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Thread: Research: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default CA: 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?)
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  2. #2
    Ricardus Insanusaum Member Bob the Insane's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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 )??

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    Clan Takiyama Senior Member R'as al Ghul's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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

    ; 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
    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? And I was trying to kill them with a range-attack of 7 from my Parthian HA.

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    Senior Member Senior Member Oaty's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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
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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Praeparet bellum Member Quillan's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Savior of Peasant Phill Member Silver Rusher's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.)
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    Senior Member Senior Member Oaty's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    Well as a little back up your advisor says arrows wo'nt kill the elephants but they can make them run amok
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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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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    Member Member Mr Frost's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    Quote 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.


    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} .

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    Member Member Nestor's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    (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.
    I don't find them overpowered.

    -----
    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.

    -----
    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.

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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    Quote 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.
    I don't find them overpowered.
    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.
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    Bland Assassin Member Zatoichi's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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...

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    Praeparet bellum Member Quillan's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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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    Member Member belac's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    Quote 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...
    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.)
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    Praeparet bellum Member Quillan's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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  22. #22
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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...
    Last edited by Slaists; 11-04-2004 at 22:06.

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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    Quote 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...
    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.
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  24. #24
    A Livonian Rebel Member Slaists's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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...
    Last edited by Slaists; 11-04-2004 at 22:16.

  25. #25
    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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.
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    Member Member Warlock's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    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?

  29. #29

    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit 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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    Alienated Senior Member Member Red Harvest's Avatar
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    Default Re: CA: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

    Quote 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?
    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.
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