Elephantitis and Hugeness!!!

[Zorachus]

Call me Grumble-stiltskin, but I am playing on the Huge Setting for Backtria, and just discovered you get 12 armored elephants in a stack on the battle map. I was happy when the unit size said 36 - it seemed ok, but those are the doods riding on top I suppose. Isn't 12 elephants what you get at normal size? My sooper elephants aren't in the same category up with my 200+ man formations.

How the heck do the indian generals rate 70+ elephants for the general, and large 20+ sized elephant units?

Grumble

Oh... Did I mention I'm horribly addicted to EB far more than RTW (which was bad by itself).

[Ibrahim]

Call me Grumble-stiltskin, but I am playing on the Huge Setting for Backtria, and just discovered you get 12 armored elephants in a stack on the battle map. I was happy when the unit size said 36 - it seemed ok, but those are the doods riding on top I suppose. Isn't 12 elephants what you get at normal size? My sooper elephants aren't in the same category up with my 200+ man formations.

How the heck do the indian generals rate 70+ elephants for the general, and large 20+ sized elephant units?

Grumble

Oh... Did I mention I'm horribly addicted to EB far more than RTW (which was bad by itself).

no, the number on the unit card is the number of men on the elephants, not the elephants. hence you do not get a large number of elephants.

[A Very Super Market]

Generally speaking, nothing other than suicide attacks on Stone walls will kill your armoured Elephants.

[machinor]

Generally speaking, nothing other than suicide attacks on Stone walls will kill your armoured Elephants.

And even that only if you're terribly unlucky. Basically, "Elephantes Indikoi Kataphraktoi" is Greek for "Moving Land Fortress".

[antisocialmunky]

Its too bad those elephants don't have those spiked clubs that the Indians gave elephants later on.

[HunGeneral]

And even that only if you're terribly unlucky. Basically, "Elephantes Indikoi Kataphraktoi" is Greek for "Moving Land Fortress".

Hmmm. Ever tried Arachosian skirmisher cavalry to bring them down? I know for sure that 2 units of skirmisher horsemen together can easely kill indian elephants .. although thoose were not armored, but Javelins do pierce armor don't they?

[A Very Super Market]

I don't think they pierce them enough to hurt those bastids. You would need quite a lot of them, though I suppose fire arrows work the best. Running amok is the closest you'll probably get to routing them

[desert]

Actually, Indian archers will obliterate armored elephants. Those high-lethality swords they wield can apparently cut through armor like butter. I charged 100 of them at 10 armored elephants, and ALL the elephants died, after routing from 50% casualties. Only half of the archers died in the end.

[machinor]

Yeah regular Elephantes Indikoi are tough but beatable, but try killing some of those heavily armoured beasts. I once encountered a Seleukid army (which by itself was quite formidable already) that had a unit of those monsters with 2 golden chevrons(!!!). I had no chance. I never was so fatalistic in any battle.

[antisocialmunky]

I played with one of those Armored Elephants today and I couldn't help but notice that the voice actor that had to read out the whole name seemed to be hurting himself doing it.

[seienchin]

If the elephant size does not change with higher unit settings, that pretty much sucks.
Especially if you have to fight indian generals with 40 to 80 Elephants in one unit

[antisocialmunky]

Wait what? That's awesome.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Fought a bridge battle today against three units of Kataphrakoi Elephants of which one had exp 8. Lost 1500 men (no rabble but elite troops).

[A Very Super Market]

Well, the more men per unit, the more easily they die. I think. I once played a game on small unit size, a charge won't kill anyone, making it rather useless. It was with rather crappy Equites, but still, no one died on the enemy side.

[Rilder]

And even that only if you're terribly unlucky. Basically, "Elephantes Indikoi Kataphraktoi" is Greek for "Moving Land Fortress".

So your saying we need siege towers?

[Gask]

In my experience a few units of simple eastern skirmishers will take down armored elephants, it takes a number of volleys but they get the job done. Cataphract general's units can also go toe to toe with them for a little while and can even bring down a few with charges.

Phalanx's on the other hand stack up rather poorly, it's embarrassing in fact. Slingers and arrows might as well be a soft breeze also.

Has anyone tried using arrow projectors on them? That might be fun.

[heldelance]

I did try using those three spans, they're kinda useless unless the enemy doesn't have much to back the tanks with. The units I've found to do good damage to them are the skirmishers and slingers. Archers didn't do much unless they were using fire arrows. One major thing you need to remember when fighting elephants, no matter what kind, isolate them. Unlike normal cavalry which seems to suck in a drawn out melee, elephants are immensely good in a melee. You never want to be trying to take down an elephant when infantry suddenly comes charging at you.

[seienchin]

Stone projectors kill elephant, if they hid them...
But in my test game they actually did and all my arrow projectors seemed to do not...

[antisocialmunky]

Arrow Projectors don't group tightly enough to actually hit a spread out unit of elephants like that.

[soup_alex]

Hmmm. Ever tried Arachosian skirmisher cavalry to bring them down? I know for sure that 2 units of skirmisher horsemen together can easely kill indian elephants .. although thoose were not armored, but Javelins do pierce armor don't they?

Thank you, HunGeneral, for essentially leading me to declare war on India

Skirmisher cavalry! So simple, so beautiful! Why didn't I think of it myself?
(Seriously, though: thanks. I honestly don't know what I was thinking, and have been putting off an invasion of Sindh for so long now, thinking it would be far too expensive and bloody)

[theoldbelgian]

well I once had one unit of those living walls and the enemy (I was campaigning in india) had 3 units of regular elephants

my unit beat them al to pulp while I lost only one elephant
and there where those archers attacking the elephants too

[V.T. Marvin]

In my experiance the best way how to fight elephants is to use any javelin-throwing infantry (Baktrian Light Inf seem to manage it best thanks to their AP axes as secondary) and let them fight the eles in LOOSE formation - this way your inf do not take that much damage from being trampled by the elephants...

[HunGeneral]

Thank you, HunGeneral, for essentially leading me to declare war on India

Skirmisher cavalry! So simple, so beautiful! Why didn't I think of it myself?
(Seriously, though: thanks. I honestly don't know what I was thinking, and have been putting off an invasion of Sindh for so long now, thinking it would be far too expensive and bloody)

Happy to help

Actually I only realised it a while ago myself - I wanted to make a bridgehead with the Saka in India before going to war with the As (Bactria and Pahlava were alrady dead by my hand) and I choose the northernmost city (can't remember the name - Something like Takashila) since it had been besieged often by Bactria ad there Garrison was going short.. But they had a full units of Elephantes Indikoi pluss the leading FM aslo had Ele's as bodyguards..

- both of the later were finished by two units of Arachosian Skirmisher horsemen - best way is to place them in loose formation (archers on the back of the Ele's) so that the Elephants are between them and don't know after which to go-couldn't catch them anyway.
This was the cheapest way to get rid of some "big bad beasts".

Good luck to your camapign - it might get cheap but will surely be bloody (Elephants have lots of blood to loose - evil)

[machinor]

I never had any problems with Eleutheroi Elephantes Indikoi. I lured them with cheap skirmishers to the city gate and then had zillions of fire arrows rain on them. They panicked and stomped their own troops into the ground. While they were panicking, I killed them off one by one easily. Elephants are no great danger inside a besieged city if you're not to reckless. The inside of a city is a very confined battlefield, the elephants haven't got any room to maneuver and can only be dangerous in a concentrated charge. By simply not giving them any tightly packed infantry as target you give them no real possibility to fight effectively. Just keep them busy with light infantry in loose formation and pepper them with missiles from you ranged troops who are kept safe outside the walls.