Research: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

We've been kicking this around in another thread, but it occurs to me that it deserves its own thread (and to let that one get back on topic.)

Elephants are fun to use...I like them, but they really seem overpowered from a historical sense.

Problem 1: Elephant healing
Elephant units are often healed after suffering losses in battle (Ground Hog Day effect.) It appears that the heal function goes after the highest value (quality + type) units first. Often this is an elephant unit. Dead elephants should not heal, period. They already have multiple hit points and are very challenging to bring down. Surely the hit points already give more than enough of a "heal" function to them. This is producing an exponential effect.

Corollary Idea 1:
In fact, live elephants with a lot of lost hit points in a battle should have some probability of dying AFTER battle (with a message box about X additional beast succumbing to their wounds.) Elephant units should be a bit fragile that way. In real life you couldn't replace a dead elephant like one might a dead horse. Hannibal lost almost all his elephants after the battle of the Trebbia, apparently it is not clear if it was due to weather or wounds.

Problem 2: Multiple Hit Points & Missile Vulnerability
High multiple hit points make elephants resilient to archery and missile units in general. This seems backwards. They don't die until many, many hit points are lost. I couldn't kill a single one on medium/grassland with four units of Roman archer auxilia when they marched toward me and engaged. They did eventually rout, although without losses.

I don't know what should be done, but relying on multiple hit points creates problems where the unit does not attrit to missile volleys until the very end. (Also an issue in melee although less obvious since individual beasts get in trouble/targeted.) Seems like it would be better to have individual elephants more likely to succumb to missile fire. Perhaps some small probability of an individual animal losing ALL remaining hit points on a volley ("the lucky shot.")

Some of the multiple hit point issues apply to chariots as well, but are much less pronounced.

Problem 3: Shouldn't the mahout be vulnerable?
The driver/mahout seems impervious to missiles as well. Is he just getting lumped in with the beast? I would think this guy might be the weak link at times since he is not heavily armoured, and the elephant won't "work" without him.

Other Potential Problems:
Weather in the north could kill off/deplete elephant units on the strategy map (blizzard?)

As I said before, when dealing with cavalry I think the horse is just a buch of stat modifications for the rider plus giving him the property of Mounted...

I also think they have tried to use the same mechanic for elephants and chariots and it is resulting in things looking a bit clunky...

A question I have is how mulitple riders are handled in all this (elephants and chariots)... I have never seen a mount without a rider, but the additional guys do definately die "apparantly" independently of the mount...

For your comments on not healing elephants after a battle, I agree but what is being healed the elephants of the riders?? Is bringing elephants back a side effect of healing the riders perhaps as the rider can't exist without the elephant (strictly speaking in game terms of course ~D )??

I just looked up the stats for a Carthaginian Elephant unit in export_descr_unit.txt. Here're the stats and comments from the file:

type carthaginian elephant forest
category cavalry
class heavy
stat_health 1, 10
stat_pri_armour 0, 4, 0, flesh
stat_sec_armour 10, 2, flesh

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; stat_health Hit points of man, followed by hit points of mount or attached animal (if applicable)
; Ridden horses and camels do not have separate hit points
; stat_pri_armour Details of the man's defences
; armour factor
; defensive skill factor (not used when shot at)
; shield factor (only used for attacks from the front of left)
; sound type when hit = flesh, leather, or metal
;
; stat_sec_armour Details of animal's or vehicle's defenses (note riden horses do not have a separate defence)
; As per stat_pri_armour, except that the shield entry is ommited

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So, the mahout has 1HP, 0 armour, 4 defense and no shield
The 'phant has 10HP and 10armour, 2 defense and no shield.

To kill an elephant you have to inflict at least 11HP at a time to get through the armour (not sure about defense?) and repeat this 10 times.
Easy, ain't it? :wall: And I was trying to kill them with a range-attack of 7 from my Parthian HA.

R'as

Well arrows were'nt an effective weapon at killing an elephant but great at making them route. Think about it that thick hide they have and trying to pierce it with arrows. You only have a slight chance to kill a bear with an arrow and they are much smaller and it would take a good 6 or 7 shots to down the bear more than likely. It took 45 rounds to kill an elephant that went on a rampage at a circus about 10 years ago. Now the other points I can reckon with

Those same arrows are armour piercing in the game...so they should penetrate the skin. It's not like an archer is going to miss very often when aiming for an elephant. I dozen arrows or so and the elephant is not likely to be of much use to its rider anymore (one very upset beast.) And that mahout should come down pretty fast from archery.

I have very little experience in game with elephants (not having played Carthage/Seleucids), but it certainly does seem that way. I occasionally see a chariot that's missing a crewman, but most of the time either the elephant or chariot just keels over dead/falls to pieces, rather than losing individual riders. I think it would be neat to be able to kill the driver/mahout, which should automatically make the model (not the unit) run amok. The archers would gain some protection from missiles from the wall of the chariot/elephant enclosure they're riding in, but they seem to be nearly invulnerable to missile fire for an extended period of time.

IMO (note the I, the M as well, oh yeah and finally the O) in the game elephants are slightly underpowered. Remember, historically elephants WERE NOT easy to bring down in the slightest sense, but they would also be far more expensive than they are in the game. And no, I tried it and the archers on the top seem to fall off/get shot most of the time before the elephants are even dead. However, this does not happen with the mahout. Maybe the mahout could die, and then that particular elephant would go on a rampage or something. That would work.

Finally tried modding these today. Still haven't seen anyone get killed in the towers against archers (facing four units of those uber roman archer auxilia with extended range.) Only kills I've gotten were from melee... Losses for towered units have been in multiples of three.

On to what I learned:
1. I cut the hit points in half. This seemed to weaken them enough that they were suffering some attrition...but only in melee. Missile units still need some help.
2. You can't cut the unit size...the base value of 6 seems to be the minimum, when I tried 4 or 5 the game wouldn't load past the initial splash screen...didn't try 3 but that would be too small.

Idea:
Others have modded the armour values. I'm thinking about cutting the base armour down and transferring it to "defensive" skill. That should make javelins and arrows more effective, while still allowing the unit to trample through infantry (but with fewer hit points so they won't last long in melee.) Elephants are best used by charging in and out (and that makes good sense.)

I can't see how anyone could conclude these beasts are underpowered relative to history. Pointy projectiles were historically useful vs. elephants, not useless. Elephants were not all that effective on the battlefield and were countered fairly easily after the initial shock wore off, yet even the base level elephants are very tough in RTW. When you look at the unit scale it is really crazy. There is about a 10:1 or 20:1 unit size factor for other units, while elephants are certainly not on the same scale (else a single standard unit represents between 120 to 240 elephants on default sizes, which would be totally nuts.)

Well as a little back up your advisor says arrows wo'nt kill the elephants but they can make them run amok

I've shuffled some of the defensive values around and the results are satisfactory in that the elephants now have some missile vulnerability while maintaining some melee defense. I've cut base level elephant armour to 5, war elephant to 7, and armoured to 9. Defensive skills have been upped to compensate (5, 7, and 7 respectively.) I did cut out 2 total points of defense from the first two elephant types, and 3 from the armoured elephant. Combining this with halving of the hit points makes for reasonable pachyderms. The big bruisers still pack a wallop, but they are killable.

