Scythed chariots supposed to have 5 deadliness?

**meerkatology** · January 21, 2015, 04:05 AM

They seem really really strong~

also starting "egyptian cavalry" in IA is a bugged unit with 20 attack and 5 deadliness and 70 upkeep

**KAM 2150** · January 21, 2015, 04:12 AM

Their damage should be unblockeable a bit, since you had to take full impact of their charge and scythes, plus fun fact about scythed chariots, they also had scythed under the driver, so they plowed through enemies like lawnmover. I will decrease their abilities to plow through entire enemy army in the next patch. As for upkeep, in game files it it set to 500.

**meerkatology** · January 21, 2015, 04:44 AM

makes sense for them to be "Deadly" but they do seem to be able to charge thru packed units too easily. I routinely rack up 1k+ kills on each of them losing pretty much none, they do stop their charge after hitting a pack but you can just re-order them to "run" forward and they will resume their charge very quickly as long as u dont need to change direction.

**Findiglay** · January 21, 2015, 04:44 AM

How do you lot deal with scythed chariots? Lots of Javelins?

**DeVrie** · January 21, 2015, 05:52 AM

Originally Posted by Findiglay

How do you lot deal with scythed chariots? Lots of Javelins?

I've had success in normal difficulty with cavalry. Say a couple of units of Hippeis or some medium-light cavalry. If you also have some charging cavalry then excellent. What I do is try to catch the chariots with a cavalry unit to tie them down and then jump them with another cavalry unit. The chariots will get bogged down and since it's only 27 men they will quickly start to die and rout. To be clear I've done this in the current DeI version with 2 units of hippeis or 1 hippei and 1 hetairoi (general).

Also, try to draw the chariots away from the main force a bit in case your cavalry takes a little longer to kill them so you don't get overrun with infantry.

**Eire_Wombat** · January 21, 2015, 05:21 AM

Ya they are pretty unstoppable. They kill anything that's even remotely close to them. I finally made one unit rout with about half a unit, using a mob of like 4 infantry, 2 jav units, and a elite cav.
Only to have my Cav unit destroyed from chasing them. then they came back and killed the rest of my army.
I feel like they are much stronger than elephants as they can soak up arrows/javs it feels like. And about just as expensive as most Royal Cav which they annihilate.
Also since you guys made elephants non general units, shouldn't chariots be the same? They seem like an extremely overpowered unit for early game.

**KAM 2150** · January 21, 2015, 05:25 AM

If they weren't taken out as generals so far, they will. No Hellenic king ever rode to battle in scythed chariot.

By the way, Seleucids also had chariots pulled by 1 and 2 elephants, but obviously only for parade purpose

**Augustusng** · January 21, 2015, 06:09 AM

Originally Posted by meerkatology

also starting "egyptian cavalry" in IA is a bugged unit with 20 attack and 5 deadliness and 70 upkeep

Yep, that cavalry unit is bugged. Unless you want to cheat,

you should just disband them for now. I think any new cavalry you recruit will be okay; it's just the starting ones that are messed up.

**VektorT** · January 21, 2015, 10:13 AM

I only faced chariots two times so far and both times it didn't gave much problems, unlike elephants. But it was in 0.96. Both times I soaked them with javelins and they died really, really quick. One of the times I had two javelin cav and sent it early one for the chariot. They routed the chariot only suffering casualties for missiles units nearby. Just to note that both times I faced them in very favorable conditions: first one they was coming as reinforcements in a siege battle where I was attacking and the chariot arrived alone. On the second one, with my javelins cavs, was in open field and they Ai just had 1/3 stack.

The impression I had was that javelins just are super effective against them and they are not tough like elephants. I always have a couple of javelins in my army. They are the perfect weapon to deal against anything that make me thing "how would I deal with it".

**Butan** · January 21, 2015, 11:32 AM

Indeed they are way more fragile than elephants, but the target size is also smaller. Sometimes you will have problems hitting them reliably, especially with javelin units of poor accuracy and if the scythed chariots doesnt come right up to you.

I didnt test them since post-1.0, but I can say: the 5 deadliness is justified, but if they go through enemy units too easily then there is a problem.

**RollingWave** · January 21, 2015, 07:18 PM

The non- scythed chariots are much weaker in comparison yes.

They are also much faster than elephants though, in fact they even outrun some light cavalries.

**VektorT** · January 21, 2015, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by RollingWave

The non- scythed chariots are much weaker in comparison yes.

They are also much faster than elephants though, in fact they even outrun some light cavalries.

Wut!? Really!? But... but they cant turn, right? I mean, chariots lose most of their speed by turning, right?

**RollingWave** · January 21, 2015, 11:58 PM

They turn worse than cavalry, but still considerably better than they did in real life.

If we're talking about the same weight and same horse, chariots SHOULD out run horseman, at least in terms of endurance, it's the same reason why you'll have no problem walking 5 miles pushing a wheel barrel with 30kg on it but if you try to do it on your back (especially without proper weight distribution backpacks) you'll most likely have a lot more trouble.

**meerkatology** · January 22, 2015, 01:36 AM

Originally Posted by RollingWave

They turn worse than cavalry, but still considerably better than they did in real life.

If we're talking about the same weight and same horse, chariots SHOULD out run horseman, at least in terms of endurance, it's the same reason why you'll have no problem walking 5 miles pushing a wheel barrel with 30kg on it but if you try to do it on your back (especially without proper weight distribution backpacks) you'll most likely have a lot more trouble.

chariots have terrible manuverability its like draggin a trailer vs sitting in your car.

in terms of durability they also should be easier to kill - huge target, 4 horses+man, if any one of the horse goes down the wholething is

ed.

thier charge is powerful yes, but they themselves should go down REALLY easily.

the AI doesnt use them right, but in the hands of the player they are very much overpowered. you can literally charge them thru an ENTIRE army as long as you don't get focued down by a initial barrage of ranged fire. just let your infantry line in engage first then charge 1 chariot unit from the left horizontally thru their line to the right, you win, bye.