Yesterday, I picked Numidians against Julii. Hmm, as I searched through their units, I saw nothing but garbage(atleast didn't suit my taste). I was prepared to pick a different faction until I thought, "Why not give the good ole Merc-Phants a try?" So I got 4 in 10000 dinarii. Numidians are the only faction which can get FOUR UNITS of War-Elephants under 10000 Denarii!!! I let comp get random units. Basically it got 1 onager, 1 first legionary, 1 urban, some legionaries, some equites, 2 generals, some praetorian cavalry, 3 triarii, archer auxilias, and even a townwatch. The map was Syrian flats. I like it because of it's simplicity. So it starts. Despite the urge of rushing with the 10 tons of mashin machines and get over with it, I wanted to try something else. I used my troops to make a somewhat straight column on the left side of the map. C=Opponent's Cavalry O= Opponent's Onager A=Opponent's Infantry and Archers E= My Merc-Phants -=Empty space ---------------CCC--------O---------CCC Then I casually sent the elephants walking forward. They were going, and going, until the left most wing of the enemy line: poor equites tried to harass me. Their javelins tickled my elephants and my arrows killed some cavalry. Equites were wisely holding back while their whole line shifted to their right side to face my elephants. Like this. ------E---CC All the while, the damn onager was firing boulders and pots while the archers were shooting flame arrows.(wow a smart AI) I gave the impression of keep goin north and then suddenly turned right and charged at the onager and archers. I silenced the onager and routed 1 unit of archers before the main force closed in, and just let my elephants walk away and shoot arrows as before. --------------------CC------E I wheeled right again to complete the circle when the enemy tried to make one more desperate attempt to catch up. It threw ALL the cavalry at the last elephant unit and all their infantry rushed to assist. With the help of second to last elephant unit, the last elephant unit got out and escaped unharmed. The enemy cavalry was now badly mauled and badly shaken. Their infantry were tired. Still they had some archers and they were raining fire arrows non-stop. Had no effect on my elephants though. After I completed one circle, I did another. This time the comp really couldn't stop me since their cavalry strenght was halved. After the second circle, the desert plain was littered with the dead, with funny sticks coming outta their asses. My arrows were out too. The enemy still had little more than half of the forces but they were all shaken and exhausted. I charged. -----------------------------A--CC It was pure massacre. As soon as my elephants made contact, the enemy morale just melted and routed. The cavalry and Urbies and legionaries stayed and fought for but 10 seconds and they too, fled. By the time the heroic victory message came up, I had 300+ kills with 0(read zero) losses. Felt good. Basically another fun strat involving lotsa walking and running with the elephants while avoiding the enemy(basically circling while being chased). Killing the onager early on gave me lotsa leeway and the cavalry stalling was a slight problem(with enough micro, it was taken care of). After eating enough arrows and grueling elephant chases, the exhausted infantry were piece of cake at the final showdown. -_- [This message has been edited by el_bandito (edited 02-07-2005 @ 04:46 AM).]
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Suddenly a general rushed and attacked my elephants with the help of some equites at that point. I saw that was a ploy to slow down my elephants and letting the infantry catch up. I let my elephants kill half of the cavalry and then ran them away from the infantry before they were about to be caught.
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