What I am seeing in small custom battles vs. single elephant units is this: javs and missiles still don't have much immediate effect, but they are causing damage by reducing hit points. Eventually beasts will start dropping if they take enough fire. After only a few fall, the unit routs. A few velite units are sufficient to handle an elephant unit between thrown javs and melee. The javs/velites get a big bonus in melee and can deal with the elephants. However, the elephants will usually rout one or two of these units before being contained. So if the elephant has follow up support (and they usually do...) the pachyderm will remain an excellent shock unit.

In the five or six test runs I did with the towered elephants, I only saw one archer killed--and that was apparently by a javelin. In all other cases the beast went down first. The frequency of crew kills is probably 1/10th that of the animal itself--unless the mahout is getting killed sometimes to bring the beast down. I find it unlikely that the mahout is being hit, because if so I would see more random kills from early volleys by archers, and that *never* happens.

Guess it is about time to try them in a campaign.

Arrows are about as likely to have an effect on elephants similar to darts vs a human. Sure, if you hit the jugular you might kill someone with darts, but the main effect is to cause pain and suffering (and maybe take an eye out).

Otherwise you have to bleed out the beast (or human if you're using darts). And that's going to take quite a while.

I once heard why daggers were preferred over slashing knives in a knifefight by some. With a knife, you're going to be slicing open skin, and unless you can slice a vulnerable part (like the neck), you're not going to do much to kill someone you're fighting quickly. It can take five minutes for someone to bleed to death due to slashed skin. In the meantime, they can do some serious damage to you (there's a saying that if you get in a knife fight, expect to get cut). A dagger, however, is much more likely to puncture something vital. Any torso hit could rupture a lung, a liver, kidney, mess up the intestines, the heart, all of which are hard to damage with a slashing weapon. A (slashing) sword gets around this problem by sheer size.

My point is that during a battle, unless you give it time, arrows aren't much use in killing an elephant. Javelins, maybe, for the same reasons that I pointed out with regards to daggers above. Swords can really mess up an Elephant's legs (tendons don't work too well when cut) or trunk (very sensitive part), and spears are like really big daggers. But arrows aren't likely to kill an elephant quickly, if at all. However, the pain inflicted by arrows will probably convince the Elephant to do unwanted activities!

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

I've shuffled some of the defensive values around and the results are satisfactory in that the elephants now have some missile vulnerability while maintaining some melee defense. I've cut base level elephant armour to 5, war elephant to 7, and armoured to 9. Defensive skills have been upped to compensate (5, 7, and 7 respectively.) I did cut out 2 total points of defense from the first two elephant types, and 3 from the armoured elephant. Combining this with halving of the hit points makes for reasonable pachyderms. The big bruisers still pack a wallop, but they are killable.

What I am seeing in small custom battles vs. single elephant units is this: javs and missiles still don't have much immediate effect, but they are causing damage by reducing hit points. Eventually beasts will start dropping if they take enough fire. After only a few fall, the unit routs. A few velite units are sufficient to handle an elephant unit between thrown javs and melee. The javs/velites get a big bonus in melee and can deal with the elephants. However, the elephants will usually rout one or two of these units before being contained. So if the elephant has follow up support (and they usually do...) the pachyderm will remain an excellent shock unit.

In the five or six test runs I did with the towered elephants, I only saw one archer killed--and that was apparently by a javelin. In all other cases the beast went down first. The frequency of crew kills is probably 1/10th that of the animal itself--unless the mahout is getting killed sometimes to bring the beast down. I find it unlikely that the mahout is being hit, because if so I would see more random kills from early volleys by archers, and that *never* happens.

Guess it is about time to try them in a campaign.

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Try it with bolt throwers . Realistically {ie in RealLife Total War ;p}, a Balista should have little trouble killing even an Armoured Elephant , however even full stacks in custom battle cannot get more than half at best it seems , and despite the huge target , seem to miss at rediculously close ranges {they seem to target the Mahout , not the Elephant :/ } which compounds matters {it isn't too unusual to have the elephants reach the line of Balistas without a single casuality , and they very often still have most of their number alive when they rout} .

Grrr

(I suppose we are talking about elephants that are with the enemy. We can decide if we want them or not in our armies)

For the unarmoured units of elephants:

-You can run them into amok rather easily with velites, javelinmen, flaming arrows. Just drive them to a side of your army that you only have light infantry: they are difficult targets for the elephants, elephants hit them but cannot kill them in numbers.
When they run amok the elephants are themshelves easy targets for any unit of light cavalry you have. :charge:
I don't find them overpowered.

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Historically:
Alexander the Great first met war elephants in the persian army in the battle of Gaugamela (October 1, 331 BC). They were just fifteen and still a great danger.

In the battle for the Hydaspes river (326 BC) Alexander's enemy, the indian king Porus, brought with his army 200 beasts. The macedonian phalanx managed to stop them but with heavy casualties. And they were the best infantry of their time! They did capture many of them and that's something missing from the game.

King Pyrrhus of Epirus, in the battle of Heraclea (spring 280 BC) against the romans brought with him just twenty (20) elephants. His army was some 25000 strong against 8 roman legions. He won. The elephants didn't break the enemy line: they were used when the roman battle line was already broken.

In the battle of Thapsus (46 BC) Julius Caesar was faced with 60 elephants. He had 10 legions under his command. His archers caused many elephants to panic and the rest didn't manage to break the roman line.

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War elephants were deadly usually against armies that haven't seen them before. But their numbers, most of the times, were rather small. If units in RTW actually represent scaled down real life units, one unit of elephants in the game are too many beasts for one army! Still, there are ways to engage them successfully!

The game, with the current AI is predictable. A little training and the beasts are just another unit, difficult but not indestructible!

I can live with them. I could do so even before the patch. IMO there are other (bigger) flaws in the game that have to be addressed as sooner as possible. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Nestor

(I suppose we are talking about elephants that are with the enemy. We can decide if we want them or not in our armies)

For the unarmoured units of elephants:

-You can run them into amok rather easily with velites, javelinmen, flaming arrows. Just drive them to a side of your army that you only have light infantry: they are difficult targets for the elephants, elephants hit them but cannot kill them in numbers.
When they run amok the elephants are themshelves easy targets for any unit of light cavalry you have. :charge:
I don't find them overpowered.

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Driving an elephant in RTW? I've never been able to do it on the field. The elephants go where the elephants want to go. What I saw with elephants was this: I sent out skirmishers and used pila in an attempt to shake them, whittle them down, etc. NO EFFECT! The cav and infantry charging in behind the elephants quickly broke all units in the vicinity, skirmishers never had much chance for melee with the elephants. No chance at all of "driving" the elephants. Battle over. Repeated this three more times vs. the same army until I had it whittled down enough that I could easily deal with the rest of the army, then face just elephants. Those were some of the few battles I've lost in RTW. The stack started containing four base elephants and by the final battle only about 1/4 to 1/3rd of the animals were gone. Elephants did not survive that well historically...

