Timurids: Elephants (Medieval Uber Unit)

[pat the magnificent]

A unit of Turkish Naffatuns can single handedly route a unit of gun elephants.

the naffatuns take pretty bad causalities though.

[pat the magnificent]

3 units of HRE forlorn hope also managed to rout a unit of elephants, though once again with extreme causalities

[zulukiller]

Does anyone know whats the best unit is for the english to use against elephants everyone keeps mentioning units from other factions but nothing for the english.

p.s. ive got woodsman guild (robinhood men) and st john guild are they any good ??.

[Dave1984]

Does anyone know whats the best unit is for the english to use against elephants everyone keeps mentioning units from other factions but nothing for the english.

p.s. ive got woodsman guild (robinhood men) and st john guild are they any good ??.

Best thing to do for the English is to hire merc javelinmen from somewhere (if you can)

One on one in my tests every English unit has been defeated by a basic unit of elephants, but if you can get about five units of longbowmen behind stakes, using fire arrows and concentrating their fire on the elephants you can usually get them to run amok. But it takes awhile.

[Somebody Else]

Playing as the English... I used a Kiev. With cannon-towers.

[Doug-Thompson]

Best thing to do for the English is to hire merc javelinmen from somewhere (if you can)

One on one in my tests every English unit has been defeated by a basic unit of elephants, but if you can get about five units of longbowmen behind stakes, using fire arrows and concentrating their fire on the elephants you can usually get them to run amok. But it takes awhile.

There seems to be a superabundance of merc javelinmen in Asia Minor, at least for my Egyptian faction.

[Whacker]

Wow. I am officially changing my opinion to match that of Mr. Wilson. Javelins clean elephant's clocks, pretty quickly too. Jinettes simply mop the floor with them. A few of my findings:

1. Loose vs tight formation does not matter.

2. Double row seems to work a bit better than block formation.

3. Turn OFF skirmish mode, as the elephants never charged me in my tests. *might be fixed in patch

4. If the elephants route, then chase and kill at leisure.

5. If the elephants run amok, THEN either turn skirmish mode back on or be REAL careful and micromanage this, or let them go. I don't recommend letting them go, because they might come back to haunt you.

I do suspect that the unmounted gunpowder units may be even more effective once the reform bug is fixed. The amount of damage the Janissary musketeers did with just 2 salvos in 2 row mode was frightful.

We shall see!

Cheers!

[zulukiller]

@D Wilson & Doug-Thompson thanks for that ill have to try that when the timurids turn up. Ive already had 2 campaigns ruined because of the crash bug i get with the timurids so im planning on having a very big surprise for them when they eventually turn up at baghdad so i can try and instantly wipe them out as soon as they appear.

muahahahahahahahahahaha

[zulukiller]

Sorry i couldnt find the edit button ive just though ive got a great cross unit that i hired while on a curesade while passing through italy. It says that it gives a bonus against cavalry does the bonus only work during a cursade or can i use it all the time i.e. against the elephants.

[SirGrotius]

Antagonist: See the first screenshot, that was caused by 1 unit of Elephant artilery charging me. These below are regular elephants though.

Anyway....

In open battles Elephants move too fast for artillery of any type and 1 elephant unit will route your seasoned vetrans as quickly as they route peasants.

Also

Arrows (flaming or not) dont touch them
Bolts dont touch them.

Btw I stacked one of my armies with Crossbow men and they wiped out every Timurids charge in seconds until the time came for the Elephants to charge and that was the end of my battle.

No other weapon touches them either because the men carrying them are too busy running for their lives to use them.

Heres some screenshots from a few more battles where I got owned by Elephants.

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2tw1.jpg

http://www.respawn.co.uk/temp/m2tw2.jpg

It will give you some idea of what units dont work against elephants. These armies where scrapped up out of what was left of my defenders in the area.

Timurids basically killed off all my experienced generals and troops I sent against them. By the end of my current game, i was using what ever troops i could find to fight them off.

So in open warfare you will lose most of the time against the Timurids lone Elephant charge. The rest of army only really gets used to run down your routing troops. Outside of that role, the Timurids have no need for other troops if an Elephant unit is involved in the battle.

And oddly enough, the unit i used last was the cheap spearmen and whilst they ran as fast any other unit in open battle. In siege games they successfully killed off an entire Elephant unit but I had to use 5 units of cheap spearmen to do it.

Only problem was, there was 4 more Elephant units outside and the game crashed as the last Elephant died. So there may be a bug in the Elephant unit. IF anybody else tries this and the game crashes whilst your taking out an Elephant unit, please let me know.

Btw, M2TW has never EVER crashed on me except for that one time.

