The problem with elephants..

[Morindin]

Cavalry is about the only thing that is the RIGHT speed in this game. Ive ridden plenty of horses by the way.
If anything its INFANTRY which is too fast which would REDUCE the effectiveness of cavalry.

Actually it has nothing to do with speed at all, but more to do with the fact the AI is pretty pathetic at protecting its flanks according to most people. From what Ive seen of the AI so far it makes a point of protecting its flanks against cavalry but you can catch it out with large numbers.
Also spear units in the game come generally later ill reserve my judgement about cavalry until I consider myself experianced in the entire campaign.

Due to all the hype last night about cavalry I attacked the British would a large army of Roman Cavalry units. I danced them around all over the place, hit flanks, recharged and charged again (he had 0 spear units) and I still took considerable casualties. In the end I lost because his damn chariots kept scaring away my troops. I managed to rout a lot of his troops for sure, but it didnt feel overpowered in any way. Cavalry after all is the infantrys match up.

[Adrian II]

Im arguing that the game is barely week old and NONE of us are experianced enough to make blanket statements about the game based on a couple of battles.

Weren't you the guy who started another thread yesterday with the blanket statement that 'naval battles are crap'? Come on, Morindin, it's only fair to allow for other peoples' complaints. I'm on your side though, even though I don't have the game yet, because I appreciate your single-handed fight to give the developers a fair chance. Besides it's a bad thing if everyone starts modding and patching and customizing tactics and strategy. In no time we'll all be playing an entirely different game and any discussion of tactics on these boards will be a dialogue of the deaf.

[Goofball]

*chuckle* Red, Morindin, there can be only one solution to this problem.

Ten rounds of bare knuckle boxing. I'll ref.

Okay ladies, square off. Handbags at twenty paces...

[Morindin]

Weren't you the guy who started another thread yesterday with the blanket statement that 'naval battles are crap'? Come on, Morindin, it's only fair to allow for other peoples' complaints. I'm on your side though, even though I don't have the game yet, because I appreciate your single-handed fight to give the developers a fair chance. Besides it's a bad thing if everyone starts modding and patching and customizing tactics and strategy. In no time we'll all be playing an entirely different game and any discussion of tactics on these boards will be a dialogue of the deaf.

Just for the sake of an argument this is what I posted

Anyone else feel naval battles are just, well, crap?

Im not asking for a 3d battlefield or anything like that, but I seem to lose about 90% of my naval battles regardless of quality or quantity of my ships.

Also the fact its near on impossible to destroy ones fleet makes naval battles for me more irritating than fun.

At least the AI builds LOTS of ships.

In other words, im not making a blanket statement about the game but asking other peoples opinions to see if I am doing something wrong.
In that example, I got a post from someone saying "try this" and I am indeed going to try it.

Thats different from saying "Elephants are overpowered because they beat their match up. CA should DO THIS AND THIS TO MAKE ME HAPPY! *throws toys out of the cott"

[Red Harvest]

*chuckle* Red, Morindin, there can be only one solution to this problem.

Ten rounds of bare knuckle boxing. I'll ref.

That would hardly be fair. I'm an amateur boxer... Plus, when I've fought bare knuckle I tended to break a knuckle or two.

[Adrian II]

CA should DO THIS AND THIS TO MAKE ME HAPPY! *throws toys out of the cott"

LOL, you've made your point I believe. Remember though that for most players historical detail and references are a huge part of the fun, if not their main reason for playing the game in the first place. Otherwise what's the point in playing a TW game instead of the single most brilliant abstract game in the world, i.e. chess? That's why they are 'nit-picking' as you would call it. It's impossible to recreate history, but the game has to have that 'feel' about it. That's a fine line. For some the killing speed is killing the game. For me the graphics are a horrible disappointment, no matter how brilliant the game may turn out to be with respect to tactics, the new integrated stategy map and other fantastic new features. Anyway I'll shut up until I have the game.

