The problem with elephants..

[Beelzebub]

There's too many of them in an elephant unit. For normal sizes, 6 elephants compared to 40 in regular units is ridiculously out of propoprtion. Imagine if the ancients had that ratio? 40000 men have 6000 elephants? Seems the only way to rout them unless you bring a long super anti-elephant troops (pigs) is to surround them with swarms of men, and you'll lose a ton in the process. Even when you rout them, they'll do some damage as you cut them down while fleeing, 6 routing elephants destroyed half of 2 of my cavalry units because whenever one fell down he'd take out 3-5 nearby horsemen.

Elephants should have 1-3 pachiderms in a unit.

[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.

[Dimeola]

Do like Pontus did to me....get a couple catapults and fire fireballs at them.....with a little luck you`ll score a hit which will kill a couple and rout them before you get close.
D

[Psyco]

There's too many of them in an elephant unit. For normal sizes, 6 elephants compared to 40 in regular units is ridiculously out of propoprtion. Imagine if the ancients had that ratio? 40000 men have 6000 elephants? Seems the only way to rout them unless you bring a long super anti-elephant troops (pigs) is to surround them with swarms of men, and you'll lose a ton in the process. Even when you rout them, they'll do some damage as you cut them down while fleeing, 6 routing elephants destroyed half of 2 of my cavalry units because whenever one fell down he'd take out 3-5 nearby horsemen.

Elephants should have 1-3 pachiderms in a unit.

You used cavalry!?!?!? Elephants get a bonus vs cavalry. Just use a cheap unit of Velite (about 200ish Denarii). They are able to rout the elephants quite easily. Even if they fail, so what? The elephants cost about 2000 Denarii, so even if it takes 3 units, you still come out ahead.

[Colovion]

You used cavalry!?!?!? Elephants get a bonus vs cavalry. Just use a cheap unit of Velite (about 200ish Denarii). They are able to rout the elephants quite easily. Even if they fail, so what? The elephants cost about 2000 Denarii, so even if it takes 3 units, you still come out ahead.

true story

my brother was playing his Scipii campaign last night and was seiging a settlement and an army came up behind him with a unit of elephants. he needed to take the city fast as well as neutralize the elephants. I told him to use his Velites against the elephants and it worked much better than either of us anticipated. The velites tossed their javs and got the eles attention - they proceeded to chase the much faster velites all over the map - away from the city. The elephants ended up not doing anything but at the end were at the edge of the map still trying to take on teh Velites and were Shaken, Exhausted - so one Fresh unit coming in would probably have totally ruled those elephants.

[Thoros of Myr]

3-4 velites is a small price to pay to get rid of the phants. Horse archers would be great aswell.

[Morindin]

There is only 12 Elephants (but 30ish men) in an elephant group, on the default size setting (large I think).

Hanibal started with lots of Elephants but most of the died in the Alps.

And Triarii stand up to them very well, I think they're quite well balanced for their price.

[Red Harvest]

I agree completely about the scale problem with elephants. About 3 per unit would be manageable with the game engine. The scaling needs to be a bit different for units like elephants, than for infantry, but not like it is at present.

I had a revolt in Carthage as Scipii. There was a huge stack attacking me with four elephant units and several nice cav. I tried every trick I could. Javelins and velites had no effect. I couldn't kill any elephants and my entire army routed in seconds. I had to attack this army in three more battles and kill off everyone else in the army before I could engage the elephants properly and kill them. This was the point at which I concluded that cav heavy armies with a bit of trash infantry and slingers/archers were what RTW likes.

[Morindin]

I agree completely about the scale problem with elephants. About 3 per unit would be manageable with the game engine. The scaling needs to be a bit different for units like elephants, than for infantry, but not like it is at present.

I had a revolt in Carthage as Scipii. There was a huge stack attacking me with four elephant units and several nice cav. I tried every trick I could. Javelins and velites had no effect. I couldn't kill any elephants and my entire army routed in seconds. I had to attack this army in three more battles and kill off everyone else in the army before I could engage the elephants properly and kill them. This was the point at which I concluded that cav heavy armies with a bit of trash infantry and slingers/archers were what RTW likes.

I've had one unit of Triarii rout two units of Elephants and have about 50 men remaining afterwards.

I've had one unit of Triarii kill and rout about 4 units of Macedonian lancers alone, while being flanked and hit from every direction.

Can you build Triarii? :)

[Colovion]

I agree completely about the scale problem with elephants. About 3 per unit would be manageable with the game engine. The scaling needs to be a bit different for units like elephants, than for infantry, but not like it is at present.

