Chariot's are great!

[anubis88]

Hi... I almost never used chariots before, since i thought they were a silly adition to my armys... today i decided to try i little more exotic aproach to my Arche army... I fought a huge battle vs a middle class ptoly general. Although they're impact on the battle wasn't significant(kill ratio), they scared the hell out of the ptoly phalanxes when i charge into them... the rout was instantaneus and complete... although they are hard to manouver i realised for the first time how useful chariots were....

So the question... do any of you use chariots and what do you think about them?

Plus... how many times did the seleucids use them?

Thanx for sharing the info:

[Horst Nordfink]

I've only ever used them as a Casse general and I found them to be unwieldy and cumbersome, but useful scaring poor infantry.

I wouldn't use them given the choice of a decent cavalry.

Never used a Selecuid chariot though, as I have never been the Seleucids, and never will!!

[Pharnakes]

They rule mp.

Cause then it doesn't matter if they die.

Personaly I call them "poor-mans elephants", and use them as such.

[woad&fangs]

I wheel them around enemy and kill their general and then I have them attack the enemies missile troops. At this point I can have them hit the enemy in the back at a weak point in their line and hopefully start a chain reaction rout.

I find them to be an incredibly versatile unit that can perform a multitude of battlefield tasks. Just remember to keep them moving.

[glouch]

chariots, hm.

casse chariots are okay.

however seleucid chariots are a completely different story.
low morale means that they are relatively useless when it comes to going on independent raids during a battle.
i generally use them, in the unlikely episode of me having trained them and included them in my army, only to disrupt enemy missile units... but even then i'm always at risk of them routing. it's okay with me when one of my units routs, but when it also kills 100s of men (including mine) while trying to run away, i generally become pissed and frustrated. i've actually had an incredible pyrrhic victory in this manner. although i won, i lost more than 2/3 of my men to my own chariots. actually that's the primary reason why i rarely recruit chariots, and any other unit that's relatively unwieldy and/or too expensive for what they can do on the battlefield. it feels like buying a coke for a hundred dollars.

if i were you, i'd take elephants anytime, even when they cost gajillions more in both recruitment and upkeep, because they're more efficient at killing things. if you can't afford them, then stick with your own units. you can still win heroic victories no matter what your units are anyways, just make sure your army is balanced. :D

[V.T. Marvin]

In my 0.81 Pontic campaign I have had one chariot unit in each of my field armies and they proved really useful. Exactly as already said by Anubis88 - they did not much of the killing, but they have routed lots of enemies very efficiently. They were especially effective in killing enemy heavy cavalry - lots of Seleucid and Ptolemaic generals have died when their horses fell under the wicked blades of my chariots...

[anubis88]

Yeah, they are really ment for a specific task... I also use elephants, they're also very usefull...

but the chariot charge is almost as devastating as the elephant charge in terms of routing the enemy... Also in eb 1.0 They are much stronger then elephants against cavalry, wich is a real shame, since elephants were primarily used against cavalry

[Morte66]

Well, I'm glad somebody has got them working, ;)

I built one unit of Pontic chariots at Armaseia (3500 mnai), got them to the Levant (about 5000 mnai), and commenced operations against the Greys/Ptolies.

Battle 1:

Following advice I got here, I tried to move them across the enemy line in guard mode to disrupt the line and then follow them with a kinsmen cavalry charge. They got two thirds of the way through the first unit then ignored orders and went into their swirling attack. A few seconds later, with 60% casualties, they routed and ran off into the desert. By the time they were out of the way and I could use the kinsmen, the target phalanx had reformed. Later I used them to chase some routers, and they ran amok due to exhaustion. I had to move other units out of the way, exposing a flank.

Battle 2:

I decided "enough of that, I'll go after the enemy general". I started them wide right, and the enemy general went for my left and spent the whole battle close to his javelin-armed troops. So I didn't put the chariots into action in that battle. I could have used them for fear, but I was going for annihilation so I didn't want a mass rout (can't chase 'em all at once).

Battle 3:

Charged without orders, routed back through my lines, and killed three of my men for every one of the enemy's.

