one armoured elephant..

Edit: all my Velites were valor 2

CBR

[Colovion]

Yeah most of the time I wouldn't even kill one elephant with my light infantry, the only real kills came from swarming them and hoping for the best while my archers shot from behind.

THe most kills I got was about 10 elephants out of 27 dead, using my whole army to do so didn't help me - it just routed me earlier.

[CBR]

One thing I did notice was that Velites could hold a long time. I didnt try loose formation but with skirmish off and on Guard mode they did seem to last a long time. Maybe they can stop the elephants before they reach the main line infantry, or at least break up they charge.

But thats still not good enough for me. I sure hope that its just the demo..


CBR

[Cloudkill]

I usually get good results when i throw pila, and then attack from multiple side (preferably with cav on at least one flank) which scares the hell out of them. Archers don't hurt either. No, I don't think they're really broken.

[Steppe Merc]

Horse achers, or mounted javilen chuckers. Attack, run away, repeat. At least that's what I think would work... haven't done any testing. But then, hopefully elephants won't be used to often... probably cost a heck of a lot to upkeep, and for multiplayer, I'm sure there can be a elephant limit.

[Papewaio]

Fifty Pound for the first person who handles the elephant...

:saint:

[CBR]

Well I tried both Cretan archers and Numidians and I couldnt kill any elephants or any of the crew. But I must say the archers on those elephants are quite annoying with their accurate shooting heh.


CBR

[Elrich of Gaul]

I simply interfaced Sgt. Rock and Easy Co. into the game.... they took care of those elephants really quick.. :knight:

[Colovion]

You can't do skirmishing tactics when the elephant sees you from the other side of the map and charges straight for your line - you have to stop them somehow.

So maybe Velites in loose formation....

[Orda Khan]

Steppe Merc has the tactics, mounted attacks are far more mobile and I do believe this is even historically accurate ~;)

......Orda

[Tamur]

Velites in loose formation, or Hastati in loose formation and on permanent javelin throw mode... the elephants are driven crazy by all the jabs they receive. I've had this work consistently at Trebbia, haven't done a stand-alone battle in the same way but I imagine it'd work... hmm, will give that a go as soon as I'm able.

[Nelson]

Velites in loose formation, or Hastati in loose formation and on permanent javelin throw mode... the elephants are driven crazy by all the jabs they receive.
This has worked best for me, too. Of course, sometimes the Dumbos run through my light troops and into my line somewhere else anyway!

[Steppe Merc]

Thank you Orda. As for the infantry line, pfff. There just infantry. ~:p

[CBR]

Horsearchers will just end up getting shot to pieces if they go for a shootout with the elephants.


CBR

[Kongamato]

Artillery ought to show Mr. Elephant who's boss. A battery of ballistas or onagers should inflict lethal wounds if aimed in the right place. Ballista bolts can penetrate further than arrows and onager balls can fracture skulls or just drive the elephant nuts.

[Steppe Merc]

Do you mean 1 unit, or a whole bunch? I never really thought of that, though they should probably have better range for their bows (of course the height probably changes that). However I'm pretty sure that most of the elephant users weren't using composite (or compound, however you like it) bows. Of course, they probably won't factor in compound bows again... ~:(

[CBR]

When 4 Cretan 60 men archers units cant kill just one guy on the 9 elephants I dont see how horsearchers (with the way the demo works) would stand a chance. And although only 18 bowmen in the elephant unit they seem to do nice kills.

Artillery would be good against Elephants and with lots of screenshots showing silly amounts of artillery and fireworks they could be an important part in standard battles.

From a historical viewpoint I just dont like that and when it comes to balance I do see a problem with skirmishers that dont get many kills against infantry or cavalry and apparently dont have much use against elephants either. It cant be right that we have to use artillery or pigs!


CBR

[Husar]

I got them to rout with one unit of Triarii, one unit of Principes and most important, one unit of roman cavalry.
I think that although elephants have a bonus against cav, cav is still a very good weapon against them.
I let the Triarii go first, with the Principes right behind them, cav on the flank. The elephants charged through the Triarii and got to the Principes before theey could throw their pila, but right in that moment my cav charged into their back/side. Now when cavalry fights against elephants, the cav seems to take heavy losses, but still one of the most important thing is that the cav stops the charge of the elephants, so that the infantry can stand up and reorganize to get the beasts in a fight.
In my case this wasn´t even necessary because the cav charge made the elephants rout and now comes the most important purpose of the cav, because in the full version when playing a campaign, routing elephants only means you will face them again in the next battle. That´s why you should have the cav to pursue the elephants and kill them all, like all troops, routing elephants are easy kills and you should use that, keep in mind I tried it with all valour 0 troops, once you have some high valour cav in the campaign, it should be even easier I hope, because now it´s more complicated if the cav doesn´t rout them with their charge(as I said they kill cav easily).
I also made a pic of it, you can see i didn´t lose that many men and the elephants run, 4 of them got killed before they could get away:

http://www.photodump.com/direct/Husar/elephantsrout.jpg

update: I just tried a bit more with several units and found out that fully upgraded Valour 9 Triarii or Barbarian Noble Cav could kill some elephants and make them run amok. It seems that if you don´t want to use pigs or catapults, you either have to frighten them somehow(like above) or you need troops with higher valour(I don´t want to know what valour 5 elephants can do to your army ~:rolleyes: ). The problem with the elephants running amok was that they were running around nearly invincible, they easily trampled down even cavalry and the archers still shot. I also recognized that cavalry seems to do more damage to elephants because they can´t be pushed back, while infantry often doesn´t really get a change to attack the elephants because they get pushed back very often, the cavalry doesn´t and can attack more often, the downside is that inf often stands up again after falling, the cav doesn´t...
If we could only try a phalanx against the elephants, with their longer spears they should be able to attack the elephants without being pushed back, while heavy cavalry tries to keep the elephants in place and busy.
I can´t wait to try that in the full version, I have to get them more easily without pigs... ~:rolleyes: ~;)