Another battle I had I was facing a weak army containing a single elephant unit. I had several javs and one unit of archers as well as good cav and infantry. I tried "softening up" the elephants with archers while the AI just sat there watching with its inferior force. Emptied my quivers...no effect. So I started engaging enemy units out and flanking them individually. The elephants began to advance and I started working them with skirmishers...no effect. Fortunately the elephants finally tired after chasing my skirmishers around the field and I rushed them with a bunch of units. None of this would have worked had the enemy just advanced en masse. In that case my infantry units engaging the elephants would have routed (I've seen that a number of times.)

As to the other poster's comment about archers being like darts, archery was supposed to be effective in making them run amok. Sure a couple of shots aren't going to do much, but making a pin cushion out of them would. I've done tests with EIGHT roman auxilia archers and they couldn't cause any casualties until melee started. There wouldn't be a human rider left alive under that hailstorm.

Haven't messed with flaming arrows. They are a bit silly in RTW, and cause problems in the game so I avoid using them.

Off at a slight tangent here, but still relevant I think... I had some 'basic' elephants in a battle yesterday that routed and lost 3 of the unit in the process - I went on to win the battle without them. I was surprised to see that there were 3 healed in the after battle report, as I'd never seen elephant units healed before. The next turn, the army containing the elephants was attacked again - instead of having all 12 elephants back as I'd been expecting, I had 9 elephants, 3 of which had an extra mahout standing on the back - so my elephants were not being 'respawned', but their riders were.
So, isn't this what should be happening? Or am I missing the point once again? Are you more concerned that elephants that have lost hit points are recoving all their hit points between battles, because I've not seen 'dead' elephants get healed, just their riders?

Sorry if I'm, talking rubbish again...

I have had a dead elephant heal. In my Bruti game, I had hired a unit of merc war elephants, and was using them during my battles with Pontus. During one city assault, I charged it against 2 units of chariot archers, winning that fight but losing one elephant in the process. After the battle, the elephant healed, though it only had the mahout in the next battle, no archers.

I've had some healed with or without healing of the elephants. In most cases the elephants were fully healed. There have been reports of various problems with this and retraining of elephants as well. I've even killed the elephant running amok when I had a single elephant taken into battle (and it immediately routed.) It reappeared for the next battle. (Must be one heck of a surgeon pulling that wedge out.)

Another problem with my own elephants running amok, they don't seem to cause all that much damage. I just let them run about rather than killing them off.

Also, I had not mentioned it in this thread, but I found elephants too overpowered when they were in my own army. With a single unit I could cause tremendous mayhem on VH. This echoed what I had seen from fighting against them. As a result I restricted my elephant use to no more than a single unit per army and only the base level unit. It felt too much like a cheat. With their hit points greatly diminished and some missile vulnerability, I suspect they will feel a bit more "real" when I deploy them.

Well, elephants themselves do not cause that much damage even if they charge head-on. They trample units and trampled units can stand up afterwards and continue fighting. The real damage of the elephant is destroyed formation which can be exploited by troops charging behind the beasts. At least, that's how it is in the game. As to being overpowered: I do not think so. I could deal with elephants (separating them from the army and then driving around or even routing them) before the patch. It's the AI, that has real problems dealing with human led elephants...

I think of it this way -

early Homo sapiens and Neandethals hunted elephants with adl-alds and spears. Arrow were never an effective means to fell the beast - simply couldn't piece their hide.

Placing that in RTW, I think elephants are on target for their worth. As for the above comment about breaking ranks, I totally agree. Any ai army that charges first with elephants and then floods the breach with troops has always defeated me. I've seen the ai do this to me twice. And I've had around 5 battles that inlcuded elephants.

Therefore, I use elephants as steamrollers, not like my usual scapel method with cavalry.

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Originally Posted by Slaists

Well, elephants themselves do not cause that much damage even if they charge head-on. They trample units and trampled units can stand up afterwards and continue fighting. The real damage of the elephant is destroyed formation which can be exploited by troops charging behind the beasts. At least, that's how it is in the game. As to being overpowered: I do not think so. I could deal with elephants (separating them from the army and then driving around or even routing them) before the patch. It's the AI, that has real problems dealing with human led elephants...

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I would have loved to watch you try that vs. the AI army I faced. It charged the elephants right in with cav and other units chasing right behind. There was no opportunity to control the action as you or others have suggested. It was one of the few times the AI "schooled" me in how to best employ a unit.

No the elephants don't necessarily kill all that many on their own (although I often kill a hundred or more when I employ a single unit of base elephants), but they do cause units to rout, or more importantly: masses of units to rout. Much of the reason I'm modding them is so that they won't be so indestructible in my hands, on very hard. I found I could use them with near impunity.

The elephants were not decisive at Trebbia (after some difficulty early in the battle the Romans were figuring out how to deal with them...but other things happened like cavalry envelopment and a rear ambush attack.) At Zama Hannibal charged 80 elephants into the Roman infantry and they had little effect--actually some ran amok back into his own lines and cav. With the scale used in RTW for elephants, that would be about 2 to 4 units of War Elephants (although base Elephants would be just fine) vs. a full Roman stack. Trebbia would have had no more than 37 elephants split between the wings (2 units.)

I am reaching from other games here, Red, but in the tabletop miniature games I don't have time to play anymore, each figure on the table usually represented about 50 men. That ratio was true for everything except elephants, where one elephant model could represent anywhere from 2-20 or so elephants. The reason was the effect they had on the battlefield could be way out of proportion to their numbers, and also because very few armies every could field hundreds or thousands of them.

RedHarvest, actually, what I mean is that the AI has no clue what to do when a player charges its lines with elephants following up with cavalry... The best the AI has done in my experience was bogging my elephants down with insane amounts of troops and killing a few. Of course, once the follow-up cavalry hit the messy crowd in the rear and flanks: they routed, not looking back...

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Originally Posted by Slaists

RedHarvest, actually, what I meant was that the AI has no clue what to do when the player charges its lines with elephants following it up with cavalry... The best the AI has done in my obervations is surrounding elephants with insane amounts of troops and kill a few. Of course, once the follow-up cavalry hits the messy crowd in the rear and flanks: they rout...

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Ok, I see what you mean. However, I also have no idea what to do if the AI uses that same tactic (unless I have a "long_pike" phalanx wall to greet it.) I was on the receiving end and it was devastating. It really shouldn't work as well as it does. Historically armies had to keep the elephants a bit separated from their own men in battle or they would trash their own troops if they startled/ran amok. I'm not seeing much negative from charging them in together.

A lot of the problem though goes back to the multiple hit point modeling. Exhaustion will generally make the animals rout, but it takes time you don't have in the face of a proper attack. To get them to rout from combat you have to kill off most of their hit points, again this takes a lot of time. Animals don't seem to die or run amok until most of the hit points of the unit is gone. This is very much amplified for missile attacks because they tend to rather evenly disperse their hits. Ballista and onagers pack the wallop to kill individual beasts, but others to not. Even in melee the elephants don't take many losses until on the verge of routing--although localized kills are more likely at points of contact.

