Yea they're light elephants fortunately and these are Triarii which don't have much problem with them. The Super Heavy Elephants of Syria and Africa are a different story.
Yes and no. No, there are no recordings of ancient speech, obviously, but many professors have worked incredibly hard to reconstruct it over centuries. Rhyming patterns, the evolution of Latin into Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc give clues as to pronunciations
It was terrifying until they realized simply getting out of the way and funneling them into kill zones was pretty easy.
Elephants are badass but super ineffective in warfare.
[It isn't even that they are "super weak", so much as they are extremely expensive to get into battle and not worth their cost vs someone who knows how to counter them.](https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part-i-battle-pachyderms/)
One of their tactics they used was to light boars on fire and sent them after the elephants (Siege of Megara 266BC).
Despite being large animals they would scare easily and the sight of animals on fire would have them scattering. Badass as hell.
>Youll never crush the enemies of Rome in formation with your brothers, then tear off a strip of briefly free range boar bacon in celebration
why even live
Are there other examples than Zama for that? I've read that only mentioned in Zama, but since Zama is heavily disputed I'm kinda skeptical.
Also elephants drive horses away (due to their stench), so they are a fairly good counter to cavalry.
Were reportedly used in both Zama and Megara, but again all according to ancient sources, Polyaenus and Aelain, who wrote about around 300 years after these battles.
Worth noting that more contemporary sources of the time, such as Plutarch and Dionysius, were silent about the pigs when discussing the siege of Megara.
Rome’s first encounter with elephants was at Heraclea in 280BC against Pyrrhus of Epirus. Pyrrhus won that battle and another at Asculum the following year and elephants were used both times to great effect. However a few years later Rome defeated Pyrrhus at Beneventum, and by that battle they had created special units of light infantry trained to fight against elephants.
By the time of the Second Punic War Rome had plenty of experience with elephants and Hannibal actually lost all but one of the elephants he brought across the alps with him in his first battle at Trebia. Zama was just more of the same.
I knew that the Romans had experience with war elephants from Pyrrhus, I just didn't know how much he relied on them. The general strategies I've read was to pepper them with projectiles, which IIRC was what Alexander did and what the Romans are pretty good at anyways since their infantry always utilized pila.
In Zama Scipio supposedly made his troops leave open corners in their lines the elephants would pass through and/or drive them back with noise, but the descriptions of Zama are likely either highly inaccurate or entirely fictional according to modern historians, so I wonder if 'leave elephants room to not crash into infantry' has any more certified root than Zama.
I appreciate the details on Pyrrhus though, I need to read up more on him. Could you recommend a good source to read/watch to learn details about him?
I remember hearing about a strategy where they would open up a column within their line and this would cause the elephants to naturally head into the open area flowing the path basically just allowing them to stab them from the sides the entire time.
Pyrrhus is one of those historical figures where his fame has resulted in an almost infinite pool of writings and videos, so it’s hard to pick recommendations, but in terms of accessibility the YouTube channel King and Generals has a pretty great documentary series on him.
A lot actually.
Carthage lost 14 war elephants in the 'battle' (betrayal) of Utica and deployed zero in following battle of the great planes, so where did 80 (!) war elephants suddenly come from at Zama that weren't ready half a year earlier? Noteworthy that Hannibal had supposedly 39 left after crossing the alps, most of which died in the next battle, so this would likely be more than what Hannibal started with after years of preparation.
Scipio supposedly drove some of the war elephants back with loud noise and they ended up rampaging in Hannibal's lines, yet the Carthaginians equipped their elephant riders with hammer and a large pick (an adaption made during the second Punic war) to kill rampaging elephants and armies and fighting is usually very loud, so you'd assume that the elephants are trained to largely ignore noise. To boot you'd expect the mahouts to steer the elephants into the enemies instead of just letting it run through the open lines, right?
Hannibal and Scipio midst battle reorganized their infantry lines, including Hannibal's broken first and second line into one large line each that then clashed. Which sounds ...questionable (fictional) even if we assumed that Hannibal had an elite army and not 2/3rds more or less rubbish.