[Morindin]

LOL, you've made your point I believe. Remember though that for most players historical detail and references are a huge part of the fun, if not their main reason for playing the game in the first place. Otherwise what's the point in playing a TW game instead of the single most brilliant abstract game in the world, i.e. chess? That's why they are 'nit-picking' as you would call it. It's impossible to recreate history, but the game has to have that 'feel' about it. That's a fine line. For some the killing speed is killing the game. For me the graphics are a horrible disappointment, no matter how brilliant the game may turn out to be with respect to tactics, the new integrated stategy map and other fantastic new features. Anyway I'll shut up until I have the game.

I understand completely what you are saying, but my feeling on the matter is that people are judging their idea on realism in respect to killing speed from MTW. MTW was not any more realistic as RTW, infact how do we know what realism is anyway?
How many of us have fought in a battle recently? Sure we can quote battles going on all day but they involve massive numbers of men with multiple lines of battle, etc etc.

Im going to try the killing speed mod to see how I like it, but personally I feel its going to make battles between the stronger units go on and on and on and on. If I see cavalry charge into a bunch of infantry and get 'stuck' like in MTW I wont find that realistic at all.
I guess none of us really know so its all a matter of perspective isnt it?

[Red Harvest]

That pretty much nails it Adrian. It's not nit picking when the battles don't resemble anything I've ever read about, and defy common sense finishing in less than a minute after initial melee. That is the problem a lot of us are having with RTW. So despite people like Morindin, we will come here to discuss what looks wonked and HOW TO FIX IT!

Right now I can see the influence of RTS on this game in the battlefield gameplay. It might make multi-player click festers like Morindin happy, but it poses problems for the historical SP TW crowd.

I don't like having to play modded versions to get things working right, but I guess I'll have to unless they tone things down with a patch.

[Morindin]

You know there is nothing wrong with slow methodical games, infact I quite enjoy hexed based war games myself where you have all day to think about flanking manouvers and tactics.

I also enjoy RTS, flight sims, FPS, and chess, all sorts of games,

Sure I can accept its not as realistic for you, no problem with that at all. But to say its somehow "dumbed down" and less tactical before is my main beef.

It just requires a bit more use of the pause key and more thinking on you feet. Morale, flanking, all that is STILL IN THE GAME and its THOSE things that make the game more tactical than others.

I'd challange you on the clickfest point too, id say its now more a hotkey fest than it ever was, and infact, ironically, most RTS games are more hotkeys than clicking. Diablo games are "click fest".

Also more on the realism point, I really enjoy realism in simulation games. The more realistic the better, but I do know where to draw the line between gameplay and tedium. RTW is a game and claims to be nothing more.
There are some things in RTW that are highly unrealistic (infantry speeds and killing speeds) but there were 100x more things in MTW that were unrealistic, and I'd rather go forward than backwards.

If something kicks my ass (like Elephants) and I used a tactic I thought was sound, I dont ask CA to change to game for me, I find a way to beat the suckers.
I guess changing the game to me feels like cheating. RTW was made to be fast and furious. It may not be realistic I agree but its the way the game was made.

[Thoros of Myr]

It just requires a bit more use of the pause key

What's that?

I love mods, most of the time they are better then the game they were made for. Especially in an SP game they allow you to make the game the way you want it. Even if RTW was completely free of "warcraft-ish" influences there would always be somethng to complain about. If it's not one thing it's another. Sometimes the best games are not what comes directly from the box. Mods allow us to fix as many of those issues as we can get our hands on, be they personal or factual. What I don't like seeing is folks that see a small leak in a ship and cry that it's sinking and nothing can save them instead of fixing it.

[Morindin]

What's that?

I love mods, most of the time they are better then the game they were made for. Especially in an SP game they allow you to make the game the way you want it. Even if RTW was completely free of "warcraft-ish" influences there would always be somethng to complain about. If it's not one thing it's another. Sometimes the best games are not what comes directly from the box. Mods allow us to fix as many of those issues as we can get our hands on, be they personal or factual. What I don't like seeing is folks that see a small leak in a ship and cry that it's sinking and nothing can save them instead of fixing it.

I like the ability to mod what you dont like in the game as well, infact some of the most successful games have also been the ones that are easiest to mod.

One thing I dont like though is people claiming this and that after hardly any playtesting time and the developers changing it completely unbalancing the game.

