Building elephants

[Hold Steady]

Hi, I read something here about a guy playing as Roman AND having armoured Elephants. I thought the Romans couldn't build them. How can one build elephant while not being Carthegians or something? What are the necessities?

[Kraxis]

He must have modded the game.

[Al Khalifah]

What are the necessities?

Being a faction that can recruit elephants (the Carthaginians, the Selucids etc)
The recruiting province containing the elephants resource - visible on the strategy map as, you guessed it, an elephant standing in the middle of the desert.

The Romans cannot build Elephants by default without modification. There is no Roman skin for any elephant units in the vanilla game.

[Hold Steady]

thx Kalifah!

[katank]

You can get merc war elephants as the Romans either by hiring them in North Africa or Middle East or be rewarded them by the Senate.

No armoured eles though.

[Al Khalifah]

You can get merc war elephants as the Romans either by hiring them in North Africa or Middle East or be rewarded them by the Senate.

No armoured eles though.

I did not know that. I stand (partially) corrected. Are they rare? I must admit that I don't use mercanaries very often in my armies, but in my campaigns as Selucids and Brutii I never recruited or encountered any mercanery war elephants. They could've made matters much simpler.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I usually win the campaign before I find merc war elephants. But once, I kept playing even after 50 provinces and Rome, and I found ONE unit of merc war elephants. Still haven't gotten them to any battlefield yet, as my southeastern border was beyond the Nile delta and the eles appeared in the province Numidia.

[Viking]

I did not know that. I stand (partially) corrected. Are they rare? I must admit that I don't use mercanaries very often in my armies, but in my campaigns as Selucids and Brutii I never recruited or encountered any mercanery war elephants. They could've made matters much simpler.

When you play as The Seleucid Empire the elephant mercs will be avaible almost oustide your capital, from the very beginning of the game.

You just have to look at the right places.

[Craterus]

Thanks for the tip, I rarely find the mercs..
But hey there's always Yubtseb!!

[The Stranger]

yutseb are cheat eles

[Craterus]

I know, they're fun..

[The Stranger]

yeah but pretty weak but the archers are the real killers

[Craterus]

Charge them into warband, let them run round in circles for half the battle and they'll produce results...

The archers are more useful that the elephants though, I agree.

[iostream]

I found it really disappointing that Yubtsebs, while able to throw men around like rag dolls, are totally unable to kill anything. You must rely on the archers to do the job. Is that some kind of commentary on bestbuy, or am I reading too much into it?

[The Stranger]

no it's correct yubtseb eles are the turnaround of bestbuy

[Craterus]

... from the nether regions of G'nitekram (marketing) ..

[Viking]

When you play as The Seleucid Empire the elephant mercs will be avaible almost oustide your capital, from the very beginning of the game.

I have to correct my self here.

No elephant mercs is avaible from the very beginning of the game.

I have an idea that the elephants will avaible after a certain date, and that date might get postponed if you hire any of the other mercs in the area, since the row of mercs will grow slowly as the game progresses. Interrupt the process and you`ll have to wait for your elephants.

Any one else with the same idea?

[MajorFreak]

used to have that opinion then i started staring at the mercenary text file and noticed a little thing called, "replenish time" or something similar.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yes, I believe there is a replenish time for each merc type. If you hire cretans but nothing else it won't affect other mercs, only make the area clear of cretans for a while etc.

To MajorFreak: what is the replenish time for merc elephants?

[Craterus]

20 or so years I think

[The Stranger]

hahahaha i did that once i could come up with 4 sarmatian knights every turn. you can also set another thing that makes the unit appear at the start of the game

[katank]

The elephant's rate is 0.005 - 0.015. This means that it's random and can be anywhere from 67 turns or so to 200 to generate one elephant.

They are extremely rare. The easier way is to play a Roman faction and satisfy diligently the missions that give a major exotic unit as a reward.

I got two of those from the Senate in my Brutii game which I later used to kill the Senate. Ahhh the irony.

[Dooz]

I was doing a mission of taking my young General around the world to recruit every possible mercenary. I recruited 2 units of elephants. Then I decided to switch off generals so I loaded them onto one measely ship. It got sunkaged (this was before I knew their so rare). I had all of the other mercenaries I needed with the other general now and just needed the elephants to fill the last slot. I looked and I looked and I looked, in the same place I had found them before, but no luck. I looked in every province they can generate. Nothing. For many long years. I got really mad. I didn't know why. The other 2 came so easily. I eventually gave up. It sucked. I don't have the part of my brain that allows me to filter what I say.