[JeromeGrasdyke]

I was doing a custom battle. The enemy was Carthage, I was Julii. I was trying to defeat their elephants. It was a small pitched battle with equal amounts of infantry for each of us, Gen Cav, me with archers and them with one 27 unit of War ELephants. I couldn't neutralize the elephants at all. Every time out of about 10-15 tries the elephants would make my army run away. Each time I'd try something different.... use flaming arrows, use the light infantry, use the spears - try drawing the elephants into my army and just mass assault them, surround them and make them rout... no avail.

What difficulty level were you playing on?

[Slyspy]

The man that goes up against an angry, trained elephant with a 16ft wooden stick is a brave man indeed! They are supposed to be powerful. The whole reason that burning pigs were ever used is that nothing but fear could stop them. Even that couldn't stop them being really dangerous. I suspect that they will be a fair way up the tech tree, that training them will be time-consuming and expensive and that their upkeep will be huge. Also no doubt players will soon learn the best ways to panic them. How this will work in MP i neither know nor particularly care since not one Total War has had a balanced MP game yet IMO.

[Red Harvest]

If cav is effective against elephants it probably shouldn't be. From what I've read, you really shouldn't even be able to order your cav to attack the elephants. The horses would say, "nay, nay!" (Forgive the pun.) So if you did, the cav should charge up stop short, then they might even promptly rout...without engaging depending on morale/discipline, etc. Hey CA, have you considered something like this? Or preventing cav (except for perhaps some specific instances) from even directly attacking elephants?

[afrit]

Did anybody try archers with flaming arrows? In a couple of experiments I managed to rout an enemy elephant unit (9 beasts, 27 men, the regular non-armored kind) with 1 unit of Roman archers and 1 unit of Cretan archers. I spread the archers in a thin 2-line formation, set them on loose formation and enabled flaming arrows. Twice the enemy elephants (which happened to be enemy general as well since it was the only unit) routed before even getting in range to charge at my units. Happened on both medium and hard difficulty. In both cases there were no enemy casualties before routing . Weird.

I could not replicate the same result with regular arrows. But it also does not work all the time with flaming arrows.


Would like to have confirmation that flaming missiles scare elephants.

[Jeanne d'arc]

The man that goes up against an angry, trained elephant with a 16ft wooden stick is a brave man indeed! They are supposed to be powerful. The whole reason that burning pigs were ever used is that nothing but fear could stop them. Even that couldn't stop them being really dangerous. I suspect that they will be a fair way up the tech tree, that training them will be time-consuming and expensive and that their upkeep will be huge. Also no doubt players will soon learn the best ways to panic them. How this will work in MP i neither know nor particularly care since not one Total War has had a balanced MP game yet IMO.
A normal war elephant shouldend take much recources or special buildings to train, the armoured elephants on the other should take at least some kind of master armourer way up in the tech tree.

[Colovion]

What difficulty level were you playing on?

Medium. Vanilla everything.

I"m sure that a lot of these tactics would work if you found a unit of elephants alone and could just work on it yourself and the elephants, drawing them in for the charge on light troops, peppering them with javs or flaming arrows, but in a battle the elephants are used by the AI very well - they know that they are a good shock troop and a well timed charge will break your lines. Most of the time the AI would advance slowly with everything, and then the elephants would charge along with the Generals cav, breaking up my formations on a part of my line - if I concentrate too much effort on subduing that threat to my army I lose all cohesive nature to my troops and the enemy infantry will slaughter my troops that turn their backs to deal with the elephants - and if I don't deal with the elephants rampaging through my lines it's less than 30 seconds before my entire army routes. ~:mecry: ~:confused:

[Colovion]

[QUOTE=afrit]Did anybody try archers with flaming arrows? QUOTE]

Yeah I tried that too - it didn't work out like yours. Then again all I gave myself was one unit of archers, maybe when going up against Elephants you need lots of archers with flaming arrows? I've heard that flaming arrows do frighten elephants. I wouldn't mind that being the case actually as it gives another counter other than flaming pigs.

[Jeanne d'arc]

Medium. Vanilla everything.