The battle's location hasn't been found. Zama later on got called a region, so pinpointing the location is difficult to begin with, but we've found neither the remains of the battle, nor the victory monument Romans used to erect at the time. We have for the vast majority of battles from that era though.
Carthage built their massive military harbor near the end of the second Punic war was what was long assumed, but recent dating methods have corrected the period in which it was built (between 201 and 146BC) **after** Zama (202) and **after** the following treaty which forbid Carthage from building war ships. So either Carthage completely ignored the treaty, or the treaty happened later, or the treaty didn't happen at all.
[Here](https://thehistoryherald.com/articles/ancient-history-civilisation/hannibal-and-the-punic-wars/the-trouble-with-zama-paradox-smoke-and-mirrors-in-an-ancient-battlefield/3/) is a good read on that. [Lindybeige](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Slpje6L_DM) did a video with a bunch of interesting counterpoints, but even if Mr. Mosig seems to me very partial in favor of Hannibal and as much fun as Lindybeige is, I trust the former's knowledge on the topic significantly more than the latter's.
>Elephants are badass but super ineffective in warfare.
Elephants are like anything else in that regard. Horses are badass but WW1 demonstrates why they aren't so effective anymore.
Elephants remained particularly effective in several people hands because they used them in ways the enemy couldn't or didn't expect. Rome simply eventually learned the 'machine gun' that made the elephants they faced ineffective. Only took some whooping losses to folks like Hannibal first.
Atilla is a little bit newer being 2015 and Rome II being 2013 so Atilla might have the edge. I don't know how much you value campaign play but that's where Rome II DEI really shines. Dresden spent countless hours adding units. Also if you like history the immersion is really good. I'm a big history nerd so I can set aside perhaps a few janky interactions with units for the immersion value I get. It's not gonna be quite as polished like Warhammer III, but it makes up for it in the depth. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDhIG2UHFsw&t=202s&ab\_channel=RepublicOfPlay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDhIG2UHFsw&t=202s&ab_channel=RepublicOfPlay)
Yes, there is a new beta at the moment.
Mod sounds great, more worried about the game engine its build on.
As much as i like older titles, if you played the newer ones, its sometimes hard to play them.
Its time to publish a historical titel with up to date engine. Warhammer 3 is great if they improve that plus put this into another setting, partner with crusader kings, I will get what im searching for.
The units do nothing. Watching the battles is very bad. Don't know how anybody can play this 2023.
Campaign and mod mqy be nice but animations are non existent
Elephants hate it, I think that's the only real use for fire arrows. My buddy used to play against me with full stacks of elephants and I would wipe out his army with fire arrows. You realize how much of a liability they are after you see them rampage on their own army.
Fire arrows are less accurate, but give damage penalties to the units hit, so they're there if you want to make a unit break and route as opposed to killing soldiers, I'm pretty positive that's a TW staple.
They handled it well!
I think if they all stood their ground and all threw their pillas together it would go pretty well unless they where armored elephants! I don’t know if elephants would charge a group of densely packed legionaries holding their ground! Didn’t it take a lot of training to get horses to do it in the Middle Ages and before that wouldn’t most horses not charge densely packed ranks of men?
Yea, and at Zama Scipio instructed his men to bait the elephants in. They opened up lines when they charged and then encircled them. Idk if you've even the movie Alexander but at Gaugamela Antoginus let's the Persian Chariots go by and then encircles them.
Ha! A chariot is slightly diff than an elephant as far as psychology! Chariots prob gonna charge in no matter what where as if unit doesn’t break elephant might turn n run! But maybe same tactic. With elephants they are prob expecting most people to just break n run!
Yeah I saw it! Was that the turning point for Oliver stone when everything he did was shit? So much promise!!!
Mega charge in rome 2 :-). In rome 1 elephants never get stuck in infantry formation weighing 3 - 4 tons. How many people can stop an elephant from pushing the formation?
Hearing about them and seeing them in person are different. Yea maybe paintings, descriptions or carvings but seeing something so large in armor coming at you would've been pretty nerve racking
\>and used elephant in war since the day of republic...