It seems we need some attrition throughout. Right now it is very much all or nothing. We don't have single beasts running amok, we have the whole unit doing so. I would like to see the elephants taking losses gradually as they tear through, rather than group routing when two or three succumb. Even when an elephant charge is successful, animals should be lost. All units with multiple hit points display some of this same behaviour. The higher the hit points, the worse it gets.

To Red Harvest: I have seen cases in which my elephants routed even without having any casualties. Unfortunately, we cannot do battle saves, as we could in MTW, to see what really caused the rout. Nonetheless, I suspect it was a combination of being exhausted and being peppered by flaming arrows. BTW, has anyone tried the classic counter to elephants: flaming pigs? Supposedly, romans were using them exactly for that purpose: to make the elephants run amok.

As to charging together with the elephants: they do not cause "friendly" casualties directly. Nonetheless, they do trample your troops, messing up their formation and consequently making it easier for the enemy to counter-attack. Also, troops in a messy formation lose their charge bonus (I've seen that happen exactly for this reason: Elephants messing up my own formation; eventually, my general got killed in the same attack by some low-lever enemy troops...).

Bottom line: my tactic playing as Carthagians was to charge the elephants (one unit was sufficient) through the enemy lines (not letting them stop and get bogged down), following up with a long shield cavalry charge into the crowd trying to recover behind the elephants (don't use round shield cavalry for this purpose - the do not have any charge bonus (+2) to speak of). once a few units rout, it turns into a chain thing... if you have: send a few round shield cavalry units to clean up the routing ones...

p.s. there was one case in which my elephants took heavy casualties against the AI: it was when they faced camel warriors... i am not sure whether there is no hidden anti-elephant bonus for camel guys...

I send my elephants charging from unit to unit as well while my cav chases behind tearing up everything in sight. As long as I keep the elephants moving they are deadly. When they start to tire, it is time to pull them out before they rout. Routing from exhaustion is their biggest vulnerability.

Wierd about the camels. The unit stats file says elephants get +4 vs. camels, while camels get -8 vs. elephants.

Incindiary pigs work. I tested them in custom once and they routed the elephants immediately.

Ok, started testing vs. camels and cav...arrggg. The base elephants are getting killed when two cav units charge them. They are also suffering against camels...I'm beginning to wonder if mount_effects is even working. So I've got elephants playing decently vs. infantry and missile units, but the cav is tearing them up? Of course, with charge bonus some of this cav is +17 attack... The camels have me puzzled though...I'm wondering if stats are wrapping or something.

Ok, progress again. The mount_effect factor does work, but small steps don't do much. This time I went to -12 for camel riders & long shield cav vs. elephants (was -8), and gave the elephants +8 (was +4) vs. the two. This made the elephants tough vs. mounted units, but still killable by multiple units when trapped in melee. I suspect the problem is the very large cav charge values...but hey, cav seem too powerful in RTW. I don't think cav or camels should even get a charge bonus vs. elephants or it should be halved or something to account for the mounts natural fear of pachyderms.

Conclusion: The default elephant vulnerability order is reversed from what I expected. Elephants are probably most vulnerable to medium cav and camel warriors & long_pikes, moderately vulnerable to skirmisher melee, somewhat vulnerable to infantry, and nearly impervious to javs and arrows.

Still I need to see if both aspects of the mount factor are working: the elephant side AND the cav/camel side.

I have not modified the non-phalanx spear unit mount effects vs. cav yet, but my experience here suggests the modification should be huge. A +4 factor is not much, when you consider medium cav is often getting +8 for a charge (and they probably shouldn't get a charge bonus for frontal on spears, or at best half the normal bonus.) I'll probably try +8 mount effect for all the non-phalanx spears vs. cav.

Is it possible to give the pikes/phalanx a dynamic bonus depending on the type of cav that's doing the charge? As a rough cut, a bonus equal to the cav's own charge bonus? So "unstoppable densely packed mass" into pike results in pony kebabs while "we'll charge if we have to, but we'd really rather just ride by and throw something" will have them balk at the line of spear points?

One of the most effective ways to kill an elephant unit is to a) get them to rout (throwing a bunch of units at an isolated unit usually does the trick), then b) send cav after them.

The normally nearly indestructable elephants die about as quick as any other unit when routing from pursuing cavalry.


On a related note, I remember once having a unit of skirmishers chased by a unit of elephants. The elephants had caught up with my guys, so I told them to withdraw in an attempt to save them. After about five minutes, I noticed that my guys hadn't taken any casualties. On a hunch, I turned off their withdraw orders. Sure enough, my guys started dying. Then I put them back on withdraw. The dying stopped. In all cases, the elephants were in direct contact with my unit. But as long as my guys were withdrawing, they were invulnerable. Strange.

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Originally Posted by Warlock

Is it possible to give the pikes/phalanx a dynamic bonus depending on the type of cav that's doing the charge? As a rough cut, a bonus equal to the cav's own charge bonus? So "unstoppable densely packed mass" into pike results in pony kebabs while "we'll charge if we have to, but we'd really rather just ride by and throw something" will have them balk at the line of spear points?

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Hardcoded, probably; for modding, no. Or rather, not just for charge, it would apply to attack and charge. We don't have the power to do anything dynamically, CA does. I wish light cav would balk at charging spears and pikes frontally. Medium cav should probably get little or no charge bonus, and heavy cav would still suffer basic mount effects. As it is all phalanx/long_pike bonuses vs. cav appear to be hard coded--they are not in "mount_effects" and they work against elephants too, to some degree.

What I see looking at a lot of the numbers is a game that is geared for "fast action." The attack values are fairly high, and playing on advanced levels boosts them even more (perhaps without boosting any defense?) A charging long shield cav (med. cav on med. horse) on "very hard" in AI hands would have a charge attack rating of 9+8+7= 24. Give it some experience and weapons upgrades and it gets even more insane. Light lancers get 7+15+7 =29! Granted both of these units have spears/lances, but these values are incredible.

I have a notion to boost "defensive skill" values +4 or so for every unit in the game, this would take a lot out of the cav charges. The kill rate mod has some of the same effect, because it will make the cav bonus short, and reduce back to standard attack stats.

I am rather discouraged though, because it is obvious to me that the changes that look necessary to me cut completely against the grain of the programming and unit stats.

Well, pumping up defense +4 will have the effect of flatly reducing kill-rates across the board. Even for the phalanx it will be harder to kill the same charging cavalry. Pumping up spears' defense bonus against cavalry would be much more preferable in my opinion. In MTW spears got considerable bonus when defending against cavalry: i believe, due to higher attack values across all units types, the bonus (both: anti-cavalry attack and defense) is less pronounced in RTW. Also, note the new feature: mount mass factor when charging infantry... The introduction of it is a good thing, nonetheless, I feel, it works too well against phalanx... i.e., horse, having larger body mass, will "push the foot unit around" even when it does not kill it, resulting in loss of formation which, in the case of spears is especially deadly... Since this factor appears to be uniform (cavalry against foot - regardless whether they are spears or swords): I do not think it would be easy to introduce conditionality in this department (the mass factor stays the same versus sword types but gets reduced versus spears and even more reduced versus phalanx...). Dreaming more along these lines: the mass factor could change depending on whether the target unit's formation is already broken; whether it gets charged from the flanks/rear or from the front...

p.s. as it stands now, it is ridiculous that macedonian cavalry with practically no defense but super high charge kills phalanxes in seconds in frontal attacks... the horses should evaporate in such suicide runs, but it's the phalanxes that disappear and rout...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Slaists

...
p.s. as it stands now, it is ridiculous that macedonian cavalry with practically no defense but super high charge kills phalanxes in seconds in frontal attacks... the horses should evaporate in such suicide runs, but it's the phalanxes that disappear and rout...