I"m sure that a lot of these tactics would work if you found a unit of elephants alone and could just work on it yourself and the elephants, drawing them in for the charge on light troops, peppering them with javs or flaming arrows, but in a battle the elephants are used by the AI very well - they know that they are a good shock troop and a well timed charge will break your lines. Most of the time the AI would advance slowly with everything, and then the elephants would charge along with the Generals cav, breaking up my formations on a part of my line - if I concentrate too much effort on subduing that threat to my army I lose all cohesive nature to my troops and the enemy infantry will slaughter my troops that turn their backs to deal with the elephants - and if I don't deal with the elephants rampaging through my lines it's less than 30 seconds before my entire army routes. ~:mecry: ~:confused:
It maybe better to ignore the elephants at the first phase when the batle starts, try to focus your aim on the enemy units u can handle and get them to route as quickly as possible.If u can get a few to route at once they might drag a big part of the army with them including those elephants, hey they might even help u in the process as they route.I got my general killed that way once, ever since i make sure my general is far away from those rampaging beasts.

[Colovion]

It maybe better to ignore the elephants at the first phase when the batle starts, try to focus your aim on the enemy units u can handle and get them to route as quickly as possible.If u can get a few to route at once they might drag a big part of the army with them including those elephants, hey they might even help u in the process as they route.I got my general killed that way once, ever since i make sure my general is far away from those rampaging beasts.

The first phase of the battle is the elephants stampeding through my troops, I have to deal with them first. I"ll try a couple mroe tests today.

[afrit]

@Colovion,
I think you are justified in persisting to try to find a solution to elephants. Since in the campaign map we all have to start as Romans, I think the first question on the FAQ will be: how do I handle elephants?

Can you be more specific in the settings of the battle you are playing? Specifically the distance between the 2 armies and how much time you had to organize. And the number of units.

I just played a custom battle (on medium) where I was able to make one unit of elephants run amok before hitting my line (using flaming archers). By the time the AI engaged the second elephant unit I was routing their line. Now in hindsight I clearly had overwhelming superiority in infantry (I had more units and roman units appear to be good). So it wasn't totally balanced. But then again, maybe you are fighting too difficult a battle. I have a hunch that the roman strategy to beat carthage in the RTW imperial campaign is to overwhelm them with numbers (which is what happened historically).

Can you post more specific settings. I am using modrome.

[cugel]

I had the same experience with the elephants. Pretty funny actually, with the elephants tossing my principes around like leaves! Then they run amok, which seems to make them invulnerable and they run wild through my entire line, routing my army.

No. This is not historically accurate at all.

After an exhaustive analysis of all the battles of antiquity in which elephants participated, historian Hans Delbruck concluded:

"we do not find a single corroborated battle in which the elephants accomplished something of importance; on the contrary, usually the side that was stronger in elephants was defeated. . . . The most valuable point is most probably the judgment of Polybius, who approves of the [Roman's] deep formation and consequently does not credit the elephants with the power to go through it. . . .

If we consider the entire experience of the military history of antiquity, we may say that the usefulness and actual use of elephants for battle may under any circumstances not be rated too highly. Against peoples who were still not familiar with them and against cavalry and sharpshooters they had some successes, which were, however. . . very greatly exaggerated by the losers in order to find an excuse for their defeat. Troops who are familiar with them and do not fear them, who know how to avoid them and how to attack them properly are able to deal with them, as Alexander had already done on the Hydapses, not through some kind of ruse or flaming arrows or by frightening them, but by skillful use of their weapons. . . .

According to [modern scientific works on elephants], the elephant is not at all invulnerable, but even has a rather sensitive hide, and even if spears and arrows do not kill him outright, they still penetrate so deeply that they remain imbedded in his body, and the pain makes the animals uncontrollable and causes them to shy away. It is reported often enough that they then penetrate into the ranks of their own troops, throw them into confusion and bring about defeats, as for example, . . . for the Romans in front of Numantia."

Hans Delbruck, History of the Art of War: Volume I: Warfare in Antiquity, p. 562-63.

Of course, unlike with RTW, the Roman formations were very deep, up to 70 ranks deep at Cannae for example, which is one reason that elephants couldn't penetrate it.

[Colovion]

@Colovion,
I think you are justified in persisting to try to find a solution to elephants. Since in the campaign map we all have to start as Romans, I think the first question on the FAQ will be: how do I handle elephants?

Can you be more specific in the settings of the battle you are playing? Specifically the distance between the 2 armies and how much time you had to organize. And the number of units.

I just played a custom battle (on medium) where I was able to make one unit of elephants run amok before hitting my line (using flaming archers). By the time the AI engaged the second elephant unit I was routing their line. Now in hindsight I clearly had overwhelming superiority in infantry (I had more units and roman units appear to be good). So it wasn't totally balanced. But then again, maybe you are fighting too difficult a battle. I have a hunch that the roman strategy to beat carthage in the RTW imperial campaign is to overwhelm them with numbers (which is what happened historically).

Can you post more specific settings. I am using modrome.

Alright. Using MODROME I just played 5 battles. All on Medium. All with Vanilla everything and stock unit sizes and the default battlefield and default distance (200).

I was Julii using these troops (I know I was a little overpowered but it made it easier to concentrate on the elephants):

- 2 Princeps
- 1 Velite
- 2 Hestati
- 1 Cretan Archer
- 1 Triarii

They being Carthage:

- 1 Poeni Inf.
- 1 Cretan Archer
- 1 Skirmisher
- 3 Iberian Inf.
- 1 War Elephant

Battle #1 --- Win.

