Roster for India

[Quinn Inuit]

It looks like we're going to have a good bit more of India in the new version, so we ought to populate it properly. Here's a proposed roster for the region:

All of India
Light infantry: spearmen
Heavy infantry: kshatriya guilds of some sort
Missile infantry: archers

Light cavalry: spear + shield lancers
Heavy cavalry: elephants

Northern Indus Valley
Heavy cavalry: armoured unit with spear and shield

Southern Indus Valley
Heavy cavalry: chariot

Indo-Greeks left over from Alexander
Light infantry: evolved Iphicratean peltasts
Heavy infantry: pikes
Heavy cavalry: hetairoi types

Any suggestions? I'm pretty much making this up, as I can't find any good sources.

[Boom S]

sounds good.
some points :
> not too sure of the armoured cavalry
> chariots should be throughout India
> better and larger elephants would be further east. (I've no idea of your map)
> it's probably better to have two kinds of archers.

[Quinn Inuit]

What kind of cavalry would you recommend, then?

Chariots throughout? Works for me.

We're using CC's map, too. Why would there be better and larger elephants further east? I thought the subcontinent had only one species of elephant.

Two kinds of archers? How so?

What did you think of my Indo-Greek remnant roster? That was just an educated guess on my part. The sources just aren't there. Another major mod makes use of some texts that mention Yavanas, but when I checked out the texts I found out there were from 500 years or so down the road.

For the record, I know this isn't the world's greatest India roster, but we have a limited amount of space and this is probably the best we can do. I'm not even sure I can fit all of this in, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

[Boom S]

actually all that depends on the faction, if you are going to use the mauryans then there can be an uber costly (because large horses were imported from abroad, possibly persian tribes and horses had a high mortality rate in Indian weather) medium/heavy cavalry recruited from nobles in the easternmost regions of the map. however it needs to be set up such that it does not become an widespread unit. only a prosperous and reasonably well organised faction could have afforded to maintain a steady stream of costly foreign horses. if there's a crisis over DMB slots you can omit this unit.

another possible location for heavy cavalry would be north of hindu-kush (not indus valley).

the rest would be light cavalry as you have mentioned. if you are using CC's map then the western regions of India starting from around the southern coast coast to afghanistan should have a hardy light cavalry unit. texts mention that cavalry from these regions formed a part of mauryan army and both horse and riders are praised by all as being extremely loyal that never breaks in combat (apply hyperbole filter here but nevertheless).

one thing I should mention here, Indian cavalry horses were trained to fight alongside elephants which is a trait not common outside the region. for example darius couldn't use his elephants at gaugamela because his horses were not accustomed to the presence of the pachyderms.

as for asian elephants, yes all are of one species but then alsatians and chihuahuas also belong to the same species.
the largest elephants came from eastern India which had a more humid climate. elephants from these regions were considered the largest and fiercest and the most suitable for war. in chandragupta maurya's time there were annual elephant catching expeditions to the jungles of vanga or bengal. the primacy of the magadh province in ancient India is due, among other factors, to its location next door to a large source of the best war elephants.
those regions are however quite a bit outside this map, so it's up to you really to decide what to do.

two kinds of archer units, one using the recurve composite bow and the other using the bamboo longbow.

for the Indo-Greek roster, I suppose the nearest one in terms of practices would be the bactrian army ?
the archeological remains show armoured hoplite type of units, a swordsman unit and armoured cavalry which can be considered as representative of the companions. not too sure about the peltasts. I do not seem to remember any such example but then that could be my poor memory as well. this is just a guess but is it possible that with access to more potent archers in the east the need for skirmishers lessened a bit ?
btw, which mod uses text that mentions yavana ? could you point me to it ?

[Carados]

Re: Elephant size

There is really no point in adding a supersized elephant unit. It follows much the same principle as horses, the largest and strongest will be used whenever possible. Although they might generally be found in certain locations (due to the immediate habitat and stuff, more nutritious food for example, less natural predators etc), that doesn't mean you won't ever find a sizeable number of large animals in other niches.

Also, whilst on the topic, I don't think we can prevent the morale effect the elephants would have on Indian cavalry The only plus is that the Indian armies will naturally have more elephants of their own and thus will easily overcome their opposite number.

