the elephants issue

[lomeinchef]

Um, I think the maintainence costs in RTW are a very general way to avoid micromanaging. Could you imagine if your armies would retire? and you had to keep building a constant resupply to maintain attrition? It would make the game deeper, but also much more annoying. The upkeep costs i assume represent not only the maintainence costs but also the cost of replacing soldiers as they retire, etc. I just assume that all of that is going on and it doesnt bother me.

[Furious Mental]

What lomeinchef said.

[Hakonarson]

Yes I understand that too - despite the obvious inadequacy of the mechanism - for example why doesn't a depleted unit grow in strength with replacements as upkeep is paid?

That's not really the point - I have no interest in micromanagement either - that's what the computer is for! What I want to know is how many legions can I raise at Tarentum? How many Pezeratoi (foot companions - Alex's Pikemen) at Pella, How many Cataphracts at Seleucia, etc.

When the ancients raised armies they didn't wait a year for each unit to form - they decided how many ment they needed, and called out that many.

In some cases if was by lot - eg the Romans and Athenians would decide they needed 4 legions, or 2000 troops, or whatever, and cast lots for who would actually serve.

For "ordinary" troops this is easy enough - you just set the built time to 0 and you can build the army you want in 1 turn. You are limited by your population in RTW, and I think that plus money is fine for them.

But for elite troops, or strange troops like elephants you need some sort of limiting mechanism otherwise you end up with armies entirely of them - a common feature in basic RTW.

The most accurate limiting feature is the populatoin theycan be drawn from - or - for elephants - needing to equip an expedition to go get some. The number crunching can be done in hte background - I see no reason why the player should be saddled with it other than to be told you have "x" veterans able to be promoted, or whatever, each time you want to know.

[Drag0nUL]

So Elephants could be only available to recruit from provinces in the Indus Valley, far southern nile region and atlas mountains. And Harkonarson, your idea about mercenery indian elephant units in the middle east is excellent idea! It seems a perfect way to symbolize nations importing elephants for their armies using the engine. I hope EB uses that one!

I think the idea of mercenary elephants is not quite historically accurate.It would imply that middle eastern countries brought UNITS of elephants from India(I mean with indian crew and weapons), whereas, to my knowledge they only imported the animals.
I don't know if this could be done(I sincerely doubt it isn't hard-coded) but this would be imho the best solution for the elephants problem: add an 'elephant' resource.This would represent the total of elephants your faction posesses and creating an elephant unit would require both gold and elephants.You would only be able to replenish the number of elephants you posess by gaining control of a province either african(where elephants live) or at the indian border(so you can import animals from India).

[Red Harvest]

When the Romans used elephants, they were provided by allies IIRC (during campaigns in Greece and Spain.) There is no way to do this in the game, so I think the merc elephants were added as compensation. The same is true for Numidian cav (for both Rome and Carthage.)

[Hakonarson]

I think the idea of mercenary elephants is not quite historically accurate.It would imply that middle eastern countries brought UNITS of elephants from India(I mean with indian crew and weapons), whereas, to my knowledge they only imported the animals.
I don't know if this could be done(I sincerely doubt it isn't hard-coded) but this would be imho the best solution for the elephants problem: add an 'elephant' resource.This would represent the total of elephants your faction posesses and creating an elephant unit would require both gold and elephants.You would only be able to replenish the number of elephants you posess by gaining control of a province either african(where elephants live) or at the indian border(so you can import animals from India).

A good compromise.

Not tho' that elephants were usually imported with their mahouts from India - IIRC the point is made somewhere that as the supply of Indian elephants dried up for hte Ptolemies in Egypt, so did their supply of Mahouts. they then had to use African mahouts as well as African elephants, although all mahouts were still called "Indians".

The fighting crew were, of course, always "regualar" members of the army - whether these were locals or mercenaries I couldn't say.

As Red says, "Roman" elephants were supplied by Numidians, so had Numidian mahouts - not sure about their fighting crew tho, although it seems probable to me that they would be Numidian too.

[jerby]

how about an auxillia? 'recruitable by all, +hidden resource india' in export_building_descr.
the same is done in RTR, gaullian warband auxillia, recuitable by all+hidden resource gaul.
so now elies are no longer for certain factions, since I never understood why parthia couldn't train elies, sinc they live in elie investate lands (campaign map).

wich I come to think of, how is elie vs elie combat in rtw handeld? and how in EB?