This battle the elephants stayed more or less out of the battle when my infantry clashed with theirs. They started routing but there were still the Skirmishers, Cretan archers and the War Elephants to deal with. I set my units up around where those three units were sitting and started raining fire arrows on the elephants and the Velites began throwing their javelins. Please note that the Cretans had been firing their fire arrows on the elephants for the entire battle up to this point with no effect. Soon enough the elephants charged into my Princeps and routed them very easily, but no surprise there. I charged my Hastati in to the elephants, no effect - Hastati rout. I set the other unit of Hastati in loose formation and charge in - another rout. The elephants are just sitting there, idling eating grass and every so often kicking a unit around - archers having no effect in the mean time, not one elephant died this entire battle. The way they eventually routed after I threw everything at them was I had some left over Triarii that I set to Gaurd mode and the elephants were tired and when they charged in they were bogged down and had enough.

Close call.

Battle #2 ---- Win

Elephants did about the same thing here, sitting at the back and then when my Princeps were crushing the last of the Poeni Inf they charged through, routing them. My archers still raining down their ceaseless fire, nothing. After pushing the remaining Iberian Infantry from my right flank I push my Hastati in and hurl their Pilums before charging in - the elephants rout that unit and I pull back, letting the fire arrows and Velites have their fun. THe elephants rout. w00t. I win, but only because the elphants never charged any of my units on the field after their initial charge - I was peppering them with projectiles for a good 2 minutes solid before they routed. ~:handball:

Battle #3 ---- Loss

Cretans start firing, I start setting my lines up. Everything happens like the last time - Poeni attack my Princeps on my left flank, Iberians charge the Triarii and Hastati on my right flank while my Velites fling around their Javs. Elephants charge my Princeps early and they rout even though I sent a unit of Hastati to be a sheild of light infantry (they were smooshed pretty good doing that and routed immediately). I defeat the units on my right flank and envelope the elephants with my remaining troops - the elephants have a coffee break as my troops hack at their knees, ankles, shoot flaming arrows into their sides, yell dirty words at the archers on top -- then the elephants decide that it's time to get back to work after about 20 seconds of this and rout my entire army assaulting them. BooooUrns. ~:confused: ~:mecry:

Battle #4 ---- Loss

This one was kind of embarrassing. I rout the elephants with light infantry and the fire arrows actually do something, then their remaining troops rout my left-over untis that were going full out on the elephants and I lose, but the elephants have fun going on a jog around the battlefield, never off the battlefield as I"ve found out - they just run aimlessly around and might take someone out, not that time though.

Battle #5 ---- Win

The previous 4 Battles had been pretty agressive on my part, on this one I just defended and let them come to me. I won because their units charged before the elephants and once again the elephants charged my left flank, routing my Princeps. It was a close battle and I won with about 100 men left standing, some Cretans, some Princeps, and a handful of Triarii as well as some Velites that skirmished with the other Skirmishers the whole battle away from the pitched battles. The elephants were routed seemingly by luck as they were fighting amongst the Princeps and then after routing the Princeps I guess an archer got a lucky shot in and the elephants routed.

*********

End Notes:

I never killed any of the elephants. Ceaseless attacking them and I never felled one of the mighty beasts. Nothing phased them sometimes, and other times they routed for seemingly no reason. Enveloping them doesn't seem to make them afraid, what makes them afaid it seems is stopping their charge once they're tired - Triarii or Hastati seemed to work for this but only after the elephants have routed most of your army will they be tired enough to be broken by a fixed formation unit or a charge.

Draw your own conclusions. :bow:

[Red Harvest]

How many elephants are there in this single unit? With a lot of elephants no single beast is going to take many hits. I've been able to kill beasts in groups of three to five. As it stands with what I've seen, roughly three elephants in a unit would be equivalent to at least 10 beasts, perhaps 15 to 30 even.

[Colovion]

so I just did another couple battles - the only text-book "rout of elephants" that happened was when they charged into my Velites and got bogged down fighting them and some Princeps I charged in afterwards, being peppered with non-fire arrows for a little while and then I switched to fire arrows and one volley frightened the elephants enough to rout. It was my only time I ever killed an elephant as when they started running a Velite got a lucky shot in. ~:)

Unfortunately it was the only time I've ever had "control" over the elephants and the next time I tried this they just charged through the Velites and kept running around killing until my whole army was routed. ~:shock:

[Colovion]

How many elephants are there in this single unit? With a lot of elephants no single beast is going to take many hits. I've been able to kill beasts in groups of three to five. As it stands with what I've seen, roughly three elephants in a unit would be equivalent to at least 10 beasts, perhaps 15 to 30 even.

9 Elephants in each unit. It says 27, but I think that means the guys on top too (oh yeah I never killed any of those guys either).

[afrit]

@colovion,
I'll try your unit setup. But my experience is basically the same as yours. I also found that the elephants sometimes seem to rout for no reason as long as they are not charging. It is hopeless to kill them. You just wait for them to flee and get out of their way (how that would affect the campaign I don;t know).

I did manage to wipe out one unit in a battle once where I had overwhelming force and had mobbed them with loads of infantry. Then pursued the routing elephants with cavalry (can't recall if medium or light). Almost lost the entire unit through elephants falling on it, but I did kill them all.

WIth the fire arrows I have seen (rare) occasions of burned out elephants (charred corpse) meaning the arrows did it.

But most of the time I have your situation: they run amok but are not killed.

Pretty frustrating.

I'll post the results of my experiments with your configuration.

