Cannot put up with elephants!

[praetorians cavalry]

Yes, as the title says,this is an annoying problem for me.I am playing as the Egypts(VH/VH) -one of the easiest faction in the game.I want to make some changes to the world of RTW.
I tried to make an alliance with the Carthage,offered them tons of money(as gifts),helped them fight the Scipii.I have some diplomats ready to bribe any roman armies threatening Carthage's land.My fleets defended their beaches and harbours.I even sent my armies to harass the Scipii,quickly captured their cities then burnt them to ashes.And,I have to repeat,I gave those Carthage gold very often.Finally,they could beat the Romans and gain domination in Numidian and Spain's lands (with my help,too.I bought cities then gave them to Carthage).
Please have a look at what I 've done,but now how they repay my generousity:betray me and mount a full-scale assault to my castles!The main problem is, I am unable to beat an army with five units of Armoured Elephants( huge mode).Most of the time,those beasts take no lost,and my troops seem to be born bird.They only fly and fly,no fight.The biggest battle,I could take down 1,500 of theirs,include three elephants.I lost nearly 4,000.So what is javelin bonus against elephants?My six units of javelin throwers rained fire at one unit of elephant,but couldnt kill a single one.I dont have onagers to test.Balistas seem useless,too.Also lack of phalanxes( can phalanx fight elephant?).I focused on chariots, axemen and bowmen.
So what should I do now?Please share what you think with me.Thx.

[Emren]

Get flaming pigs?

[Basileus]

phalanxes would be needed but as i understand it you will still have big problems, try attacking the elephants with flaming arrows and attack them with troops from all the sides perhaps you can rout them.

[Rosacrux redux]

Facing the Selucids and the Egyptians and their armored eles as Greek cities, I can tell you that javelin infantry is completely helpless against those beasties. Phalanxes don't help much either - they inflict some losses to the elephants, but you have to sacrifice three armoured hoplite units to wipe out a single Arm. elephant - and even in that case the eles might still be standing. I did not want to use flaming pigs (death to Battlefield bacon! ) so I had to find another way to counter the elephants

Two things you can do (that's what I did):

- Get onagers, put flaming projectiles on, target the elephants and pray that at least one projectile goes home (instant route, or actually rampage, in most cases). Found that out in a previous campaign (I was playing as Seleucids), when a Greek onager got both my armoured elephants with flaming projectiles before they even started to move, and they destroyed my top notch army while rampaging.

- Have all your archers target the elephants with flaming arrows. You will hardly inflict any casualties if against armoured elephants, but if you are a tad bit lucky, they'll rampage. Doesn't work all the time, though.

If none of these works... you better retreat, or else you are dead meat.

BTW, get your own elephants. It's huge fun to counter eles with your own eles

[The_Emperor]

As always with Elephants the key is to make them rampage... Flaming Bacon, and Flaming Projectiles are always your best hope at doing this.

Failing that sustained missile fire is certainly the way to go.

If however you do not have any missile or bacon, you are gonna have it bad. A Phalanx can work but you need to be sure the formation is not disrupted. Also war dogs can be handy for attacking elephants, given the unit's rapid replenishment...

Given your doing an Egyptian campaign I do not see how you are having problems with them. Egypt's bowmen unit has more men per unit than other factions... This means more arrows.

mass-target the Elephants with fire arrows from multiple bowmen and soon enough the stampede will begin... Then you can send some desert cav to hit them in the rear and wear them down (desert cav again has more men in the unit).

[Siris]

I personally use my phalanx, it works just fine in wipping them out.

My Uncle did a 1v1 with me online, I used a phalanx of my wonderful, you guessed it, Spartan Hoplites. The elephants charged into them, but were repeled back, taking sever losses, and they rampaged backwards through his own lines lol! I won the battle with a 95% win.