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hi all,
I read chariots are outdated by this time, so they probably will not be featured in EB. But I still got a question: why do the chariots get a negative bonus vs elies? romans occasionally used scythed chariots AGAINST elies to hamstring them. however the roman example was about 100 AD so out of your timespan.
EDIT: I'm probably becoming a pain in your butt kevhlan, sorry, I'm just fascinated by the time-period, and even more excited about EB.
They were outdated by the time of the mod but then used in 100 AD?
ok, that is a major typing error of mine.
the real question should be: why do SCYTHED chariots get a negative bonus when later in 100 ad ( guesstimation) the romans used horses with blades at the side for hamstringing.
the romans didn't use chariots, sorry, they used scythes. probably on cataphracts or somethning they seemed to use later on. maybe it was even later, i have no idea.
Britons, Gauls, Pontus at least will have chariots.
pontus with chariots? that should help them against the armenians (they always lose straightaway)
that gives me an idea, i will start a pontic campaign later and annihalate the armenians!! ~:handball:
Didn't the Seleucids use Scythed Chariots?
I believe they did.
Yes they did.
Yeah, they had them, but there were problems (which would transfer over into any decisions about including them in a mod like this). They were almost always ineffective and modern scholars think that their retention for a while ("a short history") in the Seleukid army might have been more along the lines of wishful thinking than as a result of their battlefield performance. A charge of scythed chariots in a battle in Cilicia with Demetrius was noted to have taken place without success. Their ineffectiveness at Magnesia caused their total removal from the army.
ok, but then the question, why do they have an -6 elie bonus when they are perfect for hamstringing ( cuttign legs up) and how will this be in eb?
is that a -6 elephant "bonus"? If so then it is because horses are scared of elephants and won't go near them if they can help it!!Quote:
Originally Posted by jerby
Remember what a scythed chariot is - it seems that for the most part the drivers leapt out befor impact - thus giving the horses soem time to slow down and/or swerve. So they are completely useless after that - without drivers they shuold be amok immediately!!
And they should have a melee factor of 0 - they are utterly useless when stationary.
However they were useful on occasion - including in this era - there's a description in one of Plutarch's Lives IIRC (Maybe Sulla?), of a Pontic army using only scythed chariots and light troops to defeat the Bithynans - a Thracian tribe that lived in north-west Asia Minor.
Also there's an instancebefore this era of 2 scythed chariots and some Persian cavalry catching some Greek hoplites - the chariots charge and keep eth hoplites dispersed, so the cavalry can do the "real" damage and ride them down.
Which is a very valid strategy in RTW.....go ahead and try it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hakonarson
Reply regarding roman chariots: I read that romans used scythed chariots against Pyrrhus's elephants, which is slightly before the time of the mod, but it would have been theoretically possible for romans to continue the making of such chariots after that because they had the technology. The reason why they didn't was due to the weaknesses of chariots, weaknesses that aren't illustrated in the vanilla R:TW engine. I'd like it very much if EB could make the player realize why chariots became obsolete. First of all, they are useless in terrain that's only slightly more complicated than a field, secondly it costs more with 2 horses than 1, and finally their manouverability is restricted. Thirdly, they are harder to bring to the battlefield, and four: there were many very effective counters for chariots that made them less useful - for example letting the chariots through your lines by stepping aside etc. (an exploit of their lack of manouverability), but that function does not exist in R:TW. Oddly, neither does vanilla R:TW seem to add any penalty for chariots or cavalry when they are on steep hills, where they in real life would be less effective than on moderately steep hills. Chariots are more sensitive to steepness of hills than cavalry though.
In R:TW, chariots are sometimes MORE useful than cavalry, so if romans would get the realistical ABILITY to build chariots that would be an improvement for them, which is strange. It must be admitted though that a heads-on charge chariots to cavs would probably be won by the chariots or at least be suicide for the cavalry. A chariot charge to the rear of a pinned enemy formation would also do more damage than a cavalry charge to the rear of an enemy formation - during the IMPACT phase. During the coming meleé, the lack of manouverability would mean the chariots would get into trouble if the enemy formation didn't rout after the impact phase of that charge. So - it should be mentioned that chariots still had abilities and strengths cavs DIDN'T have. However in a cavs vs chariot battle the cavs would of course scatter and get out of the way of the chariots, then attack the flanks or rear of them (thus once again exploiting lack of manouverability), and easily win. Once again, this ability is not included in R:TW, if chariots charge your cavs you can't get out of the way. Oddly enough chariots are faster than cavs, IMO that seems unrealistic but for that particular idea I have no proofs/sources.