Battle 4:

There is no battle 4. I disbanded the remaining 45% of the unit.


I could see a use for the fear effect. But I don't usually want mass routs, I want to rout one unit at a time and kill them before they leave the field. And it strikes me that Galatian Wild Men will do the same job for less money with more flexibility and far less risk.

I figure the cavalry-killing could work out well, especially those bloody Hetairoi, but the Greys/Ptolies are mostly using infantry armies under captains. The leave their family members in towns, where it's much better to kill them with pikes and missiles.

Speaking of towns, chariots are not much use in sieges. And they don't call this game "Siege Total War" for nothing.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

I use chariots to disrupt enemy line.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
I use Casse chariots for my archers to make human-BBQ with fire arrows.
.

[Pharnakes]

I could see a use for the fear effect. But I don't usually want mass routs, I want to rout one unit at a time and kill them before they leave the field. And it strikes me that Galatian Wild Men will do the same job for less money with more flexibility and far less risk.

No, the trick is too use both, for maximum devistation. And trust me, thats alot.

[Senatus Populusque Romanus]

I bet chariots were fearfactors in the past

[Cyclops]

Cahriots seem like a flawed weapon system, and I think thats fair enough. Is there a significant difference with the traditional chariot being a missile platform/elite inf carrier, whereas the scythed version was a sort of Mad Max variant, much more about shock? Thats my hazy and uniformed impression.

IIRC chariots were the "noble arm" in the bronze age, and the prefered arm of many elites from China to India to Assyria to Egypt and even Homeric Greece.

I think the Cimmerian and Skythian invasions ovethrew their decisive role in the Fertile crescent: the Assyrians changed to cavalry as quick as they could but soon fell to the Mede/Babylon alliance.

The rise of Persia (cav from the hills) and then Makedon (pike from the hills) made sure chariots stayed in the shade.

I think they persisted in some areas just because of prestige (eg Roman triumphs used a chariot, so did some religious processions).

I think Darius had some made/refitted for Gaugemela because he was desperate for a shock weapon to combat Alexanders pike. It failed possibly because they were as unfamiliar to the persians as they were to their foes.

I think they needed a lot of flat ground to operate, and they created a stir with their clatter and horses looming up, but as with cavalry and elephants, there was a lot of bluff in how they worked: I think by the EB era that bluff had been called.

Still impressive, and I love the clunky way they handle. Kind of like dodgem-cars. I feel they convey the swirling individual nature of "heroic" archaic combat well, in contrast to organised pike lines of classical warfare.

Sadly the engine seems to render them as a special anit-cav weapon (although it may be that the scythed chariots were, I just don't know): my impression was they were most effective for frightening bodies of inf and they were extremely vulnerable to cav, especially light missile armed horsemen.

[Pharnakes]

They are extremly vulnerable to lightly armed jav cav. Just as they are extremly vulnerable to light jav inf.

Its agaisnt densely packed heavies that they excell, wether inf or cav doesn't really matter.

[O'ETAIPOS]

In 0.8 Pontic campaign when Pontos had those weak old bodyguards It was only due to chariots that I was able to liberate Asia Minor from Selucids.

I had 1 chariot unit in my army with the sole purpose to cut through Hetairoi. They usually were able to masacre them, doing more damage than 3 units of Bodyguards!

[blank]

Following advice I got here, I tried to move them across the enemy line in guard mode to disrupt the line and then follow them with a kinsmen cavalry charge. They got two thirds of the way through the first unit then ignored orders and went into their swirling attack. A few seconds later, with 60% casualties, they routed and ran off into the desert. By the time they were out of the way and I could use the kinsmen, the target phalanx had reformed. Later I used them to chase some routers, and they ran amok due to exhaustion. I had to move other units out of the way, exposing a flank.

You used chariots to attack a phalanx head-on? That's... pretty much the fastest way to get them killed

[CirdanDharix]

I think the Cimmerian and Skythian invasions ovethrew their decisive role in the Fertile crescent: the Assyrians changed to cavalry as quick as they could but soon fell to the Mede/Babylon alliance.

