You are probably right, but i couldnt manage to get my elephant mercenary unit past enemy gate, so no fear from boiling oil to me on that occasion. Since then, i dont use elephants when laying siege. I made one custom siege battle once, and gave 1 unit of armored elephants to my opponent. During most of the fight i had 2 units of my Archers Auxilia fire almost all their arrows on that one unit of elephants. They did zero kills, and were badly mauled by the elephant arrows, even standing on the wall behind the parapet. With their last few arrow volleys set to fire arrows this time, they finally made the elephant unit run amok. It just started to stir about a bit, ran here and there, trampled noone and vanished in the distance, eventually. That was a shocking experience. Now i am praising my (few, sigh!) elephant mercenary units very much. They have silver armor and weapon upgrade and one golden chevron. They, together with 3 similarly upgraded Horse Archer unit are giving tough time to my newest enemy, the Julii (i am Brutii). They can shoot arrows, scare troops, trample whole cohorts...how to not be in love with them?? Not to mention the chariots. I just send my elephants after the chariots, and while they are miles away duking it out, i can kill their whole army with impunity, and proceed to corner in the chariots afterwards :)

Y.