Example, it happend in MTW 1.1 with spear units, and ive seen it happen over and over with plenty of other games.

One theory I have about all the cool interface features in MTW that didnt appear in RTW is because both games were being made at the same time.
Perhaps the devs put more initial effort into MTW or even did parts of RTW first before doing MTW. By the time they came to solely working on RTW to go back and change these things would put them behind schedual.

Yes there is a trend to make the game more classic RTS style (right click etc, the interface, etc) to make it easier for new players, I dont think its been dumbed down at all though. For example the strategic level is far more challanging than MTW ever was.

I also think the deeper we get into this game the more challanging it will get. There is a lot of depth to it.

[The_Emperor]

Ok guys i have done a bit of testing in the demo...

All units were V0, no mismatches and the battle was out in the open on the tutorial map.

Two units of Triarii engaged a unit of Armoured Elephants in Loose formation. End result, a lot of dead Triarii and one elephant being slain.

I replayed the same battle with the troops in close formation and a unit of Hastati thrown in, here is what happened...

The Elephants charged right past the Hastatii who were placed right out in front and aimed for the General's unit of Triarii, he took a heavy beating all throughout the battle. The Hastati threw their Pila in as the Second unit of Triarii engaged the Elephants from the rear... One elephant went down, another one swiftly followed.

The battle dragged on as the General's unit suffered the brunt of the attack... So finally the Hastati charged in (yeah fat load of good they would do with their puny swords), after that Two more Armoured Elephants fell including the one that carried the Carthaginian General!!

The Armoured Elephants were then routed. My units started off at full strength of 60 men... I wound up with 10 men in the general's Triarii Unit (told you he suffered badly), 47 men in the other Triarii unit, (that means effectivley I had enough Triarii survivors to nearly make a full unit of them) The Hastati were down to 35 men.

The armoured Elephants were the standard unit size of 9 elephants... Effectively I had delt with them by sacrificing a unit of Triarii and half a unit of Hastati!!

Had I been more careful and put the general to loose formation when the Elephants charged him, I would certainly have lost fewer men in that initial charge.

[Husar]

Just a question, but has anyone ever tried using those...pigs?
I know you don´t like them, but perhaps you should try them against elephants, but then again, i should get the game tomorrow.

[Praylak]

Just a question, but has anyone ever tried using those...pigs?
I know you don´t like them, but perhaps you should try them against elephants, but then again, i should get the game tomorrow.

When playing Rome, I always have one unit of bacon packers in my main armies and frontier garrisons. IMO its the cheapest, easiest, and fastest way to get those pachiderms running.

[Osbot]

That would hardly be fair. I'm an amateur boxer... Plus, when I've fought bare knuckle I tended to break a knuckle or two.

Oh lord. Amatuer boxing means zilch. I've fought people who were into "karate" or "amatuer boxing". Ya, they were tough, untill we actually fought. I'd look out Morindin, I think this guy is IRL and wants to punch you out O.o

On the intraweb I am 8 feet tall, have a 36 inch penii and I shoot lazer beams out of my anus. I am a jujitsu world champ and my daddy can beat up your daddy.

Oh and btw, if you tend to "break a knuckle or two" when you fight, you either 1) do not know how to punch 2) Have some bone density problems. ANYONE who knows anything about proper punching technique knows that hitting someone/thing properly is like hitting a golf ball properly or a baseball. You don't even feel it, its hitting the sweet spot.

I'd go see a doctor have those rat claws you call hands checked out.

[Red Harvest]

Osbot,

On the boxing subject...

The broken knuckles came from bare knuckle fights before I started boxing amateur. With adrenaline flowing I didn't really feel the damage until after the fight. All it takes is hitting something hard (like a forehead) at a less than perfect angle. Folks don't stand stationary for that... Most boxers I know won't hit someone bare knuckle if they can avoid it, because of the tendency to screw up their hands. Even with gloves and wraps it is easy to get hand injuries--happens to the pro's all the time. I hit so much harder now than I did back in pre-boxing days that I really don't want to risk a hand injury. I've noticed the same increase in power when coaching new boxers, their hitting power improves several fold as they learn how to shift their weight and drive into the punch.