Re: Archers. Further to this thread, it might be worth taking into account the toxin effect that the Indians seemed to use?

[Boom S]

carados, I agree with you on elephants but with stress on the phrase 'whenever possible'.
it does indeed follow the same principle as horses and as we well know, precious few armies outside the native homes of horses could boast of cavalry in the quality and quantity they would have liked !
otherwise every ancient army would have been riding nisean horses !

western India had few if any wild elephants at the time and all sources agree that they were inferior to those in the east both in quality and quantity. I don't quite agree that large elephants can be found anywhere, animal populations frequently develop endemic variations that are not found elsewhere. even if a small stature population had a few large individuals, capturing them would remove that trait from the genepool and the future generations would be small.
elephants don't have any natural predators btw !

the eastern Indian kings, when they were independent or a central authority like the mauryans had an absolute monopoly on the supply of war elephants, and this is a beast that is even more susceptible to change of climate and environment than horses. and we all know what happens in a monopoly.
this was a commodity you never could have enough. only wild elephants were used as war elephants since captive bred elephants were not considered to have the right temperament.
captured wild elephants were put through a rigorous screening process that discarded most of them to be used as pack animals. the chosen few were given rigorous training that included following complex drills like jumping trenches, running, etc, staying cool under noise of battle-drums and finally even fighting !

even after all this training, an elephant was considered to be of 'service-age' when he reached 20 years but matured at the peak of his fighting abilities only at around 40 years, not unlike a human soldier. even the mauryans could not have possibly had an elephant corps of only the largest animals, doing that would exterminate the population given the numbers they used !

re : toxins
what I know :
toxicology was a pretty big thing back then, both for war and for assassinations. the physician susruta devoted a whole chapter in his treatise on the subject. the war manuals too mention various poisons and toxins.
however, the problem AFAIK is that it is no longer possible to identify most of the toxins.
one snake extract is mentioned, the candidates are the cobra, saw scaled viper, krait and russel's viper. plant toxins too were quite popular. the problem of identification however persists.
bottom line : I don't know enough on this to comment !

[Daqin]

I don't know enough about Indian warfare of any era to comment on units, but I would say regarding toxins, the source would most likely be snakes as they had plenty of highly venomous ones to choose from, plus "milking" snake venom isn't a difficult process for an experienced snake handler. Using the venom could be as simple as catching it in some sort of non-porous recepticle (bucket, urn, vial), transporting it to the battlefield, and having archers dip their arrowheads into it to envenom them. As to what kind of snake, that's harder to determine, but we could probably assume that they would use the most lethal venom that they could harvest on a sufficient scale. And the people using the venom would likely have at least some immunity to it, either from experiencing and surviving multiple bites or by ingesting small amounts over time.

Again, though, I still don't know how best to put this into the game. Maybe poisoned arrows could be the special ability of certain Mauryan acher units in place of fire arrows? They wouldn't create the accuracy problems fire arrows do, and that may be a programming issue that can't be worked around...I don't know. I would say that the "frightening" effect would still be applicable, though (except to elephants, anyway): soldiers would certainly be more afraid of arrows that could kill with a mere scratch.

[Sardaukar One]

Is India going to be a faction?

[Boom S]

Daqin, the major venomous snakes in India are the ones I mentioned, also called the big four. had to be one of them. are there any descriptions of the poison effects on alexander's army ? I think I can guess the poison type and snake species from that.

however I would guard against assuming that it had to be snake venom since these guys had a very good knowledge about plant properties as well, case in point ayurveda.
OTOH snake venom does make sense in a way because it acts by entering the blood stream, exactly what an arrow achieves, as against most other poisons which act on internal consumption.

about implementing it in game, I don't think poison arrows as a special ability make much sense, since if you have poison at your disposal why would you use normal arrows ? moreover, fire arrows were widely used and a variety of concoctions meant to create a difficult to put out fire is described.
I liked the low rate of recovery idea someone presented if it can be implemented. if not, then I suggest a morale drop in attacked soldiers but without low accuracy of fire arrows.

