Chariots in Melee Combat

**Sacred Band** · April 16, 2006, 03:48 AM

Can someone show me the light? I'd be glad to see it you know! I haven't had great success with battle chariots (the ones that are supposed to be in melee) in many Custom Battles. I think a lot of it has to do with their low defense and inability to stay locked in a fight. Perhaps I should use them as you would Elephants - charging in and out?

SB

**Tacticalwithdrawal** · April 16, 2006, 03:56 AM

ok,

chariots are a real pain to use, but when you use them right they can be lethal. What you need to make sure is that they never stop moving. Immediately they do they get cut to pieves by the infantry.

The whole point of chariots is to break up enemy formations and then let someone else do the killing, so to use them do the following:

The key thing is to charge the chariots through the enemy formation. Do not double rt-click on the formation itself, but double rt-click on the other side of the enemy formation. This will make your chariots charge through and out the other side without slowing down.
Enemy will often route but even if they don't, their formation is now totaly messed up
Follow up the chariots with heavy infantry or cavalry, they will hit the disorganised enemy and usually route them
Rinse and repeat
Also, use them against enemy cavalry, it's fun

The key is the first point, never actually attack an enemy unit, always get your chariots to charge through them (this tactic also works well with elehants but chariots are better).

**COTLOD** · April 16, 2006, 07:13 AM

Chariots own! In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and say that aside from Cataphract Elephants, chariots are the most powerful units in the game! Yup, you heard me! Most of the computer amies I ever lose too are chariot armies. For whatever reason, unlike in real history, chariots are lethal!!! They can smash any infantry and cavalry and most units are afraid of them and will rout quickly. After that its all she wrote. Peltasts are USELESS against chariots! They have to get WAY too close to use their javelins and by that time the chariots are riding over them and they are routing. The only effective way to deal with chariots is too continually bombard them with massed archers and destroy them before they come to grips in the melee. Of course phalanxs work well also. The only heavy infantry that can withstand them are high lvl Roman legions(praetorians, urban cohorts) unless your units are really experienced.

Chariots for you are still quite effective! Use them to ride down enemy infantry. They won't kill very many but they will knock them down and frighten them. Then your infantry will be able to slaughter the enemy and they should be running for the hills relatively soon. Like I said before they will destroy any cavalry and make are effective in any battle!

**Severous** · April 16, 2006, 10:27 AM

Chariots. Definately a force to be aware of.

FIRE !

Chariots in Melee Combat

The third enemy chariot is on the other flank. It got a bit closer before it too went amok. For the rest of the battle it was very pleasing to see in the distance two amok chariots messing up the enemy reinforcements.

**Sher of Palu** · April 16, 2006, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by COTLOD

Chariots own! In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and say that aside from Cataphract Elephants, chariots are the most powerful units in the game! Yup, you heard me! Most of the computer amies I ever lose too are chariot armies. For whatever reason, unlike in real history, chariots are lethal!!! They can smash any infantry and cavalry and most units are afraid of them and will rout quickly. After that its all she wrote. Peltasts are USELESS against chariots! They have to get WAY too close to use their javelins and by that time the chariots are riding over them and they are routing. The only effective way to deal with chariots is too continually bombard them with massed archers and destroy them before they come to grips in the melee. Of course phalanxs work well also. The only heavy infantry that can withstand them are high lvl Roman legions(praetorians, urban cohorts) unless your units are really experienced.

Chariots for you are still quite effective! Use them to ride down enemy infantry. They won't kill very many but they will knock them down and frighten them. Then your infantry will be able to slaughter the enemy and they should be running for the hills relatively soon. Like I said before they will destroy any cavalry and make are effective in any battle!

*actually*=!!! chariots are not as good as you describe them....its easy to take them out....