I had a revolt in Carthage as Scipii. There was a huge stack attacking me with four elephant units and several nice cav. I tried every trick I could. Javelins and velites had no effect. I couldn't kill any elephants and my entire army routed in seconds. I had to attack this army in three more battles and kill off everyone else in the army before I could engage the elephants properly and kill them. This was the point at which I concluded that cav heavy armies with a bit of trash infantry and slingers/archers were what RTW likes.

that's disheartening

I played dozens of battles in teh demo trying to figure out some kind of counter to elephants with no avail. I was hoping this would be changed in the full version. I haven't come across elephants yet myself, but using velites seem to work up to a point - but I guess when you are against more than one unit of them it doesn't really go like butter.

I think 3 woudl be good - 4 or 5 might be better, and then the cost of them would be less as well. They're supposed to be huge shock troops which are usually just a one-shot thing where if they work, they're gods - if not, they're breakfast.

[Morindin]

My god the hysteria in all the posts across the forum.

Cavalry is overpowered, no Elephants are overpowered, no Hoplites are overpowered.

Sit down, play the game, and learn how to counter these units. In 2 months time if people are still complaining X is overpowered then we have a problem.

Spears beat Elephants (remember the little spears beat cavalry forumla, who would have thought?). I have replays to prove it, Triarii are not that hard to get - I had them in 250BC.

Please, play the game and get some experiance before spouting hysteria after hysteria about a unit you didn't counter correctly. The original post in this topic just screams "Rock beats scissors! Make rock weaker because all I used was scissors, My scissors should beat everything!!!"

Oh also to the original poster on your Elephants routing comment.

More hysteria, Elephants ONLY KILL WHEN THEY THROW UNITS UP IN THE AIR. ALL TRAMPLED UNITS GET BACK UP.
One example I remember is I've had a unit of enemy elephants rout through my line like this

Elephant -> xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It trampled every one of them (looked pretty funny too) and they all got back up again.

[Red Harvest]

I've had one unit of Triarii rout two units of Elephants and have about 50 men remaining afterwards.

I've had one unit of Triarii kill and rout about 4 units of Macedonian lancers alone, while being flanked and hit from every direction.

Can you build Triarii? :)

I had some triarii in one or two of the battles and I put them up to face the elephants with their flank anchored by some rock. They held for awhile while the velites and hastati and principes routed. They probably did the best overall of the units I tried. They were typical RTW battles: swirling mass with the main battle line engagement over in seconds. I would use cav to pick off any isolated units, and rally other infantry, etc. to attack any overextended enemy before the units came and crushed me again. I would really like to know why pila had no effect on the pachiderms... In the final battle I used cav and skirmishers to separate the elephant units and kill them (with heavy losses to myself.) It was pretty depressing to have three armies of good troops annihilated by four units of elephants (with supporting cast.)

I experimented some with loose formation. But that doesn't work when you have cav and infantry hitting you as well.

I did lack archers.

[Morindin]

If your Triarii can surround the Elephants they go down fairly quickly and panic after 3 or 4 of them are dead.

[Red Harvest]

My god the hysteria in all the posts across the forum.

Cavalry is overpowered, no Elephants are overpowered, no Hoplites are overpowered.

Sit down, play the game, and learn how to counter these units. In 2 months time if people are still complaining X is overpowered then we have a problem.

Spears beat Elephants (remember the little spears beat cavalry forumla, who would have thought?). I have replays to prove it, Triarii are not that hard to get - I had them in 250BC.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It trampled every one of them (looked pretty funny too) and they all got back up again.

Oh, stow it. It is not hysteria. I've probably already played more battles than you. Triarii didn't cut it. Repeat, they didn't work. Neither did pila. And the Romans used various units to deal with the elephants, not just triarii. Of course it gets back to the kill speed and overall battle speed being supercharged and the two second routs. Of course, a four elephant unit army with 6 per unit is like having a thousand elephants on the field...without the upkeep or cost.

Back when we had only the demo I modded to reduce the unit size. Somewhere around 3 beasts per unit they became manageable. Still dangerous, but manageable.

[Red Harvest]

If your Triarii can surround the Elephants they go down fairly quickly and panic after 3 or 4 of them are dead.

Yeah, like the rest of the army is going to stand around and wait while I take on a single elephant unit with a couple of triarii. Get real.

[Morindin]

I dont care what the Romans used in the past to deal with Elephants.

In the COMPUTER GAME Triarii work fine, I have replays (from multiplayer) and WILL post them tonight when I get home.
Considering the cost of Elephants vs the cost of Triarii even if it takes two units to down one unit of Elephant that's still a win win for the Romans.

Im not sure why you are not having any success. I can guess though.
Just because you havnt properly learnt how to deal with Elephants doesnt mean you should scream out on the messageboards how overpowered they are.

When I first encountered them unsuccessfully I posted a topic stating my successes and my unsuccesses against them and asked everyone elses opinion, not starting topics ranting on about history and how things should work in my own little world.