The serious amateurs are better boxers than most of the pro's. The biggest difference I see is that most pro's can take more punishment. Durability vs. technique. Boxing as a sport is much better in the amateurs.

[DemonArchangel]

you should see my knuckles, they're covered with scabs where i tore the skin off punching people/things. Trust me, humans are harder objects than they look.

[Red Harvest]

you should see my knuckles, they're covered with scabs where i tore the skin off punching people/things. Trust me, humans are harder objects than they look.

Amen.

I've got a set of bag gloves that will skin my knuckles when pounding the heavy water bag no matter how I wrap my knuckles. I tore the knuckles up pretty badly once my power improved. I finally had to switch to heavy bag gloves, problem solved.

[Maedhros]

elephants do tons of damage but they can be beaten.

After two days of playing I no longer fear them. When I encounter elephants I tend to lose more men than normal. But I can still beat them. Keep your men mobile and when you have to get hit put your Hestati into Guard. They will last longer.

Then CHarge the elephants from all around while hammering with Javelins and arrows.

There is also a post about wardogs. They are good for keeping the elephants busy while you rout the main force. The pups will reduce their morale. Once that happens it is hard to lose. The elephants also seem to have HPs. Sustained fire will slowly wear them down. First few hits will seem to have no effect but maintain fire it will.

Remember too, much depends on the ground you stand on. Flanking. and generals. If you face elephants led by a high valour gen you may be toast. Unless you have mass numbers of quality troops.

[Swoosh So]

Sigh here we go again ELEPHANTSARE TO POWERFULL THEY CAN BEAT MY HVY INF!! well news flash thats what theyre supposed to do. Elephants are easily countered, and can also be a weapon for the opponenet as well if you know how. Now im not talking flamig pigs (whichi refuse to use, along with flaming arrows and artillery). If some player lets me charge elephants into his hvy infantry then what does he/she expect? Its like shouting your scissor beat my paper!! or your rock beat my scissor!! For a start units which are being charged by elephants should immediatly be put on open formation (this will reduce casualties alot - eventhe ingame advisor tells you to do this), in mp battles elephants cost 1250 or so denari, now considering most play 10,000 denari that leaves under 9k for 19 more units. So certainly no cost issue and i dont see a cost issue in sp gmae either due to upkeep and cost.

I wont diverge all my tactics for elephants as half the fun is finding out for yourself, someone earlier said triaria (good call) phalanx works just as well if not better, a stationary phalanx i mean or at least one in somesort of order. Months ago on time commanders neusbacher was talking about how to deal with elephants and ca seem to have taken it on board, missles, light infantry phalanx. and if u cant manage that and want to use them the u can always use pigs..........

I wonder if these people who complain that their hvy inf get mashed even had thos units on fire at will (if romaan units) as you will deliver a painful pilum volley to the elephants b4 they hit, and if u have 4 units side by side then thats 4 volleys on 1 elephant unit.

Experiment abit the games not been out long....were all learning but i dont think everyone should shout imbalance first chance they get. Cav overpowered? U havent seent he 90% roman foot armies in action online i guess.....

[Thoros of Myr]

Experiment abit the games not been out long....were all learning but i dont think everyone should shout imbalance first chance they get.

[Silencer]

try the catapults with fire, they rock versus elephants.

try 8 armoured elephants versus 8 catapults in a custom battle, the Catapults win everytime.

you ony need to hit one or 2 elephants and they go bezerk. also, the exploding fire all around them in kinda bad for morale.


had a several bridgebattles yesterday.
I had only 3 legoin cohorts and 6 catapults.
AI got a full army. by the time they reach my side, they're already running....
I always pack 2-3 catapults in mly army. when they gain experience, the're accuracy is even far better. (silver cevron catapult hits 30-35%, thus one out of 3 volleys)

[Lemur]

Frankly, I love all of the animal units. War dogs, elephants, camels, I just can't get enough. I think my ideal army could consist of war hounds, armored elephants, a wing of flaming pigs and some camels.

I'm probably just weird.

