Timurids: Elephants (Medieval Uber Unit)

Hi all.

Timurids came right in to my territory above the black sea and this story is what happened next. Some may find it hard to believe but i took a screenshot of the battle results of that first battle with them.

This is the result that shocked me enough to make me want to tell you guys about it. See screenshot.

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2twTimurids.jpg

Believe it or not, 1 unit of infantry and 1 Elephant unit killed all those men on my side. The rest of the AI army did not even move. The 77 men I killed where the infantry escorting the Elephants. But the elephant unit did not lose a single man whilst it totally crushed all 900 of my men.

The Elephant unit started with 33 men and ended with 33 men in that battle.

Ive since engaged them several times and Ive lost every battle. Auto resolving battles usually leads to better results than manually fighting the Timurids.

What I need to win against those Elephants is a unit of armoured Mice. Nothing else even slows them down the Timurid AI must know how powerful they are because its army usually sits back to watch the actual and lets the Elephants do all the work.

I was rather busy halting a Mongol in case and dealing with the English that had occupied france at the time. Plus i was sending units to america to explore. So this attack took me by surprise.

Giskard

Ouch.

Do flaming arrow or javelins have any effect?

Surely a good artliery barrage would scare off an elephant before it gets close to your lines?

Have you tired fire arrows and javelins? 3 or 4 unit of archer + 2 unit of javelin should be enough. If you cannot get javelins with Hungarians then have more archers. Since the rest of Timurid army sits back you should be able to focus your archer on the ele. And leave your dismounted knights at home ~;) bring horse archers for the rest and some meele cavs.

Thats some humiliating ownage right there, may wanna try usin balistas on em or something lol.

Ouch, have you managed to counter them later?
Q: When, and under which conditions, do the Timurids enter the game?

timurids are by far the most annoying thing that can happen in the long campaign. I sometime try to develop my faction enough so I can just run away to the carribean and face the might aztecs, while settling in their rich lands instead so I don't have to face the bloody mammoths timurids bring.


I found that bridge battles (where you protect the bridge) yield the best results, but I still lose obviously unless of course I manage to catch a detachment with no general and only half the army or something.

i noticed muskets do the best damage on them and if you put them in loose formation in front of your archers. elephants might actually not crush them all at once.

cannons are pointless because it's hard to hit them even tho they're so big and artillery in general is very inaccurate.

best thing to make elephants go berserk is flame archers, so bring tons and see how it goes.


also I think the only real way to own them on a battlefield other than pure luck is to go to asia minor and particularly lands around Baghdad (i ended up there after a failed crusade) and hire a few elephants mercs for yourself. they are trully amazing units, probably a bit too powerful though.

Both Hordes realy kick ass, im fighting both in my current campaign and they are playing with my Turkish minions :(

....and if you thought regular Timurid Elephants were bad, wait until you see the Elephant Artillery. On Huge settings each unit has the equivalent of 15 Serpentines. They can pretty much annihilate most units before they even reach them, and whatever's left is swept away with one contemptuous swipe of a tusk...

Antagonist

Antagonist: See the first screenshot, that was caused by 1 unit of Elephant artilery charging me. These below are regular elephants though.

Anyway....

In open battles Elephants move too fast for artillery of any type and 1 elephant unit will route your seasoned vetrans as quickly as they route peasants.

Also

Arrows (flaming or not) dont touch them
Bolts dont touch them.

Btw I stacked one of my armies with Crossbow men and they wiped out every Timurids charge in seconds until the time came for the Elephants to charge and that was the end of my battle.

No other weapon touches them either because the men carrying them are too busy running for their lives to use them.

Heres some screenshots from a few more battles where I got owned by Elephants.

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2tw1.jpg

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2tw2.jpg

It will give you some idea of what units dont work against elephants. These armies where scrapped up out of what was left of my defenders in the area.

Timurids basically killed off all my experienced generals and troops I sent against them. By the end of my current game, i was using what ever troops i could find to fight them off.

So in open warfare you will lose most of the time against the Timurids lone Elephant charge. The rest of army only really gets used to run down your routing troops. Outside of that role, the Timurids have no need for other troops if an Elephant unit is involved in the battle.

