More fun with elephants

[Brandy Blue]

I recently posted about how my general got killed by routing non-beserk elephants. Well, I decided to ditch that campaign and play Carthage, so I could be the one with the elephants for once.

I was looking forward to using an elephant as a battering ram, because I haven't tried that for a long time, so I went after the Romans in Messina (their starter city in Sicily.) I didn't bother to wait until I had battering rams, because I didn't think I'd need one.

Well, the Romans stationed an archer unit near the gate I had selected to attack. I figured my Elephants would smash the gate down fast, and I could get my cavalry to chase down those archers, but it did not go that way. The archers failed to bag a single elephant, but they did make the elephants very angry. Soon my troops were scattering left and right to avoid rampaging elephants. Since I had no other means to break into the city, and AFAIK beserk elephants cannot be brought back under control, I had no choice but to withdraw my baffled army. They decided to retreat from this "decisive" defeat (in which I lost about 3 men) all they way to Syracuse, a distance of about 160 kg / 100 miles in real life!

It's just this kind of amusing stuff that livens up a campaign, IMO.

[Myth]

The Romans shouldn't have archers there. If they do, it means you let the AI buy the cretan archer mercs there which is a big no-no, you definitely need to deny them (and have them in your army as they are one of the best ranged units in the game).

Elephants should be able to return to control after they go amock AFAIK.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Elephants should be able to return to control after they go amock AFAIK.

I've never been able to pull that one off. You can have their handlers kill them, but that kinda defeats the purpose of using them for a battering ram, in this case

They decided to retreat from this "decisive" defeat (in which I lost about 3 men) all they way to Syracuse, a distance of about 160 kg / 100 miles in real life!

It's even funnier when a retreating army ignores a whole bunch of ZOC's, and runs hundreds of miles to find the nearest river crossing just to end up on the opposite side from where they started. It's so stupid that you just have to laugh and wonder what the game-testers were smoking

[Brandy Blue]

The Romans shouldn't have archers there. If they do, it means you let the AI buy the cretan archer mercs there which is a big no-no, you definitely need to deny them (and have them in your army as they are one of the best ranged units in the game).

I always assumed that the mercs were randomized (except that each time can only show up in certain specified provinces), but I've spent more time with STW and MTW than RTW. Still got plenty to learn, I guess.

It's even funnier when a retreating army ignores a whole bunch of ZOC's, and runs hundreds of miles to find the nearest river crossing just to end up on the opposite side from where they started. It's so stupid that you just have to laugh and wonder what the game-testers were smoking

Well, doesn't RTW have the occaisional path finding issue? Actually, if an army had to lift a seige (ran out of supplies) it might make sense for it to fall back 100 miles to its nearest base. After all, a turn is 6 months so it would not have to be a headlong retreat caused by the death of 3 guys. But what you are talking about sounds easier to chuckle at than to rationalize.