IMO the most realistic implementation would be to add ability for romans to build chariots, but on the battlefields it should be clear WHY the real romans, despite the ability, didn't produce chariots after some time between 300 BC and 270 BC. So the abilities to scatter formations and let chariots through them should IMO be included, maybe as a toggle button like "skirmish mode".
What do you think of that, and is it possible to implement?
Not to mention, scythed chariots was EXTREMELY limited by terrain. They were used by Darius in one of his battles against Alexander (stupid leaky memory, keep forgetting names!). In that battle, Darius had to PURPOSELY smooth over a section of the battlefield to use the chariots, since broken ground would have destroyed their wheels VERY quickly.
For the romans living in mountainous Italy, it was a bit hard to use chariots due to terrain difficulties. This is why the Celts, living in grasslands where farmland was plentiful, used chariots, but they used chariots in a different way to scythed chariots, using them pretty much as an effective taxiing system to get warriors into battle and out of them, NOT in the fighting. Julius Caesar comments on this usage of the chariot, and his quote says something about how this use of chariots combined the maneuvrability of cavalry and the staying power of infantry.
Plus, by that time Rome is set in, many armies in the world (besides the Barbarians really) would be disciplined enough for the scythed chariots to be completely and utterly useless.
Is it possible to arm chariots with javelins or is that hardcoded?
Chariots in R:TW are weak against elephants? They actually seem to be one of the more effective counters to elephants. Not as good as a phalanx, but better than any other cav, in my experience.
Cathapracts are the only cavs that can kill elephants effectively in vanilla R:TW. Chariots usually get slaughtered (which IMO is bad especially for scythed ones who should hurt the eles a little more than they do in vanilla R:TW), as the eles have a +attack bonus vs chariots. Chariots vs eles is almost as bad as wardogs vs eles, and I believe many of you have seen that .wma file where 3 armored eles take on 20 units of wardogs? If not, open a custom battle and zoom in the front of the eles for a good laugh ~D.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furious Mental
ok, that's about all to answer my question, thnx
These were not realy chariots - they were carts, filled with slingers and javelinmen, and hung about with spiked beams and firepots IIRC - I think they arementioned in Plutarch's "Life" of Phyruss.Quote:
Originally Posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
they were not a notable success - I seem to remember they are attributed with holding up the elephants for a small amount of time only.
More like mobile fortifications than chariots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hakonarson
Cool, have any pics of them? How did they do in combat vs other units than elephants? The lack of success is definitely true because afaik the romans never used the chariots after the wars with Pyrrhus.
The warcarts themselves did the job well enough, the elephants didn't like them at all, but then the elephant drivers merely headed the elephants out of the way, problem solved. Then the Romans on the carts could just stand there being ignored. Until I guess some infantry took them out.
you can also just give the Eles the frighten_mounted abilityQuote:
Originally Posted by Hakonarson
they already have that. ( or i'm mistaking, playing RTR now)
Just make the chariots really weak, if you can. Of course, I've tried doing this before, but the only thing that seems to slow down the chariots is making their attack value 0.
I'll weigh in on this from a gameplay point of view:
The only thing that makes chariots as effective as they are in the game is that they are unrealistically manuverable and way too good with acceleration. This is what allows them to run through infantry formations again and again without stopping.
If real chariots could do that, everyone would use them!
hi, just dug in export_descr_unit.
and I found this with sythed chariots
mount_effect elephant -47, camel -43, horse -43
so does this mean it get a -47 bonus against elies?
also why do horses run amok? is it like "AAAAAHH there is a giant blade on my back!!"
or do they get scared of the man in a chariot constanly following them?
Did you ever ride a horse? They're dumb creatures and prone to temporary insanity :)
Sitting on a horse running amok is actually very fun, trust me! At least if you aren't on a battlefield, that is... They're preys, not carnivores, so they get scared by all sorts of sounds and visions and then try to run away, thinking it's predators that are after them.Quote:
Originally Posted by eadingas
then why doesn't regular cav run amok?
btw just edited, changed the chariots 'bonus' against elphant from -47 to -10. now two/three chariots can take down 1 war-elie
Regular cavs DID run amok, but not as often as chariots. Horses require much training before they can be near large groups of people without being scared. I also believe cavalry horses got ear protection to muffle all sounds, at least during the Medieval period that is.Quote:
Originally Posted by jerby
Apart from that, I can only guess. The horse is maybe easier to comfort when the rider is on top of it than when he isn't. Maybe the chariots also tended to keep their momentum and catch up with the horses sometimes, hitting their legs, I don't know... It depends on how they were attached to the horse. An alternative is that they were attached to a horse in a way that made a horse that slowed down be sort of shoved forward by the remaning momentum of the chariot, something that maybe scared them?