And oddly enough, the unit i used last was the cheap spearmen and whilst they ran as fast any other unit in open battle. In siege games they successfully killed off an entire Elephant unit but I had to use 5 units of cheap spearmen to do it.

Only problem was, there was 4 more Elephant units outside and the game crashed as the last Elephant died. So there may be a bug in the Elephant unit. IF anybody else tries this and the game crashes whilst your taking out an Elephant unit, please let me know.

Btw, M2TW has never EVER crashed on me except for that one time.

PS I won as hungry with 2 turns to go, after i found out what kills Elephants, my defenses siege where more successful.

Giskard

Elephants are easy to deal with once you know how. The elphants are heavily armored and trample everything that gets in their way so what you want to do is make their morale fall so bad that it routs them.

There are two almost surefire ways to dispatch any elephants you encouter.

1) Ballistas. Try to have multiple units, 2 or more will do but ideally around 3 units of ballista per elephant. Use the ballista's special fire ability and target the elephants. I've noticed once 2 or 3 elephants fall to the fire ballista bolts in a short time they run amok. This can be real fun to watch if they decide to run amok right into the enemy army :).

2) Archers with Fire arrows. What you want is archers, and a lot of them. I try to use at least 6 archer units with fire arrows. What you want to do is turn your archers fire at will mode off and once the elephants are in range of all of your archers target the elephants with them. What this will do is change the morale of the elphants to "Shaken" or "Wavering." While you're doing this you should have cavalry ready to charge. As soon as you target the elephants with your archers you should charge in your cavalry. If their lances are drawn the charge combined with the morale reduction from the archers will cause the elephants to rout.

I've found crossbows to not really be useful at all with elphants and haven't tried gunpowder units yet but the above two methods have worked for me with greater than 90% success. One tip is to space your archers out so they all don't get trampled by the elephants. Same with your ballista units. The key to dealing with elephants is to rout them as quick as possible as once they charge the effects are devastating.

So when the timurids come to town make sure you're well stocked on ballistas and archers :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lalartu

cannons are pointless because it's hard to hit them even tho they're so big and artillery in general is very inaccurate.

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I disagree, cannons are accurate enough and elephants are big targets, if one has them, pikemen or maybe a similar unit in spearwall formation can stop them as well, the pikemen will lose some men of course but the spearwall is likely to kill one or more elephants.

Btw anyone try Gunpowder units against elephants?

Leave roadbumps in the path of the horde, that'll slow the elephants.

A roadbump being a fort with as many culverins in as you can muster. It's an expensive way to fight, but you do get a turn to 'sally' and watch as your culverins - being right in the middle of the map - cause carnage in the horde. For added effect, target the elephants and get them to trample their own troops.

As the English, what about the stakes?

Can they be used?

Also, what were the level experience of those elephants? I assume since their hordes they were pretty high ranking?

Artillery used in mass may work but i found they are too inaccurate and 3 per elephant is losing tactic because ive usually been facing between 3 and 5 Elephant units per battle.

Thats a min of 9 artillery units, max of 15.

In other words, will not able to take any other types of units.

Fire arrows do not work either, tried that several times my self. Its like using pea shooters.

Spears are the only things that appear to work so far.

Im placing my money on elite pikemen of some sort. Grouped together to maximize the bonuses with a good general right next to them blowing his horn.

PS ive not tried gun powered based weapons such as rifles yet, but since arrows dont work, i would not expect those too but if somebody tries it and it works, let me know.

Giskard

One unit of Boyar Sons (a good javelin-armed cavalry) kills three of seven elephants before running out of ammo and most of its men. Four units of Boyar Sons (still "cheaper" than one elephant unit) completely wipe it out for the loss of 14 men total.

Get some decent javelin-armed units. I'd guess that even foot javelins would do if you don't mind losing some men.

P.S. BigTex's point about routing them rather than killing them is excellent.

Elephants are cake to deal with. Just takes 1 or two exploding shells and there gone. Archers are important, but fire arrows will not rout them alone. It takes a charge or some javelins in combination with the fire arrows to rout them. If you can though, lots of javelin units will massacre any elephant unit. Always put then in loose formation though. With catapults and any arty always use exploding shells.

