why do the elephants never die

**Monk** · 06-08-2005, 17:40

Charge in a unit of troops that are useless to you to keep the eles busy. while they are pinned down (to a point) let fire the javelins and arrows. That should bring them down, eventually.

edit: just be careful not to let them get on your flank. if a unit of elephants manage to outflank you; it's pretty much over. Especially if they are the armored kind

**Mega Dux Bob** · 06-08-2005, 18:38

I found three things words best against the mighty war elephant;

Spear men in open order; the spears will take a beating but do the job in the end.
Lots of javelin armed infantry (at worst the elephant unit spends the battle trampling a unit of worthless javeliners)
Best yet; javelin armed cavalry; they can keep away from the Elephants rather nicely.

**The Stranger** · 06-08-2005, 20:09

yup but what if they're eles with archers. the best thing is indeed jav cav. flame arrows can do the job, but they're very inaccurate.

**Marquis of Roland** · 06-08-2005, 21:35

I have been using armored elephants in my S.E. campaign and I can say that the best way to kill them is with repeating ballistas and onagers. The A.I. once rebelled with an artillery-heavy army (gold sword and shield with double gold chevron to boot) and they managed to kill a large number of my armored elephants (also gold sword and shield). Unfortunately for A.I., I had four units of them...

Another time I was assaulting a city and a unit of elephants got stuck under the gate inside the city walls and they were shot up by the gate's ballistas; I lost 1 complete unit there.

If no artillery is available, skirmishers left on loose formation and take off skirmish mode and they should get in a couple volleys before they're gored, theoretically.

Javelin cav don't work against war and armored elephants. The elephant's archers have longer range and will shoot the cav to death. I never lost an elephant to javelin cav.

**amazon77** · 06-08-2005, 23:50

Flame Pigs work wonders on elephants. However, if you play a faction that can't built them, use javelin skirmishers / phalnx units.

**Marquis of Roland** · 06-09-2005, 01:27

Oh yeah, I forgot about the fried bacon, since I play a faction that can't build them. The Romans used it on me once; it was very effective in making my elephants run amok. Funny thing was, my elephants were the only units engaging their line, so they ran the Romans all over again hahahahaha

**The_678** · 06-09-2005, 02:12

I find that flames are the best way to deal with elephants. I practically never use skirmishers once I get archers, so I rarely have skirmishers around.

Anytime I fight an elephant nation, if possible I like to have a couple units of pigs with me. They don't neccesarily kill the eles but that doesn't matter, running amok is good enough. If I have no access to pigs, I find if you concentrate all your arrow fire (flaming) on the ele's they run amok.

As a little side note, elephants are great arrow magnets. The enemy archers always attack the ele's so they are amazing to have on the flanks and so you can keep your army safe from archer fire until the battle. Works really good when you still have crappy infantry.

**The Stranger** · 06-09-2005, 15:31

Originally Posted by Marquis of Roland

Oh yeah, I forgot about the fried bacon, since I play a faction that can't build them. The Romans used it on me once; it was very effective in making my elephants run amok. Funny thing was, my elephants were the only units engaging their line, so they ran the Romans all over again hahahahaha

i play without those damn pigs. they only use precious space in the descr_battle.txt