CC, my knowledge of the millions of hellenic spear armed unit types () is not very vast but weren't the iphicratean peltasts more of a hoplite type unit than the skirmisher you have depicted ? as I said earlier, I'm not aware of any purely skirmisher type unit in bactrian archeological remains. perhaps they were replaced by archers ?

[Carados]

No.

We just seem to have found an absolute shed load of space in the DMB, thus allowing for so many more different units. India is pretty bland at the moment.

[pannonian]

If you want uber elephants, you can always bring back the yubtsebs...

[Carados]

[Caligula Caesar]

I think Boom S has the Indians in hand (btw, I believe the Yavanas mod was EB). I was wondering what the evolved Iphicratean Peltast would look like, though. You see, I kinda doubt mine is very accurate

I left out the Hetairoi because I figured they wouldn't be AoR, but a Bactrian factional unit, in which case they'd be the same as the Bactrian version.

I also went for an Indo-Greek hoplite, but I do have doubts about its accuracy. Other mods use Hoplites, and apparently Phalangites needed more training (apparently the Romans tried to train a phalanx once and failed), but I can't say that it is more accurate than phalangites. Then again, I can't say phalangites would be more accurate. It is simply impossible to say.

Btw, did you get my map working?

[Sardaukar One]

western India had few if any wild elephants at the time and all sources agree that they were inferior to those in the east both in quality and quantity.

And which sources would these be?
Chandragupta(spelling?) is estimated to have had as many as 9,000 elephants available for his army when he gave Seleucus his 500 war elephants.
Its assumed, wrongly, that Seleucus got the better of this deal.
I thought the Mauryan empire controlled most of India around the start of the game. If so, isn't this a non-issue?

the eastern Indian kings, when they were independent or a central authority like the mauryans had an absolute monopoly on the supply of war elephants

Not sure what you mean here. When the Mauryans started to lose control, they lost their control over the supply of elephants?
That things returned to how they were when Alexander first found India?
Makes sense!

this is a beast that is even more susceptible to change of climate and environment than horses.

Very true. Seleucus had 500 elephants, yet had 400 at Ipsus. By the time of the elephants battles some 25 years later, Antiochus I had to call up 20 elephants from Bactria. Only 16 where present for the "Elephant Battle" with the Galatians.
Whatever the reason, 20 percent of the elephants failed to make it to the west. Much of this was surely due to wastage.
And whatever happened to those 400 elephants Seleucus had at Ipsus?

this was a commodity you never could have enough. only wild elephants were used as war elephants since captive bred elephants were not considered to have the right temperament.

Wild elephants were used because there were large numbers of them available. The cost of raising an elephant and the time it took for it to be battle ready made breeding them for war cost prohibitive.
At least 20 years before a newborn could be used in battle.
I find this hard to believe, but apparently elephants will have only one calf in their lifetime.
So what happens if they have a female?
Female elephants run from males. So they are no good in war if the opponent has elephants too.

I'd add that while the temperament issue between a wild and 'domesticated' elephant is quite valid, I don't think this invalidates() a domesticated or bred elephant from being a valuable asset in war.

captured wild elephants were put through a rigorous screening process that discarded most of them to be used as pack animals. the chosen few were given rigorous training that included following complex drills like jumping trenches, running, etc, staying cool under noise of battle-drums and finally even fighting !

Whatever elephants the successors in the west got, they used them mainly for military purposes. I'm not aware of them being used for pack animals. Certainly, they may have performed these duties and it makes some sense. But wild elephants were not captured and trained with mahouts to then be used as pack animals.
The whole point of capturing elephants from the wild was twofold.
1) The powers that be could select elephants of sufficient stature for war. I don't know that they could figure an elephants exact age, but they could guestimate pretty accurately.
2) The powers that be would capture only male elephants.
3) And they avoided the long wait, and the costs involved with a breeding program.

Getting used to battle drums, being near horses etc, etc, sure. But i've not heard of any ancient elephants being trained to jump trenches. And i'm not sure what you mean by complex drills?

The most important thing was that the elephant get used to the mahout.
If the elephant couldn't be trained for war, it was highly unlikely to be used to help Bob build his pyramid or to hump the gear for third battalion from one spot to another.
I would actually have to say that a 'domesticated' elephant would be seem to me to be a better candidate for this than a wild one that was considered unsuitable for war.