The key in fighting elephants is not to worry about killing them, but to rout them. Once their routed, or better running amok there no longer a bother to you, maybe your enemy though.:whip:

Also, that first screenshot has you with a captain going up against their best general (Pir the Pious has the max number of command stars). That never ends well.

Aquitaine:

True but as I explained in the text that goes with those screenshots, those elephants wiped out all my best generals in earlier battles. What you see in those screenshots is what ever army i managed to scrape up at short notice.

I did get a few captains promoted else where after a few heroic victories but i decided not to send them to their deaths like the others.

I tried Ballistas yesterday after reading the tips in here. I thought id make sure....

Their fire rate is not great but it might be fast enough to do the job. Also they appear to be very accurate too. Far more accurate than the cannon i usually use.

There is one other artillery weapon that appears to do the same job but fires much faster. Im not sure what it is yet but it may be the artillery of choice for use against elephants.

I believe it fires rockets.
Not sure about its effectiveness yet though.

Giskard

@ Honorables Husar, gizkard, BigTex

I've found that cannon are not that great vs. elephants. I took a whole stick of cannons vs a single unit of cannonphants, using explosive rounds. It took a good long long while, the elephants finally ran amok after about 10 min of barraging and losing 9 'phants. I was able to kill 3 more including the general before they routed off the map.

@ Honorable Basileus

Two units of Jannisary musketeers will in general mop up a single unit of elephants. They'll take some fearful losses, the damn annoying "We won't shoot until we're in perfect formation even if that means we're getting shot to pieces and won't even be able to reform!" bug will often crop up. I do firmly believe that if that bug is fixed, a single unit of Jannisary musketeers could take on a single elephant unit head to head and win. Usually using two units of musketeers vs a single elephant musketeer unit, I can kill 6-10 elephants before they make contact with my lines, and the remaining 'phants are all injured.

Cheers!

Hm, I was not clear enough but here is the equation:

morale penalty + 1 or 2 ele killed = ele routed

fire arrows= morale penatly
javelins= dead eles

Of course if you dont have one part of the equation you need more from the other. Thus if you dont have javelins you need considerably more fire arrows (and not x-bows!!!), and if you dont have fire arrows you need more javelins.

Fire ballista can work because it has both, it can kill and give them morale penalty at the same time.

Ribault can work if it can kill, I am sure it gives morale penalty.

Musketeers can kill, perhaps combining them with fire arrows would be even more efficient?

ps. giskard, just a non-related question: I see you played Hungary, what was your early strategy? Which province you took first?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Whacker

They'll take some fearful losses, the damn annoying "We won't shoot until we're in perfect formation even if that means we're getting shot to pieces and won't even be able to reform!" bug will often crop up.

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hit backspace ~;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cheetah

hit backspace ~;)

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Ave Cheetah. :bow: Thanks for the hint... It didn't help one whit though. Tried again a few times as a single unit of Jan. Musk. against Musk. 'phants. Once the 'phants were in range and started firing, the Jan.'s never again got a shot off, no matter what I did. Leaving them alone, hitting backspace once, a few times, right clicking to fire, leaving them in and out of guard, leaving autofire on or off... Nada. :wall: Once they're under fire and taking losses, they won't reform and shoot to save their own miserable soon-to-be-over lives.

I find cavalry work surprisingly well against elephants; a single charge may kill a few elephants.

flaming arrows plus a couple of well placed serpentines fended off 12 units of war elephants in a custom battle for me.

a threw some pikes in for defense, but they just got slaughtered

Just spent an enjoyable hour testing and killing elephants and I have to say without a doubt the best and safest way to kill them quickly and efficiently is with javelinmen, mounted or no, although if they are infantry javelinmen then one on one may not be your friend, but it's not a major issue to recruit one more unit!

Aced up Longbowmen behind stakes suffered 70-80 casualties to no kills by the time the elephants reached them, with or without using flaming ammunition, and Janissary musketeers wounded a couple but killed none before they had the reforming problem, which is the only bug I've really noticed and had a problem with and at the minute is a reason to not recruit any musketeers ever.

