Numidian Elephants

[Octavium]

So I decided to try a campaign as the Numidians. It's going well, I've taken Caralis and 2/3 of Sicily without ever fighting a large Roman army, but now I will have to. I had planned to use Elephants to swing these battles, but I can't seem to make them, even in Carthage. Can Numidia make elephants in single player, or not?

[sanada]

If you capture a region with an elephant resource I think you can, if not you can mod the files so they can recruit elephants, just follow the tutorial which can be found here;
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=23939

[guyyug]

Sorry they can't, elephants are only in the numidia custom battle rooster becasue they are mercs, so you may find a few around north africa, aswell as aisa for hire.

[LeonidasOfSparta]

yeh...sigh...only mercs...

but look trgiugh africa! mabbe u have luck

[Roman Clone]

Too late to mod, Unit editing requires him to restart his campaign.... There are merc elephants out there.

[Octavium]

Nay! I was counting on them! How shall I capture the Italian Peninsula now?!

In fact, how shall I ever defeat large concentrations of roman infantry?

[Mithradates]

Nay! I was counting on them! How shall I capture the Italian Peninsula now?!

In fact, how shall I ever defeat large concentrations of roman infantry?

Use your numidian legionaires, use mercenaries, use mass-cavallry, use the mercenary elephants etc.

The AI is stupid so you will win.

[Octavium]

There are problems with all of those. Numidian Legions take so long to train it will be AD time before I can mount a real assualt on Italy. Mercaneries? What mercaneries? I use Merc Jav Cav, and very good it is too, but I can't buy a roman beating army. Mass cav is OK, but very costly and dodgy, all the jav cav in the world couldn't kill a roman army, and head on charges into heavy infantry seem wrong. Merc elephants? Can't find any, and I've been searching all game.

Thanks anyway, any more ideas anyone?

[guyyug]

Try ambushing, numidian cavalry is a very good unit and can hold it's self for a short while and throwing a few javalins into the romans back never hurt anyone now did it (Well besides them).

The numidian rooster is very limited, desert spearmen, numidian javalinmen/cavalry and round/long sheild cavalry aswell as slingers and archers, will be what makes the bulk of your force. Use the spearmen to hold the line and flank with your cavalry, but don't take all day about it, they won't hold long, if possible and you can train them use one or two units of numidian legionarries, and remember the marian reforms have not happened I assume so attack whilst they are still useing their weaker infantry.

[Mithradates]

There are problems with all of those. Numidian Legions take so long to train it will be AD time before I can mount a real assualt on Italy.

Maybe there is a reason why Numidia never invaded Italy
btw you can build Tanit temples so you can build huge cities very quick even in the desert so you can tech up for numidian legionaires really fast.

Mercaneries? What mercaneries?

Mercenary hoplites, peltasts, thracians, cretan archers, scutarii etc.

Mass cav is OK, but very costly

Long shields are cheap AND enough good to rout the romans.

head on charges into heavy infantry seem wrong.

Head on charge into heavy infantry is ALWAYS wrong.

Numidia is not a "right click them and watch the show!" faction, you need more tactics, elephant are good to have but not necessary for the victory.

[Octavium]

Hmm, a lot to think about from that post, thanks. You're right about many things, Tanit rocks, Long shield are good, and Numidia is historically weak.

Thanks for the help.

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

The Romans like nothing more than crushing things under their hob-nailed boots. Respecting the dignity of other human beings is for sissies like Marcus Tullius Cicero, which is why they nailed him to the rostrum.

To beat the Romans, you have to be colder and more calculating than they are. You have to replace your heart with an icicle. You have to enjoy stomping on flowers and making puppies cry. You have to be as heartless and amoral as Genghis Khan, or maybe even Batman.

All this, of course, is significantly expedited by the stupid AI.

Hit the Romans where they're weak in battle. If they're still Pre-Marius, the Numidians still have better archers than they do. Post Marius, well, then they have pretty good archers, but yours are still arguably more cost-efficient.

Pre-Marius, the Romans have awful cavalry. Numidian cavalry can nearly beat equites hand to hand, that's how bad they are. Silly Romans, horses are for nomads! If you let your numidian cavalry skirmish with the equites before fighting hand to hand, they're trounce them every time.

Actually, it's worth noting that Numidian cavalry are one of the finest units the Numidians have, and one of the finest early missile cavalry units around period. They're one of three units in vanilla on a light horse with the hardy attribute (the other two are Arab cavalry and Scythian horse archers), meaning they're faster than anything you'll ever fight. I mean, if you take it all the way to the Scythian border playing as Numidia, you don't need my advice.