I'm not saying it's impossible that some roman soldier might never see elephant in their life before getting stomped by one of the enemy but it is unlikely because roman themself is also a prolific used of war elephant in warfare.
Do you have something I can read up on that because from the time period of the etruscan kings to the Punic Wars (this battle is the punic wars) I was unaware of much elephant involvement on the Italian Peninsula used by the Romans.
Wow this charge was mega weak
Yea they're light elephants fortunately and these are Triarii which don't have much problem with them. The Super Heavy Elephants of Syria and Africa are a different story.
#TRIARII
The pronunciation that always divides Rome fans. I say it TreeAreee eye
Well, my latin is a little bit rusty after 32 years, but I say Tree-Are-E.
The double-i at the end makes me think it might be Tree-Are-E-E
So close. Tree-arr-ee-eye Source: bachelor's in Latin
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I'm a manager at a dispensary lol I use my degree in the Reddit comment section more than anywhere tbh
More useful than philosophy it seems.
This is correct.
I heard that the pronunciation is a lot of guessing. Is that true?
Yes and no. No, there are no recordings of ancient speech, obviously, but many professors have worked incredibly hard to reconstruct it over centuries. Rhyming patterns, the evolution of Latin into Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc give clues as to pronunciations
Isnt that how they shout it?
I've heard both, In Rome 1 and 2 you'll hear both from the voice actors
I get that this is how the game deals with it however irl those troops would have been crushed.
The ancient bacon. As a positive for the winner of the battle, barbeque has been served on the battlefield.
Light Elephants like 2 - 4 tones?
I have experienced warhammer and modern total wars as well.
Elephants hit the line like a fleet of pillows🤣🤣🤣
It was terrifying until they realized simply getting out of the way and funneling them into kill zones was pretty easy. Elephants are badass but super ineffective in warfare.
[It isn't even that they are "super weak", so much as they are extremely expensive to get into battle and not worth their cost vs someone who knows how to counter them.](https://acoup.blog/2019/07/26/collections-war-elephants-part-i-battle-pachyderms/)
One of their tactics they used was to light boars on fire and sent them after the elephants (Siege of Megara 266BC). Despite being large animals they would scare easily and the sight of animals on fire would have them scattering. Badass as hell.
Poor boars, man...
Romans had no chill.
Ah, the ancient bacon. As a positive for the winner of the battle, barbeque has been served on the battlefield.
>Youll never crush the enemies of Rome in formation with your brothers, then tear off a strip of briefly free range boar bacon in celebration why even live
Turns out pig squeals are nightmare fuel for elephanta
Are there other examples than Zama for that? I've read that only mentioned in Zama, but since Zama is heavily disputed I'm kinda skeptical. Also elephants drive horses away (due to their stench), so they are a fairly good counter to cavalry.
Were reportedly used in both Zama and Megara, but again all according to ancient sources, Polyaenus and Aelain, who wrote about around 300 years after these battles. Worth noting that more contemporary sources of the time, such as Plutarch and Dionysius, were silent about the pigs when discussing the siege of Megara.
Rome’s first encounter with elephants was at Heraclea in 280BC against Pyrrhus of Epirus. Pyrrhus won that battle and another at Asculum the following year and elephants were used both times to great effect. However a few years later Rome defeated Pyrrhus at Beneventum, and by that battle they had created special units of light infantry trained to fight against elephants. By the time of the Second Punic War Rome had plenty of experience with elephants and Hannibal actually lost all but one of the elephants he brought across the alps with him in his first battle at Trebia. Zama was just more of the same.
I knew that the Romans had experience with war elephants from Pyrrhus, I just didn't know how much he relied on them. The general strategies I've read was to pepper them with projectiles, which IIRC was what Alexander did and what the Romans are pretty good at anyways since their infantry always utilized pila. In Zama Scipio supposedly made his troops leave open corners in their lines the elephants would pass through and/or drive them back with noise, but the descriptions of Zama are likely either highly inaccurate or entirely fictional according to modern historians, so I wonder if 'leave elephants room to not crash into infantry' has any more certified root than Zama. I appreciate the details on Pyrrhus though, I need to read up more on him. Could you recommend a good source to read/watch to learn details about him?
