Triarii vs Elephants: is an wide, open formation better for the triarii?

[Chelco]

Hello guys,
I am trying to improve my tactical skills by intensive "drilling" in custom battles.
I have my settings to 40 men per unit. My difficulty is medium.
I created a custom battle: two tirarii (me) units vs 1 elephant unit (Cpu). Grass flatland is the battleground.
Elephants appear to be very effective charging and inflicting heavy losses in a short time. This last thing results in severe morale drops for the triarii. That's no secret.
I then decided to widen the triarii formation and then to loose it up. The elephants charged and killed only a couple of my men. Furthermore, they didn't pull back for another charge and stayed in the melee which allowed my triarii to kill one of them. This last death triggered a drop in their morale and the next thing I know is that the triarii killed the enemy's general.
I wonder if the open and wide formation has a better change in standing against the elephants.
Your feedback is appreciated.

[Krusader]

As I understand, a wide and open formation is better. As when the elephants charge fewer men die, and thus morale wont drop so fast. Thats the impression I got from playing quite a few custom battles.

I prefer facing Elephants with Velites or other skirmishers.

[Marius Maxentius]

Triarii work best in a closed formation against normal cavalry/infantry charges and, as Krusader stated, opening the formation allows them to fight Elephants. However, personal experience has forced me to drop the idea of using any infantry unit (spearmen, skirmishers, etc) against the beasts. Several units of cavalry always seem to work exceptionally well. Roman Equites seem to do the job just fine, IMO.

(I play on NORMAL)

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I find that mobbing elephants with skirmishers seems to work best. They won't kill any, but the elephants will run after a few seconds. It can be speeded up with a quick cavalry charge, but pull them out after the initial impact or they'll get massacred.

Alternatively-onagers!

[Chelco]

...As when the elephants charge fewer men die, and thus morale wont drop so fast. Thats the impression I got from playing quite a few custom battles.

I prefer facing Elephants with Velites or other skirmishers.

Exactly. Suffering severe losses in the first seconds of the engagement has to have a severe effect on morale.
I don't know if this experiments I am making in custom battles are really worth. They are kind of artificial. I am not sure I'm gonna be able to implement such fine adjustements of formation during a big battle.

[Chelco]

Several units of cavalry always seem to work exceptionally well. Roman Equites seem to do the job just fine, IMO.


That's the next thing I want to try. Cheers,

[Chelco]

I find that mobbing elephants with skirmishers seems to work best. They won't kill any, but the elephants will run after a few seconds. It can be speeded up with a quick cavalry charge, but pull them out after the initial impact or they'll get massacred.

Alternatively-onagers!

I have seen a whole elephants unit run away just as its general was killed. If I could make them run away through an enemy formation ... that would be glorious!

[Lemur]

This doesn't address your question about Triarii, but I've found that flaming arrows do nicely against pachyderms. Bunched heavy infantry just get killed.

I'd agree with the previous posters that skirmishers and cav are a better solution. But warming the elephants up with some nice flaming arrows is even better.

[Marius Maxentius]

I agree with the previous posters that skirmishers and cav are a better solution. But warming the elephants up with some nice flaming arrows is even better.

Well, some people like to attack Carthage (primary users of crazy War Elephants) fairly early in the game and multiple units of archers aren't available for the them attacker. As the Scipii I made a full-stack Equite army with two family members and ran around North Africa, taking provinces from Carthage. You can't assault settlements, but camping outside for a while usually works. Besides, after the 2nd turn of siege the AI will usually sally forth to attack you 90% of the time. With many units of cavalry, you can play RTW like a simple RTS game and tell them all to attack one enemy unit at a time.

The enemy always routes like crazy. I have never lost, or even came close to losing, a single battle.

[Dragoncrusader]

Does it make a difference what sort of elephants? I was fighting some armoured elephants from the Seleucid Empire recently and flaming arrows from two units of archers, an attack by two units of Persian spearmen in open order and a unit of cavalry made hardly any difference at all :duel: All my men died! The elephants then proceeded to chase my Cataphract general around the battlefield and it was only when I had defeated the rest of the army and could ganag up on the elephants that I could kill them. :help:

[hotingzilla]

The mian difference is between Elephants and War elephants, as the latter can fire arrows.

War Elephants soften your troops up before impact.

I use both House of Scipii and Carthage, so I know how to use and defeat Elephants. Flaming arrows are probably the only solution to elephants if you don't wish to take substantial losses.

Remember, just placing an Elephant near the enemy reduces their morale.

[Red Harvest]

I find that mobbing elephants with skirmishers seems to work best. They won't kill any, but the elephants will run after a few seconds. It can be speeded up with a quick cavalry charge, but pull them out after the initial impact or they'll get massacred.

Alternatively-onagers!

Yes, CA went overboard with the hit points for elephants (and some other units like chariots.) Because of the high hitpoints, you rarely kill one with javs or archers. They will rout first most times. If your hits get spread out "perfectly" then you would have to "kill" 90% of the hit points on a base elephant unit before you could score kills with subsequent hits. I don't like the hit point model that much. Chariot units have similar problems. Once you hammer these for awhile and the first one dies, then the others seem to die rapidly.

[panchoamd]

I play a campaign in expert level, and because the house of scipii has a trouble with the greeks, the ¿senate order me? to take cartago!!!
In 10 turns!!
I ship my army of hastatis and principes and go to cartago.
In the turn after the disembark, the cartago's army attack me, and
only one of their elefants kill the 75% of my army!!!
In a moment 3 units of archers, and 1 of velites launch a rain of arrows and
flaming arrows over the 8 elefants, and no one was killed!!
And this no rout!!
In all the battle the elefants no rout!!
Of course, i lost the batles and the entire army.

[smoothiemaker]

i fond the best thing to use againt elephants is chariots archer. you can use the egypts chariots archers or brittins chariots archers they both get the job doon.

[WannabeGosu]

If you really have trouble with Elephants, use pigs. ~D . As soon as they make contact with the elephants they will go crazy. Sometime it can affect cavary too. I haven't had much of a trouble with elephants in MP. I played against a all-elephant army and won him easily. I was playing romans with only a few cav units. But onagers really are my favorite. With a bit of experience and flaming ammo the elephants are :hanged: .

PS:

Hello to you all! Nice forum you got....