[Swoosh So]

Probably :D

[Soulflame]

try the catapults with fire, they rock versus elephants.

try 8 armoured elephants versus 8 catapults in a custom battle, the Catapults win everytime.

you ony need to hit one or 2 elephants and they go bezerk. also, the exploding fire all around them in kinda bad for morale.


had a several bridgebattles yesterday.
I had only 3 legoin cohorts and 6 catapults.
AI got a full army. by the time they reach my side, they're already running....
I always pack 2-3 catapults in mly army. when they gain experience, the're accuracy is even far better. (silver cevron catapult hits 30-35%, thus one out of 3 volleys)

o(w)nagers are just crazy when used right. it can win you almost any battle. In fact, in most battles I played after introducing 2 pairs of o(w)nagers per army, the greatest losses of my troops are from my own o(w)nagers accidentally firing at them.

But on topic:
Elephants should be countered not by spearmen, but my ranged fire. Like horse archer, normal archers, skirmishers... etc. Just light troops. Light troops have more chance of walking free of the elephant, turning the elephants, and peppering them so they flee.
In fact, I have never as yet sent any cavalry or infantry against them. That's just asking for trouble I think. I bought some mercenary war elephants (at a hefty 4000 dinarii), and the way I use them is against heavy infantry and cavalry, NOT against skirmishers or archers.

The few times I encountered elephants, I set my archers on firing flaming arrows, and just pepper them for a long time, add a javalin unit and they are either kept busy for the battle, or flee/run amok. Note that you probably won't kill many elephants this way, but when you route, you can give chase and kill them more easily. Also, if you destory most of the rest of the army, chances are the whole army will disband (including the elephants).

Really, what do you expect, that shields protect you from an elephant trampling you? defense doesn't matter vs elephants (in fact, lower defense might mean more manouvrability sometimes, which is alot better) or that you can spear an elephant running around?
Elephants are big targets, archers and skirmishers easily hit them.

Well, that's my personal experience from the battefield, so I might have a different RTW version, or just been lucky, but for me it works.
And o(w)nagers are just crazy (when used right).

[Spino]

Yell at me all you want but elephants ARE unbalanced, not because they trash heavy infantry but because they're too damn tough to take down. I was expecting elephants in RTW to be like those seen in Time Commanders; extremely dangerous but vulnerable to light troops and concentrated missile fire. Instead I get Giant-Four-Legged-Pink-Bastard-Tanks from hell. Let me share with you a recent story...

I'm currently playing a modded campaign as Armenia on Hard/Hard with Large sized units. Beyond the fact that Armenia is playable I am using Adonys' Kill Rate mod (.5 setting) which only effects melee speeds. The Selecuids decided to siege one of my cities with four units; one unit of Phalanx Pikemen, two units of Levy Phalanx Pikemen and one unit of War Elephants (12 pachyderms in all, the unarmored kind with the two archers on top). I sallied out of the city with the following: one 80 man unit of javelin wielding Peltasts, 1 120 man unit of Eastern Infantry, two 20 man General units (Eastern Heavy Cavalry, armed with javelins) and four 54 man Horse Archer units. Sounds like pretty good odds eh?

I sallied through the side gates so I could flank them. Eventually the Seleucids were effectively sandwiched between my lines and were fidgeting about trying to figure out which way to face. I then ordered my four Horse Archer units to get within range and fire exclusively on the elephants. Two Horse Archer units to the elephants' front, two directly to their rear and all four HA units were stationary while firing. After several volleys I noticed not a single elephant had been killed but the pike unit directly in front of them was taking casualties. I thought, "Hey, my Horse Archers are not aiming at the elephants like I ordered them to!" so I double checked and saw that the arrows were actually landing amongst the elephants but the combined short and long shots from both sides were killing those pikemen. The odd thing is whenever I right clicked on the elephants units to target them the arrow blinked from red to yellow as if all my HA units were not in range and couldn't fire. Why was it doing that if the HA units were clearly in range? Anyway, out of frustration I sent forth my Peltast unit to fill those pachyderms full of javelins... two volleys gave me nothing. I then reconcentrated my HA fire on the pikemen and hoped that if the elephants were the only unit left the AI would retreat them. Not a chance. After all three pike units were filled full of arrows and routed the elephants proceeded to charge my two general units around the map while the archers riding shotgun were slowly picking them off. The general units were in skirmish mode and chucking javelins at the elephants while running but of course, not a single elephant bought the farm. Out of desperation I charged the elephants with my Peltast and Eastern Infantry units. In no time my infantry routed with nothing to show for it, not even a brief moment of panic for the elephants which by now were EXHAUSTED. Even the rapid fire arrow towers around my city didn't make an impression on them when the elephants got too close to my city walls.