I actually read that Chandragupta let some of his elephants go back into the wild after a campaign was over. Sounds a little odd to me, but its possible I suppose.

even after all this training, an elephant was considered to be of 'service-age' when he reached 20 years but matured at the peak of his fighting abilities only at around 40 years, not unlike a human soldier. even the mauryans could not have possibly had an elephant corps of only the largest animals, doing that would exterminate the population given the numbers they used !

The Mauryans didn't need to have an elephant corps of the largest elephants. Just had to have a larger herd than the Seleucids or any of their enemies. With an estimated 9,000 on their doorstep, I don't think this was much of an issue. The fact that they were the only peoples who didn't exterminate their elephant herds, I would say they handled this facet of elephant management quite well. The Asian elephant became extinct. And the same with the African Bush elephant. But the Indians are still around.

[Boom S]

@ all,
I wasn't arguing for super-elephants, I was arguing for weaker elephants in western India.
what on earth is a yubsteb ? but since eastern India does not feature in the map that's a little moot if you don't have a pan sub-continent faction.

@ sardukar one, texts like the buddhist canons, the epic mahabharata and the most authoritative one is arthashastra, the corpus by chandragupta maurya's mentor and prime minister, chanakya.
if you look at the greek sources, they say the same thing.
this is from wiki but reliable AFA I remember from my history books.

" Gandaridai, whose king, Xandrammes, had an army of 20,000 horse 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war""

"Now this (Ganges) river, which is 30 stadia broad, flows from north to south, and empties its water into the ocean forming the eastern boundary of the Gandaridai, a nation which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size. "---Diodorus Siculus

gangaridai, which means heart of the river ganga refers to region of bengal. now bear in mind that this kingdom was barely larger than that of puru (porus) and yet, while puru could muster only about 80-200 elephants, depending on whom you believe, gangaridai could field 4000 elephants, even accounting for exaggeration that is a big number.

elsewhere, plutarch mentions that alexander's soldiers were intimidated about fighting the armies of prasi and gangaridai, both are mentioned as having a large number of elephants.
now contemporary Indian literature does not mention any kingdom called prasi or gangaridai but both can be easily understood if they are taken to be geographical, rather than political terms, gangaridai certainly fits that description.
prasi is more difficult but a plausible explanation is the hellenic pronunciation of the term prachya or pasya meaning east. alongwith the description of prasi as neighbouring gangaridai, this then means a kingdom centered around magadh, which was then ruled by the nanda emperor dhanananda.

Chandragupta(spelling?) is estimated to have had as many as 9,000 elephants available for his army when he gave Seleucus his 500 war elephants.

I'm certain not all of those 9000 were war-elephants. elephants are mentioned as useful to draw carts when the terrain is rough and unsuitable for bullocks etc. even otherwise elephants were used as pack animals to carry the enermous baggage train of the mauryan army. logistics was a big enough headache for the mauryans to constitute a separate office of the war logistics superintendent in addition to those for 4 arms of the army and that of the navy.
elephants have voracious appetites, in camp the fodder for the war-elephants were transorted by the pack elephants.
same with the 500 elephants, we can be sure that those were not all war-elephants. I've also read (don't remember the source but it was an historical one from the era) that seleucids complained that many of those elephants were old and sick but they didn't know enough about elephants to understand that at the time. however that could be just a reaction after losing many of the beasts to inexperienced handling.

Its assumed, wrongly, that Seleucus got the better of this deal.
I thought the Mauryan empire controlled most of India around the start of the game. If so, isn't this a non-issue?

when is the start of the game ?
I've a little difficulty understanding how this thing works, if there is no faction in India, how can you have a centralised authority either ? I would like to hear how this is being set-up.

Not sure what you mean here. When the Mauryans started to lose control, they lost their control over the supply of elephants?
That things returned to how they were when Alexander first found India?
Makes sense!

mauryan dynasty starts 6 years after alexander's battle at hydapses, when chandragupta starts by defeating remnants of alexander's satrapies in the region.
at the time of alexander's forays into north-western fringe of India, the strongest faction was that of the nanda empire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Dynasty

Wild elephants were used because there were large numbers of them available. The cost of raising an elephant and the time it took for it to be battle ready made breeding them for war cost prohibitive.

not true. elephants were bred and kept in royal stables called hastisala or hathisala but these were used as beasts of burdens. wild elephants were chosen as war elephants as they were fiercer.
since it's your word vs chanakya's, I'll trust chanakya !