PS I won as hungry with 2 turns to go, after i found out what kills Elephants, my defenses siege where more successful.

Giskard

I have to say that first screenshot is hilarious.

[TheFluff]

The timurids are just annoying. Nothing you use can really beat there elephants. You can use alot of archers, but then you get attacked by there own archers are arty and cav. All this while trying to hold them back from your lands. Also they are able to knock down walls, and you cant kill them becacause they are usually out of range during a seige.

This is all assuming the game doesnt crash! ^_^

[Roy1991]

I didn't mind the elephants in RTW, but now they're deffinitely over the top, lol.

1 unit of gold chevron arty eles against 20 units of Jannisary Heavy Infantry (without chevrons):
https://img127.imageshack.us/img127/2046/eleartyen4.jpg

[Doug-Thompson]

Just a thought, but has anybody tried -- hiring merc elephants? They're in Mosul and Baghdad, for instance. I imagine they don't have the experience modifiers of the Timiruds, though.

Or just use javelins. Turn "fire at will" off, use other unit to get through anything that's guarding the elephants, then throw.

[zulukiller]

Just a thought, but has anybody tried -- hiring merc elephants? They're in Mosul and Baghdad, for instance. I imagine they don't have the experience modifiers of the Timiruds, though.

Or just use javelins. Turn "fire at will" off, use other unit to get through anything that's guarding the elephants, then throw.

I'm actually doing that ive been hiring merc elephants since around 1280 its now 1330 in my game and ive got 4 elephant artillary & 4 elephant heavey cavalry (ive modded the game though so its 6 months per turn). Ive upgraded there armour and ive upgraded there gunpowder weapons. Plus whenever a mongal stack comes along i send them over to annhillate them so i can build up there ranking.

BTW all you need is 2 elephant heavey cavalry and 2 elephant artillary and a zero star general to annihlate a full stack of elite mongals with a 10 star general (with virtually no loses). When the mongals see the elephants they wont attack they just park up as close to the edge of the map as possible so when they do rout they can get as many men away as possible.

Lol i really really cant wait till the timurids turn up ive got forts all over the place near baghdad full of artillary (i think there called bombards). Then ive got my own soon to be elite elephants (hopefully gonna be a full stack by the time they show up). Lol if i have my way the Timurids wont even get a foothold on the map ill take out each wave as soon as it appears muahahahaha.

[Shahed]

LOL zulu!!!

I can't wait for this .. been sending out the governors of Baghdad and Mosul (lewd, naive, aloof, extravagant, corrupt...etc... slobs) out into the countryside looking for elephants. No joy yet, no gunpowder discovery either yet.

I love the flavor the regional armies get from the local mercs, I'm particularly looking forward to the elephants.

[zulukiller]

LoL well it makes a change the Timurids have wrecked 2 campaigns for total world domination because of elephants and the crash bug now im actually really looking forwarded to kicking there arse. Only spanner i think might wreck my plan is im certain the Timurid elephants are much more pwerfull than the merc basic elephant. Thats why im hoping the Mongal bashing an retraining might bring them up to the same level.

[Shahed]

You know there is a quickfix for the crash bug yeah ? It's stickied on the top of this forum.

Hopefully the training will work.

[zulukiller]

Yeah i know mate im just trying not to cheat i want them to be super hard and give me a challange i just dont want the crashs at the most inconveniant point. That what was really annoying i didnt mind the crash bug every now and again but it would always happend at the most important inconveiniant point

i.e. ive just fought of stack after stack after stack then i get the black death and im left with virtualy no garrison at all but i know i can win the battle if i use my citadel walls properly. And then bam i get the crash bug when ive got virtually no garrison and its the last stack of timurids around for miles.

[Shahed]

Test against Timurid Elephant Artillery.

The results have convinced me I need go no further with this. I will however test vs Timurid Elephant Musketeers (or what's it they are called).

The limitations of these tests are:

1. Single unit type.
2. No other enemies to contend with on the field.
3. Terrain differences, although extremely minimal for gunpowder units.
4. Small sample size.
5. Ideal weather conditions enjoyed by both armies.
6. My somewhat skewed (by some standards) sense of humor.

The 2 test battles featured (drumroll!):

2 Janissary Musketeers
vs
1 Timurid Elephant Artillery

Test Conditions

• Palm Beach.
• (Gotta love the).... Sunset.
• Clear.
• Very Hard Difficulty.
• All units are experience 0.
• All units are armor upgrade 0.
• All units are weapons upgrade 0.
• Jannissaries deployed ranks 2 deep, loose formation, hold ground.
• Jannissaries fire on command, not auto fire.

THE RESULTS:

The enemy General is shot down!.


His troops are shot down!.


Some choose to retreat.