Yeah, like the rest of the army is going to stand around and wait while I take on a single elephant unit with a couple of triarii. Get real.

This is a ridiculous statement and a waste of my bandwidth really. I could say the same about the rest of my army, or about spears vs horses in MTW, or anything really. Why did you even post this?

Most battles evolve like this. Someone sends in something that counters something, then the other person sends in the other counter, etc etc etc.

[Red Harvest]

No, your statements are ridiculous.

First, this is supposed to be historically based. Historical tactics should work and unit size should have some sense of scale. Kill rates should make some sense. Rout speed should make some sense. When they don't, we comment. Pila should have some effect on these beasts. As it is, they don't.

Second, it is preposterous to believe that the overall effect in battle is unimportant and only single unit matchups matter. I'm quite good at using units in the field. However, with RTW I don't get to use them effectively in groups of more than a handful. Why? Because gameplay is MUCH too fast and there are problems with the basic engine. I'm very good at using counters and looking for good matchups and flanking. However, units that should hold for quite some time break in seconds. That is why I've gone to light cav based armies. And I'm tearing up the AI with them on "very hard." I use cav rushes or pick at the periphery. What gives me trouble? The Numidians javs because they are very fast.

Third, I could care less about your multiplayer exploits because I'm talking about SP. It clearly shows the problem with your argument--apples to oranges. Can the other player issue commands as rapidly as the AI? Can the other player do the schooling fish thing with his units and cav? No, those are AI features. Post meaningless replays if you like, I won't bother with them.

[Thoros of Myr]

Armored phants are pretty tough, took me 5 units of Triarii to down 1 unit of them
(basic valour/weapons, very hard diff, large units size)

[The_Emperor]

Take it easy guys.

Now I had a poke around the TWC forums and I found a thread there about Anti-Elephant tactics.

According to what i have read (can't test it except probably if I mod the demo)

if you are without Missiles (Archers are the units of choice with flaming arrows, followed by velites and skirmishers) Spearmen can deal with elephant units if they bog them down. One tactic that was sugguested was making sure your men are in guard mode and loose formation before the charge, this aparantly prevents too many of them dying in the initial charge phase...

Cavalry are even sugguested in a flanking attack... (given their spears) but they must not slug it out.

Other tactics mentioned included the use of Horse archers and chariots, or even siege weapons.

When Friday comes around I'll be able to join in the testing.

[Morindin]

No, your statements are ridiculous.

First, this is supposed to be historically based. Historical tactics should work and unit size should have some sense of scale. Kill rates should make some sense. Rout speed should make some sense. When they don't, we comment. Pila should have some effect on these beasts. As it is, they don't.

Second, it is preposterous to believe that the overall effect in battle is unimportant and only single unit matchups matter. I'm quite good at using units in the field. However, with RTW I don't get to use them effectively in groups of more than a handful. Why? Because gameplay is MUCH too fast and there are problems with the basic engine. I'm very good at using counters and looking for good matchups and flanking. However, units that should hold for quite some time break in seconds. That is why I've gone to light cav based armies. And I'm tearing up the AI with them on "very hard." I use cav rushes or pick at the periphery. What gives me trouble? The Numidians javs because they are very fast.

Third, I could care less about your multiplayer exploits because I'm talking about SP. It clearly shows the problem with your argument--apples to oranges. Can the other player issue commands as rapidly as the AI? Can the other player do the schooling fish thing with his units and cav? No, those are AI features. Post meaningless replays if you like, I won't bother with them.

First, its supposed to be a game with historical references, not the other way around. That's your first problem.

Second, all my experiances with Triarii have been in battles against Humans and the AI. I havnt even touched the custom battle screen for any "experiments". Dont make assumptions. Also the fast pace of a battle can be completely nullified by having a good initial deployment, and as your units get stronger they rate of death gets slower.

Third I am not using multiplayer "exploits". The replays I post will be mainly from "histroical battles". Humans cant issue orders as fast as an AI but you also cant pause in multiplayer. And besides, a unit of elephants even not issued any orders will still attack everything in its path once let lose.

As for the replays, fine. Dont watch them but if you think you know it all about a game that has barely been out for a week, and refuse to listen or watch other peopls ideas you wont learn anything, and youll keep losing. No skin off my nose.

I think you need to sort your out what you expect from a computer game. When I fly planes in LOMAC, I hardly expect everything to be perfectly 100% accurate (which is impossible) and I remember it is a game, and have fun doing so.

Besides, why dont you put away RTW and go back to MTW? Or at least give the game a month before considering yourself an "Expert" on the game and pointing out all the "imbalances".

[Thoros of Myr]

Loose formation is critical with the triarii but I found it better to charge them just as they get to you rather then stand and recieve the charge in guard mode.