Afrit

[Red Harvest]

Elephants come with three riders each: one driver/handler (mahout), and two archers. A unit with nine elephant would be quite tough to handle!

My personal strategy would be to smear myself with pig fat, affix some bacon to my armour, grab a long pointy stick, and start making my best piggy sounds. RR-rrhnt, rru-rrhnt. (Used to be able to talk to the pigs that way, don't know if the elephants would buy it.) Send in the pig guards!!!

[cugel]

My personal strategy would be to smear myself with pig fat, affix some bacon to my armour, grab a long pointy stick, and start making my best piggy sounds. RR-rrhnt, rru-rrhnt. (Used to be able to talk to the pigs that way, don't know if the elephants would buy it.) Send in the pig guards!!!

Er. . . . The Romans used to Light the Pigs On Fire! Don't know if you'd want to go to that extreme.

~:joker:

The squealing of the burning pigs is what frightened the Elephants.

I just played a couple of games as the Cartiginians. Just selected 2 armored elephant units and routed the entire Roman army. Didn't lose a man or beast. Boy was that fun! With 1 unit I managed to line up an elephant unit and charge along the Roman line at a unit about 3-4 units away. The elephants just crushed everything in their path to get to the distant unit. Killed 800 for a loss of zero.

I just love the trompling and watching enemy units disappear!

~:joker:

It is all rather silly though - making an Uber unit like that. CA is going to have to really TONE DOWN those elephants and make them much more realistic for the final release -- or they might as well re-title the game: Rome Total Elephant War!

[Colovion]

MP will just be a bunch of Elephants charging in with flaming arrows to spook them and maybe a few spears.

[Red Harvest]

I can see it now, RTW becomes PTW: Pachyderm Total War

Seriously folks, I think a considerable part of the problem is the relative numbers (scaling). If you use Easymod you can adjust numbers to get sensible results. Let CA tweak a bit, and get the numbers of tuskers down to reasonable value, and countering them should be possible (disruptive still, but manageable.) The pachyderm's should still give the horses fits though! One criticism I see is that the "rock-paper-scissors" effects are not always great enough on equivalent valour units.

[Colovion]

Valour units earned it. ~:)

[Jeanne d'arc]

Er. . . . The Romans used to Light the Pigs On Fire!
I just played a couple of games as the Cartiginians. Just selected 2 armored elephant units and routed the entire Roman army. Didn't lose a man or beast. Boy was that fun! With 1 unit I managed to line up an elephant unit and charge along the Roman line at a unit about 3-4 units away. The elephants just crushed everything in their path to get to the distant unit. Killed 800 for a loss of zero.

I just love the trompling and watching enemy units disappear!

~:joker:


Strange, i tried almost the same thing and my elephants instantly routed, the AI managed to kill some elephants aswell.What is the AI doing to beat those elephants so easely?

[Barkhorn1x]

Of course, unlike with RTW, the Roman formations were very deep, up to 70 ranks deep at Cannae for example, which is one reason that elephants couldn't penetrate it.

...well another reason was that Hannibal had lost all of his elephants before this battle. ~:joker:

But seriously, thanks for quoting Delbruck - he actually researched the issues and found that elephants are the equivelent of an ancient novelty act. "Potentially" devastating - but easily handled once you figure out their obvious weakness.

Barkhorn.

[ah_dut]

ahhh. so i'm not alone. those elephants wipe me out every time

[cugel]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cugel
Of course, unlike with RTW, the Roman formations were very deep, up to 70 ranks deep at Cannae for example, which is one reason that elephants couldn't penetrate it.



...well another reason was that Hannibal had lost all of his elephants before this battle.

But seriously, thanks for quoting Delbruck - he actually researched the issues and found that elephants are the equivelent of an ancient novelty act. "Potentially" devastating - but easily handled once you figure out their obvious weakness.

Barkhorn.

The uber-tuskers can easily be toned down by CA in the final release. The point about deep ranks is much more serious though. As ephasized by Delbruck and other historians the wayt ancient/medieval battles were really fought makes a farce of MTW/RTW series -as far as having any remote historical accuracy (still loads of fun though)! In the volume I quoted Delbruck points out that warfare prior to the invention of firearms emphasized mass shock action. It was the "physical and psychological pressure" of the rear ranks pressing forward that won battles.

Of course in MTW/RTW outflanking is everything. In ancient and medieval battles it wasn't. As Delbruck points out, in ancient/medieval battles the side that stretched it's lines thin to try to outflank it's enemies would normally have the center of its line splintered before the flankers could have any impact. Having the center of your line crushed almost always leads to a decisive defeat of course. That's why the Romans had such deep armies. And they won. Alot more than they lost.

This points out what a brilliant general Hannibal proved himself at Cannae, since he took just that risk of weakening his center in order to have his flanking infantry and cavalry attack both flanks of the Roman army and totally destroy it. But it took exquisite timing, since the center had to hold just long enough for the flanking movement to succeed (Hannibal placed himself at the danger spot to help bolster their morale).

But few generals in history managed to pull off a feat like that. That's why Hannibal's name is still remembered more than 2,000 years after his death and so many other generals aren't.

[CBR]

You mean by rear rankers pushing the frontrank forward? That has been the traditional view of how battles were fought but several modern day scholars have seriously challenged that view.

