How to kill Elephants?

[supadodo]

I got my own band of mercenary elephants and so I tested them against some rebels. The rebels got completely pwn as expected so I'm wondering what are my chances once the Timurids arrive. I'm planning a defense at bridged areas. I'm Turks and already have access to all gunpowder units including jan musketeers and monster bombards

[Quillan]

Javelins. Lots and lots of javelins. Any missile for that matter, but javelins seem to work best. However, in point of fact you don't want to kill them. What you want to do is either rout them or make them run amok. Doing that, they go crashing through the enemy ranks causing massive casualties, and the enemy either lets them rampage or kills them outright. I've never seen the AI use the spikes on elephants in RTW, either.

[katank]

Best is javelin cav. Boyar's sons and to a lesser extent jinetes smash eles into the ground. Javs kill eles and mounted ones can stay alive against the rest of their army through mobility. Unfortunately, Turks don't get any javy cavy.

Afghan jav mercs work pretty well but often get overrun by their heavy lancers/archers.

One of the most effective units is actually the ballista. Any siege hit downs an elephant with a single hit (some exceptions). Ballistas are the most accurate ones you can get. Rocket launchers are even better though. In a siege battle, I managed to run amok 4 of their ele units with a single rocket launcher unit. A stray rocket killed one of their generals and an amok ele ran over the other. The amok eles then proceeded to crush about 80% of their heavy cav force and some infantry. Anyhow, I digress.

Naffatun is great if you can keep them alive. In sieges, I managed to get them to nade the eles from above and it was hilarious. The men riding in the box burst into flames and then the ele turned orange and fell. I doubt you can manage them well in a field battle though due to difficulty in preventing crunchety.

What doesn't work against them is archery, even xbows. I've focus fired with siphais before and it's still impossible to kill them before they get to my lines and even if I kill them, I wasted most of my arrows and don't have enough to whittle down the rest of their army.

[Decker]

I did notice one thing tho when playing a quick battle with 2 units of eles against an army of Aztecs. I had my eles run throught them constantly, and watched guys fly everywhere who would then,to my shock, stand up and fight only to go flying later and then stand back up. Needless to say my eles routed after running back and through their entire army more than 5 times at least. Has anyone else noticed this? The guys standing up after being "punted" rather far by the elephants, I mean?

[andrewt]

That happened all the time in RTW. Chariots and elephants would knock over everything in their path, but a lot of the infantry they knock down actually survive.

[troymclure]

I played a few custom games with elephants to see what they're like.

I found that the computer tended to focus fire one unit with all the missile units it had (switching archers to flaming arrows) this was enough to make one of my ele's go amok within about 30 seconds.

I also found that there is no infantry formation which can stand up to ele's. Pikeman, axeman, voulgers whatever the elephants kinda charge through (works best with a bit of room) and don't even slow down no matter how dense they other group is. So i doubt bridge battles are going to help much... though the time they spend crossing the bridge might help.

I only played with the ele's but the idea of javelin cavalry sounds pretty good.

[katank]

To exploit ele knock down against infantry, follow up with cav quickly. It doesn't matter if it's light/medium cav. The fact is that with the eles knocking down the guys before hand, even light cav can beat heavy infantry. Following your eles with a wave of cav ensures the poor sods don't ever get up again.

[geala]

I met elephants only as enemies when fighting the Timurids. The elephants are not the biggest problem with the Timurids. Instead it is their (in)famous secret weapon called "ctd" which they use nearly every time I try to battle them (and which may be assosiated with the elephants).

In the few occasions the battle lasted some time before crash I easily killed/routed the elephants with javelins (no problem as I am playing with Spain) and musket fire.

Does anybody know how to avoid the ctd when fighting against Timurids?

[Basileus]

I met elephants only as enemies when fighting the Timurids. The elephants are not the biggest problem with the Timurids. Instead it is their (in)famous secret weapon called "ctd" which they use nearly every time I try to battle them (and which may be assosiated with the elephants).

In the few occasions the battle lasted some time before crash I easily killed/routed the elephants with javelins (no problem as I am playing with Spain) and musket fire.

Does anybody know how to avoid the ctd when fighting against Timurids?

I always seem to crash as well when i fight them, both my Russian/Turk campaigns are ruined cause of that and i could not continue.

