Research: Elephants, Healing, and Multiple Hit Points

[Red Harvest]

People, elephants are EASY to kill!

Javelins take them down like nothing else. I always laugh when enemy brings elephants cause I know I can pwn them easily with a single velites unit!

You obviously didn't have much experience with them prior to 1.2. They are much better now, although the actual response to missile fire is still quite odd. If you play some of the historical battles the elephants can be a real eye opener. But the historical battles are all superhuman units anyway, not much fun.

Side note (not for Turin)
And what is that triarii mod post doing here?

[Creeper525]

do you think makeing elephants easier to kill is the best solution?

I think the real problem is they are to lethal, even basic one man elephants can run threw the enemy formations causeing hundreds of casualties even before the enemy routes

I think they should cause far fewer casualties, but still cause severe disruption, like when you give a run order repeatedly on the other side of the enemy line, so that the elephants run through, knock everything down, but they get back up again

I think elephants should still be as hard, or near as hard to kill, but they should fling enemies in the air less often

if more of what they trampled got back up again, then elephants would be more balanced, and still fun to use and watch

P.S I dont know what Im talking about

[Lord Winter]

I found that elephents are best killed with numdian calvery or A Armoured genreals unit with some hevay calvery and missle support. I have only lost one genreal this way and he was serverly weakened.

[GreatEmperor]

I think u can use flaming arrows best. It makes them go amok fast and so their troops are suffering high casualities.

[Saracen_Warrior]

I doubt anyone will read this but im writing it anyways. Just wanted to say, they had Hannibal vs rome on discovery channel and according to that, scipio simply had his men step out of the way of the elephants. Thats because carthaginian elephants weren't that controllable. It was a big enough task just to get them to charge forward. he had his men jsut move becuase if you did try to fight them they were unstoppable. This makes sense. I mean jsut think about it, I dont care how long my spear is, I see a friggin elephant coming at me, Im gonna piss myself even if im the guy in the back row of a phalanx. Even if the spears do kill the elephant it could still fall on me or something.

[Atilius]

Polybius says that that at Zama, Scipio formed up his infantry in three lines as usual, but not in the quincunx or "checkerboard" formation. Instead of the Principes covering the gaps between the the Hastati, they were positioned directly behind the Hastati, and therefore directly in front of the Triarii. This means the Roman infantry was drawn up with very broad lanes between columns of Hastati, Principes, and Triarii. The velites were instructed to withdraw down these lanes when pressed.

The idea was to channel the elephants down the lanes and off the battlefield. This tactic basically worked, though many elephants began to run wild into friendly troops as soon as the Carthaginian advance was sounded, and others ran off to the Carthaginian right.

It's interesting to contrast this with Regulus' disposition at Tunis in the 1st Punic war. He chose to form up "many maniples deep". This didn't seem to stop the elephants and had the added disadvantage of decreasing his frontage, making his flanks easier to get at. He suffered encirclement and annihilation.

It'd be interesting to see how these formations actually work in the game. In my experience the elephants don't "channel" very well.

[Trithemius]

It'd be interesting to see how these formations actually work in the game. In my experience the elephants don't "channel" very well.

They have reasonably success at "canalising" my ranks though. Damn elephants.

[Red Harvest]

I doubt anyone will read this but im writing it anyways. Just wanted to say, they had Hannibal vs rome on discovery channel and according to that, scipio simply had his men step out of the way of the elephants. Thats because carthaginian elephants weren't that controllable.

Keep in mind that these were probably rather "raw" trained elephants too. Hannibal had a scratch force at Zama.

Channeling was a good method, similar to what was done vs. scythed chariots.

[Atilius]

On the subject of Regulus and the battle of Tunis (and elephants), I neglected to mention the following: Regulus was captured after the battle. One of many legends concerning Regulus has it that he was later executed by being "trampled to death by an enraged elephant". Most likely a fiction but certainly fitting.

[Kraxis]

Keep in mind that these were probably rather "raw" trained elephants too. Hannibal had a scratch force at Zama.

Channeling was a good method, similar to what was done vs. scythed chariots.

It is interesting to think what might have happened if Hannibal had had experienced elephants... Maybe they would have been enough to change the balance in favour of Hannibal (the battle was already rather even).