Killing Elephants

Not my favorite passtime, but one has to when fighting Cathagenians (or not if one doesn't mind the jumbo's trampling through your elite swordsmen..
So I found out that it is rather easy to do when using PHALANXES. Only disadvantage is their slow speed. One needs to be very quick, clairvoyant, have stacks of 'em or just be lucky to get them in the right spot when the phants come in.. When they do come in, its like having balloons colliding with cacti!

Before I get these very usefull notices that 'one allready knew this', well, congrats! I don't come this often..

I find that slinging javelins at them is dreadfully effective post-patch...

Phalanxes are very good when it comes to killing elefants.

Also try javelins, they get an extra bonus. Lastly shooting fire-arrows at an elephant can make the unit run amok, killing their fellows.

hmm it seems sombedy else agrees with me ~D

A relatively easy way of dealing with them if you don't have any phalanxes (like them romans don't) is just piling infantry onto them like mad and maybe throw in some heavy cavalry after they are bogged down. You'll lose some men but they will rout pretty quickly and if you have them completely surounded its not impossible to take them all down almost instantly.
Just, for gods sake, don't try this in the center of a city that you are besieging :)

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Originally Posted by Rex Taffel

Just, for gods sake, don't try this in the center of a city that you are besieging :)

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~D good tip

I have the patch allready, but didn't notice that javelins took them just as fast as I would like them to. Will try some more. Thanks also for the fire-arrow tip Magraev! Certainly will try it. I like to use archers anyway. If you keep an eye out for them, they last very long for a small price..

1. Flaming arrows are great for spooking eles.
2. Javelins are very effective too. The trick is to not let your javs use up their ammo on other troops. Put them on hold fire mode. When the enemy are fully engaged they will try and flank you with their eles. Let your javs shadow the eles movement safely behind your lines and when they attack unleash your javs all at once. The shire mass of javs will spook the eles in just two or three volleys. (note: I usually have around 6 jav-units before getting archers)

Caution. Never hunt a spooked ele. I tried this, just for fun once, 20 eles trampled well over 1400 of my troops and thelast ele actually made it of the map.

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Originally Posted by PseRamesses

Caution. Never hunt a spooked ele. I tried this, just for fun once, 20 eles trampled well over 1400 of my troops and thelast ele actually made it of the map.

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Not sure about that - does spooked mean running amok? If so, I agree. But if it includes routing then I am not convinced - if not pursued, routing eles can rally and come back to cause more trouble. They seem more vulnerable when fleeing, so even light cav can kill them. However, don't pursue with any units you really care about - especially not your general!

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Originally Posted by Hold Steady

Not my favorite passtime, but one has to when fighting Cathagenians (or not if one doesn't mind the jumbo's trampling through your elite swordsmen..
So I found out that it is rather easy to do when using PHALANXES. Only disadvantage is their slow speed. One needs to be very quick, clairvoyant, have stacks of 'em or just be lucky to get them in the right spot when the phants come in.. When they do come in, its like having balloons colliding with cacti!

Before I get these very usefull notices that 'one allready knew this', well, congrats! I don't come this often..

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Hi Hold steady ~;)

pahlanxes are very good yes. But one very useful unit I have noticed are Wardogs, especially if the elephants dont notice them (they only see the trainers?).

I sent dogs through the gates at carthage into the city after some sacred bands came running out and in and the dogs took down all the armoured elephants. The elephants just stood while the dogs mauled them ~:confused:

the best thing are SKIRMISHERS, 2 units of them are enough to rout 1 unit of normal eles, and then they still have ammo left.

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Originally Posted by lismore

Hi Hold steady ~;)

pahlanxes are very good yes. But one very useful unit I have noticed are Wardogs, especially if the elephants dont notice them (they only see the trainers?).

I sent dogs through the gates at carthage into the city after some sacred bands came running out and in and the dogs took down all the armoured elephants. The elephants just stood while the dogs mauled them ~:confused:

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Well, it's safe to say that I WOULDN'T have thought of THAT one myself, so thanks a lot for the tip! Gotta watch the Geographic channel to see any hyena's or african wild dogs or something tearing up elephants, for this is quite new to me!

:bow:

Also onagers are good at killing elephants.

I`ve done this to my own elephants several times.. :oops:

I have also found horse archers good against els. When i was Parthia i came up against selucid els and i just naild them with arrows then galoped of. Worked wonders.

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Originally Posted by tibilicus

I have also found horse archers good against els. When i was Parthia i came up against selucid els and i just naild them with arrows then galoped of. Worked wonders.

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Isn`t that time consuming?? To use HAs to make elephants run amok??

No they take them down surprisingly quicly. 2 pershian cav units once took down an armoured elephant unit in 1 minute. wow i never realised you were a member viking congratulations!.

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Originally Posted by tibilicus

I have also found horse archers good against els. When i was Parthia i came up against selucid els and i just naild them with arrows then galoped of. Worked wonders.

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The selecuids have 'em too? What factions can build them? and what is needed other than the recource?

Selucid and Carthagininas i think. Numidia might aswell i will check late because i just got the all factions mod.~D You need cavalry stabels and the resourse thats about it.

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Originally Posted by tibilicus

No they take them down surprisingly quicly. 2 pershian cav units once took down an armoured elephant unit in 1 minute. wow i never realised you were a member viking congratulations!.

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Yes. I`m finally a member! :balloon2: :balloon2: ~D

You`ll probably be there soon yourself. ~;)


In my ongoing Seleucid campaign I find those Persians really annoying, but now I know that I have to take better care of my elephants when facing those.

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Originally Posted by Hold Steady

The selecuids have 'em too? What factions can build them? and what is needed other than the recource?