Why in blazes did CA make elephants so damn resiliant? To justify their cost or to please the RTS kiddies who think they're supposed to be four legged tanks of doom? I set up a perfect morale sapping killing zone that sends most AI units in a routing tizzy and yet those elephants survived unscathed. Taking arrow fire in the ass should have done something to them. In the battle prior to this I was confronted with a mixed force that included a single 50 man unit of Parthian Cataphracts, a hard nut to crack. And yet with similar flanking positions and fewer Horse Archers I managed to kill a little more than half of them. Last I checked cataphracts are supposed to be more impervious to missile fire than elephants so what gives?

Please spare me the "You need to use better tactics" speeches. When you sandwich 12 unarmored war elephants between 108 horse archers there ought to be a noticeable number of pachyderm carcasses on the ground. I wasn't looking for a massacre but was simply hoping to inflict enough rear/flanking shots on those elephants to cause them to panic and route off the field.

It's time to mod the unit stats...

[Praylak]

Yell at me all you want but elephants ARE unbalanced, not because they trash heavy infantry but because they're too damn tough to take down.

With all due respect Spino, Why didn't you use you Phalanx against the Elephants? This will drop an elephant like a sack of potatos. If you did try it and it didn't do anything I would reconsider that killrate-mod your using.

[son of spam]

You know what would be cool? If arrows and other missiles could somehow snipe those damn archers and mahout.

It's like the elephant has a big force shield surrounding the towers and the mahout.

[Red Harvest]

For a few of my armies I use a single base elephant unit in battle (more would be very unfair.) I use them to crush the heaviest infantry in the center while most of my cav tears up the flanks, and a few units chase behind the elephants routing the rest in the center. This is pretty similar to what the AI was doing to me with roles reversed.

I'm not sure how many battles I've used these elephants in, but so far I have lost exactly ONE elephant--even routing the pachys doesn't seem to cost me elephants. I am a bit protective of them and only use them for specific functions, but they are way overpowered. This is on "very hard" battle setting. (Note: I did lose all but one elephant in a unit to autocalc, but that is not relevant. And the final elephant was almost worthless...it would rout immediately in the desert, before anything even moved.)

I'm considering reducing their hit points some, and cut the base unit size in half. That might make them more vulnerable to javelins, pila, and archers. Frankly, the upkeep on these beasts is way too small. Maintaining a unit with that many elephants (scaled to army size) should cost about 750-1,000 per turn.

Unit stats do not indicate any bonus for Triarii vs. elephants, although peltasts get such bonuses.

[Spino]

With all due respect Spino, Why didn't you use you Phalanx against the Elephants? This will drop an elephant like a sack of potatos. If you did try it and it didn't do anything I would reconsider that killrate-mod your using.

Praylak you didn't read my post. I didn't have any phalanx troops to send against those elephants! The only thing I had infantry wise was one unit of Peltasts and one unit of Eastern Infantry. I wasn't sufficiently teched up to build Eastern Heavy Spearmen (this was still early on in the campaign) but I didn't think I needed them because up until that point I had trashed most phalanx heavy armies sent against me with pure cavalry armies loaded with Horse Archers. Only the Parthians gave me trouble as their armies were similar to mine. The point is 216 Horse Archers, 40 Eastern Heavy Cavalrymen, 80 Peltasts AND the guys in the Archer Towers along the walls, firing from different angles over a considerable period, could not kill a single war elephant out of a group of 12. That's simply ridiculous!

I did a number of tests last night using the custom battle feature. I set up one unit of 12 war elephants versus various types missile troops and the results were rather shocking. I'll do some more testing and report with the results.