The problem with elephants..

[son of spam]

You know what would be cool? If arrows and other missiles could somehow snipe those damn archers and mahout.

It's like the elephant has a big force shield surrounding the towers and the mahout.

[Red Harvest]

For a few of my armies I use a single base elephant unit in battle (more would be very unfair.) I use them to crush the heaviest infantry in the center while most of my cav tears up the flanks, and a few units chase behind the elephants routing the rest in the center. This is pretty similar to what the AI was doing to me with roles reversed.

I'm not sure how many battles I've used these elephants in, but so far I have lost exactly ONE elephant--even routing the pachys doesn't seem to cost me elephants. I am a bit protective of them and only use them for specific functions, but they are way overpowered. This is on "very hard" battle setting. (Note: I did lose all but one elephant in a unit to autocalc, but that is not relevant. And the final elephant was almost worthless...it would rout immediately in the desert, before anything even moved.)

I'm considering reducing their hit points some, and cut the base unit size in half. That might make them more vulnerable to javelins, pila, and archers. Frankly, the upkeep on these beasts is way too small. Maintaining a unit with that many elephants (scaled to army size) should cost about 750-1,000 per turn.

Unit stats do not indicate any bonus for Triarii vs. elephants, although peltasts get such bonuses.