Chariot Questions

**Red Harvest** · 10-02-2004, 18:26

Since the Egyptians decided to attack my Carthaginians, I've gotten to see some chariots in action. I'm a bit puzzled by them. My historical understanding of chariots is that they don't maneuver all that well, and they are not as fast as light cav. I didn't think they could move through forest very well either.

I've found my light cav can't seem to chase them down unless I force them into a corner with multiple units or if the chariots tire first. I could understand them outrunning heavy cav, but the Carthaginian light shield cav?

One example stood out as being odd: I charged a chariot unit with two units of light cav. The chariot had its flank turned toward me and was heading along a road between two stands of trees, one of which my men were hiding in. Perfect trap, right? No, as my cav charge, the chariots turn before my cav can reach them and the charge off through the opposite woods at high speed! I thought they would be awfully slow navigating woods, or would be unable to enter.

Ok, chariot historians, any comments? Did CA just make these units fast as compensation for the weak melee?

**Ktonos** · 10-03-2004, 00:42

Well, historicaly chariots were pretty obsolet during the hellenistic and roman period. They were used only in skirmishes and small scale battles. The last battle that envolved charits I know was Gaugamela during Alexanders campaign..long before the period of our game.

But I thing that CA choosed to put them into this (dreamy) game because its the trademark unit of Egyptians and they did well IMOP.

The unit description talks about "chariots are scared when infantry is around, so...

But then again some archers with longer range of the chariots back from some light infantry should be the cheapest way to do the job.

**Steppe Merc** · 10-03-2004, 01:31

I know the British chariots (the only ones that were actually still in use at this time), were extremely fast and manuverable. However, they were used like mounted javileneers, but after they used up their javilens, the nobles on them would dismout to fight. I have no idea about heavy chariots though, since the Brits used light ones.

**Thoros of Myr** · 10-03-2004, 01:56

Anyone know why it takes chariots the better part of 20mins to finish off scattered, routing inf.? They often run along side them instead of into them and they go really slow and just give them a slight bump, I'm just wishing for a passenger in the chariot to reach over and konk the infantry in the head so it can be over with.

**Colovion** · 10-03-2004, 02:40

Originally Posted by Thoros of Myr

Anyone know why it takes chariots the better part of 20mins to finish off scattered, routing inf.? They often run along side them instead of into them and they go really slow and just give them a slight bump, I'm just wishing for a passenger in the chariot to reach over and konk the infantry in the head so it can be over with.

that's nothing to do with chariots - it happens with Cav chasing routing units as well

**Thoros of Myr** · 10-03-2004, 02:43

Originally Posted by Colovion

that's nothing to do with chariots - it happens with Cav chasing routing units as well

With cav they seem to do thier business fairly quickly, with chariots it's horribly slow.

**Red Harvest** · 10-03-2004, 03:04

Re: Chariots chasing routed units

I think this has to do with unit spacing. Elephants will take forever to kill routing infantry. The last few men are always between elephants.

A "mop up" command would be nice. It might allow some sort of loss of formation and mob like rush to chase down the fleeing army. It would only become available when all enemy units were routed.

**Red Harvest** · 10-03-2004, 05:30

Ok, I've been looking through the unit files. Mounted units are lumped into mount types, and the mount type seems to determine their speed. I think chariot speed is set the same as "medium horse." I already knew I could chase them down with "light horse" (mercenary Numidian cav) The buildable light cav for Carthage is actually "medium horse." That's not too unreasonable--although I think chariots should take big speed penalties for certain kinds of terrain--essentially anything that isn't open ground... Darius carefully prepped the ground before the battle for his scythed chariots when facing Alexander.

**hoof** · 10-03-2004, 10:18

The annoying problem with cavalry/chariots running alongside the unit they're attacking is due to lead-computing behavior.

In previous Total War games, cavalry would always head directly towards their target. This would cause them to arc in behind them, as opposed to "heading them off at the pass".

In RTW, cavalry (actually all units, best I can tell) take the speed of the target into account. Thus they head towards where the target will be, not where it is. Kinda like skeet shooting, you aim ahead of the target.

This works great in most cases (it allows a cavalry unit coming in from the side to intercept a routing unit nicely). However, it has a big problem in one situation. When cavalry overtake a unit, they slow down to let the unit catch up. However, the lead-computing part of their algorithm still attempts to run an intercept course. Since they are now going at nearly the same speed as the target, the intercept point is way ahead of both of them. Thus, even though the unit is right next to them, they are still attempting to intercept them at a point ahead of the cavalry.

The way to fix this would be to turn off the lead computing part when within a certain distance. If the cavalry is still going too fast, it will turn into the target, overshoot, then either turn back or do a 360. Both will allow the target ahead and will then allow the cav unit to intercept properly.

Until a change like that is done, the trick is to either stop your cav unit and let the target run past them, or to order the cav unit to one side. Once the geometry improves, you can then reissue the attack order and they'll start slaughtering again.