Quote Originally Posted by PseRamesses
All chariots are a pain in the a_s! Overpowered and just rolls through anything that stands in their way. No way a chariot-charge would go through a 8 row deep phalanx formation in real life. This is one of the main reasons why the Eggys and Brits do so well against their neighbours. I do hope CA patch this or some modder.
Playing v1.2 I still think archers do a bit too well against cavalry. Unprotected and armed with short swords they should really be a snack for any cav, don´t you think?
Chariots are easy to beat. Scythed ones: flaming arrows and/or flaming art until they run amok, which they do quickly. Non-scythed close combat ones: kill with prolonged arrow fire, one or two volleys of skirmisher javelins, or cavalry to their rear. Chariot archers: kill with arrows and finish them off with cavalry. They're ridiculously weak if you can catch up with them, especially if you charge their rear (which is often the case because they try to skirmish and then turn their back towards the hunter). I don't see why people still complain so much about chariots, once you've figured out these things they're a piece of cake. Besides, there's also the tactic of letting them through your lines and killing them behind. Not well implemented in the engine as you have no function to make your men step aside, but casualties are low in the first chariot charge and you just need to charge some cavalry or other reserves you had behind the line into the slowed down chariots behind and they rout instantly (sometimes back through their own men). Only thing to watch out for is morale penalty for your units when you let the chariots pass through your lines and give casualties.

My most hated unit: urban cohort. They beat phalanx in front to front charge, and don't rout until they've been killed to 95 percent AND are surrounded by 10 phalanx units and 10 cathapract units. I might be exaggerating a little, but unfortunately not much. Another hated unit is the praetorian cavalry - very unrealistc with roman cavalry that can easily beat cathapracts. I also dislike egypt, their entire unit rooster, due to unrealism. They're very good fighters though if you command them yourself, but they belong in another time period than that of the game.

Head hurlers are also unrealistic, but I usually play with zoom out and they're equivalent to slingers in power and range (I think?), so I just pretend they're slingers when I play. Druids might not be nice, but without them gaul wouldn't be a challenge at all to conquer later in the game. I'd support removing both head hurlers and druids, but with replacements to keep the poor factions from getting too weak... Britain without head hurlers or replacement would be easy to battle - kill half the army from a distance then they'll charge and then you kill the rest easily. Gaul without druids would be - charge one flank with 3-4 cavalry units and then move inwards until 2-3 units have routed, then the entire army routs. Make sure to have plenty of light cavalry to kill the routing units.