That being the case, it's trivially easy to run them behind the pre-marian units and peg them with javelins while your foot skirmishing elements keep them facing the other direction. Half of hastati resistance to projectile weapons comes from their shields, so if you get behind them you should be able to thin them effectively, even with Numidian cavalry. If the Roman general or equites come out to play with your jav-cav, so much the better. Lead them on a merry chase away from the rest of the battle and watch gleefully as your skillful horsemen attrition them down to nothing and then slaughter them with little pocket knives because they have higher endurance and morale.

Since one of the strengths of the Roman infantry is their morale, you should do everything in your power to make it lower. Aside from flanking them and bombarding them in the initial stages of the battle, which you should be doing anyway, you have a useful tool at your disposal for removing enemy generals from the field.

Take a good hard look at Numidian camel riders. They're basically long shield cavalry with a huge bonus against anything on a horse. Aside from being capable cavalry all around, they are general killers par excellence. As Numidia you are blessed; you are one of only three factions to get a camel unit in its roster. Egypt gets goofy and useless camel archers, while Parthia gets camelphracts which are too slow to reliably hunt down command elements and too expensive for those desert bumpkins to field in numbers anyhow.

Take one unit of numidian cavalry and two of camels and bait the general out before slamming him with camels, or any variation on that, and make sure that those pompous guys in the expensive armor aren't around to inspire the enemy troops.

Strategically, make sure to grab all of Iberia. It's worth quite a bit of money and regularly mints high-quality mercenaries, both of which you'll need to maintain numerical superiority over post-marian Romans. Is numerical superiority necessary? Not if you're a really slick commander, but it sure is handy for the rest of us.

Forget throwing your imitation legions at the Romans. First, as you identified, they take too long to build. By the time you have a serious number of them, the Romans will have over-run Gaul and will have too much money. Second, their legions are better than your knock-offs. Sorry, you can't beat the originals I suppose. Stat-wise Numidian legionaires match principes. The legionaires proper with the historically inaccurate plate armor that the Romans will be minting? Those are 50% more expensive, but they have more than twice the morale, substantially better defense and somewhat better attack stats as well. In short, your fake-legions will break themselves on the real thing.

Save your Numidian legions for efficiently killing those time-traveling Egyptian anachronisms. Their hordes of cheap infantry will be much less bothersome against disciplined troops, even if they are a shoddy imitation of someone else's.

This brings me to point 2 of the grand overall strategy; KILL EGYPT!

Not only is Egypt overly smug, possessed of annoying diplomacy messages and a squirt of lemon to the eye of history, but they've also planted their fat bodies on top of some of the must lucrative real estate on the southern half of the game's map. I highly recommend killing them and taking all their stuff. If you deal with them early, your troop types will counter theirs handily. They like chariots? Fine, you have lots of skirmishers. They like big, inflexible phalanxes? Fine, you have lots of fast units that get bonuses in the desert.

Hope this helps, and happy gaming.

[Roman Clone]

The Romans like nothing more than crushing things under their hob-nailed boots. Respecting the dignity of other human beings is for sissies like Marcus Tullius Cicero, which is why they nailed him to the rostrum.

To beat the Romans, you have to be colder and more calculating than they are. You have to replace your heart with an icicle. You have to enjoy stomping on flowers and making puppies cry. You have to be as heartless and amoral as Genghis Khan, or maybe even Batman.

All this, of course, is significantly expedited by the stupid AI.

Hit the Romans where they're weak in battle. If they're still Pre-Marius, the Numidians still have better archers than they do. Post Marius, well, then they have pretty good archers, but yours are still arguably more cost-efficient.

Pre-Marius, the Romans have awful cavalry. Numidian cavalry can nearly beat equites hand to hand, that's how bad they are. Silly Romans, horses are for nomads! If you let your numidian cavalry skirmish with the equites before fighting hand to hand, they're trounce them every time.

Actually, it's worth noting that Numidian cavalry are one of the finest units the Numidians have, and one of the finest early missile cavalry units around period. They're one of three units in vanilla on a light horse with the hardy attribute (the other two are Arab cavalry and Scythian horse archers), meaning they're faster than anything you'll ever fight. I mean, if you take it all the way to the Scythian border playing as Numidia, you don't need my advice.

