Elephants are Cool

[Cmdrnarrain]

Elephants are cool.

I once attacked a Carthage town defended by just a full unit of elephants and some hvy calvary, easy right? My plan was to march a merc phalanx up the center supported by Velie and archers to shoot the elephants to death. The phalanx proudly marched up as the elephants got peppered causing them to milling around a bit.

Well that milling around actually helped them as it opened up their formation so that when they charged they hit the phalanx from the sides as well as the front. The phalanx was completely crushed in a matter of seconds, it was the coolest thing I've seen so far and I literally panicked as my missile troops screen just disappeared. I tried to retreat the missile troops but the elephants and hvy calvary came thundering down the street causing them to route. In my panic I rushed up 4+ cohorts to try and save the missile troops only to have them panic too. The street was a slaughter house as I just served up an additional 300+ men to be trampled under foot.

I barely stop my hvy calvary from their fate too. It was sad to see such a plentiful few run back out the gate in front of the rest of army. Well I only had infantry left to assault the city. I apprehensively sent my infantry over the corpses of their comrades up to the mound of dead phalanx men (their were literally in a little pile) to assault once more. The elephants charged and hit the line but it held after I charge the my calvary in to support. My flankers then hit them in the side, their hvy calvary hit my flankers. The elephants ran amok but only my troops were near by to be trampled before their were chased from the town center and the last enemy horsemen was pulled from the saddle.

What a slaughter, my proud legions were cut to ribbons and I lost close to 900 men out of 1200 just to kill around 70 men plus some elephants. It was early in the game too and it took me a long time to recover from that victory. The good news however is that you don't have to pay deadmen and it completely changed the way I assaulted towns in the future. Now I send in everything from multiple directions every time and crush them in the center, hehe.... just like the elephants did to me but wow what a fight.

What is really sad is that I never had much probably with elephants in other battles, heck I even stop elephants assaulting one of my cities cold at the gate with just town watch.

Moral of the story... be very careful how you fight elephants in a city fight when your the attacker.

[Punicus]

In my experience, the AI generally does not attack you when defending the plaza IF you're far away enough. So if you could get a good angle with your archers, placing your phalanx in front of them rather than attacking first, the AI will either stay around and get killed, or they will attack and be met with a mouth full of spear. Getting a good angle might be difficult though. Just my 2 cents.

[Spartan198]

We love elephants when we command them,and hate them when we face them. If you think CmdrNarrain's tale is ironic,check out the stories in my thread,"Random RTW Crazyness". Those'll make you laugh.