Big noisy and supposedly terrifying, Elephant and Chariot units are pretty iconic but I rarely find myself using them. In history their use grabs the headlines but in RTW2 I’m yet to see them live up to that.
I have fond memories of using Pontic chariots in R1 but I've made very little use of chariots so far in R2. Access to them is restricted by the siege building chain, which I don’t much go in for until I’m established (the units aren't flexible enough) and there aren’t many varieties of the unit to choose from.
I’ve tried using elephants in a few early Carthaginian and eastern faction campaigns, even as Roman auxiliaries, but found them to be an expensive liability. Especially if I auto resolve a battle, as the Elephant units almost always get decimated.
I wonder if I’m using the units correctly, or if the game unduly penalises these units in its RPS abstraction of reality.
I imagine elephants are at their best when charging in to a mass of melee infantry, even head on, and when I’ve been able to do that they are quite fun and destructive. I’ve not tried, but is the same true against a phalanx of pikes? Perhaps not… What about cavalry? In R1, elephants were the rock to cavalry scissors, but I’ve not noticed the “scares horses” tag anywhere.
As to chariots, should they also be used to plough into melee infantry? I imagine them to be somewhat weaker/less melee-resilient than elephants, so would only use them as an enveloping/flanking force to attack enemies already engaged with an anvil/defensive line.
The extreme vulnerability of both elephants and chariots to skirmishers makes them very hard for me to use effectively, with any consistency anyway. This is especially true in AI battles given how I’m usually on the defensive (hello zerg rush) and outnumbered (so the enemy has more troops of its own to flank/envelop mine, or outflank my flankers), and how it brings quite a lot of skirmishers who tend to sit back once the melee units have charged – and would decimate either elephants or chariots sweeping round for attack exposed backs or flanks of the enemy melee line.
Because of the “2nd line” skirmishers, I generally prefer to use cavalry to flank as they are faster and more of a threat to ranged units. Another reason why chariots and elephants don’t get on to my army rosters much.
How do you use elephants or chariots? Do you make regular use of them? Are they just a rare and expensive liability?
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