Where to go now?

[PaulTa]

I've got a question for the old timers on the forum... Before CA altered the Chariots, were the Heavy chariots useful? Currently, they seem like more of a handicap for two turns and around a thousand denari.

[jhhowell]

I've got a question for the old timers on the forum... Before CA altered the Chariots, were the Heavy chariots useful? Currently, they seem like more of a handicap for two turns and around a thousand denari.

I'm not an old timer, but since nobody else is speaking up I'll comment.

Looking at the stats, the British heavy chariots seem comparable to the Seleucid/Pontic scythed chariots and the Egyptian chariots. I know for a fact that both of the latter are quite effective (far too good, in fact) and well worth their ~1000D, two turn cost. I consider chariots to be the centerpieces of rebel-quashing groups, and optional but effective additions to main armies. If chariots have been nerfed, CA didn't go far enough. Take away the magical cavalry massacre ability and reduce their speed to camel speed, and chariots would be pretty reasonable IMHO.

[PaulTa]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

MP, on the other hand, is anybody's guess. I know how fragile MP is to slight changes, being an AoE 3 veteran.

[PaulTa]

Also kind of forgot to mention that chariots don't really seem to kill anything as much as they seem to push things around, followed with a quick death rate when the pushing stops. Following up with some heavy cavalry seems like a legitimate course of action, but like I said earlier, 1000 denari and two turns is pretty steep for a formation disruption unit that dies quickly. :(

Hell, war dogs do the same sort of thing, cost less to make and maintain, and regenerate losses every battle.

Update: I think I might end up going on a MTW leave of action until MTW 2 comes out. I recently jacked up the difficulty of the campaign to VH and was pleasantly suprised to see that the campaign AI shot up a good few notches, but the game is still too easy with some factions, and just too boring to continue with others. :(

Someone snap me out of it with a previously overlooked faction that has a good tech tree, decent unit selection, swordsmen instead of the silly phalanxe all the time, and a fight of your life starting position. :P (Too much to ask for, it seems)

[Ciaran]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

MP, on the other hand, is anybody's guess. I know how fragile MP is to slight changes, being an AoE 3 veteran.

Defense is different from armour. A high defense skill means the unit can protect itself very well in melee, due to training, agility etc, while arour represents the amount of metal (or leather or whatever else) the guy is clad in. Armour also protects against missiles as well as against melee attacks, defense skill does not. The melee protection therefore is defense plus armour (plus a shield in a couple of cases, which is a special form of armour since it only protects the front and left side of a figure, and is, to the best of my knowledge, not subject to the armour-piercing ability that some units have).

[professorspatula]

The thing worth noting with chariots is that there are two sets of defence ratings: one for the driver/passengers, and one for the chariot itself. The Scythed Chariot for example has no armour for the chariot, but 18 (same as a cataphract) for the driver. You don't see this rating, but I assumed this rating was used against missiles, whereas the chariot rating was used for close quarters/melee fighting. That would explain why scythed chariots can be difficult to kill when firing missiles, but much easier to kill when charged into a basic unit of troops.

However, before posting that, I thought I'd better do some tests to make sure. And it actually seems the stats for the drivers defence are indeed ignored completely. Setting the hitpoints to 1, I copied the scythed chariots, so I had 2 variations to test. The first had the normal stats (18 armour) but 1 hitpoint, the second had only 1 armour for the driver and 1 hitpoint. By using just 1 hitpoint, I could therefore test if a single volley of arrows would prove whether or not driver armour matters. If it did, the unit with 18 armour would die slowly, the other would die very fast. Lo and behold, both units suffered massive casualties in each volley. Both units also fell apart when they crashed into the Town militia stood in front of the archers.

I then changed the 2 sets of scythed chariots so the chariot itself had 18 armour and the driver 1. This time the chariot withstood several volleys of missiles, plus withstood much of the attacks from the town militia. I then went back to adding massive amounts of armour to the driver and reducing chariot armour to 1, then just set my town militia on the chariots to see if in melee, driver abilties did matter at all - and it was a resounding no.


With this in mind, it seems better to give the chariots heavy armour but just 1 or 2 hitpoints. The game seems to strongly rate units with high hitpoints, thus ruining the results in auto-calced battles. I don't know if it's common knowledge, but it's new to me.


