Ducenarius
Fighting the Timurid elephants
I read somewhere that throwing spears (like in Rome) is the best way to take out elephants. Is that true?
Playing as Spain, that shouldn't be a problem then...
Do spear-throwing units get a bonus against elephants like in Rome, too? And elephants a bonus in melee against cav?
Thanks guys.
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Yes, javelins get a bonus against elephants, and yes, all cavalry (including jav cav) get a penalty against elephants.
TO LIVE IS TO DIE
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
+1 but I would also add Ballistas, serpentines or any other artillery that is better against units then buildings and Archers equiped with flamming misslesOriginally Posted by PapaRosario
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
I though that penalty applies only to melee attack, not missile. Because from parctical side jav cav is prolly the best anti-ele unit. Naffatuns or jav inf are too slow for the job while artilary misses a lot.
Protector Domesticus
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Jav Cav is pretty much the game's anti-elephant unit. You can rout them or make them run amok in a couple of volleys.
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Ducenarius
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
That sounds good. Let's hope it works. I pissed the Timurids off by trying to assassinate their generals. One of my assassins got caught, they found out and dow-ed me :-O
Domesticus
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Javelin Cavalry doesn´t get penalty against elephants as long as they stay out of melee and stick to throwing javelins - the bonus against cavalry that elephants have only affects close combat.
But honestly, I rarely fight the Timurids in the field due to their cavalry making it impossible to focus attacks on the elephants.
I always try to fight them in cities or castles, where I can make full use of large quantities of heavy infantry to counter the Horde heavies, and utilize such troops as naffatun and unmounted javelinmen to target the Elephants in the narrow streets.
My suggestion is to go for a defensive strategy and place spearmen and crossbowmen (+ artillery if you are able) at bridges, and fill your threatened settlements to the brink with everything you can muster. Later on, the troops in settlements that didn´t get attacked will be valuable for marching out and reclaiming lost areas.
As for the elephants, specifically, there are a number of possibilities.
1. Anti-troop artillery (like Basilisk or Ribault) which you place on a low hill for extra accuracy.
It´s vital to have other troops keep the Timurids busy, so that the cannon crews can focus on killing the elephants without interferance.
2. Crossbowmen or long-range Bowmen (Genoese/Pavise Crossbowmen and Longbowmen/Dismounted Dvor are good examples) with which you utilize either the crossbows´ high attack and AP or the longbows/composite bows´ flaming arrows and AP (flaming arrows make the elephants more likely to run amok)
3. Missile cavalry (particularly javelin cavalry like Jinetes or Boyar Sons, but also Strzelcy or Mounted Crossbowmen work well) which you utilize similar to the artillery - you send them forth and keep them focused on the elephants, making full use of their high attack and AP.
The most effective missile cavalry have short range, though, so you need to use other troops to keep the Timurid soldiers busy while the anti-elephant units ride in from the flanks or rear. This is the most recommended approach, since heavy javelins are both very effective and very accurate - your biggest concern with this is how to keep the rest of the Timurid army busy while the javcav do their thing...
4. Naffatun, which are very short in range but also impressively powerful in attack, can be placed on sidestreets and alleys or atop an inner wall (in a fortress or citadel) to bombard the elephants with deadly naphta that scares them into amok quickly and effectively.
Last edited by Silverheart; August 19, 2012 at 06:37 AM.
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Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Heavy cavalry is also pretty good against elephants even with the attack penalty. Elephants on charging status have a crush effect on horses, just like cavalry charging into infantry. However, the AI doesn't understand how to use the charge attack for its elephants. (Apparantly, the AI thinks that its elephants are horse archers). For this reason, heavy cavalry are pretty good against elephants in melee.
You can try this by testing 1 unit of Turkish Qapukulu vs. 1 unit of cannon elephants in custom battle. If you simply charge at the elephants, you'll win -- Guaranteed!
Last edited by Aeratus; May 31, 2012 at 12:08 AM.
Domesticus
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Yes, overwhelming the elephants with lots of heavy cavalry is an effective - albeit veeery costly - method of taking them down. Since all elephant units have ranged attack, the AI treats them as missile cavalry or artillery, making them susceptible to charges by heavy knights and such.
However, you need to reserve several units of cavalry for the task, and will most likely lose most or all of them, depending on how many units of elephants you´re trying to take out and wether or not the rest of the army is shooting at your men as well.
All in all, it may be a little to costly to design your strategy around this, and it should only be used if the circumstances are right for it, or if the situation demands it.
Personally, I prefer to shoot them down inside settlements and overwhelming them with cheap, expendable infantry instead - you lose more men, but those men can be easily and cheaply replenished.
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Fist of iron and Tongue to scold
Proud to be a Viking!