And the Roman system had overall same number of ranks as say the greek armies and Macedonia style phalanx. They just divided them into 3 lines of units.

Hannibal didnt really weaken his center, he atually strengthened it ~:) He had to make sure that the center units would hold long enough as they would be fighting longer.

From http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/polybius-cannae.html

Having now got them all into line he advanced with the central companies of the Iberians and Celts; and so arranged the other companies next these in regular gradations, that the whole line became crescent-shaped, diminishing in depth towards its extremities: his object being to have his Libyans as a reserve in the battle, and to commence the action with his Iberians and Celts.


Delbrück is a bit outdated especially when it comes to the understanding of Medieval warfare. Tactics and strategy played a much bigger role than he wants to credit medieval commanders for. J.F Verbruggen "The art of warfare in western europe" is IMO a must read.


CBR

[CBR]

Romans used elephants with success at both Cynoscephalae and Pydna. When used in smaller groups and with good support they could be good.

When a commander sent them in unsupported they could cause havoc against poor troops (or just soldiers who had never seen such beasts before) but against welltrained armies they normally didnt do much damage and even turned back to disrupt their own infantry/cavalry lines.


CBR

[Red Harvest]

Many ancient major battle descriptions I have read pivot around a decisive flanking movement. One of the advantages of the Roman system was its flexibility in flanking the phalanx (Cynoscephalae.) Hannibal at Trebia and Cannae used his phalanx units away from the center. His center was weak enough at Trebia that the Romans broke it, not so at Cannae. Scipio and others were using flanking tactics rather than just center attack.

The Roman system of Hannibal's time was so cavalry weak that it had no choice but to emphasize smashing the center. Hannibal didn't have infantry forces sufficiently sized and of uniform high quality that he could afford to slug it out all day in the center. (Even if he had, the resulting "victories" would have left him with disastrous amounts of casualties--he couldn't afford a war of attrition with Rome.) He played against the Roman weaknesses by sweeping away their token cavalry, then attacking their flanks and rear. At the same time he used his phalanx in reserve and/or off center so that their susceptibility to being flanked was not a problem. He would yield ground in the center to buy time. The Roman system of the time of Hannibal looks like a bit of a failure. It was supposed to be flexible to allow localized flanking, but it looks like it was an anti-infantry system that was fighting the wrong foe. It was fixed by getting enough cavalry to prevent the infantry from being flanked (and even turning the tables as Scipio did to Hannibal at Zama.) That's my take reading the descriptions of the battles.

[TinCow]

I suspect that due to the rock-paper-scissors nature of the TW games, the problem is that we simply don't have a proper Elephant counter-unit in the demo. Obviously the fried pork won't be the only method, so I think it's just a question of waiting for the full version. There are plenty of MTW units that could be considered unstoppable if they were placed in a demo which did not include the proper 'counter' to them. HOPEFULLY this is the scenario.

[Colovion]

Yeah like a load of vanilla spears against some Katanks:

"OMG GUYZ!11 SPEARS COUNTER CAV?! NOT WITH UBER KATANKS!!!1 I HATE THIS GAME"""!

[Psyco]

I used to have huge troubles with elephants, but not any more.

This is the battle where I discovered the trick.

Fought on the tutorial battle map.

(note all units have 0 valor, weapon and armor unless specifically mentioned)

I (attacking) had:
Roman General (16 men)
4 units of Velite (100 men each)
4 units of Hastati (120 men each)
5 units of Principes (120 men each)
4 units of Triarii (60 men each, but valor 1)
2 units of Equites (50 men each)

vs

the AI (defending)
Carteginian General (16 men)
4 units of Peoni (120 men each)
2 units of Sacred Band (120 men each)
2 units of Iberian Infantry (120 men each)
2 units of Long Shield Cavalry (50 men each)
2 units of Round Shield Cavalry (50 men each)
2 units of Armored Elephants (8 elephants, 24 men each)
2 units of Cretan Archers (100 men each)
2 units of Numidian Mercenaries (50 men each)
1 unit of Skirmishers (100 men)

The enemy was holed up in the forest, with the infantry in the center, the cavalry split between both flanks, and the elephants concentrated on their left (my right). I deployed my army with the Velites in front, the Princepes behind them, the Triarii in reserve, and the Hastati and Cavalry on my right.

I advanced and used my Velites to try and lure the enemy out of the forest, but they were stubburn (great ai! I was inpressed). After the Velites had almost run out of javalins, I began with the most important part of my plan, getting rid of the elephants.

I advanced the 4 units of Hastati towards the elephants, and started throwing Pila at them. When this failed to do anything, I went on to plan B. Half of the Hastati started advancing around the elephants' left flank, while the other half charged them. The elephants took the bait, and conter charged. This was when I launched the conter attack. The unengaged Hastati attacked the elephants from behind, and after a quick melee, the elephants (both units) were fleeing. I then used 2 units of Velites (now out of javalins, so basically useless) to "escourt" the elephants off the battle field (and suprisingly, they kill more than half of them).

The rest of the battle went my way, with the frontal attack of the Principes occupying the Carthaginians, while my flanking forces surrounded them and routed them. The game ended up with a heroic victory, but I was just happy that I had found a easy way to counter elephants.

The moral of the story is: Missiles dont kill elephants, but swarms of light troops can scare them away (and missile units who run out of ammo now have an important use).

