The problem with elephants..

[Myrddraal]

I agree, but CA obviously like their elephants...

Heres a related question. I don't have the game yet (UK release date = this friday), and so I would like to know how common units of elephants are.

PS statistical point: saying '40000 men have 6000 elephants' implies that there is one unit of elephants for one unit of any other infantry.

[lars573]

Having used elephants in my Seleucid camp I can say that a unit of 20 elephants gets ground up pretty quick. Mostly because of the elephants emergency stop feature. Which consists of a hammer and spike.

[Praylak]

Can't recall the name of that famous battle, where Hannibal attacked Rome (2nd Punic?) and kicked ass. History gurka's, help me out here. I think he had 27 elephants total. He marched them half way around the western Med to get them there. That must have been a feat.

Sidenote:
I now think differently of them. They are powerful, but they have some serious disadvantages and I think this balances it out.

- They have crap morale. Manage to kill one, and the whole unit usually goes to hell.
- Rout is one thing, but running amok is easier to obtain and unrecoverable from what I've seen.
- They will charge into a phalanx. LoL!!
- They are very expensive.
- As a cavalry unit, they are slow. Hell, skirmishers can easily out endure and outrun them.

[Underhand]

Can't recall the name of that famous battle, where Hannibal attacked Rome (2nd Punic?) and kicked ass. History gurka's, help me out here. I think he had 27 elephants total. He marched them half way around the western Med to get them there. That must have been a feat.

Trebbia. After that all his elephants died except 'the Syrian' which thereafter carried Hannibal himself.