Well, i've been reading in the guide forum that not too many ppl find Heavy chariots/Scythed very usefull. As i've been playing a pontus camp for a while and thus had a chance to try out scythed chariots, i thought it would be a good idea to give some info on their use.
This is in normal battle mode, so if you play hard or v.hard results will differ, but i think normal is more honest as no units get bonusses or penalties.
Also i don't pretend to be an expert of any kind, thus if you find this post to be of no use to you, don't reply and just let it slip down the 1st page, it'll go away in a couple of days.
Ok, what i find heavy chariots to be good at, are battles vs cav. They are the best cav killers imho, tho camels are also very good at it, but they usually rout horses, thus not inflicting too many casualties + the routed unit will get it's morale back soon and you have to fight it again.
Anyway, i tried some 1 vs 1 battles with pontic scythed chariots (with +1 attack, as they get it from the blacksmith anyway) and they won against desert egyptian cav, legionary cav cataphracts (and some others). Against praetorian, they lost but with marginal difference, and the preat's were destroyed as well, so they would have made to significant impact to the rest of the battle.
I understand 1 vs 1 isn't the most precise test you can do for determing a units' use, but it's certainly one of them when you want to dictate what to throw it against. Vs infantry, they disrupt the formation, so an inf unit fo your own following can make much more dmg.
I tried pontic heav cav and kataphracts replacing the scythed in the same battles and the results were bad losses in most of the cases.
Furthermore, you get scythed early on in the game and they need a blacksmith which is a usefull building for all your troops (you'll built it anyway) and the +1 attack from that apllies to your scythed. Btw, i tried Brittish Heavy Chartiots vs Praetorians and the Brits dominated them!
As in a real battle (not 1 vs 1) , what i do is receive the charge of the enemy with an inf unit (crappy EI is ok, they are spearmen as well) and then charge the cav with scythed and they 're dead. Moreover i tend to get quite a lot of them healed if something goes wrong and some die during battle. I've also read at some post, that when you retrain them, they don't loose exp, even if 1 chariot survived. Important is not to let them tire too much, as i've found that this also and not only casualties causes them to go amok (not all char's do, but scythed can unfortunately). Heavy/Scythed chariots are slow compared to cav, thus you should be carefull and get your timing right or else the cav may escape. Also if you start a battle with a depleted scythed unit (6 when starting is 18) you'll find they tend to go amok after a while no matter what, so position them away from your army and at the edge of the screen and tell them to withdraw after the battle starts.
That's my 2 cents on the matter, if more ppl want to make more tests and give the results according to difficulty they are wellcomed of course, as is any feedback on how to use heavy/scythed more effectively.
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