We've been kicking this around in another thread, but it occurs to me that it deserves its own thread (and to let that one get back on topic.)
Elephants are fun to use...I like them, but they really seem overpowered from a historical sense.
Problem 1: Elephant healing
Elephant units are often healed after suffering losses in battle (Ground Hog Day effect.) It appears that the heal function goes after the highest value (quality + type) units first. Often this is an elephant unit. Dead elephants should not heal, period. They already have multiple hit points and are very challenging to bring down. Surely the hit points already give more than enough of a "heal" function to them. This is producing an exponential effect.
Corollary Idea 1:
In fact, live elephants with a lot of lost hit points in a battle should have some probability of dying AFTER battle (with a message box about X additional beast succumbing to their wounds.) Elephant units should be a bit fragile that way. In real life you couldn't replace a dead elephant like one might a dead horse. Hannibal lost almost all his elephants after the battle of the Trebbia, apparently it is not clear if it was due to weather or wounds.
Problem 2: Multiple Hit Points & Missile Vulnerability
High multiple hit points make elephants resilient to archery and missile units in general. This seems backwards. They don't die until many, many hit points are lost. I couldn't kill a single one on medium/grassland with four units of Roman archer auxilia when they marched toward me and engaged. They did eventually rout, although without losses.
I don't know what should be done, but relying on multiple hit points creates problems where the unit does not attrit to missile volleys until the very end. (Also an issue in melee although less obvious since individual beasts get in trouble/targeted.) Seems like it would be better to have individual elephants more likely to succumb to missile fire. Perhaps some small probability of an individual animal losing ALL remaining hit points on a volley ("the lucky shot.")
Some of the multiple hit point issues apply to chariots as well, but are much less pronounced.
Problem 3: Shouldn't the mahout be vulnerable?
The driver/mahout seems impervious to missiles as well. Is he just getting lumped in with the beast? I would think this guy might be the weak link at times since he is not heavily armoured, and the elephant won't "work" without him.
Other Potential Problems:
Weather in the north could kill off/deplete elephant units on the strategy map (blizzard?)
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