No. Chariots went out of favour as the main mobile archery platform with Assyrian armies in the early 8th Century BCE. They were still used by nobles because of their prestige, but the horsemen were the really effective arm.

The rise of Persia (cav from the hills) and then Makedon (pike from the hills) made sure chariots stayed in the shade.

No, the Persians invented the scythed chariot at some point during the Achaemenid era. Xenophon ascribes their invention to Cyrus the Great, but it's not confirmed by any other source.

I think they persisted in some areas just because of prestige (eg Roman triumphs used a chariot, so did some religious processions).

Plus scythed chariots for war, and Indian chariots which were more like mobile mini-fortresses.

I think Darius had some made/refitted for Gaugemela because he was desperate for a shock weapon to combat Alexanders pike. It failed possibly because they were as unfamiliar to the persians as they were to their foes.

No, by then the Persians had been using the scythed chariot for at least a century, quite possibly more. He also had his heavy cavalry, and heavy cavalry from the steppes that was even more heavily armoured, for the shock role. The new weapon the Persians experimented at Gaugamela was the elephant.

I think they needed a lot of flat ground to operate, and they created a stir with their clatter and horses looming up, but as with cavalry and elephants, there was a lot of bluff in how they worked: I think by the EB era that bluff had been called.

No. Standing in the face of a scythed chariot remained almost suicidal. They were basically lumps of metal with all sorts of blades and spikes attached to the chariot itself and to the horses' yolks, that were propelled at high speed into the enemy's lines. They would have been invincible, if not for one problem--the Ancients needed musclepower to move things like that, and the horses needed a driver. The only weak points were thus the four horses pulling the chariot, although they'd be heavily armoured all round (like cataphract's horses), and the driver (although he also would be incredibly heavily armoured, possibly more so than a cataphract, and harder to reach because he's sheltering inside the metal-plated carriage).

Still impressive, and I love the clunky way they handle. Kind of like dodgem-cars. I feel they convey the swirling individual nature of "heroic" archaic combat well, in contrast to organised pike lines of classical warfare.

But they were'nt used in swirling attacks like what you get in-game; they'd just rush headlong into the enemy army to throw its lines into disarray.

my impression was they were most effective for frightening bodies of inf and they were extremely vulnerable to cav, especially light missile armed horsemen.

They couldn't catch cavalry, although using javelins or arrows to pierce the heavy armour of the horses and drivers wouldn't have been terribly effective either. They were used to break up large bodies of heavy infantry, and while they were at it cut down anyone foolish enough to get in the way. After that, it was up to the troops following the chariots to capitalise of the disorder they created; when they weren't probably supported, they became useless and could even be an obstacle to your own army's advance, as happened at Magnesia.

[keravnos]

what do you think about them?

Plus... how many times did the seleucids use them?

Thanx for sharing the info:

They are a nice unit, but it really needs to be used against infantry and at certain situations only.

Seleukeides used them at Magnesia 190 BCE, lost because of them (they turned and fled, disrupting the ongoing medium Seleukid cavalry assault, which the Pergamene cavalry took advantage of, and broke the Seleukeides.

That loss practically destroyed the Seleukeides. After that they were just another big kingdom, not an empire.

[anubis88]

Yeah, i know about that.. I was wondering if they ever used them against the ptolys or parthians in a battle

[Morte66]

You used chariots to attack a phalanx head-on? That's... pretty much the fastest way to get them killed

Nope, side on, as I was told in in the "How To Use Scythed Chariots" thread. It worked for about ten seconds, which wasn't long enough to be useful.

[NeoSpartan]

They rule mp.

Cause then it doesn't matter if they die.

Personaly I call them "poor-mans elephants", and use them as such.

I personaly HATE charriots. They gave me a HARD time in MP back in .81, although I later figured out how to minimize their effect.


tip for those using charriots...

FORGET about disrupting enemy lines go for the enemy cavarly and/or hit the rear of the enemy line with it. It will break, like mine did the 1st and 2nd time I faced them.