However the javelinmen on average had 1-2 elephants killed in the first volley, and about 4 more volleys to finish them off or have them running amok.

Since RTW I have no desire to engage elephants in close combat, it isn't really a viable option and the kills/losses ratio is generally pretty poor.

D Wilson

That would make sense since pikes work ok too.

Good work mate and thanks for letting us know. :)

Giskard

In my experience i used Mercenary Arquebusiers and Mercenary Monster Ribault to scare them. It worked pretty good :)

The only problem with them atm is i usualy have CTD when meet them :wall:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Derfel von Saljeth

In my experience i used Mercenary Arquebusiers and Mercenary Monster Ribault to scare them. It worked pretty good :)

The only problem with them atm is i usualy have CTD when meet them :wall:

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Yes, I should suspect that gunpowder units would be very good elephant killers and in the (maximum) two volleys any of the ones I used got off before being hit by that hideous reforming bug did not cause any kills but each time did cause visible damage (blood on the elephants)
I did try varieties of artillery as well with very good results, often downing 3-4 elephants per units per cannon volley if I was lucky. Unfortunately each time a combination of the general inaccuracy of artillery, especially cannon, and the long reload times meant that after two shots each the elephants had generally charged in for the kill.

At the minute it is pretty hard to say exactly how good pikes are in killing them.
Bearing in mind they seem to be only effective when braced, you'd need to be able to test them really after the passive ai big has been fixed- at the minute, I've found over and over again that the elephants stop at long range, slaughter pike units with their musketmen or artillery and that's that.
In order to bring them in for close combat right now, you have to have your pike advance very close, and when they are close enough to trigger an elephantine charge it happens well before they can brace themselves for it, with predictable results.
So sadly I think that right now they are pretty untestable in custom battle mode and I shall have to find some and ship them to the holy land in my campaign just as soon as I've secured my borders against those damned Milanese (again).

A unit of Turkish Naffatuns can single handedly route a unit of gun elephants.

the naffatuns take pretty bad causalities though.

3 units of HRE forlorn hope also managed to rout a unit of elephants, though once again with extreme causalities

Does anyone know whats the best unit is for the english to use against elephants everyone keeps mentioning units from other factions but nothing for the english.

p.s. ive got woodsman guild (robinhood men) and st john guild are they any good ??.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zulukiller

Does anyone know whats the best unit is for the english to use against elephants everyone keeps mentioning units from other factions but nothing for the english.

p.s. ive got woodsman guild (robinhood men) and st john guild are they any good ??.

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Best thing to do for the English is to hire merc javelinmen from somewhere (if you can)

One on one in my tests every English unit has been defeated by a basic unit of elephants, but if you can get about five units of longbowmen behind stakes, using fire arrows and concentrating their fire on the elephants you can usually get them to run amok. But it takes awhile.

Playing as the English... I used a Kiev. With cannon-towers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by D Wilson

Best thing to do for the English is to hire merc javelinmen from somewhere (if you can)

One on one in my tests every English unit has been defeated by a basic unit of elephants, but if you can get about five units of longbowmen behind stakes, using fire arrows and concentrating their fire on the elephants you can usually get them to run amok. But it takes awhile.

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There seems to be a superabundance of merc javelinmen in Asia Minor, at least for my Egyptian faction.

Wow. I am officially changing my opinion to match that of Mr. Wilson. Javelins clean elephant's clocks, pretty quickly too. Jinettes simply mop the floor with them. A few of my findings:

1. Loose vs tight formation does not matter.

2. Double row seems to work a bit better than block formation.

3. Turn OFF skirmish mode, as the elephants never charged me in my tests. *might be fixed in patch

4. If the elephants route, then chase and kill at leisure.

5. If the elephants run amok, THEN either turn skirmish mode back on or be REAL careful and micromanage this, or let them go. I don't recommend letting them go, because they might come back to haunt you.

I do suspect that the unmounted gunpowder units may be even more effective once the reform bug is fixed. The amount of damage the Janissary musketeers did with just 2 salvos in 2 row mode was frightful.