---

Strange , as the last time I fought the Macadons with Phalanx {playing Selucid} their Light Lancers {that I manipulated into charging my line of mostly Mercenary Hoplites} died and routed swiftly , though causing more casualities than they should have . I think I had my line deeper than usual {they had a lot of lancers , and I didn't want my line breeched} .

Look here for a fix for the bionic horse problem {jumping the pikes frontally to engage so pikes are useless or even from the rear} and here for something I did with Triarii that seemed to make a difference against cavalry {simply upping the sword stats for phallanx would help to giving them a better chance against bionic horsemen} .

Facing Elephants in campaign

i dont have 1.1 installed,
(meaning i am facing the uber-ele's)

i use flaming arrows against elephants (ALL types of Ele's)
(i always take more archers than normal when facing elephants)
(flaming arrows generate an extra morale penalty and supposedly extra damage)
Ele's will often rout at or just before contact

I found it takes more than twice as many volleys without flame to have the same effect and usually the ele's only routed once they got amongst infantry (meaning they got a morale penalty for enemies nearby)

i make sure archers are 3 ranks or less
(there is an accuracy penalty if archers are more than 3 ranks)
(in MTW there was also an accuracy bonus for 2 ranks - not sure if that has carried over into RTW - but the "more than 3" rank penalty definately exists in RTW)

i try to assign 2 or more archers to each enemy ele
(this means my infantry have more than their fair share of work to do)
(so have good infantry in your forces (or LOTS of captains with reserves))

i will try to distract the ele's with a tough (high morale) infantry unit or with light anti-cav infantry and let the archers just keep peppering away at them.
(Use your infantry's Charge Bonus - charge, then try to run "through" and charge again, often the ele unit will do the "run through" for you, giving you another Charge Bonus attack - it is wise to hit halt, or move the unit to reset the Charge Bonus, continuing an attack on a unit they are already enaged with will not trigger a Charge Bonus)

Light infantry (Not velites/skirmishers) do the most damage to an ele unit in hand-to-hand (Triarii, Auxilla and Barbarian Warbands are effective)

ALL types of Archers using flame do more ranged damage then Skirmishers.

HOWEVER Armoured Elephants are tougher! (naturally)
If you are facing Armoured Elephants and all you have are Roman Archers and Triarii - well you are in trouble...
Luckily post Marius Auxilla Archers and Auxilla Spearmen can deal with Armoured Elephants.


Most artillery is so innacurate that it is not worth the hassle against elephants, unless you have 2 or more onager units and you are assaulting a town with ele's defending
(they get bunched up in the streets and one lucky shot can make all the difference)


Elephants are not unbeatable, you just need the correct tactics.
remember i am using 1.0, not 1.1.


Beating them on the field we can do,
BUT making them stay dead - thats a coding issue...

Cheers,
B.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mr Frost

..{BIG SNIP}...here for something I did with Triarii that seemed to make a difference against cavalry {simply upping the sword stats for phallanx would help to giving them a better chance against bionic horsemen} .

---

Mr Frost,
is a download avaiable for your changes to the Roman Units?
I like what you have done to them,

Cheers,
B.

Yeah!
Please make a download!
Triarii phalanx, the first thing that came to my mind after finishing the julii campaign....I just didnt know where to look.... :dizzy2:

Anyway. Great changes

barocca,

I haven't tried flaming arrows, since they are bugged. I leave them to the AI. I've used insane numbers of archers without causing damage as the pachyderms approached--eight units of archer auxilia against base elephants, they didn't rout until they started dying in melee.

I haven't seen the accuracy penalties for archers with deeper ranks. Others have found that box formations work best for horse archers. However, I'm still accustomed to stringing out my archers into shallow lines from earlier TW games, so that is still what I do.

I finally settled on the following as the best compromise:

Base/forest elephants: 5 hit points, armour 5, def. skill 7
War elephants: 6 hit points, armour 7, def. skill 9
Armoured elephants: 6 hit points, armour 9, def. skill 9

To make them more durable vs. cav (and especially cav charges--which should not be allowed to be effective vs. elephants) I increased the mount effect to +8 vs. cav and horse (was +4). And I changed the cav/camel unit mount effects to -12 (was -8).

An elephant unit can still barrel into the heart of an army and cause a mess and make a unit or two rout all by itself, but it won't last very long that way and will start taking casualties fairly soon.

The other catch with elephants?

I dunno if you can do this with the hex editing and stuff, but if only you could recruit additional archers for elephant towers within the campaign. The riders (archers) get killed, and as the Big S, having to ship a couple armoured elephants from Capua back to Antioch or Memphis really sucks when there are archers being trained in Capua and pretty much every other province.

The problem with elephants is IMHO not that they can stand up to so much abuse but that there are so many of them.

I like to have two units of elephants because if you send one unit in to follow the other it seems to give mutual morale support like regular units as they plow through the lines. However even with a modest two elephant units out of an 20 unit army then the amount of elephant are out of all proportion to the troops you bring along. Most armies of the day were hard pressed to have more then 40 elephants while fielding armies of tens of thousands.
I can field nearly 4000 men and still get about that number of elephants. Meaning that the elephant units are scaled differently then the other troops.

If you halve the number of elephants per unit they will receive a more concentrated missile bombardment leading to quicker deaths/panick/routs while still giving the impression these are beasts with thick hides . It also lessens the speed at which they cut through melee units which I think is overmodelled. And this way they don't get weakened versus melee because elephants are always outnumbered, the limit typically being how many troops can stand around an elephant, which ofcourse doesn't change.

IMHO a neat fix which not only improves gameplay but is historicly accurate aswell.

I tried to reduce the unit size for elephants, it didn't work. The game wouldn't load with fewer. I didn't experiment a lot with that so perhaps there are magic numbers that make it work, or some switches that need to be checked.

There are a number of issues and no single one (or two) fixes things. The lack of crew kills is a real problem, esp with the archer carrying types. Armour is too high (should be more defensive skill) and hit points are too high.

Tonight I ran into a Carthaginian army with a single set of war elephants. It was a nicely balanced army, but I had a better, well balanced Scipii army. It was on "hard" not "very hard." With the war elephants it was a disaster--even with my modded cut down elephant stats. Without the elephants it would have been a straightforward win. I had fought many similar without war elephants in the same campaign, and I had even destroyed an a couple of elephant units earlier when I had a higher ratio of troops. The AI army mobbed in with the elephants and routed half my army in a few seconds. I hit them with Balearics as they came in, then attacked with two units of velites followed by samnite mercs and principes (all of these were heavily upgraded), and a unit of legionary cav when it routed the enemy cav on that flank. I managed to kill about a third of the pachys by using 1/3rd of my army just for them...