Senator
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Cavalry armed with javelins or crossbows (Polish at least) is the easiest way to destroy elephants and the other horde units too. Heavy cavalry (Hospitallers) can be effective but you have to charge the elephants from the rear. Noble Pikemen (or any other pike unit) with their secondary weapon removed are super effective against elephants and even more so if the elephants charge - then it is almost an immediate slaughter of the elephants. The problem is protecting the pikemen from the Timurid's archers and elephant's fire. I often, however, attack the Timurid heavy artillery and destroy it so that they can not take settlements and then destroy the elephants. The biggest problem is their penchant for traveling around in a 9-patch formation on the map so that there are too many armies in the battles. So I try to hit them while they are entering or otherwise strung out in a line and attack one of the ends so I only have to fight 2 of their armies. An army of Polish cavalry comprised of half javelin and half crossbowmen that have gold chevrons are the easiest way I have found to defeat the Timurids. If you have 2 such armies and attack two Timurid armies allowing the AI to control one of your armies (the AI does very well controlling horse archer armies I believe), often one of their armies can be entirely destroyed if not both.
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Its much harder--depressing even--to fight Timurid horde stacks in the field, even with elite units.
The only field strategy I had had any luck with is baited ambushes. Elephants in march formation (if you ambush them successfully) are very easy targets and its easy to take down horde stacks if you have the right army composition and ambush tactics. In this manner, I can usually take down 3 Tim stacks per one of my stacks plus bait. At that point either I pull back/replenish, or I dont have the manpower to execute effective ambush and I start to take heavy losses once those damn horse arrows deploy on me.
Does anybody else have different post-battle prisoner protocols for different factions? I tend to release prisoners from 'honorable' factions with infantry/horse dominated armies. I execute armies that are composed mainly of ranged troops/archers/horse cav. I dont think the AI factored that into deciding what armies to send against me.
I'm much more likely to drop all other conflicts and focus on destroying the archer/ranged factions just bc how annoying they are to fight. Turns out arrows werent such a good strategy after all.
Campidoctor
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Spamming fire arrows, spamming javelins and spamming cannons tend to work fairly well.
Even better if you combine all three
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Ducenarius
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Had my first encounter with the Timurids (I should post a screenie - it's 9 Tim stacks surrounded by around 15 of my Spanish stacks). I got tired of waiting for them to attack so I confronted them between Kiew and Sarkel - right in the steppes...
Finally, they attacked me - a stack of mine with 5 art units, which I deployed on top of a hill, 3 HA mercs, 2 jinetes, 4 knight units, 1 general, 2 spearmen, 1 musketeer, 1 pav crossbow, 1 chiv dismounted knights.
Tim had the standard 2 art ele, 2 gunner/melee ele, lots of HA and heavy cav, some heavy foot archers and halberd men.
It turned out a disaster.
I had the problem Silverheart warned of - the Tim HAs killed off my jinetes before they had an impact on the elephants. The Tims charged and overran my inf and art. My knights and general unit did ok against the Tim cav, but got depleted and finally destroyed by the elephants in melee + cannons. A 2nd stack of mine entered, but I pulled them out immediately (hit ESC and lost another 300 men).
Well, that didn't go as planned. I analysed the battle and realised what Silverheart also emphasised (I should have read his post earlier...): Jinetes need to be protected from the HAs when attacking the elephants, which is difficult.
The art was a disappointment! They hardly killed any elephants. Maybe 5 more units of knights would have achieved more. On the other hand, I failed to protect my art from the charge! Maybe I should have brought more spearmen or pikemen into the battle...
Looking forward to the next round of gaming in the weekend (have no time during week). Comments on my experience are very welcome. Thanks to all for their tips!
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
With Spain against Timurids on the field, try this army:
1x general, 6x musketeers, 3x jinetes, 10x chivalric knight
Musketeers in front in a thin line. Use musketeers to snipe their elephants. Musketeers also outrange all of their archers, so you can snipe them all out. When you're sniping their archers, your musketeer will be under attack from elephant artillery, but that's ok as long as you're killing their archers. After a while, they'll send send in their units to attack. Use chivalric knights against their cavalry, and Jinetes against elephants. Should be pretty easy to win if they have no reinforcements.
If they have a lot of reinforcement stacks, you'll need to bring your own reinforcement stacks. If your reinforcements are controlled by the AI, it's best to give the AI reinforcements a full stack of pure cavalry (ranged and melee cavalry), because the AI reinforcements are abyssmal when using infantry.
Artillery generally isn't very good against elephants. They are in custom battle, where killing 2 elephants makes them go amok, but in the campaign, artillery will never make elephants go amok without killing over half of them (due to their high ranking generals and silver chevron experience). Horse archers aren't good against them either because they lack damage.
In the end, it's all down to economy and sheer military expenditure. The Timurids have a really expensive army with 10 stacks of very powerful troops. But if you have something even more expensive (like endless full stacks of chivlric knights), you'll win. Fighting Timurids on the field is more about economy, and the most interesting aspect is being able to get the economy to field several full stacks of chivalric knights backed by musketeers and jinetes.
Last edited by Aeratus; June 06, 2012 at 10:01 AM.