We shall see!

Cheers!

@D Wilson & Doug-Thompson thanks for that ill have to try that when the timurids turn up. Ive already had 2 campaigns ruined because of the crash bug i get with the timurids so im planning on having a very big surprise for them when they eventually turn up at baghdad so i can try and instantly wipe them out as soon as they appear.

muahahahahahahahahahaha

Sorry i couldnt find the edit button ive just though ive got a great cross unit that i hired while on a curesade while passing through italy. It says that it gives a bonus against cavalry does the bonus only work during a cursade or can i use it all the time i.e. against the elephants.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by giskard

Antagonist: See the first screenshot, that was caused by 1 unit of Elephant artilery charging me. These below are regular elephants though.

Anyway....

In open battles Elephants move too fast for artillery of any type and 1 elephant unit will route your seasoned vetrans as quickly as they route peasants.

Also

Arrows (flaming or not) dont touch them
Bolts dont touch them.

Btw I stacked one of my armies with Crossbow men and they wiped out every Timurids charge in seconds until the time came for the Elephants to charge and that was the end of my battle.

No other weapon touches them either because the men carrying them are too busy running for their lives to use them.

Heres some screenshots from a few more battles where I got owned by Elephants.

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2tw1.jpg

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2tw2.jpg

It will give you some idea of what units dont work against elephants. These armies where scrapped up out of what was left of my defenders in the area.

Timurids basically killed off all my experienced generals and troops I sent against them. By the end of my current game, i was using what ever troops i could find to fight them off.

So in open warfare you will lose most of the time against the Timurids lone Elephant charge. The rest of army only really gets used to run down your routing troops. Outside of that role, the Timurids have no need for other troops if an Elephant unit is involved in the battle.

And oddly enough, the unit i used last was the cheap spearmen and whilst they ran as fast any other unit in open battle. In siege games they successfully killed off an entire Elephant unit but I had to use 5 units of cheap spearmen to do it.

Only problem was, there was 4 more Elephant units outside and the game crashed as the last Elephant died. So there may be a bug in the Elephant unit. IF anybody else tries this and the game crashes whilst your taking out an Elephant unit, please let me know.

Btw, M2TW has never EVER crashed on me except for that one time.

PS I won as hungry with 2 turns to go, after i found out what kills Elephants, my defenses siege where more successful.

Giskard

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I have to say that first screenshot is hilarious.

The timurids are just annoying. Nothing you use can really beat there elephants. You can use alot of archers, but then you get attacked by there own archers are arty and cav. All this while trying to hold them back from your lands. Also they are able to knock down walls, and you cant kill them becacause they are usually out of range during a seige.

This is all assuming the game doesnt crash! ^_^

I didn't mind the elephants in RTW, but now they're deffinitely over the top, lol.

1 unit of gold chevron arty eles against 20 units of Jannisary Heavy Infantry (without chevrons):
https://img127.imageshack.us/img127/2046/eleartyen4.jpg

Just a thought, but has anybody tried -- hiring merc elephants? They're in Mosul and Baghdad, for instance. I imagine they don't have the experience modifiers of the Timiruds, though.

Or just use javelins. Turn "fire at will" off, use other unit to get through anything that's guarding the elephants, then throw.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson

Just a thought, but has anybody tried -- hiring merc elephants? They're in Mosul and Baghdad, for instance. I imagine they don't have the experience modifiers of the Timiruds, though.

Or just use javelins. Turn "fire at will" off, use other unit to get through anything that's guarding the elephants, then throw.

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I'm actually doing that ive been hiring merc elephants since around 1280 its now 1330 in my game and ive got 4 elephant artillary & 4 elephant heavey cavalry (ive modded the game though so its 6 months per turn). Ive upgraded there armour and ive upgraded there gunpowder weapons. Plus whenever a mongal stack comes along i send them over to annhillate them so i can build up there ranking.

BTW all you need is 2 elephant heavey cavalry and 2 elephant artillary and a zero star general to annihlate a full stack of elite mongals with a 10 star general (with virtually no loses). When the mongals see the elephants they wont attack they just park up as close to the edge of the map as possible so when they do rout they can get as many men away as possible.

