A rant and a question

[MarX]

Good evening gentlemen (and the occasional lady),

Sorry, but before I can pose my question, I have to let off some steam first... So I am Carthage, and I am once again at war with... well not Rome, but Egypt, they're such a tempting target, especially after the first round of the great eastern mediterranean gang rape with the Seleucids, Pontus and me biting of some juicy chunks of it...

But well, they seem prepared, and my border guard of 24 thousand men is suddenly faced by an uber-stack of 50 thousand egyptians... argh... but no need to despair yet... by sea and by land, I rush in reinforcements... and they reach the scene in the nick of time. A great battle ensues on the border, now with almost equal numbers, but with a little advantage on my side. And... I win! Its a bloody affaire, but the Egyptians are forced back across the border with some 15 thousand of their soldiers and 8 thousand of mine dead on the field.

So, smelling victory, I persue them. When we reach Alexandria, they only have a few thousend men left. I split my army, sending two divisions after the Egyptians into the Sinai, and starting to siege some provinces with the other divisions. Soon after, the Egyptian army is completely annihilated, the enemy is at my mercy... what a thrill... finally, a somewhat realistic war... large forces converging on each other, then, an epic battle and a great persuit that proves to be decisive. And then the war ends... in a f***ing CTD!!!! Ahhhhh!!!! I hate it when this happens!!!!

*speaks to himself: Ok, calm down... its Ok... everything will be fine...*

Good... now to a little question that came to my mind... by this point, you probably noticed I play Carthage at the moment... my first game with them, only played Rome and Macedonia before. So... it is also the first time that I can build elephants... they seem to cost a fortune, both for training them and for upkeep, and it takes a year to raise them... they seem to have some decent stats, but, are they really worth it? Does anyone use them other then for flavour? How, and under what circumstances? I crushed Egypt without them, but as I will have to do it all over again (argh!!), should I take some of the beasts with me?

Thanks in advance for your enlightening answers, and sorry for the rant,
MarX

 

[unmerged(12876)]

First, a little advice. When fighting a successful war, as you were doing, SAVE, SAVE, SAVE after each and every battle. It takes 10 seconds and will save you the task of having to do the entire war all over again.

I have played Egypt and have had great success with elephants. As always, however, combined arms is the way to go, so I have plenty of heavy infantry, archers, some cavalry in the mix along with elephants for the big punch. In my experience it seems that elephants help more when your army is attacking than when defending. I don't know this for a fact, it's just the impression I have gathered from playing.

Elephants are very expensive, and take a long time to build. There is always the question of whether elephants are worth it. I think they are but not if you just build 1 or 2. If it appears that you are going to be in a protracted war with a strong opponent (say, Carthage vs Egypt or Rome, or Egypt vs Seleucid) it could be worth it to build 6 or 8 elephant units, mass them into 1 army with plenty of supporting infantry and cav, and batter away at your opponent. That approach worked for me in a war against the Seleucids. Of course, foregoing elephants in favor of extra infantry or cavalry can be a good approach, also. It just depends on who you are fighting and how you plan to fight the war.


WalterS

 

[Kasimal]

ctds are the best reason to use the autosave function

about elephants, they are overpriced imho and I never buy them, 2 heavy infanteries are just better in any way than one elephant.

 

[MarX]

First, a little advice. When fighting a successful war, as you were doing, SAVE, SAVE, SAVE after each and every battle. It takes 10 seconds and will save you the task of having to do the entire war all over again.

Well, thanks for the advice, I will heed it from now on. Actually this was the first CTD I experienced with this game... great timing :wacko:

...it could be worth it to build 6 or 8 elephant units, mass them into 1 army with plenty of supporting infantry and cav, and batter away at your opponent.

The question is if this plenty of supporting infantry and cav, plus a little more of the same infantry and cav, would not have been as effective in battering the enemy as a stack including elephants. A large, well composed army can beat the crap out of most adversaries... but I imagine that if I had plenty of money but was approaching my supply limits,elephants could be a good way of adding an extra punch...

Have to think about it further, but Germany vs. Poland is up again, so it's back to the TV...

 

[unmerged(98892)]

As Seleucid, I handled the big Egypt stack by letting them come into my border province and suffer attrition for a while before I timed two of my stacks to arrive the same day to attack them. They started with 37k and only had 21k when I attacked with 40. Wiped 'em out.

If I had put my 40k in the border province to defend, I don't think it would have turned out as well.

I'm using that as my standard defense now. I put stockades (and stone!) in the border provinces to make the siege last longer. Then I have mutually supporting legions, under the support limit, one province away from the border. When I'm ready to attack the invaders, I start two legions toward the enemy, check their dates of arrival, and delay the quicker one so it arrives on the same day as the slower one.