They are hunted down.
Primarily for the ivory (which is legal trade in this scenario).
Secondly for marksmanship training vs large slow moving objects.


Summary


Conclusion
Please keep in mind the limitations of this test. I believe it will be harder against the musket elephants. With that unit I believe it will be necessary to draw their fire to another unit, perhaps the General, or another cavalry or infantry unit/s so that the firearms are free to aim and fire without distraction. This is achievable though not by all and though not under any circumstance. With the right leadership under the right circumstance it is achievable by all.

In this case the elephants were annihilated with NO survivors for the loss of ONE Janissary casualty (which may be healed in campaign). This shows clearly that against this unit a simple duo of Janissary Musketeers can do the job very well, when they work as intended without bugs.

Point is if muskets kill these elephants they should theoretically kill any other elephants too.

Salute !!!

[supadodo]

Okay I'm into my campaign against timurids as Turks and I have 3 units of musket elephants and 3 units of artillery elephants all upgraded with 3 - 4 chevrons and new guns from my alchemist HQ and university. And so Timur the LameA$$ decides to attack me. Their elephants are no match to mine coz I focus fire my arty ellies on their own elephants while having my cannons pound explosives at them. I use my musketeer elephants to keep their other units at bay and to absorb all that arrows. In the end their elephants run amok and cause more casualties among their ranks and once everybody has routed, I kill of the berserk ellies so that they won't return to the campaign map. Now i'm beset by that bloody elephant CTD bug and the worst thing is, its caused by my own elephants

[Shahed]

Ok tried it with Musket Eles.

Beat em every single time with 2 units of muskets, with heavy losses, about 85% of the muskets die ever time. It's very close.

The AI prioritises enemy gunpowder weapons and ignores other units, so my hrose archers, spears etc get ignored, most of the time and the AI is shooting at the muskets.

I think there is a bug where the muskets don't shoot back half as much as they should. I'm not sure this is a feature or not. They get stuck trying to reform perpetually failing to do so. Despite this bug, they win most of the time.

I have reported this issue in the bug list.

[zulukiller]

Hmm sinan i dont think your test will work out the same in campaign mode against the real Timurids with there upgraded elephants and a ten star general backing them up you know tactick wise. Have you done the test were your controlling the elephants and the AI is controlling the Janissary units ?.

I'll tell you what ive figured out with the elephants you need both types for starters for them to be truely effective. Also the elephant artillary is exacterly that its artillary (not realy a combat unit) and super artillary at that with 15 cannons (on huge battles). Thats why your first test is completely bogus when you only lost one unit (your giving yourself major false hope there mate). The Timurids are not going to send there artillary crashing into 2 units of muskets (would you send your artillary crashing into the enemy front lines) there going to stick them as far away as possible and pound the crap out of you with all 15 cannons out of range of your muskets (if there cannons shoot that far).

I've also figured out that against infantry & cavalry the elephant charges are no were near as bad as youd think they are unless its a confined space like on a bridge or a street in a city or citadel. Then your men just instantly die i think the way that works is your men dont have the room to fall over so they get crushed instead and it leads to massive cassualties.

I actually made that mistake when taking a city, having my elephants at the point when fighting inside the city. What happend was i breached the walls and the enemy fell back to the square so i sent my entire army with the eles at the front up one of the long streets towards the square. Because i didnt know how to use the eles i didnt double click behind the enemy to charge through them i tried to attack them. So anyway my eles went berserke and turned around and desimated my army charging back down the road and out of the city. I went from a full Army with barley a couple of men lost to an army with only at most 20 men in each units. And ive never seen any ele charge before or since that killed so many men and they were my own men and my own eles :(.

LoL i went on one there and forgot to make my original point anyway try this for a test ill put money on it the eles win. Have 8 Units of AI controlled jannisaries v you with 2 ele heavey cavalry & 1 ele artillary (if you throw in some upgrades and another ele artillary i bet you can take on a full stack of jans). Try useing these tacticks aswell stand of at a distance and blow the crap out of the jannisaries with your artillary. When you've run out of ammo group all your eles togethor having the now out of ammo artillary elephants in the middle of your line. Disable fire at will and then have your eles charge as a line behind the jannissaries (right click and drag behind jans and then click run). After the initial smash into the enemy (bodies flying everywere) turn on fire at will and just keep on charging through the jans back and forth and in no time i garantee the jans will rout then all you have to do is chase them down.

p.s. If you Want to fully upgrade your eles capture and fully tech up Mosal & Baghdad ones a city and ones a citadel in my campaign and both give different upgrades.

p.p.s. In my campaign the Merc eles only have arbuequest but i am England and England dosnt get muskets so maybe it depends of the faction your playing i honestly dont know.