Lol i really really cant wait till the timurids turn up ive got forts all over the place near baghdad full of artillary (i think there called bombards). Then ive got my own soon to be elite elephants (hopefully gonna be a full stack by the time they show up). Lol if i have my way the Timurids wont even get a foothold on the map ill take out each wave as soon as it appears muahahahaha.

LOL zulu!!!

I can't wait for this .. been sending out the governors of Baghdad and Mosul (lewd, naive, aloof, extravagant, corrupt...etc... slobs) out into the countryside looking for elephants. No joy yet, no gunpowder discovery either yet.

I love the flavor the regional armies get from the local mercs, I'm particularly looking forward to the elephants.

LoL well it makes a change the Timurids have wrecked 2 campaigns for total world domination because of elephants and the crash bug now im actually really looking forwarded to kicking there arse. Only spanner i think might wreck my plan is im certain the Timurid elephants are much more pwerfull than the merc basic elephant. Thats why im hoping the Mongal bashing an retraining might bring them up to the same level.

You know there is a quickfix for the crash bug yeah ? It's stickied on the top of this forum.

Hopefully the training will work.

Yeah i know mate im just trying not to cheat i want them to be super hard and give me a challange i just dont want the crashs at the most inconveniant point. That what was really annoying i didnt mind the crash bug every now and again but it would always happend at the most important inconveiniant point

i.e. ive just fought of stack after stack after stack then i get the black death and im left with virtualy no garrison at all but i know i can win the battle if i use my citadel walls properly. And then bam i get the crash bug when ive got virtually no garrison and its the last stack of timurids around for miles.

Test against Timurid Elephant Artillery.

The results have convinced me I need go no further with this. I will however test vs Timurid Elephant Musketeers (or what's it they are called).

The limitations of these tests are:

1. Single unit type.
2. No other enemies to contend with on the field.
3. Terrain differences, although extremely minimal for gunpowder units.
4. Small sample size.
5. Ideal weather conditions enjoyed by both armies.
6. My somewhat skewed (by some standards) sense of humor. ~;)

The 2 test battles featured (drumroll!):

2 Janissary Musketeers
vs
1 Timurid Elephant Artillery

Test Conditions

• Palm Beach.
• (Gotta love the).... Sunset.
• Clear.
• Very Hard Difficulty.
• All units are experience 0.
• All units are armor upgrade 0.
• All units are weapons upgrade 0.
• Jannissaries deployed ranks 2 deep, loose formation, hold ground.
• Jannissaries fire on command, not auto fire.

THE RESULTS:

The enemy General is shot down!.
https://i101.photobucket.com/albums/...hedK/eles1.jpg

His troops are shot down!.
https://i101.photobucket.com/albums/...hedK/eles2.jpg

Some choose to retreat.
https://i101.photobucket.com/albums/...hedK/eles3.jpg

They are hunted down.
Primarily for the ivory (which is legal trade in this scenario).
Secondly for marksmanship training vs large slow moving objects.
https://i101.photobucket.com/albums/...hedK/eles4.jpg

Summary
https://i101.photobucket.com/albums/...hedK/eles5.jpg

Conclusion
Please keep in mind the limitations of this test. I believe it will be harder against the musket elephants. With that unit I believe it will be necessary to draw their fire to another unit, perhaps the General, or another cavalry or infantry unit/s so that the firearms are free to aim and fire without distraction. This is achievable though not by all and though not under any circumstance. With the right leadership under the right circumstance it is achievable by all.

In this case the elephants were annihilated with NO survivors for the loss of ONE Janissary casualty (which may be healed in campaign). This shows clearly that against this unit a simple duo of Janissary Musketeers can do the job very well, when they work as intended without bugs.

Point is if muskets kill these elephants they should theoretically kill any other elephants too.

Salute !!!