Well it's only the "scythed chariots" in the game that run amok. None of the other chariot units do that.
Actually, the cav does run amok (in RL, not in game), but it's easier to control a horse when you're riding it then when it pulls a chariot. Cf. Crusades, where western knights used the fact that their stallions went crazy in presence of saracen mares to their advantage, and polish hussars who used their 'wings' to incite mad charge in their horses.
ok thanks.
Also, I forgot to add, not sure about celtic, but I think eastern chariots didn't have certain devices that help you control a horse the way later carriages have.
It was Gaugemala. And the scythe chariots were obsolete even then, (330-ish), Darius brought them back as a surprise, but the Agrianians and other light troops made mince meat out of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shadar
They could be very effective if cleverly used .
Pontus used them in 61 BC, on the plains before Ennium to fatally cripple a Roman army {which was then destroyed with 38,000 Romans dead} . First the light horse feined a charge kicking up lots of dust which conceiled the 500 scythed chariots and 10,000 Galatian mercenary infantry following close behind . The cavalry threw some javlins at the Romans to provoke them into forming tesudos and then quickly wheeled to the flanks to occupy {and destroy} the Roman cavary and the chariots with Galatian infantry following charged the Roman lines whom were too late spotting the threat to reform {their tightly formed tesudos were highly vunerable to such a charge} . The chariots smashed great , bloody holes in the Romans' lines that the Galations poured through to have a feild day of slaughtering {or a happyhour perhaps ;p} .
The first Roman line simply ceased to exist , and the second and third were very badly mauled . That the Romans chose to charge the Pontic main army later suggests that the general wasn't very good that day as they were already beaten by that charge .
Pontus might be the only "faction" in the games' time period that actually had a net positive experience with using scythed chariots {the Selucids had a questionable time with them , Rome only used something barley similar twice and Egypt never had the at all} .
well, egypt had chariots. but then it was in 1200BC, acctually. the entire egypt missed it by 900 years!
Here' a suggestion that'll piss off a lot of people:
just take out chariots entirely, except for Pontus. From what I've heard, the Seleucid chariots were ineffective, and the Britons used them mainly for transportation, so they can be dropped there; also, as it has been said, they simply didn't exist elsewhere.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but don't be condascending. :bow:
Yes, they were. The art of driving a chariot effectively in war had disapeared from the Near East almost entirely. Still, my opinion is that the Seleucids should have them anyway. But this is not up to me...Quote:
Originally Posted by meatwad
Actually, it was sort of a platform for leaders to fight from. We have no way of knowing how trully effective they were, but they existed. Some were even present when Caesar first landed in the southern shores of Britannia, near present-day Dover (I think...).Quote:
Originally Posted by meatwad
Some Celtic cultures still used them to a certain degree, the fact that they were declining in use, doesn´t mean they didn´t exist then.Quote:
Originally Posted by meatwad
British chariots were more than transports, they were platforms for javileners, as well as platforms for leaders to command a battle from (at least in the case of Cassia and the Cenimages; the most prolific Cenimage tribe came to be the Icenes; better known as Iceni/Icenii, Boudicca led from a chariot). The chariot was also still used in Gaul. However, in Gaul, it was almost solely used as a transport, but still brought an amount of mobile firepower to the field, with javelins again. However, the Britons used it more effectively and notably as both a weapon platform, and as a transport. They were noted to be able to stop their chariots even if their draw-ponies were at full gallop, could turn as easily on slopes and inclines as they could on open plains, etc. British chariots were still in use by the people of Dumnonia AFTER the Romans (it's notable that the Dumnones were never actually Romanized, they were allies of Rome; the coming of Saxons and spread of Romanized Britons actually had a greater effect on them, including the end of chariot war for them).
Caesar said of British chariots, "They combine the mobility of cavalry, with the staying power of infantry."; He had never fought Gallic chariots, but they would likely have been seen the same way, as they were used the same way, but British charioteers were probably more skilled.