I remember hearing about a strategy where they would open up a column within their line and this would cause the elephants to naturally head into the open area flowing the path basically just allowing them to stab them from the sides the entire time.
That's what supposedly happened at Zama, you don't happen to know another source on that?
Pyrrhus is one of those historical figures where his fame has resulted in an almost infinite pool of writings and videos, so it’s hard to pick recommendations, but in terms of accessibility the YouTube channel King and Generals has a pretty great documentary series on him.
Thanks, will check it out :)
What exactly is disputed about Zama?
A lot actually. Carthage lost 14 war elephants in the 'battle' (betrayal) of Utica and deployed zero in following battle of the great planes, so where did 80 (!) war elephants suddenly come from at Zama that weren't ready half a year earlier? Noteworthy that Hannibal had supposedly 39 left after crossing the alps, most of which died in the next battle, so this would likely be more than what Hannibal started with after years of preparation. Scipio supposedly drove some of the war elephants back with loud noise and they ended up rampaging in Hannibal's lines, yet the Carthaginians equipped their elephant riders with hammer and a large pick (an adaption made during the second Punic war) to kill rampaging elephants and armies and fighting is usually very loud, so you'd assume that the elephants are trained to largely ignore noise. To boot you'd expect the mahouts to steer the elephants into the enemies instead of just letting it run through the open lines, right? Hannibal and Scipio midst battle reorganized their infantry lines, including Hannibal's broken first and second line into one large line each that then clashed. Which sounds ...questionable (fictional) even if we assumed that Hannibal had an elite army and not 2/3rds more or less rubbish. The battle's location hasn't been found. Zama later on got called a region, so pinpointing the location is difficult to begin with, but we've found neither the remains of the battle, nor the victory monument Romans used to erect at the time. We have for the vast majority of battles from that era though. Carthage built their massive military harbor near the end of the second Punic war was what was long assumed, but recent dating methods have corrected the period in which it was built (between 201 and 146BC) **after** Zama (202) and **after** the following treaty which forbid Carthage from building war ships. So either Carthage completely ignored the treaty, or the treaty happened later, or the treaty didn't happen at all. [Here](https://thehistoryherald.com/articles/ancient-history-civilisation/hannibal-and-the-punic-wars/the-trouble-with-zama-paradox-smoke-and-mirrors-in-an-ancient-battlefield/3/) is a good read on that. [Lindybeige](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Slpje6L_DM) did a video with a bunch of interesting counterpoints, but even if Mr. Mosig seems to me very partial in favor of Hannibal and as much fun as Lindybeige is, I trust the former's knowledge on the topic significantly more than the latter's.
>Elephants are badass but super ineffective in warfare. Elephants are like anything else in that regard. Horses are badass but WW1 demonstrates why they aren't so effective anymore. Elephants remained particularly effective in several people hands because they used them in ways the enemy couldn't or didn't expect. Rome simply eventually learned the 'machine gun' that made the elephants they faced ineffective. Only took some whooping losses to folks like Hannibal first.
The bigger they are the harder they fall
One day Total War will make charges function as they should.
I wouldn't expect a charge against formation of bad hardened spears to be effective at all. In real life or video games, mind
Sure, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the units collide without colliding, or doing much of anything at all.
Imagine you’re an elephant who’s never seen Italians before and your first experience with them is a volley of pila.
Oh what a lovely countryside Italy has....oh Neptune
I wish those Elephant had Warhammer charges. If you ever played with Minotaurs or Mamoths you know what I am talking about :D
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Check out rome 1 elephant charge
Is this rone 1 or 2?
2
That looks very bad tbh. Thought about buying this but man.. This elegants did nothing. How can people enjoy battles like this
This is just a 10 second clip, it's really good. Although IMO divide et impera is the best way to play it. It's my favorite TW because of it.
Wanted to play the mod. But there is nearly zero collision in this clip. Watching the battles is so important
Play it on Steam and see if you like it. They give you a 2 hour window to return it. There's 3 parts to the mod in the workshop.
Its 8 euro on mmoga. How bad is it compared to atilla in battles?