Okay I'm into my campaign against timurids as Turks and I have 3 units of musket elephants and 3 units of artillery elephants all upgraded with 3 - 4 chevrons and new guns from my alchemist HQ and university. And so Timur the LameA$$ decides to attack me. Their elephants are no match to mine coz I focus fire my arty ellies on their own elephants while having my cannons pound explosives at them. I use my musketeer elephants to keep their other units at bay and to absorb all that arrows. In the end their elephants run amok and cause more casualties among their ranks and once everybody has routed, I kill of the berserk ellies so that they won't return to the campaign map. Now i'm beset by that bloody elephant CTD bug and the worst thing is, its caused by my own elephants:furious3:

Ok tried it with Musket Eles.

Beat em every single time with 2 units of muskets, with heavy losses, about 85% of the muskets die ever time. It's very close.

The AI prioritises enemy gunpowder weapons and ignores other units, so my hrose archers, spears etc get ignored, most of the time and the AI is shooting at the muskets.

I think there is a bug where the muskets don't shoot back half as much as they should. I'm not sure this is a feature or not. They get stuck trying to reform perpetually failing to do so. Despite this bug, they win most of the time.

I have reported this issue in the bug list.

Hmm sinan i dont think your test will work out the same in campaign mode against the real Timurids with there upgraded elephants and a ten star general backing them up you know tactick wise. Have you done the test were your controlling the elephants and the AI is controlling the Janissary units ?.

I'll tell you what ive figured out with the elephants you need both types for starters for them to be truely effective. Also the elephant artillary is exacterly that its artillary (not realy a combat unit) and super artillary at that with 15 cannons (on huge battles). Thats why your first test is completely bogus when you only lost one unit (your giving yourself major false hope there mate). The Timurids are not going to send there artillary crashing into 2 units of muskets (would you send your artillary crashing into the enemy front lines) there going to stick them as far away as possible and pound the crap out of you with all 15 cannons out of range of your muskets (if there cannons shoot that far).

I've also figured out that against infantry & cavalry the elephant charges are no were near as bad as youd think they are unless its a confined space like on a bridge or a street in a city or citadel. Then your men just instantly die i think the way that works is your men dont have the room to fall over so they get crushed instead and it leads to massive cassualties.

I actually made that mistake when taking a city, having my elephants at the point when fighting inside the city. What happend was i breached the walls and the enemy fell back to the square so i sent my entire army with the eles at the front up one of the long streets towards the square. Because i didnt know how to use the eles i didnt double click behind the enemy to charge through them i tried to attack them. So anyway my eles went berserke and turned around and desimated my army charging back down the road and out of the city. I went from a full Army with barley a couple of men lost to an army with only at most 20 men in each units. And ive never seen any ele charge before or since that killed so many men and they were my own men and my own eles :(.

LoL i went on one there and forgot to make my original point anyway try this for a test ill put money on it the eles win. Have 8 Units of AI controlled jannisaries v you with 2 ele heavey cavalry & 1 ele artillary (if you throw in some upgrades and another ele artillary i bet you can take on a full stack of jans). Try useing these tacticks aswell stand of at a distance and blow the crap out of the jannisaries with your artillary. When you've run out of ammo group all your eles togethor having the now out of ammo artillary elephants in the middle of your line. Disable fire at will and then have your eles charge as a line behind the jannissaries (right click and drag behind jans and then click run). After the initial smash into the enemy (bodies flying everywere) turn on fire at will and just keep on charging through the jans back and forth and in no time i garantee the jans will rout then all you have to do is chase them down.

p.s. If you Want to fully upgrade your eles capture and fully tech up Mosal & Baghdad ones a city and ones a citadel in my campaign and both give different upgrades.

p.p.s. In my campaign the Merc eles only have arbuequest but i am England and England dosnt get muskets so maybe it depends of the faction your playing i honestly dont know.

No, the merc eles only get arquebuses, even the Timurid ones have arquebuses. Good enough, really.

Thanks for the tips.
I'll keep all that in mind when I finally get to face the Timids.

It's pointless for me to play the Timids as I know very well that the artillery will naturally be far back behind the main line. They'll just have to be reached I guess. I also know already how easy it would be to wtfpwnbbq'ed any other army with eles. I will try it for fun though.

The limitations of the test are already mentioned and outlined.

