What to do against full elephant armies (H2H Campaign)

[Cheradenine]

Greetings!

I have recently begun a new game after losing against a friend (Seleucids) as Lusotannan. This time, he plays Baktria while I chose to play Rome to get my revenge.

After finding his forces inadequate in many battles, he resorted to using his favorite Seleucid tactic (also the main reason I lost the last game): 19 elephants + general.
We have yet to clash, but since I find this tactic pretty cheap against AI, I am attempting to build up a few armies to "surprise" him and murder his fleshmonsters before he even knows what's happening.

Currently I'm thinking about building up an army consisting solely of the 300-man Cohors Aquilae (and a bit of cav to get his general) and hoping that my pila are enough to whittle down his creatures. I do not have access to pikes yet, that would be my second idea.

I hope that some brainstorming here will give me more tactics to choose from against him.

Rough scenario description:
I play on VH, he on Hard, I have conquered central Europa and half of Spain, my goal is conquering most regions west of and including Greece before he comes close. He has most of Turkey, India, and everything around Baktria of course.
We have prohibited the use of artillery in field battles (used that in earlier games and it was making it WAY too easy).

Does the difficulty setting have any influence in PvP battles? It does work in battle vs AI, as long as the AI is not controlled by the player.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

[Aibabos]

Hehe. Thats interesting tactics. But I see one flaw. This army is very expensive to build and maintain.

Try to use opposite tactics. Lets say, he pays 300 per unit general included (most probavly more due to imperial lvl and quallity of elephants). Its 6000 per turn plus alot to recruit.

Create army of a few cheap nonroman spearmen and like 16 javelinmen. If you pay 100 per turn plus general (300), its 2200.
If you loose everyone but general, but you inflict a serious kills...then it was true pyrrhic victory for him.
Same turn you attack with your usual army, but his will be starting with depleted flesh...

Best used with ambush...but its PvP

[PietrolEremita]

The problem in this game (not DEI, all of TW games really) is that there is a Max number of armies you can have at the same time and if you know what you are doing money will never be a problem from the midgame forward.
This means that whoever has the most elite and strongest units wins. You have very few options:
-elite phalanxes/hoplites. You have the wrong faction for that
- jav cavalry. I think he will still win at the end though
- cripple or kill him before turn 100 before his economy has taken off
- fight close to your recruiting centers using tons of javelins. You will never beat him but you can fight him to a draw

If he is known for elephant spam next time I would select a successor kingdom to fight him. Phalanx spam plus 1-2 siege units murder an elephant stack

[Geffalrus]

19 elephants? Calling that tactic cheap is a massive understatement. I'd be hard pressed to stay friends with a person who did that against the AI, much less me.

My suggestion:

4 large size cheap melee units with high spacing and a precursor javelin. That's your expendable front line. You need something to try and slow the first elephant charge and get in a jav volley.

6 levy javelin units behind the first line to throw tons of javelins and run around. Also expendable.

6 archer units with burning arrows. Spend some money and get some sturdy ones like Cretans or Syrians. Shoot arrows at elephants.

4 sturdy infantry/cavalry units for when the general yolos in. Infantry to have javelins or cavalry for mobility.

Such an army should be much cheaper than this stupid elephant stack. Much as I hate the idea of such a spam army, I'm now curious to try killing it in custom battle........

[Cheradenine]

First of all, thanks for the answers!

Concerning money: Elephants cost around 800-1000 per turn, and with 2 full stacks of those, he still has about 100k income per turn. I myself am hovering around 45k, but he has a lot more wars and difficulty expanding than I have. Due to my general military strategy, money for troops is also a no problem for me, even if he can outpace me with income; I expand safer and faster than he does.

As Pietrol stated, the limited army number has motivated me to build one auxiliary barracks in almost every major city. That enables me to basically recruit the (pretty strong) aux units basically everywhere. I hope to find a province or two where I can recruit elephants and pikes as well (I know there's a map in the guide thread, but I like to find them myself).

Finally, regarding your idea Geffalrus: Blocking his first charge is almost impossible, he's not as dumb as the AI and will certainly not charge blindly forward. For your tactic to work I'd need to use the ridiculous tactic of camping in the corner of the map, which I ... dislike, to say the least. But I honestly did not think about using proper javelins (or burning arrows...). I almost never use them, they take forever to get behind enemy lines for full effect. Have yet to try KAM's famous experimental battle pack.

I miss the burning pigs, they scared the crap out of elephants, and made slightly funny noises while doing so.
Finally: I also believe that the elephants going berserk no longer harm own troops, which I seem to recall them doing so in earlier versions of the game. Anyone got an idea why that was removed (if at all)?

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Flaming arrows do bonus damage to elephants. Also I don't see why you can't use scorpions. Even if you don't want to use ballista in Siege battles, scorpions are historical for Rome. In the Imperial. They were attached at a rate of 100 / Legion if I recall correctly.

So personally I would have an army of mostly scorpions to decimate his elephants before they could even get close to you.

If you are determined to stick to the no artillery rule despite his use of 19 sack elephant armies, I would suggest you use 5 to 6 maeda peltasts from thrace and 13-14 cretan archers (romanized or merc, not aux).
Use your cavalry general to tie up his, and have the peltasts be your front line. Have flaming arrows on all archers.

