[EB] On the use of Elephants in Multiplayer

I like using elephants. Also, I tend not to warn my opponents of them ahead of time (regarded by some as bad manners). Over the last couple of weeks, I've had some notable failures and successes with them in multiplayer. I thought some might find it useful if I put up some tips for using them and fighting them. And maybe someone will respond with better tips and I'll learn something...

Part 1: What makes elephants so special?
Four things. Fear effect, armor, mass, and their area of effect attack.

The fear effect most people are familiar with. Just being around elephants makes nearby troops scared (-2 morale, I believe), much like naked troops or chariots. In addition, elephants in the middle of enemy units tend to make them suspect their flanks are under attack.

Their armor (and multiple hit points) make them fairly hard to kill. AP weapons are fairly useful against them. Non-AP swords are not.

The elephants mass is very important. First, because it makes them very hard to slow down which means that they can almost perpetually charge (on level ground). If your elephants have slowed down, and are stuck in the middle of enemy troops, double-clicking on an enemy units a little ways away will frequently get them charging again. The troops surrounding your elephants can't stop this, because of the tremendous mass of the elephants makes their physical resistance meaningless. The same effect can be seen with cataphracts and skirmishers in the right situations.

Area of effect attack - this is the biggie. There are, as far as I can tell just from watching battles, two effects. In front of the elephant in an area about as wide as its head the elephant will effectively be attacking any unit there when it is charging. It doesn't pick out a single enemy with which to make an attack calculation. When the elephants are charging, this attack is pretty lethal. A secondary effect (as far as I can tell) extends a little farther than this and occasionally to the sides? of the elephant, simply knocking infantry over when moving fast. This is important less for the disruption to enemy formations than because units sitting on their butt cannot attack the elephants, making them more durable. This is why elephants so often seem invulnerable - they aren't resisting every infantry attack... the infantry rarely gets a chance to actually make an attack calculation.

Part 2: Using elephants.

Picking elephants for your army is a major decision. They're going to cost a third (or more!) of your total mnai. As a result you need to realize that your entire battle plan is going to revolve around the elephants, unless you're playing in a match where the mnai level is ridiculously high.

As far as the elephants themselves go, I prefer the African Forest elephants over the other types. Because they're cheapest, and you get more pachyderms. This means that their charge is actually the most lethal (because more elephants are charging). However, they do have somewhat less mass and armor than the other elephant types. Other factions will find Indian elephants are the cheapest available. You're stuck with them, too bad. For those that really want big elephant badasses, most factions who can pick forest elephants can also pick Bush elephants, which are a little better than Indians but have the downsides of being more expensive (17k to 13k) and there's less historical evidence for their use in battle. Armored elephants are too expensive for multiplayer. When picking your elephants, I tend to invest more money and get them a chevron and make them my general, which other players seem to find very strange. Remember - your entire battle plan revolves around your elephants who are prone to routing. A chevron and general bonus helps their morale tremendously. Yes, this means if your elephants go down your entire army might rout as they lose the general bonus, but if you lose your elephants you're probably going to lose the battle anyway.

Don't pick elephants every time you can, or your smarter opponents will start bringing akontistai and similar game-enders.

Selecting the rest of your army needs to be done in consideration of using elephants in battle. Perhaps the most important rule is: bring a bunch of missile troops! Preferably cheap ones like slingers with one chevron and maybe a single quality archer unit. These are very important. First - they can target and destroy akontistai early in the battle. Second, they can whittle down other enemy ranged or cavalry forces. Third, and not to be forgotten, your opponent may decide their ranged units are best used slaughtering your helpless slingers. This is a good thing.

