Timurids: Elephants (Medieval Uber Unit)

[Whacker]

@ Honorables Husar, gizkard, BigTex

I've found that cannon are not that great vs. elephants. I took a whole stick of cannons vs a single unit of cannonphants, using explosive rounds. It took a good long long while, the elephants finally ran amok after about 10 min of barraging and losing 9 'phants. I was able to kill 3 more including the general before they routed off the map.

@ Honorable Basileus

Two units of Jannisary musketeers will in general mop up a single unit of elephants. They'll take some fearful losses, the damn annoying "We won't shoot until we're in perfect formation even if that means we're getting shot to pieces and won't even be able to reform!" bug will often crop up. I do firmly believe that if that bug is fixed, a single unit of Jannisary musketeers could take on a single elephant unit head to head and win. Usually using two units of musketeers vs a single elephant musketeer unit, I can kill 6-10 elephants before they make contact with my lines, and the remaining 'phants are all injured.

Cheers!

[Cheetah]

Hm, I was not clear enough but here is the equation:

morale penalty + 1 or 2 ele killed = ele routed

fire arrows= morale penatly
javelins= dead eles

Of course if you dont have one part of the equation you need more from the other. Thus if you dont have javelins you need considerably more fire arrows (and not x-bows!!!), and if you dont have fire arrows you need more javelins.

Fire ballista can work because it has both, it can kill and give them morale penalty at the same time.

Ribault can work if it can kill, I am sure it gives morale penalty.

Musketeers can kill, perhaps combining them with fire arrows would be even more efficient?

ps. giskard, just a non-related question: I see you played Hungary, what was your early strategy? Which province you took first?

[Cheetah]

They'll take some fearful losses, the damn annoying "We won't shoot until we're in perfect formation even if that means we're getting shot to pieces and won't even be able to reform!" bug will often crop up.

hit backspace

[Whacker]

hit backspace

Ave Cheetah. Thanks for the hint... It didn't help one whit though. Tried again a few times as a single unit of Jan. Musk. against Musk. 'phants. Once the 'phants were in range and started firing, the Jan.'s never again got a shot off, no matter what I did. Leaving them alone, hitting backspace once, a few times, right clicking to fire, leaving them in and out of guard, leaving autofire on or off... Nada. Once they're under fire and taking losses, they won't reform and shoot to save their own miserable soon-to-be-over lives.

[JeffBag]

I find cavalry work surprisingly well against elephants; a single charge may kill a few elephants.

[pat the magnificent]

flaming arrows plus a couple of well placed serpentines fended off 12 units of war elephants in a custom battle for me.

a threw some pikes in for defense, but they just got slaughtered

[Dave1984]

Just spent an enjoyable hour testing and killing elephants and I have to say without a doubt the best and safest way to kill them quickly and efficiently is with javelinmen, mounted or no, although if they are infantry javelinmen then one on one may not be your friend, but it's not a major issue to recruit one more unit!

Aced up Longbowmen behind stakes suffered 70-80 casualties to no kills by the time the elephants reached them, with or without using flaming ammunition, and Janissary musketeers wounded a couple but killed none before they had the reforming problem, which is the only bug I've really noticed and had a problem with and at the minute is a reason to not recruit any musketeers ever.

However the javelinmen on average had 1-2 elephants killed in the first volley, and about 4 more volleys to finish them off or have them running amok.

Since RTW I have no desire to engage elephants in close combat, it isn't really a viable option and the kills/losses ratio is generally pretty poor.

[giskard]

D Wilson

That would make sense since pikes work ok too.

Good work mate and thanks for letting us know. :)

Giskard