How to use scythe chariots?

[Falaris]

Now, me and a friend are playing coop, he Carthage, I'm egypt. My economy is quite strong, his isn't - I've sent him 20000 gold or so to keep him afloat, as he had some setbacks, built a bit too much armies and ended up with an income of 100 per turn.

Anyway, I have comfortably large armies at the moment, and I've started using a few scythed chariots, but I get HIGHLY varying results with them.

Some observations:
1: Enemy had it. Charged my pikemen head on. I had, with a little time to spare, ordered them to set spears and steady. Head on he mowed straight through them, 13 survived, he was unhurt. He proceeded to make roadkill of my remaining units (Garrison, the pikemen were the only spear-like unit... it was a slaughter.).

2: In the first battle I had it, I ran into some spearmen and lost half the unit, then it routed.

3: Second battle I attacked from flanks etc. and had better results.

Now, I saw mention that you don't click to attack, you should click on the other side of the unit you want to attack.

Could someone elaborate on the proper use and care of scythe chariots? In advance, thanks. :)

Side question: My favourite artillery unit is regular ballista. Is there some good reason to use something else? They seem to have both range and firepower, and unlike giant ballista they can move. (So they're not wasted in reinforcing armies.).

[lil_tyke]

I use onagers, the stones seem to work better on walls and units