Sorry I've kind of gone into modders discussion mode which doesn't help the original poster whatsoever. It does, however, make me want to play with chariot stats some more. So excuse me, I've got some scythed chariots to steer over the heads of some unruly peasants.

(PS: I haven't tried them, but Armenia would be ok for a new RTW challenge. There's quite a bit of variety to their roster once you get going. And although their infantry isn't all that great, it's sometimes fun just to spam rubbish armies. The Seleucid campaign is great, but similar in some ways to the Carthage one you completed: ie, very tricky start and lots of battles, but then incredibly powerful elephants to finish everyone off)

[PaulTa]

I think I'm just going to have to default on a Roman campaign, even though they are really feast or famine. Pre-marian, famine, post-marian, no one can touch you.

They seem to be one of the only civs with decent infantry, archers, and cavalry. Germania is nice, but limited barbarian tech tree is a bummer.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Roman factions are more fun than you think, especially early on because of the Senate missions and the fact that you're in the middle of everything.

I'll point out, though, that Pontus especially and Armenia both offer very nice troop selections, if you want to try an eastern campaign...

[jhhowell]

In my honest opinion, the computer doesn't make enough cavalry for chariots to be worth the time and trouble. If you look at the civs that do get chariots, they are surrounded by civs that only use HA and chariot archers, so the anti-cavalry ability is sort of null and void. Against infantry, the brits are right by germany (spear warband), Seleucids right by Pontus (pikemen)/Egypt (nile spearmen), Pontus by Seleucids (pikes)/greeks (hoplites)/egypt (nile spearmen), etc.

The description for scythed chariots states that they are heavily armored, but they have a defense score of one? The dude in the chariot is dressed up like a cataphract unit, but he might as well be naked to represent his armor status. If the Chariot was armored a bit more, I could see a bit of use for them in SP.

I disagree about the anti-cavalry magic being useless. Cheesy, ahistorical, and unreasonable, yes, but not useless. Chariots do fine against horse archers if necessary (a rebel force with HA, for example). Chariot vs. chariot is actually pretty interesting. Perhaps it's a playing style issue, but I do find enough AI cavalry for chariots to be useful flank guards. A couple of equites or a single general can disrupt my jav cavs, while if there's a chariot unit hanging around the jav cavs can go about their business and if the enemy actually attacks the chariots will clean them up pretty quickly. Other units can serve the same role, of course. Note that AI Macedon in particular fields very large (and very bad) cavalry forces, so if the AI knew what it was doing that could be very painful, even with a chariot unit on hand. Sadly, the AI is a terrible general...

I also don't follow your point about all the spears. So what? As long as you're not crossing a bridge or clearing a city, it's easy enough to run around and charge the flanks or rear, just like with cavalry. Until/unless they lose momentum chariots are death on wheels to infantry, pike or otherwise. Basic elephants do the disruption with few kills you mention, chariots get plenty of kills. As you say, chariot plus cavalry works better (cav kills faster than chariots) but chariots can also rack up 100+ kills per battle pretty easily.

Regarding defense, I've found that chariots either take minimal losses or massive casualties (usually going berserk at the end), nothing in between. Thus my emphasis on using them against rebels - quick routs are fairly common.

The cost and time both seem quite fair for what you get. Since it's a basic blacksmith unit, if it took a single turn to build you'd get a silly chariot rush tactic (especially given the low manpower use) at the start of the game. The ~1000D is also about right for it's effectiveness; also note that at least two of the chariot powers really don't care what any unit costs since they have money coming out their ears. There's almost zero opportunity cost - build inf/cav/archers at your main troop cities, and push out a few chariots here and there from your minor cities.

On your faction question, BI is nice. I'd guess you'd prefer either the mod which makes the Romano-British playable, or just pick one of the barbarians (Franks maybe? I think they're the least cavalry-centric barbs...). Picking a fight with the WRE early on will put you in a fight for your life situation even if you don't start in one.

[PaulTa]

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree, as much as I'd like to drag this out until you accept that you're wrong. :P

I was seriously considering BI. The barbarians actually have a developed tech tree, and the unit selection for most civs is great. I'm thinking Allemani (sp?), or maybe the burgundii.

I'm a big fan of units that have one specific use that they are amazing for, rather than all around jack of all trades units. I guess it kind of comes from my AoE experience.