Elephants!

[Red Harvest]

There are a couple of problems. First, elephants are a bit over represented in numbers at Trebia. There are ALOT of elephants on the field. Hannibal had 28,000 inf; 10,000 cav and no more than 37 elephants. It is unclear how many were actually serviceable at this time and were used on the field. A severe storm after the battle, plus wounds, and the severe weather of the preceeding alpine crossing all took their toll, so that only one beast was available after that--the rest were dead.

Back to the numbers. In the demo hannibal has 800 men vs. ~38,000 actual. Ratio = 95:2. I don't think that is the ratio one would want to use to simulate the battle ("here's your elephant), but the number in the demo seems a bit high. Perhaps something like three per flank would be a bit more representative scale wise.

There seems to be some sort of problem of elephants not being properly weakened by pila. I've tested small elephant units versus hastati and principes and the pila don't seem to have any impact. Melee will take them out, but it is VERY messy. Pointy sticks and missiles should be a serious issue for elephants. Once an elephant unit penetrates a formation though...it should be pretty awful trying to deal with them, since they are now "in the backfield" and in the middle of your army.

[Colovion]

Elephants should be able to crush through most any line, but if they stand there for any number of time they should be scared off by men around them chopping at their hamstrings and poking their eyes out as soldiers are likely to do in a situation like that. I've seen too many instances of Elephants running into the middle of units, standing for a few seconds, and then flinging a few more units about and then maybe charging again after another pause.

You know how mounted units aren't the greatest melee units once the charge is done and you're bogged down? It should be at least twice as bad for elephants.

[Red Harvest]

Elephants should be able to crush through most any line, but if they stand there for any number of time they should be scared off by men around them chopping at their hamstrings and poking their eyes out as soldiers are likely to do in a situation like that. I've seen too many instances of Elephants running into the middle of units, standing for a few seconds, and then flinging a few more units about and then maybe charging again after another pause.

You know how mounted units aren't the greatest melee units once the charge is done and you're bogged down? It should be at least twice as bad for elephants.

I don't know. I would think your best chances come from keeping them out of the formation in the first place. Throwing/shooting pointy things at them is the start, then opposing them with spears (assuming you have one.) Once they get into your formation the formation is going to disintegrate (scatter). I doubt they would stop. And if they did it won't be hard for them to get moving again unless they stood still for a fair bit (since everyone will clear out around them initially.) You can't corral one as easily as you might a horse.

I've experimented with the AI with different elephant unit sizes modded. The AI elephants charge back and forth through the units causing absolute chaos. Of course the legions can't seem to throw their pila as the beasts charge (ahhh, the same old TW bug remains.) Of course the pila of the flanking units beside the victims are nearly completely ineffective as well...