Hope this helps!

[Colovion]

I've tried that before, it didn't work for me.

Maybe it's just the luck of the draw.

[Psyco]

I've tried that before, it didn't work for me.

Maybe it's just the luck of the draw.


Thats weird... It's worked consistantly for me (more than 6 times)

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Has anyone tried firing projectiles at the elephants from behind??? I think I'll have to give it a shot.

I get this from the fact that firing missiles at sacred band from behind is more effective than from in front (should be obvious, but wasn't true in MTW, to my knowledge). I got the idea to try this from the advisor - I had accidenally left him on in one of my custom battles. ~:p

Hope the elephants won't be too bad ~:cheers:

[Papewaio]

Elephants are tough but not brave.

Elephants do not like morale penalties... hit them from flanks and rear attack them while shooting at them (rear with cav to chase them off the field).

[lonewolf371]

In MTW if you had a unit with a "large shield" value missiles were not as effective when fired at the front as from the sides and rear, so if you had a unit of archers shooting at a unit of spearmen, they would be more effective if they were shooting the spearman's rear.

[Colovion]

Thats weird... It's worked consistantly for me (more than 6 times)

Must be a timing thing then.

[econ21]

Psychos - I was interested in your calling Hastati "light troops", the game also does this even though the stats (11-14) are very close to those of the "heavy infantry" Principes (11-16). I wonder if this is just nomenclature or whether there is some in game effect of being "light"? Such as a bonus "light" troops get against elephants (and anything else, I wonder?).

[Oaty]

Maybe the real problem is that the unit size of elephants is historically accurate while regular troop size is scaled down ~:idea:

[Red Harvest]

Psychos - I was interested in your calling Hastati "light troops", the game also does this even though the stats (11-14) are very close to those of the "heavy infantry" Principes (11-16). I wonder if this is just nomenclature or whether there is some in game effect of being "light"? Such as a bonus "light" troops get against elephants (and anything else, I wonder?).

Hastati and princeps are heavy infantry, but sword armed rather than the typical spear armed heavy infantry of the day.

None of us are really sure what those stats refer to. They DO NOT show the relative strengths of all units, particularly the hastati. I've done some equivalent upgrades head-to-head unit testing. Triarii are the strongest (a 60 man unit is even with 100 man hastati.) Hastati are next, with princeps routing a bit earlier than hastati (but with about the same rate of loss, right up until they rout.)

[econ21]

Very curious, Red Harvest. I agree the stats don't seem to tell the whole story - the triari's A7-D17 looks rather inferior to the princeps A11-D14. Maybe there is a substantial rank bonus built in for spears? The superiority of the hastati over the princeps that you report is even more curious - I thought historically it was supposed to be the other way around? I guess the strategy guide might enlighten us.

PS: IIRC, the Hastati are labelled as "light" troops in the demo, although I agree this is hard to square with history.

[Psyco]

I refer to them as "light troops" because that what they are called in the demo, and I'm pretty sure that light infantry get some sort if bonus against elephants. The only historical reason for the CA to make them light troops would be due to their youth. They would be young men, who were very energetic and eager, and also had less armor than the Princepes (they couldn't afford as much), so it's possible (I still think that they should be heavy, or at least medium infantry).

The most probable reason is game balancing. The Romans needed something to combat the elephants, and they decided on Hastati (although velite seem good enough to me).

[econ21]

I just tried the mod where you can play Trebia as the Romans. The battle is more interesting (challenging) from that side. I won a victory on medium, although I lost more (800+) than the Carthaginians (700+). Surprisingly, the elephants were not that troubling. Morale is definitely their weak point - get them to run and they are cut down in pursuit like anything else.

I am not quite sure how I broke them - I tried to target them with pila and charge them with hastati/velites - as the key phase of the battle was very confused. I tried to keep my heavy stuff away from them and to use the rest to surround, flank, shoot and generally panic them.

I am not sure they are overpowered for SP as they are right now - kinda like VG, kats etc. in MTW or Warrior Monks in STW, they are a unit that will make you respect the AI.

[Colovion]

I"m starting to think that Velites are the units that gum up the elephants the best, and they're cheap to boot (or assume they are seeing as they're just skirmishers).

I'll do some testing of this sort later today.

[Bob the Insane]

Note that in the demo the elephant units have very low experience compared to the other units, in fact the elephants units are set to zero while the other troops are quite experienced...

This could explain their lack of effectiveness... I modded the battle to have the same units but all with experience of 1 and all weapon and armour improvements set to 0 as well... The elephants where a lot more effective then.

Also note that in the demo the Hastati have the highest experience, armour and weapon improvements of any of the Roman units.

[Lonewarrior]

Its not impossible to kill those elephants, I find that using the roman long shield cav, it is quite easy to kill the elephants.

[cugel]

Delbrück is a bit outdated especially when it comes to the understanding of Medieval warfare. Tactics and strategy played a much bigger role than he wants to credit medieval commanders for. J.F Verbruggen "The art of warfare in western europe" is IMO a must read.

Have any of you ever been in a large crowd that's surging forward? At a rock concert, say? There's a tremendous (absolutely terrifying) physical force generated by that mass. I've seen 75,000 people at a concert blocked by a 15 foot high chain-link fence with 2 inch steel posts solidly embedded in concrete -- and they seized hold of that fence, shook it like a rag doll and threw it down with their bare hands. And that was just a disorganized mob and not an army.

