Hey this is my first post on this board, so just saying hi. But I wanted to suggest something that many people seem to overlook when talking about elephants and cavalry. They don't need to have their stats turned down (maybe a little on the elephants) as much as they need to have their upkeep costs driven through the roof. The cavalry (including elephants, well, most of the time) in Rome Total War is quite accurate I think in terms of its vast superiority over infantry in most cases (huge charge bonus etc.) If you just make maintaing more than one unit of elephants far too expensive to be worth it you would solve your problem. One unit of elephants is not difficult to defeat at all, and the resulting chaos is an advantage to you.