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Thread: Tactical flaw in formations

  1. #1

    Default Tactical flaw in formations

    Hey Darth.

    I'm playing with the romans and fighting carthage. I see from your formations that you use elephants as missile skirmishers and have them in front of the main army formations. They then run up to my lines and throw javelines at my army. I then proceed to run my velites up to them and destroy them easily.

    It should be hard for me to get my skirmishers to their elephants before the fighting starts and the confusion starts. Then bam, before i know it their elephants come in and rout one wing of my troops. Can you please tell me how to implement this. I was thinking of going through the formations file and where i see elephants, move the entry to the spots reserved for artillery or archers?

    What would happen if i just deleted all references to elephants?

    I really believe elephants should be shock heavy troops and attack from the centre of the battle line. their missile capabilities should just be an extra, not their main purpose.

    Can you help with a quick fix solution or will i have to read your tutorials. It seems very complicated
    Last edited by Shaggy1973; March 24, 2006 at 03:21 PM.

  2. #2

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    I do not use them as foot skirmishers. In fact they have a special block to be used upfront in the center and alone. Only carthaginian army has this.
    That means if AI picks them eventually as standing fortresses is because the internal calculations made disfavour elephants to charge your army.
    You had a lot of heavy troops in the center?

  3. #3

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    Hastati front row, but i guess they are classed as heavy infantry. In fact the whole roman army is heavy infantry.

    Aa all human players know how to dispatch elephants quite easily, it may be better to hide them at the rear until a safer moment to utilise them. the battle i just played carthage had three units of elephants (one was the general). Two he ran up to me ahead of the main army and stopped. i killed them straight away. it was a close battle and his general attacked half way through and decimated all my principes. i cant help feeling this is the more effective attack method for the AI, wait until the human player is distracted doing 3 things at once before committing.

  4. #4

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    I placed all the elephants either in the reserve line block or the block reserved for handlers etc. It worked great, they hung around the rear and attacked at the critical point. the problem was that i think i buggered up the formations in general. as battle began the formation looked great, but the ai then changed its formation into one long line... randomly it seemed with skirmishers next to spearmen next to cavalry etc.

    i think i better leave it up to the pros......

  5. #5

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    Shaggy believe me that modifying formations is smthg really frustrating and needs extensive testings. You can do smthg that seems 100% correct in text only to realize that the game does not accept it.
    But the most challenging for me as there is always smthg you can create and improve.
    Do not give up bcs if you understand what you have done as a mistake it will be step to improve forward to this

  6. #6

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    Thanks for the kind words of improvement darth, maybe i will go on fiddling with the formations and see if i can make them more deadly for the ai within the confines of the RTW engine rather than historically correct. Who knows maybe i will get them to take a different formation from a straight line one day

  7. #7

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