I can't even imagine what being in the center of a charging army that size would be like, but I have a dim idea from those experiences and it ain't pretty. CA seems to have modeled mass and momentum with the elephants, but not with other units. That's my complaint.

The pressure from the rear ranks must have been immense, and not just physical pressure either. Psychological pressure to keep moving forward is also overwhelming. If not counteracted by an equal pressure that mass will grind through the center of the enemy line and fracture it in two.

Probably the key point to remember is that ancient commanders were not stupid and we moderns smart! "If there were nothing more to overcoming a courageous superior army than to make one's own line longer and thinner and lead the flank extension against the enemy flanks, then this artifice would have been used often. The danger here, however, is that while one is in the process of outflanking the enemy, one's own center, which has to be weakened in order to allow this can be penetrated. The fact that this did not happen at Cannae is the truly significant element of the battle."

Delbruck, History of the Art of War: Volume I.

CA could simulate the physical and psychological pressure of the rear ranks by having the units continue to press forward from the rear after contact and the superior mass penetrate and push back the weaker. Unfortunately, they only model the actions of the men in actual contact with the enemy. The rear ranks and following units don't seem to exert any effect.

Thus, we all attempt to outmaneuver and outflank our opponents in every battle -- to make our lines thinner to overlap the enemy unit (thus gaining flanking advantages), etc.

This is just historically unrealistic.

[Colovion]

Thus, we all attempt to outmaneuver and outflank our opponents in every battle -- to make our lines thinner to overlap the enemy unit (thus gaining flanking advantages), etc.

This is just historically unrealistic.

True. Such as in MTW when we set swordsmen to double line and they don't break because it's calculated by individuals and their charge/attack/defense and not so much the momentum carried by the entire mass charging towards an enemy. IN some ways I can see this being a huge negative on the gameplay as many would say "Oh I hate how their charges always get through my units" when in fact that is the way that many battles happened. The Roman's tactics and battle plan in Cannae were just that: to mass their forces in unheard of depth and press forwards to break the line of Hannibals forces. The pressure of this mass would have been incredible and the combat at the front lines must have been harrowing for those attempting to stop such a huge mass of bodies hurtling towards them. ~:eek:

[Red Harvest]

I disagree about portions. In TW series if your center is too thin, it gets smashed quickly. You can't just use wrap around lines. You flank when the opportunity arises. Typically you pick where you will hold, and where you will flank. Flanking is often a race to roll up one side before the other flank or center collapses. The degree with which momentum is factored into TW might be insufficient, but it is not absent.

You can only push so hard from behind. If you push too hard, you crush the guy in the first rank and he ends up trampled in another common example of crowd movement. There has to be some finite limit as to how many people can be effectively pushing at a given time. So just piling up in the center doesn't do it. There is a balance to be struck. If you get 90% of the effect 10 ranks deep that you would with an extra 10 ranks, then you should deploy the men that would occupy those remaining ranks elsewhere.

Scipio abandoned the standard push for the center doctrine and deployed his heavies on the wings to defeat Hasdrubal at Ilipia. In that case the Carthaginian phalanx were placed in the center. So Scipio crushed the wings while leaving his center weak. Scipio shows clearly in his battles that he was not impressed by the blunt steam roller in the center concept of his predecessors. He used division of forces and feints with light troops. He also worked to obtain better cavalry. And, like Hannibal, he won. Here you have the two best commanders of their day, on opposite sides, using the same tactics: combined forces allowing flexibility and flanking.

Historically, my interpretation of the arms race is like this:
1. Heavy infantry phalanx defended by cavalry become dominant over other infantry. True combined arms.
2. Romans develop a system that defeats phalanx by localized flanking. Short stabbing swords are used for the close in work. Limited frontage vs. a tight spear mass means they come in waves. As one wave fatigues or otherwise fails, the next wave comes in. The phalanx tends to turn a bit and expose localized gaps (whether winning or losing.) This is exploited by the units behind, rapidly defeating the inflexible phalanx formation. Note: the phalangites are unable to rest in the manner of the legionaires, who can fall back for fresher forces.
3. Hannibal uses combined arms with light/medium infantry in the center, and phalanx on the wings, and enveloping cavalry to defeat the Roman system. If you can't win the battle in the center...win first on the wings.
4. Scipio adopts some of the same tactics, denies Carthaginians overwhelming superiority on the flanks (cavalry.) Restores flexibility to a system that appears to have been originally designed for flexibilty...then became a bit rigid.

One of things missing from Delbruck's comment you quoted is that Hannibal used this same basic formation at Trebia (positions are not correct in the demo.) The center broke there, but he still won.

[econ21]

Interesting stuff - I can't say that I know much about the importance of mass in ancient warfare, as most of my knowledge is about other eras when having too many men bunched up could be disasterous (Agincourt, Blenheim etc). One argument for having massed ranks might be if the rear could relieve the front - I remember one TV program showed a fit young man could only fight energetically in plate armour for a few minutes before becoming exhausted. You could easily simulate the effect of mass (at least in MTW; presumably it's still in RTW too) by extending the rank bonuses currently given to just spears and pikes.