Elephant changes?

**Silencer** · 10-14-2004, 20:48

In the New patch, the elephants are changed..

what was changed, anybody has some info on this?

thnx

S.

**Silencer** · 10-15-2004, 17:52

bmp for some info

**eeyoredragon** · 10-15-2004, 18:45

As far as I know they have been changed to be less owerpowering. The exact stats, however, is beyond my knowledge.

**Lemur** · 10-15-2004, 19:45

I believe all that was changed was their HP. So they won't take a million hits to bring down, just 500,000.

**Shadow_Wolf33** · 10-15-2004, 19:47

anyone know how to change the elephants back? maybe I like them to be massively overpowered...they make great tanks

**Colovion** · 10-15-2004, 21:28

They still are awesome - but are more realistic IMO.

I did a load of tests vs Roman troops, myself being the Elephant unit each time:

1 - 1 Unit of War Elephants vs 2 Units of Princeps = 88 Princeps dead after the first charge

2 - 1 Unit of War Elephants vs 2 Units of Triarii = 126 Triarii dead after charge + milling and killing

3 - 1 Unit of War Elephants vs 2 Units of Urban Cohorts = 135 Urban Cohorts Dead after charge and more milling and killing

4 - 1 Unit of War Elephants vs 2 Units Auxilia = 78 Dead Auxilia after two charges.

5 - 1 Unit of War Elephants vs 2 Units Velites = 83 Velites Dead after chasing them around the map and getting almost all of my kills with arrow-fire.

I never lost any of the elephants. They never were less than Eager/Tired. They only got tired vs the Velites. So basically Elephants are amazing against unsupported troops - but if you charge them into a phalanx don't plan on keeping them for long.

**Slaists** · 10-15-2004, 22:33

hmm, i have not downloaded the patch yet, but there is some discussion on the .com, that, after the patch, elephants have become a useless bunch of oversized mice... the tests above would not suggest that... :)

**Colovion** · 10-15-2004, 22:53

I find that especially when patches are first released people jump to conclusions based on single episodes of the elephants not living up to the "battlefield gods" mentality that was grained into everyone's minds since the demo. Even after posting these results in another forum there were still people saying that they were underpowered. Most hear one thing and don't try it for themselves, or they have one bad time with the elephants and it tarnishes their whole opinion of the elephants. I find that now it really depends more on how they are used on how effective they are. Use them like big Horses.

**hoof** · 10-15-2004, 23:12

The best way to take down elephants is to spook them. Once they're routing, send a cavalry or other fast unit after them, and they'll drop like flies or any other routing unit. Killing them when they aren't routing usually takes a Phalanx-type unit from my experience. The only two elephants I've lost on my watch were due to pathfinding problems going through a gate on a city and a Phalanx nearby.

Another oddity is that Elephants seem useless vs routing units. I had a unit of Velites being attacked by some Elephants, so I put them on "withdraw". Despite them being continuously knocked down, they always got back up. After a while they got some distance, so I told them to stop and hurl some javelins (who knows, maybe one of the beasts might fall). As soon as they stopped running, the elephants made their "charge" horn sound, and my guys started dying again. I put them back on "withdraw" and they stopped dying. During all this, my unit was interspersed with the Elephants.

That same unit of elephants was surrounded by my units and spooked. Suddenly the indestructable tanks were dropping like flies as my General's unit chases after them. Strange behavior IMO.