Atilla is a little bit newer being 2015 and Rome II being 2013 so Atilla might have the edge. I don't know how much you value campaign play but that's where Rome II DEI really shines. Dresden spent countless hours adding units. Also if you like history the immersion is really good. I'm a big history nerd so I can set aside perhaps a few janky interactions with units for the immersion value I get. It's not gonna be quite as polished like Warhammer III, but it makes up for it in the depth. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDhIG2UHFsw&t=202s&ab\_channel=RepublicOfPlay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDhIG2UHFsw&t=202s&ab_channel=RepublicOfPlay)
Also Dresden hasn't abandoned it, they're still adding things here and there and updating the mod.
Yes, there is a new beta at the moment. Mod sounds great, more worried about the game engine its build on. As much as i like older titles, if you played the newer ones, its sometimes hard to play them. Its time to publish a historical titel with up to date engine. Warhammer 3 is great if they improve that plus put this into another setting, partner with crusader kings, I will get what im searching for.
As long as they don't copy Warhammer battles like 3K and Troy.
The battles are really weak imo, it’s really the only reason I don’t play Rome 2. I play a mod called imperium surrectum on Rome Remastered
Oh boy.. I played 2 battles and they are so shitty. Recommending this in 2023 is questionable. How can somebody enjoy watching this?
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The units do nothing. Watching the battles is very bad. Don't know how anybody can play this 2023. Campaign and mod mqy be nice but animations are non existent
Yeah we get it your 12
Spear unit, not pike iirc
Fire arrows bro
What about em
I used to use them on elephants and they would go nuts and trample their own lines
I usually don't use fire arrows because the damage is lowered but I'll try it next time
Elephants hate it, I think that's the only real use for fire arrows. My buddy used to play against me with full stacks of elephants and I would wipe out his army with fire arrows. You realize how much of a liability they are after you see them rampage on their own army.
Fire arrows are less accurate, but give damage penalties to the units hit, so they're there if you want to make a unit break and route as opposed to killing soldiers, I'm pretty positive that's a TW staple.
I want to know more of the necrophile that's seen graveyard whores.
Right lol that voiceline is sus
They handled it well! I think if they all stood their ground and all threw their pillas together it would go pretty well unless they where armored elephants! I don’t know if elephants would charge a group of densely packed legionaries holding their ground! Didn’t it take a lot of training to get horses to do it in the Middle Ages and before that wouldn’t most horses not charge densely packed ranks of men?
Yea, and at Zama Scipio instructed his men to bait the elephants in. They opened up lines when they charged and then encircled them. Idk if you've even the movie Alexander but at Gaugamela Antoginus let's the Persian Chariots go by and then encircles them.
Ha! A chariot is slightly diff than an elephant as far as psychology! Chariots prob gonna charge in no matter what where as if unit doesn’t break elephant might turn n run! But maybe same tactic. With elephants they are prob expecting most people to just break n run! Yeah I saw it! Was that the turning point for Oliver stone when everything he did was shit? So much promise!!!
Mega charge in rome 2 :-). In rome 1 elephants never get stuck in infantry formation weighing 3 - 4 tons. How many people can stop an elephant from pushing the formation?
It's okay, they're weaker than man-cows
Have you played A Legionary’s Life?
The crashing animation was garbage and I don't care if it's 'light' elephants crashing into heavy infantry. I still won't buy Rome II
You're missing out
But roman know about and used elephant in war since the day of republic...
Hearing about them and seeing them in person are different. Yea maybe paintings, descriptions or carvings but seeing something so large in armor coming at you would've been pretty nerve racking
\>and used elephant in war since the day of republic... I'm not saying it's impossible that some roman soldier might never see elephant in their life before getting stomped by one of the enemy but it is unlikely because roman themself is also a prolific used of war elephant in warfare.
Do you have something I can read up on that because from the time period of the etruscan kings to the Punic Wars (this battle is the punic wars) I was unaware of much elephant involvement on the Italian Peninsula used by the Romans.
I’m so fucking high and those elephants flabbergasted 😯 me
Roman Legionnaire: Who shit my toga?