Your main battle line is another excellent example of elephant-based selection. You don't need them to do any damage, but you need them to be durable so they don't get chewed up too quickly. And since they're probably going to be out-numbered and out-classed, they'll need decent morale. Lastly, the fast-moving attribute is very helpful. Fast-moving is important because once your elephants rout the enemy, you need someone to chase down said enemy and pick up kills unless you want to see half the enemy army reforming to fight you again. The fast-moving trait will mow down routing enemy heavy infantry, dramatically increasing the effectiveness of your elephants. Sabean Levy Spearmen are a good example of the perfect elephant-friendly line infantry. They have "excellent" morale, are dense enough to do well on guard mode, are faster than heavy infantry and the stamina to use that speed, and have enough men in the unit to be arranged fairly deep. Also, they're very vulnerable to javelin fire, which tempts the opponent to waste his pila on them.

You'll still need some strength on the flanks as well. You don't want your line to collapse too fast, and your elephants will only be coming in one side, after all. I find three light cavalry and a couple of fast spear units are the best solution. Light-armor piercing cavalry (Ethiopian hippeis and Leuce Epos are excellent examples) are fairly effective for cost against other cavalry, speedy for taking out ranged units if you absolutely have to early, and can charge home if you need it late. Fast spearmen (Garamantines, Nubians, spear-capable skirmishers) can reinforce your light cav against enemy cav and reach anywhere on the battlefield fast where you simply need numbers to prevent your line from breaking.

So now you have elephants and a bunch of cheapies. In battle, your first priority is to whittle down threats to your elephants. The biggest of which, are skirmisher units. So slow down, maneuver to a good (but distant position) and initiate a ranged war. Even if you're losing it, the more arrows, bullets, and javelineers you can deprive the enemy is one step closer to a win. Don't use your cav to help, even if you're getting the worst of it... UNLESS you need to clear the enemy archers to allow your archers to get at some javelineers or can attack a unit of javelin skirmishers directly. Your cav is just supposed to fight off their cavalry or finish the job when your elephants have routed but most of the enemy is dead.

During the ranged battle keep your elephants to the back and protected, and decide where you want to hit them. The heavier the infantry the better, as the kills are worth more, but avoid phalanxes if possible... deal with them last. Alternatively, bringing them to a flank to disrupt enemy heavy cav before sweeping them across the line is a good idea. Once you know where you're going to hit, bring your line up to engage theirs and then attack.

When facing cav, charge head on, wait a few seconds, and then go do something else. You may lose a few hit points to their charge, but you'll kill them for cost as their cataphracts get stepped on. But if your elephants don't have anything else to do, they may slow down (bad), so avoid one on one battles. You can try and disrupt enemy cavalry charging at your elephants with your own cav and then hit them with the elephants, but this is hard. Fair play demands you avoid mixing with your own troops whenever possible. It's not always possible to keep a few pachyderms out of your own line, but the bulk if not all of your unit should never get tangled up with your own men.

For that matter, keep the elephants in a narrow line for two reasons (on huge, with forest elephants, I like four across and six deep). One, it helps with fair play, two, it keeps most of your elephants in contact with the enemy when sweeping across a battle line, which is pretty brutal.

When facing infantry, ideally your opponent will have chosen 17 Post-Marian cohorts and is engaging you en masse. Bring your elephants around the flank, charge into the second-from the flank unit they have, then keep up a constant charge through their infantry and watch the kills rack up and the Romans rout. You may occasionally need to back out of the line to avoid your own troops and keep your elephants in order. Generals or other reserve units in the back near the middle of their lines are excellent for this, as you can order your elephants to charge them when you get near, wait until you're in position to hit the main line from the back again (whether or not you actually engaged the back unit), and then head back into mayhem.

There are two main things you need to watch out for. Phalanxes and slowing down. If your elephants ever come to a near-stop in the middle of fairly high-mass infantry (classical hoplites, roman legionaires...) and can't get out easily, they may start to take serious damage. This can especially be a problem if you're heading up hill. Be sure not to get too surrounded in that case. Phalanxes are really frustrating. Never charge them from the sides or the front, or some of your elephants will be caught on pikes and keel over dead. Even when charging phalanxes from the back, pull back almost instantly, or some elephants will get too deep in and never get out... this can also bug out future charges if they don't die. The problem here is that phalanx formation gives extra mass to the phalangites, allowing them to trap elephants. You'd think that charging a phalanx from the back would be effective. Gotta love that RTW engine. The fear effect still works though, and unless they brought 8+ phalanxes, you can usually break the cavalry and supporting infantry to either side and surround as usual.