The base level elephant mods look about right--very dangerous but vulnerable, but the other two are a bit too hardy. I'll have to knock a few points off their defense. I want them to be tougher than the forest elephants...but this is still too much.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

I tried to reduce the unit size for elephants, it didn't work. The game wouldn't load with fewer. I didn't experiment a lot with that so perhaps there are magic numbers that make it work, or some switches that need to be checked.

---

I haven't tried this since I will not chance the games inner workings till I have completed the campaigns of all major factions, so ignore if I start talking rubbish.
Might it be that the number of elephant crew needs to drop proportion in relation to the elephants and both still need to be scale-able?

I've tried decreasing both proportionally, I've also tried cutting back just on the elephants, and just on the riders. It CTD's with less than six crew. With six crew and four elephants in the file, it loads up with a full complement of elephants instead (12 on "large".) It does however work with 7 each (giving 14 elephants on large.) So the minimum scaleable size is set in the EXE somehow or by some non-obvious switch. I've got an idea about the war elephants though using 12,4 setting instead of 18,6...I'll give it a try.

Fire arrows are very effective on elephants. Funny, since little else will trouble an elephant and vanilla arrows are nearly useless against them.

EDIT: I have tested the 12 crew,4 beast setting for the war elephants. IT WORKS! I get 8 beasts per unit on large. The limitation in the game must be the 6 crew, that's why it didn't work for the forest elephants.

And I think I might be able to get it to work with the forest elephants by doubling the number of crew per beast, then reducing the number of beasts. I've seen them double up before after "healing."

EDIT 2: I am now able to decrease the size of the forest elephant units with the trick above. I used 8 crew and 4 beasts (vs. 6,6 default.) This resulted in 8 elephants on the field with "large" unit size vs. 12 before. It also added an extra crewman levitating in the air about 8 inches over the elephant's back. I'm going to see if I can move him down and get him seated in the descr_mount.txt file. Note that he has a bow but he has no missile stats, so he can't fire.

Next item of interest: I'm thinking of making the animals spook more easily by reducing their base morale from 8 down to 4. That is one area I have not explored. If I do this I might have to pump up their mount effects vs. cav again to offset the power of cav.

Big Update on Reducing Elephant Unit Size:

Ok, I've got it worked out now as to how to reduce the elephant unit size, and how to make it look decent. This is going to force me to do some new unit balancing, but it feels right from a game unit scaling approach.

1. Reducing base elephant unit size For the "forest elephant" types with a single rider, you cannot reduce the crew below 6. However, you can double the number of riders per elephant and reduce the number of elephants accordingly. I chose a crew of 6, with 3 elephants (vs. default of 6 and 6 which is 12 and 12 on "large" unit size.) On large scale this modification results in 6 elephants with 12 crew. There is a graphical glitch which must be addressed and I will explain this in a moment.

2. Reducing War Elephant and Armoured War Elephant unit size. These are easy, just reduce the number of men/elephants from 18/6 to something like 9/3.

3. Fixing the graphics issue with the base elephants. The extra crewman on the forest elephants is standing above the elephant as if there were a platform. He also has a bow (but he can't use it without being given the appropriate stats.) Also, if this unit has the army captain on it, he will need to be repositioned. You can't make the extra crewman sit down, but you can put him on the back of the elephant so that he looks natural unless someone makes a close inspection. He will be sprouting from the back of the elephant at upper thigh level. With the leather bands across the back of the elephant this blends well. Add a rider to the "descr_mount.txt" file and relocate riders as follows in bold below:

type elephant forest
class elephant
model elephant_forest
radius 4.4
x_radius 1.0
height 2.5
mass 10
banner_height 0
water_trail_effect elephant_water_trail
root_node_height 1.8
attack_delay 1
dead_radius 2.5
tusk_z 2.25
tusk_radius 1.5
riders 3
rider_offset 0.0, 1.0, 0.75
rider_offset 0.0, 0.15, 0.2
rider_offset 0.0, 0.15, -0.2

4. Balance issues have been discussed alot previously. My general suggestions at this time are to decrease armour but increase defensive skill to increase vulnerability to javelins and regular arrows. Also boost the elephant's bonus vs. horses both in the elephant stats and in the various unit mount effects (cav should be extremely ineffective vs. elephants.) Some hit point reduction for elephants is probably still in order, but if you reduce the unit size, the hit point change will need to be smaller. It might also be desirable to make the elephants more skittish in melee or under missile fire by reducing the base morale level from 8 to 4 or 6. Elephants should be powerful but brittle units able to cause decisive disruption in skilled hands, rather than just batter through everything in their path like robots.

With the changes you have already made, I think a moralechange isn't needed, or rather it might prove disaterous to the elephants.

You have made the eles weaker against archery and other ranged weapons as well as weaking numbers and hitpoints. So to keep the eles effective one has to send them in to trample. No more fighting, just keep going until you reach the other side as the elephants will likely not be able to last long inside a big bunch of infantry. But that means the elephants will suffer from massive moralepenalties as they are flanked on both sides, possibly even surrounded by enemies at times (and here we are talking about units). That makes the lowered morale dangerous as you risk the eles routing every single time you charge them, not to say what will happen if one of them gets stuck and killed.

I don't think the morale needs to be lowered.
In my experience getting them to rout or run amok is easy enough.
Using HA, I can usually get rid of them without taking heavy losses.
This has been the only solution in my Armenian campaign so far.

Unit size reduction looks promising.
This, along with some armour reduction and mount effects while maintaining cost seems about right to me.

Yesterday I tried a custom battle: me all-pachy Cartman vs. AI with Gaul units of it's own choosing. I won narrowly. Several ele
The point: the flaming arrows of the forrester warband actually downed one beast. The charred hulk looked rather foul-smelling.
(vanilla 1.1 default settings)

Remember how the game uses elephants (and encourages their use by you): you charge them in with your cav and infantry right behind. You don't stand them there fighting, you just charge through. With unmodded base elephants I just send them back and forth through the enemy army until it is torn completely up, and there is nothing to stop it. The AI is quite good at this ( :thumbsup: hey, I just praised the AI for something!) There is not a requirement to keep some separation from friendlies and no real penalty for following right on their heels. Historically, this was a bad idea since elephants can cause terrible disruption in your own men. Even running amok, my own elephants cause little problem in my armies so I just ignore them. When running amok they should be treated as having the attack values of an enemy (and horrible morale effects.)

So the elephants don't suffer morale penalties from being isolated and unsupported, because there is a horde charging just behind them and with them. Unless they run into a pike phalanx frontally, this is the way to go.

CA has done some odd things with the relative balance of units, but it is a challenge to fix. The best example is horses vs. elephants. With reduced stats, horses become a problem, hence my extensive mount modifier changes. One thing I've seen with the smaller elephant units is a loss of "mass" vs. cav. The elephant charge bogs down earlier and will halt vs. elite cav. Some of the loss of mass is good vs. infantry, but against cav, the horses should clear a lane.