Ducenarius
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Thanks, Aeratus. Especially for the arti vs elephants explanation. That makes a lot of sense.
Also the economic argument is very true. I suffer heavy casualties facing the Timurids (who all have triple silver chevrons) in the field. But I can afford it - and they cannot recruit any more troops.
Chivalric knights work very well, musketeers didn't fully convince me because the Timurids tend to charge my armies head on, so the musketeers do not get so many shots before melee. maybe I should put them on the wings where the AI deploys their HAs rather than in the centre from where their heavy cav charges.
Jinetes have proven very effective against eles when they got behind them especially with the enemy HAs kept busy in melee. I also managed to draw their generals into a trap set up by my jinetes and mounted x-bows.
Some dismounted knights nicely complement the army as a counter for their halberds who perform well against horses.
Took some nice screenshots in the weekend, but am now in the office...
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
Yeah, the economy is really the key to everything in this game, even Timurids. I haven't played vanilla in a really long time, but the last time I did play them, I was Russia and had a huge economy (VH/VH). The Timurids had all arrived and their 10 stacks moved in formation. I had prepared a huge multi-stack army against them, with around 60x Tsars guard, 30x Druzhina, and 30x other units. I actually lost 2 full stacks of Tsars guard in the opening battle when I fought 4 timurid stacks at once with just 2 stacks, but my 9-stack army was large enough to fully defeat the Timurids in the later battles.
Chivalric knights are pretty good, and certainly much better than musketeers if the enemy's behavior is to charge straight on. Whether they attack or defend depends on whether you're attacking or they're attacking you. If the enemy is simply going to charge, a nearly full stack of chivalric knights isn't too bad, in that situation. When Timurids charge head on, you've probably noticed that Jinetes may be more difficult to use. (As you noted, Jinetes probably shine best when the battle has progressed to become messy and the elephants become isolated; and also when you have a height advantage which makes the range of their javelins insane.)
Spain's chivalric knights are the best of any western faction, since they are one of the very few catholic factions capable of building the horse breeder's guild HQ (by continuingly making jintetes from cities to get the guild). With a Horse breeders guild HQ (+2 exp), jousting/tournament buildings (+2 exp), and a master swordsmith's guild (+1 exp) that's already 2 silver chevrons. Then, if you capture a few master swordsmith guilds from other catholic factions, you can be training gold chevron chivalric knights right from the start from your castles at Acre and Gaza. Since these knights are nearly unroutable, they have no fear against timurid elephants, and they do fine when entrusted to the AI reinforcements. Your Gendarmes from Antioch won't be fearless, though, because they have less base morale than chivalric, and can't benefit from the jousting/tournament buildings unless retrained (disappointing since Gendarmes were historically the evolution of knights into a more professional and organized unit).
Last edited by Aeratus; June 11, 2012 at 09:52 PM.
Ducenarius
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
I remember the first time I met the Timurids; I was merrily steam rolling the remnants of Europe (As England) and right after destroying Russia I decided to send spies and diplomats into the east. To my horror the Timurids had conquered the entirety of the East and half of Africa (With me controlling the other half). What ensued was a massive deadlock between the two most powerful nations in the world with me holding them back at Constantinople, Tunis, and that settlement up above the northernmost settlement of Turkey. The north fell quickly with me having to start waging a "guerrilla" war (Constantly ambushing armies and retaking settlements when their garrison was low). On the Constantinople front I would constantly fend off sieges and make my own forays into enemy territory which were often crushed even when I did capture a settlement. The African front on the other hand didn't see much action surprisingly; I only destroyed around 3 stacks there.
Most fun I've ever had in a Vanilla campaign and I still don't think I ever broke that stalemate.
Last edited by The Mouth; June 12, 2012 at 12:12 AM.
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Ducenarius
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
I haven't recruited so many jinetes from towns - mostly from castles - so I don't have any horse breeder guild buildings... guess, now, it's too late. I do have some fairly experienced chivalric knights just because they have seen so many battles and worked their way up exp-wise.
What do I have to do to trigger an upgrading of the swordsmith buildings?
And exactly, it's when the battle turned messy, that I could get behind elephant units with my jinetes and also trap their generals. Was such a fun battle - I thought several times that I had lost, but eventually, I managed to turn it around.
I also didn't see the point of recruiting gendarmes, which are weaker and more expensive than chiv knights. I just got some for the different looks :-P
The Mouth: Why didn't u continue that epic struggle? Sounds like so much fun...
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
That would be infantry swordsmen, like dismounted feudal knights.
Re: Fighting the Timurid elephants
In addition to recruiting sword units, building any level smithy will also increase a settlement's progress towards a swordsmiths guild. The higher level smiths (heavy armorer and above) provide a small bonus towards the swordsmiths guild for all of your settlements in addition to the bonus they provide for the settlement that they are constructed in.
Here's a list of the sword units that count towards the swordsmiths guild.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
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