Facing Elephants in campaign

i dont have 1.1 installed,
(meaning i am facing the uber-ele's)

i use flaming arrows against elephants (ALL types of Ele's)
(i always take more archers than normal when facing elephants)
(flaming arrows generate an extra morale penalty and supposedly extra damage)
Ele's will often rout at or just before contact

I found it takes more than twice as many volleys without flame to have the same effect and usually the ele's only routed once they got amongst infantry (meaning they got a morale penalty for enemies nearby)

i make sure archers are 3 ranks or less
(there is an accuracy penalty if archers are more than 3 ranks)
(in MTW there was also an accuracy bonus for 2 ranks - not sure if that has carried over into RTW - but the "more than 3" rank penalty definately exists in RTW)

i try to assign 2 or more archers to each enemy ele
(this means my infantry have more than their fair share of work to do)
(so have good infantry in your forces (or LOTS of captains with reserves))

i will try to distract the ele's with a tough (high morale) infantry unit or with light anti-cav infantry and let the archers just keep peppering away at them.
(Use your infantry's Charge Bonus - charge, then try to run "through" and charge again, often the ele unit will do the "run through" for you, giving you another Charge Bonus attack - it is wise to hit halt, or move the unit to reset the Charge Bonus, continuing an attack on a unit they are already enaged with will not trigger a Charge Bonus)

Light infantry (Not velites/skirmishers) do the most damage to an ele unit in hand-to-hand (Triarii, Auxilla and Barbarian Warbands are effective)

ALL types of Archers using flame do more ranged damage then Skirmishers.

HOWEVER Armoured Elephants are tougher! (naturally)
If you are facing Armoured Elephants and all you have are Roman Archers and Triarii - well you are in trouble...
Luckily post Marius Auxilla Archers and Auxilla Spearmen can deal with Armoured Elephants.


Most artillery is so innacurate that it is not worth the hassle against elephants, unless you have 2 or more onager units and you are assaulting a town with ele's defending
(they get bunched up in the streets and one lucky shot can make all the difference)


Elephants are not unbeatable, you just need the correct tactics.
remember i am using 1.0, not 1.1.


Beating them on the field we can do,
BUT making them stay dead - thats a coding issue...

Cheers,
B.