Part 3: Fighting against elephants.

BUY JAVELIN SKIRMISHERS. There. You won the battle.

Seriously, whenever facing an elephant-capable faction, buy a skirmisher, or 3 if you think elephants are fairly likely. It doesn't have to be 3 akontistai. You might replace two galatian short-swordsmen with two hellenic heavy skirmishers. Small decrease in melee offense, huge increase in pachyderm safety. Sacrifice an eastern slinger for a gund-i-palta. Not ground-shattering changes that would make announcing elephants necessary.

But ok, you really didn't see elephants coming. You thought I was going to announce them if I was going to use them and I didn't. You're just plain caught unawares. You can at least play smart, and have a good chance at still winning the battle. The first and MOST important thing to realize is that your great battle plan for crushing the enemy lines is done with now. Over. Get rid of it. Out of your head. Re-evaluate all your troops in terms of how to defeat the elephants. After all, its over a third of his entire army, in one unit. Stopping it is the equivalent of breaking the center of their line. You need a non-standard strategy.

Let's say you've got 14 Roman cohorts, 3 Eastern Archer Auxilia, your general, and two cavalry lancers of whatever type. You find yourself facing a Sabean or Carthginian army with elephants. You're doomed right? You'll engage, the elephants will be invulnerable, insta-loss. Just play it out for his fun.

Hardly. The idiot spent all his money on elephants.

First, don't let your archers waste their arrows annihilating their slingers. Useless. Keep your archers to the back unless you can hit the elephants. Yes, I know that it seems like the arrows do nothing to them. This is because of their high armor and multiple hit points. But what you won't see is that those archers WILL get a few hit points of the elephants. Which is worth it. Similarly, turn OFF auto-fire for your javelins in your cohorts. A smart enemy will send up patsies to entice your men to fire their ranged weapons.

Second, attack their line with a small holding force. This will force their slingers back, keeping them off your archers, as your archers make their elephants stand back for the time being. Send four-ish units forward to hit their spearmen. Not so many you couldn't stand their loss, but enough that the spearmen can't surround them. There. They have to react to you, because your legionaires so outclass their line infantry they'll wear them down eventually. Do NOT send in all your forces to try and crush the enemy line. The elephants will smell blood.

Spread out the rest of your men, in pairs of units, but not bunched together. You should have plenty of units available to guard your flanks, and keep a reserve for your thin battle line. Eventually attrition will force the enemy to attack or lose too many spearmen before the elephants get engaged. Keep your lancers back to fend off harassing forces intending to get you to commit your full force. If you get a chance to charge at the elephants, it'll probably be worth it unless the elephants are coming straight at your cavalry. It won't look like it does anything at first... but that's a few more hit points gone. Retreat IMMEDIATELY.

When the elephants come, let them charge whoever they're going to hit. That unit's a goner, sorry. Remember fair play rules - if your unit is in melee, no ordering them to throw javelins. But because your army is so spread out, you'll have units available to throw pila. Not as good as skirmisher javelins, sure, but unlike melee attacks, the elephants can't knock you on your ass and prevent you from attacking at all. Part of your army will rout. That part facing their battle line will probably disintegrate. But some more damage will get through. Keep the battle chaotic, spread out, and put damage on the elephants however you can. The ultimate goal is to lose less than half your army before the elephants are eliminated from the equation.

So now you have half your army. And they're stuck with the cheap units and ranged units that are out of ammo from trying to finish your archers. This, you know how to fight.

In summary,

This'll probably mean I never win a multi-player battle again, but I'm tired of picking elephants, watching the opponent complain I didn't announce them (actually that part's not tiring), and then seeing them totally mis-use their units because they don't know how to fight elephants unless they're warned and can take specific anti-elephant units. The Romans in history figured out counter-measures with their normal troops. You can too.