[dopp]

No, the merc eles only get arquebuses, even the Timurid ones have arquebuses. Good enough, really.

[Shahed]

Thanks for the tips.
I'll keep all that in mind when I finally get to face the Timids.

It's pointless for me to play the Timids as I know very well that the artillery will naturally be far back behind the main line. They'll just have to be reached I guess. I also know already how easy it would be to wtfpwnbbq'ed any other army with eles. I will try it for fun though.

The limitations of the test are already mentioned and outlined.

I won't go over it again but please just read up if you have any doubts. For me the point of the test was to see if they are really that bad, and the answer is no they are not, and sure you can (perhaps even easily) kill them. Too much hype. That's all I need to know really.

Also as already mentioned in the first post, "whatever it is they are called". Those big animals with the snipers on tops yeah ? Everyone knows what I'm talking about, I hope.



One thing is certain muskets kill them, that is for sure.

Two Experience 0 Janissary musketeers kill an elephant unit in less than 90 seconds, provided the Janissaries are free to shoot without interference. Ofc that's a tall order in a real battle, and that too is stated in the test limitations. Moreoever there is a bug with muskets so it all comes down to fleeting factors. Who knows if they fix it in the patch then it's going to be a whole lot easier.

In any case even when the 2 muskets are being trampled shot at, charged etc they still kill a unit of elephants in a few minutes. Naturally due to the abuse they are receiving they take 80% casualties in the meantime.

My plan is actually to ally the Mongols unless I'm getting really bored, or unless they attack me first. I will also build a large cash reserve to go on a bribing spree, gotta love those Mongol horse archers. I can just see a whole lot of them with the Turkish uniform and banner. Got that idea from Doug.

I'd prefer to ally the Timids as well if that is at all possible, but if not my plan is... hire and train my own eles mercs, build plenty of cannon fodder, archers and musketeers. Hire some bashi-bazoooks (azabs), javelin cavalry and off to battle.

I'll try doing some custom battles against a good Timid army playing as Turks, if anyone has a good suggestion on a good Timid army fire away.

I'm looking forward to meeting these guys and posting shots of my first campaign victory now against them, can't wait.

[Whacker]

Ok tried it with Musket Eles.

Beat em every single time with 2 units of muskets, with heavy losses, about 85% of the muskets die ever time. It's very close.

The AI prioritises enemy gunpowder weapons and ignores other units, so my hrose archers, spears etc get ignored, most of the time and the AI is shooting at the muskets.

I think there is a bug where the muskets don't shoot back half as much as they should. I'm not sure this is a feature or not. They get stuck trying to reform perpetually failing to do so. Despite this bug, they win most of the time.

I have reported this issue in the bug list.

When I tried this exact same test 3 times awhile back, 2 units of Jan. Musk. vs 1 unit of Musk. Elephants, I lost every single time due to the reforming bug. My Jan's would get off two rounds each before the Ele's engaged, and invariably bullets would hit both units and they'd never get another shot off. I don't know for certain but it would seem that this might be chalked up to the general "blobbing" problem that the game has. If that were fixed, I have no doubts that even a single unit of Jan. Musk. could most likely take on Musk. Ele's, and win the majority of the time. The Jan's can only get off two rounds before the Ele's are in range, but those two rounds do a LOT of damage, more often than naught the 2nd round will kill 2-3 ele's.

Cheers!

[zulukiller]

Sinan i get were you coming from mate i think but i dont know why people make those types of analoges except for x can actually kill y when there beyond flawed heres a WWII analogey for you to try and explain my point.

You've got 10 British soldiers using a piat (worst A.T. weapon ever) versus a retard (a captain) driving a King Tiger tank the british soldiers totally rip the tiger apart the Tiger with zero loses. Now change the situation and stick Rommel (a 10 star Gen) in the Tiger he will annihlate the British soldiers take the whole surrounding area call in reinforcement and open up a new counter front possibly changing the whole out come of WWII.

Do you get were im coming from now, in no way am i having a go at you sinan im just giving you as much warning as possible what ever your planning on doing tripple it. Look at these and other boards on how people are complaining about the Mongals being insanely hard. To me the mongals are just a normal faction there not really that hard in fact in my curent campagin there the ones begging me for peace becuse im kicking there arse so badly. But i truely and honestly fear the Timurids, in my previouse 2 campagins they took near enough the entire world over while fighting every faction at the same time saying there overpowered is an understatement honestly.

[Shahed]

Yeah I get your point mate. No problemo, gonna cream em.

Muskets (are not the only thing I'll use) are fixed in the patch too, which is good.

I just wish the date would arrive already, though I'm only in 1147. What a long wait to go. UGH!