That being the case, it's trivially easy to run them behind the pre-marian units and peg them with javelins while your foot skirmishing elements keep them facing the other direction. Half of hastati resistance to projectile weapons comes from their shields, so if you get behind them you should be able to thin them effectively, even with Numidian cavalry. If the Roman general or equites come out to play with your jav-cav, so much the better. Lead them on a merry chase away from the rest of the battle and watch gleefully as your skillful horsemen attrition them down to nothing and then slaughter them with little pocket knives because they have higher endurance and morale.

Since one of the strengths of the Roman infantry is their morale, you should do everything in your power to make it lower. Aside from flanking them and bombarding them in the initial stages of the battle, which you should be doing anyway, you have a useful tool at your disposal for removing enemy generals from the field.

Take a good hard look at Numidian camel riders. They're basically long shield cavalry with a huge bonus against anything on a horse. Aside from being capable cavalry all around, they are general killers par excellence. As Numidia you are blessed; you are one of only three factions to get a camel unit in its roster. Egypt gets goofy and useless camel archers, while Parthia gets camelphracts which are too slow to reliably hunt down command elements and too expensive for those desert bumpkins to field in numbers anyhow.

Take one unit of numidian cavalry and two of camels and bait the general out before slamming him with camels, or any variation on that, and make sure that those pompous guys in the expensive armor aren't around to inspire the enemy troops.

Strategically, make sure to grab all of Iberia. It's worth quite a bit of money and regularly mints high-quality mercenaries, both of which you'll need to maintain numerical superiority over post-marian Romans. Is numerical superiority necessary? Not if you're a really slick commander, but it sure is handy for the rest of us.

Forget throwing your imitation legions at the Romans. First, as you identified, they take too long to build. By the time you have a serious number of them, the Romans will have over-run Gaul and will have too much money. Second, their legions are better than your knock-offs. Sorry, you can't beat the originals I suppose. Stat-wise Numidian legionaires match principes. The legionaires proper with the historically inaccurate plate armor that the Romans will be minting? Those are 50% more expensive, but they have more than twice the morale, substantially better defense and somewhat better attack stats as well. In short, your fake-legions will break themselves on the real thing.

Save your Numidian legions for efficiently killing those time-traveling Egyptian anachronisms. Their hordes of cheap infantry will be much less bothersome against disciplined troops, even if they are a shoddy imitation of someone else's.

This brings me to point 2 of the grand overall strategy; KILL EGYPT!

Not only is Egypt overly smug, possessed of annoying diplomacy messages and a squirt of lemon to the eye of history, but they've also planted their fat bodies on top of some of the must lucrative real estate on the southern half of the game's map. I highly recommend killing them and taking all their stuff. If you deal with them early, your troop types will counter theirs handily. They like chariots? Fine, you have lots of skirmishers. They like big, inflexible phalanxes? Fine, you have lots of fast units that get bonuses in the desert.

Hope this helps, and happy gaming.

Egypt Also has a bonus in the desert......

[Colossus]

This sums it up quite well:

The AI is stupid so you will win.

Camels will rout most the roman cav easily.

[_TubbZ_]

Camels will rout most the roman cav easily.

I proved this somewhere, here's the screenie of the test of 1 Preat cav vs one numidia camel. First one has camel with +3 sword and shield vs a bare Preat cav. The Second one is a +3 sword and shield on both units... and as you can see camels will beat almost every cav unit they meet:



So take camels over long shields unless you need fast cav for chasing archers and routers then take the long shield cav...

Also i editted Numidian legions to 1 year to recuit due to 2 years being stupidly long for such a unit...

And yeah Numidian cav are great at the start of a campaign...

[Roman_Man#3]

Moved to Battle Planning. Thread is about how to use a unit in battle.

[Rasui Runihura]

Save your Numidian legions for efficiently killing those time-traveling Egyptian anachronisms.

XD

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

Egypt Also has a bonus in the desert......

All the Egyptian units with negative heat penalties are trash.

[Roman Clone]

SINCE WHEN ARE THERE EGYPTIAN UNITS WITH OUT DESERT BONUSES!??!!??

[Dulce_et_Decorum_Est]

SINCE WHEN ARE THERE EGYPTIAN UNITS WITH OUT DESERT BONUSES!??!!??

There are two separate desert bonuses: an attack bonus that applies in sand and a reverse heat endurance penalty that applies anywhere hot. Low end Egyptian units, i.e. the ones you can kill in droves have both, but their better units like Pharaoh's anything only have the desert bonus, which only applies if they're actually standing on sand, and is discounted IIRC compared to other units.