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Carthage, The Seleucid Empire and Parthia(only war elephants) are the factions who can recruit elephants.

All factions can recruit elephant mercs.

The Parthians needs elite cav. stables to recruit elephants.

thx Tibilicus and Viking! ~D

Phalanxes are the best I can recommend.

Matchup: 80 Nile Spearmen vs. 16 Seleucid Elephants.

Outcome: 77 Nile Spearmen vs. 3 Seleucid Elephants routing..

i would really suggest skirmishes they are cheap and reliable (vs eles)

I've had some bad experiences with javelinmen and elephants.. foolish velites and libyan mercenaries were doing no damage at all..

oh my light auxilia once saved my day. i was attacked from to sides, to make it worse the rear attacking enemy had eles. so i placed my light aux. at my rear and targeted for the eles after 2 vollies they roted kiling their general and half their army. but i powered all skirmishers attack to 13 (well RTR did)

i think elphants are perfect in how powerful they are but i think javelins should have more power against them i think phalanxes are the best vs them but i just find elephants really hard to beat

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Not sure about that - does spooked mean running amok? If so, I agree. But if it includes routing then I am not convinced - if not pursued, routing eles can rally and come back to cause more trouble. They seem more vulnerable when fleeing, so even light cav can kill them. However, don't pursue with any units you really care about - especially not your general!

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Well, hunting a routing ele-unit I wanted to test how, and especially, which unit, would be most suitable for this mission. That´s why I lost a whole army as I stated. Not any foot-unit is suitable to hunt down fleeing eles, just cavs.

it's funny noones mentioned burning pigs yet. probably cause the silly things rout the instant you hit the "BBQ" button - actually, is there a way to make pigs "run amok"?

Incendiary pigs don`t kill elephants, only make them run amok.

Elephants are even more deadly when they run amok, and if some of your own troops happens to be nearby, they`ll be smashed to pieces.

hmmm...in that case i'll go with my tried and true solution: chariots. Historically, the romans preferred flame arrows or let their velites pepper them with javelins - both apparently sent them running amok.

I am the Brutii right now, and I made a big mistake. I kept giving Seleucia all my money in hopes I didn't have to fight those annoying Egyptian archers later on, and it worked all too well. Instead of desert axemen roaming around I have armored elephants wandering about. I never fought against elephants before.

First time out, facing a S.E. army with only 1 war elephant and the rest phalanxes. I had an army of urban cohorts and praetorian cav, archers and scorpions. I was defending. Battle started out well enough, each army drawn out in lines facing each other, their elephants on their left flank.

As the elephants came in range, I opened fire with my scorpions. No effect. As they came in range of my archers, I opened fire with flaming ammo. No effect. As they came in range of my urban cohorts, 4-5 units of them threw pilas at the charging elephants. No effect. Not one single casualty.

They crashed into my urban cohorts and sent them flying into the air. They made a right turn and ran down my entire line, and at around this time their phalanx hit my other flank (they actually had enough units to wrap around my flank, which is quite embarrassing), and I was pretty much dead. I kept charging my 3 units of cav (2 praetorian and 1 general) into the backs of their phalanx who was flanking my left, but they simply turned around and pointed their spears back at my cav! But thats another complaint.....

Anyhow, that 1 unit of unarmored war elephants killed about 400 of my urban cohorts (which all had 3 bronze chevrons as I had Mars pantheon and silver shield and sword) and only 3-4 of the 36 elephants died. The elephants had NO chevrons and only 1 bronze sword and shield.

That was insane. They weren't even armored elephants and that one unit pretty much singlehandedly decimated an army of the highest end Roman units I can train. How the hell am I supposed to face another S.E. army down the road that has 3 armored elephants???

Maybe I bit off more than I can chew when I was giving them about 200,000 denarii every year?

Dude, that sounds like a nice challenge to me! However, you should use skirmishers. Lots of them! Also, use ranged cavalry (either auxilia cavalry or any javilin or archer cavalry mercenary you can find) and use them to try to lure the elephants away from your main line. The trick is to get them so fatigued they will either rout or run amok (make sure the are far away from your main troop force by then!). This will work nicely (if you can indeed attract the ele's attention) as they will be too slow to actually keep up with light cavalry. However, if your enemy has cavalry of its own, try dealing with them first, so they will ot either kill your cavalry or keep them busy.

Skirmishers? How......cheap, heheheheh. I guess my logic before the battle was that the urban cohort pilas do way more damage than your average joe auxilia, but as you can see that plan didn't pan out too well.

So how does that work? Why will skirmisher javelins kill an elephant but not pila from heavy infantry?

It's not really the killing power... It's more of 'make the elephant chase fast and cheap skimishers in loose formation all over the map until they tire and autorout.'

But I'm pretty sure the killing power plays a part... I mean, if velites can kill chariots, they should for eles too...

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Originally Posted by Viking

Also onagers are good at killing elephants.

I`ve done this to my own elephants several times.. :oops:

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Ouch, I know what you mean. :embarassed:

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

It's not really the killing power... It's more of 'make the elephant chase fast and cheap skimishers in loose formation all over the map until they tire and autorout.'

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We`re talking about the bonus here that make elephants die scarily easy.

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Originally Posted by Marquis of Roland

How the hell am I supposed to face another S.E. army down the road that has 3 armored elephants???

Maybe I bit off more than I can chew when I was giving them about 200,000 denarii every year?

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Jeez, you know something. ~D Try to think out an other end for your money.

I remember a custom battle, I made two untis of archers for me, and 7 units of elephants for Hannibal. I shot a few volley of fire arrows on one and in the next five minutes watched them kill eachother.