The other thing is make your front line is long and have atleast 1 unit in a second rank position to reinforce the center.

[Morindin]

First take a look at this screenshot. This is from a game I had a while back.


The elephants have ripped through my Legions like butter, a badly hurt unit of Triarii are engaging them. Another one is getting read to be sent in.



My second unit of Triarii kicks the Elephants butt, sending them routing off in all directions (practically harmless as they only kill men with their bucks). Notice how many Triarii are still intact, heaps!

Also take note there is only one dead elephant in the breach. Most of the elephants died when my Triarii surrounded them and engaged them outside of the breach.

Elephants are like modern day tanks, very tough on the front but they do have their weaknesses.

[Red Harvest]

LOL, Morindin. You just proved my point. THANKS!!! Look at what those elephants did despite the confined space and number of units they were facing. And I don't see other troops on the ground supporting the elephants (just dead men.) When I face them I don't get a nice little set piece like this. Talk about a stacked deck, and it was still ugly. How long would the triarii have survived in loose formation vs. infantry supporting the elephants? Not long.

[Morindin]

LOL, Morindin. You just proved my point. THANKS!!! Look at what those elephants did despite the confined space and number of units they were facing. And I don't see other troops on the ground supporting the elephants (just dead men.) When I face them I don't get a nice little set piece like this. Talk about a stacked deck, and it was still ugly. How long would the triarii have survived in loose formation vs. infantry supporting the elephants? Not long.

This is a circular argument you realise. If there was no breach he could get his troops in to support his elephants but I could also use mine to support my Triarii!

Fact of the matter, Elephants are tough to take down but not impossible. Your infantry should be fighting their infantry, I know its not as simple as that but there you go. I have played heaps of games against Elephants in a combined arms situation (such as the historical battle from the Demo) against the AI and human opponents and guess what, Triarii STILL kick their butts (especially the non armoured ones).

You cant just make blanket statements that "Elephants + soldiers kill triarii". Of COURSE they do. But do "Elephants + Soldiers kill Triarii + Cavalry" ? No.

In that matchup situation the later would win, but again this is a circular argument and we could go on all day. I have provided evidence of Elephants losing against thier matchup. What have you provided apart from arrogence?

A unit is only "overpowered" if it beats its matchup at a cost effective ratio, i.e. FMAA in MTW is a classic example. Not only do elephants lose against their matchup, but two units of Triarii cost about 1500 and one unit of Elephants is what, over 2000?

If you are losing in a combined arms situation and Elephants are the main contributor to that, I suggest you either use better tactics such as isolating his main force FROM his elephants using bait, or, revise your own armies to make the matchup more suitable.

What exactly is your problem with them anyway? Do they wipe out your infantry too quickly? If they have a lot of elephants you should have an advantage in numbers somewhere, and be ready for the fact your going to sustain a lot of casualties. Who cares though if the amount of men you lose on a cost based ratio is less than the cost of those Elephants.

Oh and I won that game BTW. I managed to rout his other groups of Elephants using fire from my siege. Elephants are definately a double edged sword. All it requires is adaptive thinking to meet the challange.

[LittleRaven]

*chuckle* Red, Morindin, there can be only one solution to this problem.

Ten rounds of bare knuckle boxing. I'll ref.

Failing that, you two have got to get together for some MP tests. A few trial runs could probably settle this debate quickly. First we'll give Red all cav, and Morindin all spears. Morindin should win easily. If he doesn't, there's a problem. If he does, then we can begin to look at this in more detail. (just because an all-spear army can beat an all-cav army does not mean the game is balanced...then we'd have to move on to cost issues...etc.)

[Morindin]

*chuckle* Red, Morindin, there can be only one solution to this problem.

Ten rounds of bare knuckle boxing. I'll ref.

Failing that, you two have got to get together for some MP tests. A few trial runs could probably settle this debate quickly. First we'll give Red all cav, and Morindin all spears. Morindin should win easily. If he doesn't, there's a problem. If he does, then we can begin to look at this in more detail. (just because an all-spear army can beat an all-cav army does not mean the game is balanced...then we'd have to move on to cost issues...etc.)

I have no problem with this, but firstly Red "doesnt do multiplayer" and the human "cant make decisions at once" etc etc etc excuses excuses excuses.

Im not saying the game is balanced. Im arguing that the game is barely week old and NONE of us are experianced enough to make blanket statements about the game based on a couple of battles.

We might find out tomorrow that town watch are overpowered against Elephants, who knows.

[Red Harvest]

I see circular logic alright. You post a stacked deck "proof" and call me arrogant. Their are some big time problems with the speed of this engine. It is making the cav much more powerful than they should be.

When I've bought elephants they were about 1250 per unit. I think their total upkeep was less than the two Triarii as well...

I don't think there is anything left for the two of us to discuss.