I'm not surprised horse archers could handle the elephants, the beasts will tire rapidly. That doesn't work against an infantry army. Well, it can if you have flaming arrow archers. But they weren't all that common in most armies of the day... The legions of the Roman Republic relied on the pointy stick approach, and that doesn't work in RTW. Javs are worthless although the skirmishers can do some harm, IF nobody else is around to charge into the skirmishers.

Flaming arrows do really kill elephant morale, but they deserve a big asterisk for several reasons (buggy, plus the questionable bonuses the seem to give vs. infantry, etc., and why is this effect magnified tenfold for elephants?) Regular arrows do almost nothing. I've read that Scipio liked to use slingers vs. elephants and found them quite effective.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Those same arrows are armour piercing in the game...so they should penetrate the skin. It's not like an archer is going to miss very often when aiming for an elephant. I dozen arrows or so and the elephant is not likely to be of much use to its rider anymore (one very upset beast.) And that mahout should come down pretty fast from archery.

---

arrows should not be armor piercing, the chance of getting back your arrows where small so you don't make arrows from good quality steal but from bad. and it is not armor piercing ( from a documentary on agincourt, but still pretty valid for this period imo)

and against 'phants spears are more effective since its a lot more mass beiing hurled( plus the bonus peltasts get), thinking off it, spears should always do much more damage than arrows

suggetion: make arrows non-armor piercing and spear armor piercing.

My statement about arrows being armour piercing was incorrect I believe. They don't have an AP trait listed for them. AP cuts armour rating by half. The confusion came from "piercing" in their stats, but it appears that is either not used (according to the text) or is for something else. At any rate, archer missile attack values are so high--particularly with any experience/weapons/temple upgrades, that they still tear up armoured units in a hurry.

As for historical context. Heavy armour was mostly protected from penetration, although the Parthians apparently could penetrate plate with their better bows (Carrhae.) However, mail was quite vulnerable to arrows from what Goldsworth wrote in "The Complete Roman Army."

Carrhae needn't have happend, it says between the lines.
I still think that if arrows ( in game) can pierce armor that spear need more bonuses. spear are underused. I dont see why I should train thureophoroi when I already have archers ( or cretans) IF thureophoroi ( esspecially) had more bonuses and attack I will be more likely to train a unit of thureophoroi than regular archers.

sorry, quite of topic

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by barocca

Mr Frost,
is a download avaiable for your changes to the Roman Units?
I like what you have done to them,

Cheers,
B.

---

Sorry , I didn't follow the thread after my post so I didn't see the request . I'll try to remember to upload it tommorrow .

I made a balista alteration that oneshots elephants without unballancing balistas Vs anything else which is in the downloads section of TWC {in Mods subsection} called "Ballistas of Dumbo Slaying" that is appropo to the thread topic .



Incase I forget to upload the Triarii Phalanx mod it is done thus :

find the Triarii entry in export_descr_unit.txt in {in default installation} C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data which looks like the following

type roman triarii
dictionary roman_triarii ; Triarii
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Medium_1
soldier roman_triarii, 40, 0, 1
officer roman_early_centurion
officer roman_early_standard
mount_effect horse +4, chariot +4, camel +4
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 7, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,0.73
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 7, 5, 5, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 4
stat_ground 2, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 10, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 500, 210, 50, 80, 500
ownership romans julii,romans brutii,romans scipii,romans senate

and change it thus {changes highlighted red}

type roman triarii
dictionary roman_triarii ; Triarii
category infantry
class spearmen
voice_type Medium_1
soldier roman_triarii, 40, 0, 1
officer roman_early_centurion
officer roman_early_standard
mount_effect horse +4, chariot +4, camel +4
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, square, phalanx
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 8, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 8, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 15 ,0.75
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 9, 4, 5, metal
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 4
stat_ground 2, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental 10, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 3, 500, 250, 50, 80, 500
ownership romans julii,romans brutii,romans scipii,romans senate

{don't worry about any other differeances , they're just my personal preferances}
Then find descr_model_battle.txt and in the roman_triarii entry in {default installation} C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data which should look like the following

type roman_triarii
skeleton fs_spearman ; combat spear
indiv_range 40
texture romans_julii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_julii.tga
texture romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_brutii.tga
texture romans_scipii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_scipii.tga
texture romans_senate, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_senate.tga
model_flexi_m data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_high.cas, 15
model_flexi_m data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_med.cas, 30
model_flexi_m data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_low.cas, 40
model_flexi data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_lowest.cas, max
model_sprite romans_senate, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_senate_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_sprite romans_scipii, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_scipii_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_sprite romans_brutii, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_brutii_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_sprite romans_julii, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_julii_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_tri 400, 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f

and change it thus {changes highlighted red}

type roman_triarii
skeleton fs_spearman, fs_swordsman ; combat spear
indiv_range 40
texture romans_julii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_julii.tga
texture romans_brutii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_brutii.tga
texture romans_scipii, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_scipii.tga
texture romans_senate, data/models_unit/textures/unit_roman_triarii_senate.tga
model_flexi_m data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_high.cas, 15
model_flexi_m data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_med.cas, 30
model_flexi_m data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_low.cas, 40
model_flexi data/models_unit/unit_roman_triarii_lowest.cas, max
model_sprite romans_senate, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_senate_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_sprite romans_scipii, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_scipii_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_sprite romans_brutii, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_brutii_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_sprite romans_julii, 60.0, data/sprites/romans_julii_roman_triarii_sprite.spr
model_tri 400, 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f

The commas are very neccessary as one might expect {the code seems to have a fettish for them ;p} .
The decription still serves , but you could change that by adding to or altering the triarii entry in export_units.txt in {default} C:\Program Files\Activision\Rome - Total War\Data\text which looks like the following

{roman_triarii} Triarii

{roman_triarii_descr}
Hardy\nDisciplined\nSapping Ability\n\nTriarii are tough heavy spearmen who make up the third and most senior part of a Roman Legion before the military Reforms of Gaius Marius. They carry a long "hoplite-style" spear (the hasta) which is used to thrust, a long shield and a gladius. They are the oldest veteran soldiers, and well armoured – hardly surprising, given that they are also drawn from the richest section of society. \n\nThe triarii are the last available line in early-pattern Republican Legions. "Going to the triarii" is a Roman saying meaning carrying on to the bitter end, and if they are used it’s a sign that the moment of decision in a battle has arrived. \n\nHistorically, triarii spent their own money on their equipment and could afford to buy the best of everything.

{roman_triarii_descr_short}
Triarii are tough, experienced spearmen who are the senior element - the backbone - of an early Roman Legion. They can be a decisive force in battle.

To something like this {change in red}

{roman_triarii} Triarii

{roman_triarii_descr}
Hardy\nDisciplined\nSapping Ability\n\nTriarii are tough heavy spearmen who make up the third and most senior part of a Roman Legion before the military Reforms of Gaius Marius. They carry a long "hoplite-style" spear (the hasta) which is used to thrust, a long shield and a gladius and fight in the same fashion as Greek Hoplites. They are the oldest veteran soldiers, and well armoured – hardly surprising, given that they are also drawn from the richest section of society. \n\nThe triarii are the last available line in early-pattern Republican Legions. "Going to the triarii" is a Roman saying meaning carrying on to the bitter end, and if they are used it’s a sign that the moment of decision in a battle has arrived. \n\nHistorically, triarii spent their own money on their equipment and could afford to buy the best of everything.

