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Thread: Elephants

  1. #1

    Default Elephants

    I was wondering what everyone's experience has been using elephants in XGM. Playing as Greece I captured a few elephant-producing cities in the east and recruited some war elephants. I don't know if it is because I am facing post-Marian units, if the ai is just that much better in 1.5/1.6, or if elephant morale has been significantly reduced, but I have found them of very little use indeed, particularly considering their cost.

    My elephants have routed and gone amok very quickly in every battle. I understand how a shower of fire arrows can do this, but not one hit from a (non-flaming) onager or a few seconds of combat with legionaries.

    I have tried positioning them well back to avoid missile fire and then bringing them up and moving along the line once I have the enemy engaged with my phalanxes, but the Romans seem just too tough. They simply won't rout and my eles soon run amok. This is on VH/H by the way, but I have since used RomeSage to change to H/M since I am having such trouble with the Romans.

    Any tips?

  2. #2
    Zarax's Avatar Triple Chaosmaster
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    Well, post marian romans are even thougher with XGM... Are your elephants getting pila fire or in proximity of a skirmisher unit?
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  3. #3

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    Well, pila fire is almost unavoidable unless I wait until the very last moment. The typical ai armies at this stage are about 3/5 Legionary cohorts with several urban cohorts, a few missile auxiliary, an archer unit and several artillery units.

    How have you been using eles in yoru Carthage campaign?

  4. #4
    DimeBagHo's Avatar Praeses
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    I haven't played with elephants much, so I don't know how typical this is. If you play on vh for battles you might be getting a morale penalty. Morale for most elephant units was 12, although I noticed that Greek Forest Elephants had just 8, normal, which is pretty low. I've just uploaded a new version of XGM (3.5.3) in which the morale stats have been changed to: 12, normal for all Forest Elephants; 14, normal for all War Elephants; and 16, normal for all Armoured Elephants

  5. #5
    DimeBagHo's Avatar Praeses
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    I have just seen the problem you were talking about Froggie5. I had a unit of War Elephants run amok before they had suffered a single casualty - almost as soon as they made contact with the enemy (it actually worked out pretty well for me, they were slightly in advance of some thorakitai and cavalry that were about to attack the Roman left flank, and when they went nuts they totally anihilated that flank of the Roman army).

    I was playing on h/h and they were under fire from some ballistas, so that might have had a lot to do with it. But still you would think that they would be a little more reliable than that.

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by DimeBagHo
    I have just seen the problem you were talking about Froggie5. I had a unit of War Elephants run amok before they had suffered a single casualty - almost as soon as they made contact with the enemy (it actually worked out pretty well for me, they were slightly in advance of some thorakitai and cavalry that were about to attack the Roman left flank, and when they went nuts they totally anihilated that flank of the Roman army).

    I was playing on h/h and they were under fire from some ballistas, so that might have had a lot to do with it. But still you would think that they would be a little more reliable than that.
    Yes, that was my experience as well. I took a quick look at the stats for eastern war elephants. In XGM their morale is 14, cf. 8 in vanilla. Yet I don't remember them being so touchy in past vanilla games. Hmmm.

    @Zaraz - how are your elephants behaving in your Carthage campaign? I notcied you have a few of them in your screenshots.

  7. #7
    Zarax's Avatar Triple Chaosmaster
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    My elephants are fine, armoured ones are quite good even under fire arrows, while war elephants suffers that... What makes them run amok so easy must be siege engine fire, as I experienced that going against a ballista... Very nasty experience as it made my merc war elephants run amok in the middle of my lines, forcing me to kill the whole unit before it unleashed hell...

    Sometimes I would like that elephants were so fragile, especially going against the eggies who loves to bring 2 or 3 units of war elephants in every stack, usually mixed with pharaoh guards, pharaoh bowmen and a few nile phalangites... Luckily my fully upgraded sacred bands are very nasty things to face and manages to bring down even pachiderms with relatively few losses.
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