I won't go over it again but please just read up if you have any doubts. For me the point of the test was to see if they are really that bad, and the answer is no they are not, and sure you can (perhaps even easily) kill them. Too much hype. That's all I need to know really.

Also as already mentioned in the first post, "whatever it is they are called". Those big animals with the snipers on tops yeah ? Everyone knows what I'm talking about, I hope.

~;) :clown:

One thing is certain muskets kill them, that is for sure.

Two Experience 0 Janissary musketeers kill an elephant unit in less than 90 seconds, provided the Janissaries are free to shoot without interference. Ofc that's a tall order in a real battle, and that too is stated in the test limitations. Moreoever there is a bug with muskets so it all comes down to fleeting factors. Who knows if they fix it in the patch then it's going to be a whole lot easier.

In any case even when the 2 muskets are being trampled shot at, charged etc they still kill a unit of elephants in a few minutes. Naturally due to the abuse they are receiving they take 80% casualties in the meantime.

My plan is actually to ally the Mongols unless I'm getting really bored, or unless they attack me first. I will also build a large cash reserve to go on a bribing spree, gotta love those Mongol horse archers. I can just see a whole lot of them with the Turkish uniform and banner. Got that idea from Doug.

I'd prefer to ally the Timids as well if that is at all possible, but if not my plan is... hire and train my own eles mercs, build plenty of cannon fodder, archers and musketeers. Hire some bashi-bazoooks (azabs), javelin cavalry and off to battle.

I'll try doing some custom battles against a good Timid army playing as Turks, if anyone has a good suggestion on a good Timid army fire away.

I'm looking forward to meeting these guys and posting shots of my first campaign victory now against them, can't wait.

:clown:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sinan

Ok tried it with Musket Eles.

Beat em every single time with 2 units of muskets, with heavy losses, about 85% of the muskets die ever time. It's very close.

The AI prioritises enemy gunpowder weapons and ignores other units, so my hrose archers, spears etc get ignored, most of the time and the AI is shooting at the muskets.

I think there is a bug where the muskets don't shoot back half as much as they should. I'm not sure this is a feature or not. They get stuck trying to reform perpetually failing to do so. Despite this bug, they win most of the time.

I have reported this issue in the bug list.

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When I tried this exact same test 3 times awhile back, 2 units of Jan. Musk. vs 1 unit of Musk. Elephants, I lost every single time due to the reforming bug. My Jan's would get off two rounds each before the Ele's engaged, and invariably bullets would hit both units and they'd never get another shot off. I don't know for certain but it would seem that this might be chalked up to the general "blobbing" problem that the game has. If that were fixed, I have no doubts that even a single unit of Jan. Musk. could most likely take on Musk. Ele's, and win the majority of the time. The Jan's can only get off two rounds before the Ele's are in range, but those two rounds do a LOT of damage, more often than naught the 2nd round will kill 2-3 ele's.

Cheers!

Sinan i get were you coming from mate i think but i dont know why people make those types of analoges except for x can actually kill y when there beyond flawed heres a WWII analogey for you to try and explain my point.

You've got 10 British soldiers using a piat (worst A.T. weapon ever) versus a retard (a captain) driving a King Tiger tank the british soldiers totally rip the tiger apart the Tiger with zero loses. Now change the situation and stick Rommel (a 10 star Gen) in the Tiger he will annihlate the British soldiers take the whole surrounding area call in reinforcement and open up a new counter front possibly changing the whole out come of WWII.

Do you get were im coming from now, in no way am i having a go at you sinan im just giving you as much warning as possible what ever your planning on doing tripple it. Look at these and other boards on how people are complaining about the Mongals being insanely hard. To me the mongals are just a normal faction there not really that hard in fact in my curent campagin there the ones begging me for peace becuse im kicking there arse so badly. But i truely and honestly fear the Timurids, in my previouse 2 campagins they took near enough the entire world over while fighting every faction at the same time saying there overpowered is an understatement honestly.

Yeah I get your point mate. No problemo, gonna cream em.

Muskets (are not the only thing I'll use) are fixed in the patch too, which is good.

I just wish the date would arrive already, though I'm only in 1147. What a long wait to go. UGH!