[Geffalrus]

With all due respect...........if you are removing "ridiculous tactics" like corner camping or tools like artillery, while still allowing him to make all-elephant armies...............then you deserve the beating he's going to give you. Sorry, but you can't completely handicap yourself while not doing the same to your opponent and have any reasonable expectation of winning.

I've played a few custom games against the AI with a Baktrian all-Indian Elephant army (I didn't even use the better armored elephants), and the AI demolished me handily in all but one match. Scrap my suggested build above. Any sort of balanced army is not going to work. Elephants are too fast for infantry, do too much damage, and in such large amounts, they will crush your line before your missile units can focus fire them down. 19 elephants effectively removes most of their counters. You need multiple units to tackle one, which is why they cost so much. But when you're limited by army size, then that becomes impossible to manage. Even horse skirmishers can be trapped against the back of the map because 19 elephants stretch from one end to the other (on ultra size). Anything that tries to kite them will be caught and killed well before many/any elephants are eliminated.

The only success I had was 13 Silver Shield Thorax Pikes in circle around 6 Cretan archers and my general. I still lost a third of those elite pikes. Phalanx units do seem capable of stopping and killing elephants up to a certain mass. If too many pile on, they can break through, however. The Cretans help speed the death of individual units. But ultimately, you're relying on the physical power of the pike unit to stop the elephant unit. The downside is that your army is much slower on the field than the elephant one. And if you're not in a box, then your opponent can always sneak 1 of the 19 around to flank and then you're done.

Moral of the story: BAN FULL ELEPHANT ARMIES.

I'll be interested to see if the new battle build reorients the balance a bit. Currently, elephants feel a bit OP and not vulnerable enough to missiles.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Conquer Greece. Build Aux Barracks there. Destroy him and everything south and south east of Rome . Why you are wasting your armies vs double stacks in far away regions. Bring fight to him early and in mass.
Asia Minor is well connected. If you take it out you can build armies there.
Take out big Greeks also. Hire mercs and have your own Elephant force. You can't get that in Europe. Region 44 and 46 (Egypt) have merc elephants


http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...Guides-and-FAQ

Check merc AOR and take out that regions. Fortify Asia minor

[Aibabos]

What about true roman attack tactics?
1.
Hunker down in fortify stance with a mass archer/javelin combo inside with some nice meat shield around entrances.

2.
Take a few armies deep inside his territory and blitz raze most important towns. Bypass heavy resistance in fortified towns.

Point is, that if he has say 15 provinces producing 200000 per turn, than he surely needed 50+ turns to even build those buildings that produce this income.

If you cripple his eco enough, he needs to choose. Have 2 full ele armies plus nothing special or balance it to normal armies.
If he sticks with first, than you almost won. He cant catch 6 razing armies that destroy 4 settlements per turn with just with 2 doomstacks.

Takehome message:
As someone stated here. This is game. Not real life. This is almost cheating. Ask him politely to stop that and play as non-idiot.
If he doesnt understand, then just consede that he is the best, just second after god (aka Trump tier) and find another normal player to play with.

[Sonny WiFiHr]

Supply

[Cheradenine]

It is fascinating how much emotion you guys put in this

There are quite a few good ideas here, some I've had myself, some I did not, but I will attempt most of them.

Aibabos: I only give up if I see no chance whatsoever to win, and sometimes even then I fight to the last man! Old Dawn of War sickness, the Emperor will not see his people falter.
Currently, I do see several ways of winning: Going east (Greece, Thrace) and find the mentioned units, grab elephants in Afrika, and strategically flank him to raid his better cities. Especially the last one should be almost "easy"; since I expand faster, I do have the advantage of more armies. We shall see.

Btw Geffalrus, I like your diplomatic way of calling me an idiot, you're quite right and made me laugh.

Small update on campaign progress: He actually managed to lose an entire elephant army (rank 9 general and rank 7 elephants) against Pergamon. Fought against 2 armies + a garrison and 2.5 fleets over 2 turns, elephants are not invincible, even against AI.
I thank you guys for the input and with it, will most certainly not lose this!

[Geffalrus]

I will admit to being surprised as well by how.......triggered.......the idea of a full elephant army made me. I tried to explain why to my wife and she responded by putting on her headphones and focusing more on playing Civ 6.

I admire your persistence. I like to think I have the resolve to see any situation through...........but in reality, I can be easily frustrated by things in these games, and then my ADHD sends me off playing a campaign as another faction. If being the Undying Emperor is what it takes to bring humanity in your game to a new golden age, then by all means, do whatever it takes and triumph!

[Ivan_Moscavich]

Oh, by the way if you just wanted to be a complete cheesy bastard.

Make all of your armies nothing but rorarii and send 6-8 of them into his territory and auto resolve all of his cities. Like Geffalrus said, he can't catch 6-8 armies with 2 doom stacks. You could even sack/then raze and let him take the cities back if he wants afterwards to screw over his economy.

Not my way of playing, but if your opponent is cheesing, no reason you can't either.

[T2av]

Lol he makes elephant only armies and says you can't use artillery


Wow what a nice friend... Lol