Elephants

[St.Jimmy]

Is there any playable faction that gets em or able to hire them as mercs?

[cassu]

well there is atleast some around baghdad from what i have heard

[Rhyfelwyr]

Just before the Timurids arrive (around turn 140) a unit of Merc Elephants and Merc Elephant Artillery appear in the Yerevan/Baghdad mercenary pool. So anyone can hire them, and they are extremely useful against the Timurids, or anyone for that matter.

If you want to have some fun, ship them over to the Americas.

[St.Jimmy]

Will try that. If the mongols dont boot me from the middle east first. Are javs and arrows the best way to beat em like rome?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In Broken Crescent the Solanki Rajputs can train lots of them.

[cassu]

but they are very weak

[ReiseReise]

BC elephants don't compare to vanilla or RTW elephants. If you try to use them like you would expect, they will die before you can say wtfbbqpwnd.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I have never heard of being able to get elephants in M2TW, but i havent unlocked the campaigns with Turks or Byzantine yet so, meh you might be able to.

ReiseReise, elephants must last a while because i cant pronounce that anyway...

Also St.Jimmy, i would have thought a highly trained phalanx would be able to stop some Elephants, not some pesky archers.

Also the idea of shipping the elephants to the Americas, i would have conquered within the year

[St.Jimmy]

I just thought that using fire would make em run amok???

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

aaah, now i see your point, i though you might just have been using regular arrows, but how does a phalanx do against them, ive never tried it...

[St.Jimmy]

Not sure. Iv not even seen them in M2TW yet. I think I remember smashing through em in RTW as carthage.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I take it they do badly, then??? I dont think there are any phalanxes in M2TW, but there are many different pike types, but i dont think a puny scot will do much to stop an Elephant! I might try it out on RTW later

[St.Jimmy]

Let me know you get on. Iv not got RTW anymore and fear i might be wrong as its been a long time. Also does anyone know how they move on the campaign map in M2TW? Do they move as far as cav or more like siege equipment?

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

It depends, if your reffuring to RTW, the movement i believe is a little less, but not by much, the different units travel at different speeds, and all cavalry army can travel faster than a cavalry-infantry army, and siege engines make movement of an army even slower...

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

St.Jimmy im going to try out your elephant theory now, so i might not respond for a few minutes....

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

I have the screenshots, i will upload them on photobucket soon

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

This is what happened when the elephants charged into the phalanx, they lsot a few elephants and routed on contact


The Roman Archers fire arrows failed to pierce the Elephants hide, and they were only shaken at the sheer amount of archers there were.

[St.Jimmy]

I guess i was wrong about the phalanx. Il go try some custom battles in M2TW and see if the pikes do aswell.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

You wont find any elephants on M2TW, atleast i dont think so, from what people tell me there is only one group of them at a certain place in the camapaign...

[St.Jimmy]

I did 2 custom battles using the timurids elephants. Turned autofire off so they acted like standerd elephants and just charged into em. I faught against scotts noble pike and spanish terico. (not sure on spelling). The pike dident stand a chance and no casulties for the elephants. Sorry no screen shots as i dont know how.

[Mek Simmur al Ragaski]

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=101218

Thats a thread i made on how to insert pictures, hope it helps

[Old Geezer]

If you rent elephants they are most effective if you turn off their normal skirmish mode and charge. They will squash the enemy as they do when they run amok.
When the Timurids attack your cities/castles put some archers to shoot fire arrows at them and when the elephants who always seem to walk up to the gate and sit there doing not much of anything run amok they may do tremendous damage to the AI's infantry and even the Horse archers running around in circles. It is quite amusing, if you are not a Timurid. If you rent elephants be sure to stay away from flaming bolts from ballista. I lost both units of elephants to them before the battle even really got started (probably a very rare happening but they are not as invincible as they seem). If you pin the elephants with any kind of unit and get them stopped and then you get an effective charge into the rear of the elephants with Hospitalers or such you can kill some or even all or get them to run amok, but it will take several charges unless they are already weakened. (It is really hard to catch them with pikes and when you do it won't do any good unless you have removed the pikes secondary weapon or are playing a mod which has done this.)

[Rhyfelwyr]

In the field fire arrows do not work as they should do against elephants, as the 6 experience elephants and 10 star generals of the Timurids mean they are practically impossible to rout or run amok.

The way to beat Timurid elephants is to focus on the rest of their army and take it out, then the elephants will loose morale as the are the only troops left. Gunmen take down elephants quickly sinec they break their ridiculous armour completely. And Janissary Heavy Infantry seem to do very well against elephants, once they get them bogged down they have them dropping like flies. And of course Naptha pots down elephants if you can keep your Naffatun alive.

[PBI]

Pikes might be good against elephants, if the Timurids were interested in using elephants to charge your main line. In my experience the elephants always stand off and bombard my lines with their guns while the rest of their army attacks. The combined morale penalty from being shot at with gunpowder and being near elephants is what makes them so dangerous on the field, not their indestructibility in melee; that just stops you being able to easily neatralise them like you would with artillery.

If you want to kill elephants, use javelin cavalry. Javelin cavalry are the elephant antidote, nothing else kills them so quickly, easily and cheaply. In BC I once saw an entire unit of eles wiped out in a single volley from three units of cav (although obviously in vanilla this would take a bit longer).

For a laugh, spawn a unit of elephant rocket launchers in one of your armies on the campaign map using the cheat code "vindaloo".

[Jason X]

jav cav is the way to go against the uber vanilla elephants

[Eikon the Magistrate]

Pikes work ok against elephants...meaning that eventually they will kill em..not too practical tho, and youll most likely need more than 1 unit per unit of phants or your guys will run 1st. Much better to try to make em run amok with fire arrows/artillery/gunpowder. Esp if they are outside city walls they can end up causing just as much dmg as ur towers.

[Jason X]

i'd take cheapo javelin infantry over pikes against phants!