How do you use chariots?

[AntiDamascus]

Were chariots used in real life as a continuous melee unit or did it just blow through a line and move on? What I'm asking is are these units actually true to life?

[Grin]

Historically chariots were mostly used as transports for the nobility, they'd ride them into battle then hop off to fight. The greeks actually practiced boarding and disembarking chariots as an Olympic competition. Some cultures also used them as mobile archer/skirmisher platforms, but that died out in favor of horse mounted archers/skirmishers. Chariots were pretty much only ceremonial vehicles by the games timeline. Only the Britons still really used them in the west. The Scythed Chariots were developed as a dedicated shock weapon during this time, but there's not much evidence they were widely used.

[Sp4]

Were chariots used in real life as a continuous melee unit or did it just blow through a line and move on? What I'm asking is are these units actually true to life?

They were used to get rich people into the fight. I have no idea how it worked irl or how it must have looked but I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would think the sort of tactics they explain in the encyclopedia are any good or any better than any other tactic really.

You use 2 horses, or 4 in some cases to get -a- guy, two at the most into the fight. Seems a bit hurrr to me but maybe they had 500000 chariots constantly swapping out 500000 guys but that seems unlikely too.

[AntiDamascus]

It seems to be they are mostly accurate in usage then? And I personally would completely avoid them.

[Sp4]

I'm gonna try and see if I can make them work. The Iceni ones.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Here's a few links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythed_chariot

At a time when cavalry were without stirrups, and probably had neither spurs nor an effective saddle, though they certainly had saddle blankets, scythed chariots added weight to a cavalry attack on infantry.

There was one occasion when Pharnabazus, with 2 scythed chariots and about 400 cavalry, came on them when they were scattered all over the plain. When the Greeks saw him bearing down on them, they ran to join up with each other, about 700 altogether; but Pharnabazus did not waste time. Putting the chariots in front, and following behind them himself with the cavalry, he ordered a charge. The chariots dashing into the Greek ranks, broke up their close formation, and the cavalry soon cut down about a hundred men.

Seems R1 wasn't that bad of a battle sim afterall

Another:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_tactics

And a rather lengthy, but interesting discussion:

http://weaponsandwarfare.com/?p=2664

[Zarobien]

I've played a little bit of an Egyptian campaign, and I'm now playing Iceni. In both, I've had some opportunity to use chariots, and I haven't figured out yet what to do with them. Any tips?

I play Iceni; I still havent tested Egypt.

Tip 1: You shouldnt take chariots into your army unless Andraste has blessed you with wisdom to see their benefits. So either take chariots or take cavarly instead.

Tip 2: Holding ALT and clicking left mouse button orders an attack with secondary weapon. Use that to charge enemy ranged units.

Tip 3: Charriots are like cavarly and should whitdraw after charge. But they have wide turning range. Whitdraw trought the charged unit by charging another unit behind it.

Tip 4: If you are engaged in melee, activate the skrimish and attack with normal javelin attacks instead. You may also use the javellins to soften heavy spear infantry.

Tip 5: Spearmen have shields and spears pointed forward; Their backside is the same as any others; Charge that backside if they are engaged on the front fight.

Tip 6: My charriots get around 200 kills each but I never keep more than 3 because they are time consuming to use.

May the goddess bless you with lots of kills.

[Bramborough]

Here's a few links: (etc etc)

Great stuff, and very interesting. That last link in particular was indeed lengthy, but fascinating. I started just by scanning the intro just to get the idea without trudging through it, but wound up reading every word.

Even after reading all that, however, I'm still not clear on why chariots developed, rather than horse archers, in so many of these cultures. It would seem that any society sufficiently advanced to develop chariotry (domesticated & war-trained horses, chariot construction, effective arms & armor) should have been equally capable of achieving same or similar tactical effect, with much more efficiency, by simply mounting the archer on a single horse instead of dragging him in a cart behind multiple horses.

Maybe the underlying reason isn't really technological but rather biogenetic? Perhaps horses in the Bronze Age Mideast and Eastern Med were not yet large and strong enough to carry, and provide a stable firing platform for, a sufficiently-armored rider/archer, and it took many centuries of breeding to eventually achieve the warhorses of late antiquity and the medieval period?

[Grin]

Breeding might have been part of it, but half remembering something I read once, the saddle and stirrup weren't invented until the just before classical antiquity, and many Mediterranean people didn't even adopt the stirrup until the migration period. Without a saddle ridding a horse for long periods is extremely taxing on both the horse and rider and without stirrups it's difficult for a rider to maintain balance on horse back in combat. Horses were originally domesticated as beast of burden, odd as it seems pulling a wheeled vehicle might have just seemed a more natural use for them to the ancients than using them as proper mounts.