The problem with elephants..

[Red Harvest]

Elephants in action:

I did some aggressive stuff with base level elephants last night. To see how durable these guys really are...all on "very hard."

Battle 1: The Brutii attempt to relieve a siege. They came at me with onagers and an army that was half triarii, and half principes/hastati. The onager gets the opening shot...killing two elephants waiting for orders (more kiddie entertainment units I guess.) So I sent cav around and knocked the onagers out. As the Brutii closed I shot up some early units with balearics and waited for the main body. At that point I sent in my now depleted single unit of elephants and cav. The elephants trampled through several triarii units, and hastati and principes. They caused the generals cav unit to rout. The cav following behind mopped up the mess and caused the now disorganized masses (from the elephant charge) to melt. I did have one unit of cav on a flank badly handled by triarii--I was busy with the action in the middle, so the triarii charged the isolated stationary cav, still the cav fought quite awhile before routing and inflicted quite a few casualties.

Battle 2: A unit with 10 elephants is present to allow me to knock down the wooden gates of an Egyptian city. This is in the desert, so the rest of my army waits patiently while I set the elephants loose. On the other side of the gate are a unit of chariot archers, and a unit of nile spearmen in phalanx. Two units of axemen also wait nearby. The elephants take no casualties knocking down the gate, so I charge them into the pikemen were they take a loss or two, and then toward the chariots in the corner. Medium cav is rushed in behind the pachys and the pikes rout. The elephants and horses rout the chariots. Now for the axemen attacking my cav, I turn around elephants and charge. The first axe unit routs, but the elephants are tired from the heat and charging. I charge them anyway toward the second axe unit and the elephants finally routed--depleted from 10 to 7 for their efforts (2 of which were "healed" after battle to put them back at 9.)

[Longasc]

Do Phalanx Units really hurt Elephants?

They move slower than turtles, the Elephants can outWALK them.
Good, the Elephants charge into the Phalanx.


Now they should die according to a poster here, impaled on a spear wall.

But hey, even Cavalry can charge into a Phalanx frontally and break it (?)

Elephants can not? -> This would be good, I vote for expanding this feat to Phalanx vs Cavalry as well...

but honestly, until one more poster has not confirmed that Phalanx Units stop Elephants, I do not believe it.

[Red Harvest]

The phalanx do indeed hurt the elephants. Plain vanilla elephants can charge through a base level phalanx though, but not the larger better types of hoplite. They take casualties doing it (unusual for elephants.) And as I meant to say in my original reply to Oleander, those large phalanx with longer spears can completely halt the elephants and/or kill them immediately, just like he said.

As you say, though, the mobility issue means that it is going to be tough to use phalanx as an effective counter.

[Morindin]

The phalanx do indeed hurt the elephants. Plain vanilla elephants can charge through a base level phalanx though, but not the larger better types of hoplite. They take casualties doing it (unusual for elephants.) And as I meant to say in my original reply to Oleander, those large phalanx with longer spears can completely halt the elephants and/or kill them immediately, just like he said.

As you say, though, the mobility issue means that it is going to be tough to use phalanx as an effective counter.

Which makes perfect sense, after all the Romans after facing Carthagian elephants in sicily got compeltely stomped on, and then avoided fighting them on open ground after that.

Give any cavalry room to manouver, be it Elephants or normal Cavalry, and you have problems.

Another tactic they used was to create lanes in their formations that would hopefully lure the elephants to take the "easiest" route, which worked.
Perhaps Elephants need to be like war dogs, once you set them lose you dont really have any control over them.

[son of spam]

Which makes perfect sense, after all the Romans after facing Carthagian elephants in sicily got compeltely stomped on, and then avoided fighting them on open ground after that.

Give any cavalry room to manouver, be it Elephants or normal Cavalry, and you have problems.

Another tactic they used was to create lanes in their formations that would hopefully lure the elephants to take the "easiest" route, which worked.
Perhaps Elephants need to be like war dogs, once you set them lose you dont really have any control over them.

Good idea, as long as they aren't auto-replenishing also

[Red Harvest]

My elephants usually come back to life after battle...no joke. If I get a couple killed, they often are healed after battle. Man these things are a bargain.

Help me, I've been abusing elephants. I guess I need to join Pachyderms Anonymous.

[Praylak]

Help me, I've been abusing elephants. I guess I need to join Pachyderms Anonymous.

LOL. At one point I had to use the special command to drop my half unt of elephants. They went crazy right at the beginning of a battle, not sure why. So I had to suicide them cause they were heading straight back toward my group. Strangely enough they were all resurrected for the next battle.