{roman_triarii_descr_short}
Triarii are tough, experienced spearmen who are the senior element - the backbone - of an early Roman Legion. They can be a decisive force in battle.





For those whom might wish to mod this into their game I ofcourse say :
Back up the files you are going to change before you change them ! .
~:)

People, elephants are EASY to kill!

Javelins take them down like nothing else. I always laugh when enemy brings elephants cause I know I can pwn them easily with a single velites unit!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Turin

People, elephants are EASY to kill!

Javelins take them down like nothing else. I always laugh when enemy brings elephants cause I know I can pwn them easily with a single velites unit!

---

You obviously didn't have much experience with them prior to 1.2. They are much better now, although the actual response to missile fire is still quite odd. If you play some of the historical battles the elephants can be a real eye opener. But the historical battles are all superhuman units anyway, not much fun.

Side note (not for Turin)
And what is that triarii mod post doing here?

do you think makeing elephants easier to kill is the best solution?

I think the real problem is they are to lethal, even basic one man elephants can run threw the enemy formations causeing hundreds of casualties even before the enemy routes

I think they should cause far fewer casualties, but still cause severe disruption, like when you give a run order repeatedly on the other side of the enemy line, so that the elephants run through, knock everything down, but they get back up again

I think elephants should still be as hard, or near as hard to kill, but they should fling enemies in the air less often

if more of what they trampled got back up again, then elephants would be more balanced, and still fun to use and watch

P.S I dont know what Im talking about

I found that elephents are best killed with numdian calvery or A Armoured genreals unit with some hevay calvery and missle support. I have only lost one genreal this way and he was serverly weakened.

I think u can use flaming arrows best. It makes them go amok fast and so their troops are suffering high casualities.

I doubt anyone will read this but im writing it anyways. Just wanted to say, they had Hannibal vs rome on discovery channel and according to that, scipio simply had his men step out of the way of the elephants. Thats because carthaginian elephants weren't that controllable. It was a big enough task just to get them to charge forward. he had his men jsut move becuase if you did try to fight them they were unstoppable. This makes sense. I mean jsut think about it, I dont care how long my spear is, I see a friggin elephant coming at me, Im gonna piss myself even if im the guy in the back row of a phalanx. Even if the spears do kill the elephant it could still fall on me or something.

Polybius says that that at Zama, Scipio formed up his infantry in three lines as usual, but not in the quincunx or "checkerboard" formation. Instead of the Principes covering the gaps between the the Hastati, they were positioned directly behind the Hastati, and therefore directly in front of the Triarii. This means the Roman infantry was drawn up with very broad lanes between columns of Hastati, Principes, and Triarii. The velites were instructed to withdraw down these lanes when pressed.

The idea was to channel the elephants down the lanes and off the battlefield. This tactic basically worked, though many elephants began to run wild into friendly troops as soon as the Carthaginian advance was sounded, and others ran off to the Carthaginian right.

It's interesting to contrast this with Regulus' disposition at Tunis in the 1st Punic war. He chose to form up "many maniples deep". This didn't seem to stop the elephants and had the added disadvantage of decreasing his frontage, making his flanks easier to get at. He suffered encirclement and annihilation.

It'd be interesting to see how these formations actually work in the game. In my experience the elephants don't "channel" very well.

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Originally Posted by Atilius

It'd be interesting to see how these formations actually work in the game. In my experience the elephants don't "channel" very well.

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They have reasonably success at "canalising" my ranks though. Damn elephants.

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Originally Posted by Saracen_Warrior

I doubt anyone will read this but im writing it anyways. Just wanted to say, they had Hannibal vs rome on discovery channel and according to that, scipio simply had his men step out of the way of the elephants. Thats because carthaginian elephants weren't that controllable.

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Keep in mind that these were probably rather "raw" trained elephants too. Hannibal had a scratch force at Zama.

Channeling was a good method, similar to what was done vs. scythed chariots.

On the subject of Regulus and the battle of Tunis (and elephants), I neglected to mention the following: Regulus was captured after the battle. One of many legends concerning Regulus has it that he was later executed by being "trampled to death by an enraged elephant". Most likely a fiction but certainly fitting.

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Originally Posted by Red Harvest

Keep in mind that these were probably rather "raw" trained elephants too. Hannibal had a scratch force at Zama.

Channeling was a good method, similar to what was done vs. scythed chariots.

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It is interesting to think what might have happened if Hannibal had had experienced elephants... Maybe they would have been enough to change the balance in favour of Hannibal (the battle was already rather even).

They channeled scythed chariots? I believe you, I'm just wondering what made chariots so uncontrollable. I remember seeing this in the movie alexander. His phalanxes created lanes for the persian scythed chariots. Oh and by the way, I hated that movie. It gave the impression he took the world in 1 very exciting week, and his boyfriend looked like a drag queen. Just because he was homosexual, didnt mean he had to be a wuss. I mean he was a soldier too.

Weren't elephants rather vulnerable to being slashed? I seem to remember something about Scipio's men being instructed to slash at the elephants' hides (which apparently isn't all that thick - just a lot of meat under it) - not to kill, but to hurt rather nastily - and panic them. Also to chuck javelins at the riders...

Somebody else. Scipio's first goal against the elephants was to make them riderless along with creating lanes to prevent them from disrupting. Once an elelphant has no rider to guide it, it will basically run amok. So the wealth was shared with elephants running amok amongst both armies. I do believe Hannibals got the worst of the elephants though. I remember in the demo you could kill the rider/elephant seperately. Wonder why they took this feature out since it had already been implemented. My only guess would be because when they run amok they have to as a group.

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Originally Posted by oaty

I remember in the demo you could kill the rider/elephant seperately. Wonder why they took this feature out since it had already been implemented. My only guess would be because when they run amok they have to as a group.

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Not quite. It is still possible to shoot charioteers without destroying their chariot, so I assume it is possible with elephants as well. This applies only to the archers/fighters, not the mahouts/drivers, BTW. I recall that in the demo, the archers would get thrown off one by one when the elephants ran amok as well.

There is some evidence that whether or not a unit heals depends on how early in the battle it dies.

I have not used elephants much, but my brother found Armoured Elephants work well against enemies like Dacia, they can break in the wooden gates, and demolish the light infantry. Be wary of their archers, though, if you try that, though he did not have too much problems with that; probably they tried to avoid friendly fire. I have had the enemy archers open up on my elephants with flaming arrows. The only other times I have seen the enemy use flaming arrows have been against siege equipment and onagers. Elephants are awesome against chariots, found that out from curiosity. Only problem is, Egypt has the archers to counter the elephants. Against legionary types of infantry, had a friend in custom battle put his Armoured Elephants against Urban Cohort. He lost. The pila demolished his elephants and Urban Cohort are good enough to finish off the rest. If you watch, when elephants are trying to ram the gate of a stone wall (of any size), the boiling oil kills the people in the basket before it kills the elephant, so it takes several bouts of oil to kill the beasts themselves. They will usually run amok before they get to the last elephant.