Elephants

[Gornard]

Are elephants overpowered? I know their expensive but they are absolutly devestating to infantry and pretty good agaisnt cavalry as well.

Is there a relativly easy way to beat them? I know in the heat of melee combat they don't care whos side their on, they are a bit of liability

[RTKBarrett]

Are elephants overpowered? I know their expensive but they are absolutly devestating to infantry and pretty good agaisnt cavalry as well.

Is there a relativly easy way to beat them? I know in the heat of melee combat they don't care whos side their on, they are a bit of liability

Elephants are easily beaten... any infantry unit that gets a volley off before the charge is engaged is devestating.

My advice is simple, use ure light infs stakes wisely to give the elephants fewer routes to engage u from. This increases ure chances of predicting where u can counter him from.

Square formation takes ele charges very very well too....

[Gornard]

Ok thanks. Have a rep

[Lupu]

And cavalry crushes them, often even the cheapest cav is better than the bodyguard eles.

[RTKBarrett]

And cavalry crushes them, often even the cheapest cav is better than the bodyguard eles.

Cavalry works too, but the losses are usually larger in terms of ratio when compared to a squared infantry unit.

[Gornard]

And cavalry crushes them, often even the cheapest cav is better than the bodyguard eles.

I had a battle last night against a friend. He tried to use his cavalry to flank me and i engaged him with my elephants. I had 2 groups of 2 war elephants (the non projectile kind) and he had 2 groups of 2 cavalry (he was austrian and they were a mix but there was at least 1 group of household cav. in there). He lost and all my elephant units survived (although some had lost almost half their number).

I know this only one instance though.

In the single player campaign i used my elephant bodygaurd to attack a regular bodygaurd. It ended up with the elephants losing quite badly.

[Bisbjerg]

The only thing elephants are good at, is making your inf/cav rout.

[Lupu]

Haven't tested squares, but I played a battle with ottomans against maratha, used my light horsemen with horrible melee and routed equal numbers of eles(bodyguard, less numbers) easily, I moved my cavbehind him, and the elephants returned, and totally crushed my infantry to nothing.

[RTKBarrett]

Ottoman morale as a whole is pretty poor when compared to western factions so thats not a surprise... i wouldnt consider them a good counter against Maratha for this reason. Maratha are mainly comprised of shock troops, so morale is key.

[Lupu]

Ottoman morale as a whole is pretty poor when compared to western factions so thats not a surprise... i wouldnt consider them a good counter against Maratha for this reason. Maratha are mainly comprised of shock troops, so morale is key.

On early, right?

Edit: Guerra, try it, elephants get killed by cavalry, the only way the morale shock works is if they are winning, the cavalry doesn't rout if it wins, even against eles, if eles charge into cav melee at the right moment, the cav might rout, but else, their price is not worth it, as some medium cavalry can rout them, and pursue to the red line and be cheaper.

[guerra]

You don't ever ever ever want to use cavalry against elephants. That's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Elephants SCARE horses. That's one of their ingame abilities. Your cavalry will rout.

You don't want to melee elephants under any circumstance. They have massive defense and massive attack. The only way to kill elephants is to shoot them. Skirmishers do this best. Square formation does nothing against elephants and you should retreat and fire upon the elephants not box up and get squished.

[Bisbjerg]

You don't ever ever ever want to use cavalry against elephants. That's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Elephants SCARE horses. That's one of their ingame abilities. Your cavalry will rout.

You don't want to melee elephants under any circumstance. They have massive defense and massive attack. The only way to kill elephants is to shoot them. Skirmishers do this best. Square formation does nothing against elephants and you should retreat and fire upon the elephants not box up and get squished.

Yeah well, that might have been the idea by CA but i find elephants very weak, even against cav and its actually possible to melee them quite often

[OberonDark]

I find elephants quite weak. Well, when I'm using them.

[Thanatos]

Elephants are quite weak, especially once you start shooting them.

[guerra]

No, elephants annihilate cavalry. They annihilate infantry even worse. You just need to know how to use elephants. Can't rush them in, you must be patient for the right moment.

[RTKBarrett]

No, elephants annihilate cavalry. They annihilate infantry even worse. You just need to know how to use elephants. Can't rush them in, you must be patient for the right moment.

They arent the same beasts as the ones from rtw/mtw guerra, they die very easily

[LogisticEarth]

For some reason I have the feeling that cannister shot would do well against elephants. True/untrue? I've never actully encountered elephants in game yet so I dont' know.

[king-nord]

I don't feel ashamed to use the elephants anymore, they are a lot weaker as line infantry can pretty much wipe them out in one volley so it makes the unit a little more strategic rather than the moster elle's in other tw's. Hard to time a charge with elephants though done correctly i've had some good use with them.

[nightwar]

No, elephants annihilate cavalry. They annihilate infantry even worse. You just need to know how to use elephants. Can't rush them in, you must be patient for the right moment.

was in a match regment horses killed 3/4 my ele made them rout!

[Stokes52]

Elephants are dangerous when used for a *perfectly* timed charge. They seem to be used best when they can charge into the flanks of the enemies battle line, especially if they are already wavering or you can stack other morale shocks, artillery or cavalry charges. Timed well they can take out entire line regiments on the charge.

That said, they're also incredibly weak. I played a game the other day where he tied of my cavalry with his siphais, all I had left were some Line Infantry and one group of Ferguson and he was able to get behind my lines with his general's bodyguard elephants. I set my Ferguson up, and I kid you not, two volleys killed or routed every single elephant. First volley killed the front elephants and his general, second volley (they reload ridiculously fast) killed the next two lines, the few remaining elephants rout, third volley, kills every last one, the unit literally disappears from the field.

So, lesson learned - Skirmishers, especially rifles, totally own elephants. You could tell the guy was shocked that his ELEPHANT general was killed so quickly in the battle... the fight had literally just started,