[dopp]

To exploit ele knock down against infantry, follow up with cav quickly. It doesn't matter if it's light/medium cav. The fact is that with the eles knocking down the guys before hand, even light cav can beat heavy infantry. Following your eles with a wave of cav ensures the poor sods don't ever get up again.

My favorite trick playing as Carthage. Ele + round shield cav is an instant battle winner.

[TheImp]

The best weapon against elephant: Artillery.

If it's not killing them straight away, at least it has good chances to root them, better chances than Javelins actually.

[Bongaroo]

I'm crashing everytime I go to battle with the Timurids as well. Just ruined my French campaign. Really frustrating. Does it crash to your desktop with a message about an unspecified error?

Before the crashing problem I was able to deal the Timurids 3 or 4 crushing defeats when in a siege they will march the elephants front and center which after a while I can get to run amok and slaughter their own. I have a funny screenie of a couple Timurids looking around at piles of their own with some random elephants running around in the background.

I haven't faced elephants without a wall between us yet, but I'm dreading it.

[Matty]

Fear not, this will be fixed by tomorrow's patch

[Faenaris]

Fear not, this will be fixed by tomorrow's patch

Well, it appears the date for the patch was a hoax, so, we will need to wait a bit longer I'm afraid. ~:(

[Musashi]

Anyone tried Serpentines against them?

[katank]

I played around with two serpentines against a elephant unit in a custom battle. Hell yes they work. Dropped 3 eles with first salvo (that's 3 out of 4 rounds hitting from 1/2 the map away!). Later volleys were quite as good.

Serpentines are kinda hard to get though. The incredibly low tech arty solution to eles for any faction is the ballista. Turn to flaming shot and see some elephants fry. Other more advanced arty is more inaccurate and one ballista bolt is instafrag anyhow.

Note that rocket launchers work very well but ribaults not quite as well against eles. Haven't tried monster ribaults yet. At any rate, don't use horse archers against them. Simply a giant waste of ammo even if you take em down. Furthermore, the morale impact on horses by elephants is huge. Even my triple gold siphais routed from Timurid eles.

[Decker]

Sounds like a job for......Rohan!!!!!! Wait those guys are Lord of the Rings...:oops: Has anyone tried charging cavalry straight into the elephants? Maybe in custom battle(in a campaign battle would be peposterous)?!

[zulukiller]

Sounds like a job for......Rohan!!!!!! Wait those guys are Lord of the Rings...:oops: Has anyone tried charging cavalry straight into the elephants? Maybe in custom battle(in a campaign battle would be peposterous)?!


Yeah 6 units of elite Hospitilars (most had 2 gold chevrons) upgaraded all the way also retrained and upgraded by my swordssmith guild headquaters v 1 ele cav & 1 ele artillary. They actually took out a couple of elephants its just they routed so fast, its the moral bonus the eles get v infantry & cavalry thats the biggest killer for me. Thats why ive got 3 great cross units saved up from cursades im hoping they might be able to stop the near instant routing.

[katank]

Rohirric charges plain don't work. I've had v9 cav rout against eles. They sure weren't kidding when they say frightens horses.

Focused missile fire is key. Eles stomp, shoot, and generally pwn all melee troops.

[zulukiller]

Someone mentioned merc elephants and tried comparing them to the Timurid ones don't they are seriously inferior. In one of my campaigns i abandonded (dam crash bug) i used to spy on the Timurid armies all the time and the stats of the Timurid eles is way higher than the mercs. I'm sure in the game i abandoned i remember seeing that there elephant charge was 60+ but on my merc elephants its only 28 (i could be mistaken though).

[SIGGE]

I tried with ribaults, and they seemed to work better than javelinmen. One ribault wagon killed 2 or 3 elephants in one volley, then the other one 2 or 3 again, and so there wasn't much more left.

[Decker]

Yeah 6 units of elite Hospitilars (most had 2 gold chevrons) upgaraded all the way also retrained and upgraded by my swordssmith guild headquaters v 1 ele cav & 1 ele artillary. They actually took out a couple of elephants its just they routed so fast, its the moral bonus the eles get v infantry & cavalry thats the biggest killer for me. Thats why ive got 3 great cross units saved up from cursades im hoping they might be able to stop the near instant routing.

How about camal riding units? Would they get the same penalty as horse units or are they ignored since they "aren't" horse units? BTW if you guys have mentioned camal units already, then ignore this question because I am bad with all of the names of the units and what not.