**Hader** · April 16, 2006, 11:41 AM

Well if a human player is using them right then it is not as easy to take them out, assuming they use them right. I wish chariots did do a bit better in combat though. I once got 10 British heavy chariots fully upgraded, gold everything, and charged them into the Gauls... absolute slaughter after one minute.

**Sacred Band** · April 16, 2006, 02:06 PM

Thanks a lot guys; I appreciate the advice

SB

**COTLOD** · April 16, 2006, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by Sher of Palu

*actually*=!!! chariots are not as good as you describe them....its easy to take them out....

Once you learn how to deal with chariots they are easy enough to deal with but they can still suprise you. Only scythed chariots will run amock. Other chariots like Egyptian chariots and archers are much more dangerous. Massed missiles will take care of them but chariots can cause a lot of carnage to your forces if you're not careful.

**Zuwxiv** · April 16, 2006, 08:48 PM

The thing I don't get is that, when you are on the harder difficulties, enemy chariots charge through you and completely destroy you. I have stacked phalanxes that chariots just went right through, head on. About half of my men were dead after one charge, and the enemy chariots were all fine.

So my chariots all charged into the enemy. I think it was the gauls, some peasants or something. All of my upgraded chariots die. All of them. I don't get it.

The worst part is playing as the britons, your generals are in chariots. Extremely vulnerable, I hate it. I changed them to mounted druids, if anyone prefers that, I'll post the mod.

**Seasoned Alcoholic** · April 17, 2006, 08:29 AM

If you want your melee chariots to actually engage in melee, rather than use the hit-and-run tactic, you should modify the chariot hitpoints, as well as tweaking the armour protection. You do this by modding the export_descr_unit (EDU) text file, located in the \data directory. Before you mod anything, I would recommend backing-up the vanilla files in case you modify something incorrectly and you get a CTD.

If you read the very top of EDU, it tells you what each of the attribute lines represent. Simply browse to or search for the chariot entries and mod the necessary lines until you're content with the changes. Save and close the text file, load up RTW, and test your changes out in custom battles. You may need to do do this quite a few times to get the desired results. Good luck

**Siddyus** · April 17, 2006, 07:28 PM

I never had any trouble using chariots at all. well, since I am using A.I assistance. I remember once when I was attacked by an army that is 3000+ in size against my 300 chariots. After some fierce fighting I only lost a single unit of chariot while the enemy--they got annihilated to the last men.

**roman_crusader** · April 18, 2006, 07:05 AM

just a bit of advice on how to deal with ai chariots....

make sure u have generals. like, any units with hitpts, elephants, generals. charge them at the chariots. ur general has hitpts 2 or something, and defense maybe 12-15. the chariots have hitpts 5 or something, but really low defense rating. hit them side on, hard.

heavy cav also works, every now and then.

but yes, chariots are really good if used right, ie kept away from enemy ranged units.

**gardibolt** · April 25, 2006, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by Zuwxiv

The thing I don't get is that, when you are on the harder difficulties, enemy chariots charge through you and completely destroy you. I have stacked phalanxes that chariots just went right through, head on. About half of my men were dead after one charge, and the enemy chariots were all fine.

So my chariots all charged into the enemy. I think it was the gauls, some peasants or something. All of my upgraded chariots die. All of them. I don't get it.

The worst part is playing as the britons, your generals are in chariots. Extremely vulnerable, I hate it. I changed them to mounted druids, if anyone prefers that, I'll post the mod.

The difference you see is that the AI gets +7 to its units, and you don't, on VH (at least in 1.5). That makes its chariots devastating. Yours are not, and the units you're hitting are much tougher. Since they're not killed immediately, that stops your chariots and they're doomed.

**Severous** · April 25, 2006, 07:41 PM

Im playing RTW V1.5 h/h and im running scared of massed Egyptian chariots.

Quite happy to fight them in or around cities...but relucant to take them on in the open battlefield.

Think thats a good point about the difficulty. If the ai has loads of added points it will change an exceptionaly fragile unit into something a lot more robust.