But wild elephants were not captured and trained with mahouts to then be used as pack animals.

the basis of this statement being ? personal opinion ? original research ?

Wild elephants were used because there were large numbers of them available. The cost of raising an elephant and the time it took for it to be battle ready made breeding them for war cost prohibitive.
At least 20 years before a newborn could be used in battle.
I find this hard to believe, but apparently elephants will have only one calf in their lifetime.

again not true, captive elephants were not used for battle for the reason I mentioned and not for cost. greek armies might have done otherwise if they had no alternative. it was however not recommended.
btw, you are sadly misinformed about elephant breeding habits. female elephants give birth every 5-6 years and stay fertile into their 40's.
perhaps a little reading up on the issue before making authoritative comments won't go amiss ?

Getting used to battle drums, being near horses etc, etc, sure. But i've not heard of any ancient elephants being trained to jump trenches. And i'm not sure what you mean by complex drills?

I will find you the exact quote. btw, how many elephant training manuals have you read anyway ?
complex drills as in turning quickly, fighting in formation, whether or not to charge and if so in what way and so on. do keep in mind that an elephant is an extremely intelligent thinking creature. unlike horses for example, an elephant actually fought in the battle and that does not involve just mindlessly running through opponent soldiers as is portrayed by most western historians !
a good mahout and his elephant can perform amazing feats, he can for example get the elephant to attack one particular opponent while ignoring the others, the opposing general for example. in a battle abilities like these are invaluable.
the real 'expert' elephants were even trained to fight with weapons held in their trunks !

I would actually have to say that a 'domesticated' elephant would be seem to me to be a better candidate for this than a wild one that was considered unsuitable for war.

both kinds were used. and no, there is no particular advantage to using captive bred elephants as pack animals.
to this day, India's forest department captures wild elephants to be used as jungle patrols since automobiles can't go where elephants can.

I actually read that Chandragupta let some of his elephants go back into the wild after a campaign was over. Sounds a little odd to me, but its possible I suppose.

not odd at all, releasing good elephants into forests means you ar bolstering the genepool.
the mauryan empire designated some forests as elephant forests and maintained these with their own superintendent and forest guards.

[Carados]

Ahhhh, the collective knowledge we all have is astounding ^__^

When I mentioned the elephants what I was actually trying to get across was the natural variation in size, so the genes and alleles that are always going to be present and will always create some variation in any decent sized gene pool. The Western side would have it's fair share of large elephants. The East might have more, still, but I'm not sure if the distinction between the two would be greater than for, say, horse breeds - which are far easier for man to manipulate.

Very true. Seleucus had 500 elephants, yet had 400 at Ipsus. By the time of the elephants battles some 25 years later, Antiochus I had to call up 20 elephants from Bactria. Only 16 where present for the "Elephant Battle" with the Galatians.
Whatever the reason, 20 percent of the elephants failed to make it to the west. Much of this was surely due to wastage.
And whatever happened to those 400 elephants Seleucus had at Ipsus?

I've heard one theory that suggests the majority died. Having so many animals that the other person knows nothing about, you could easily give them those at an advanced age and laugh as you get the long straw of the deal.

Wild elephants were used because there were large numbers of them available. The cost of raising an elephant and the time it took for it to be battle ready made breeding them for war cost prohibitive.
At least 20 years before a newborn could be used in battle.
I find this hard to believe, but apparently elephants will have only one calf in their lifetime.
So what happens if they have a female?
Female elephants run from males. So they are no good in war if the opponent has elephants too.

Are you sure? Man takes about 18 years before he fully matures (physically this is, I am aware that even men in their late 20's can be very immature ). You can use them in battle before then, but would they be thrust into the main battle line? More likely they would be used as skirmishers, assistants (holding extra weapons, missiles etc for their master/sire/whatever), or something else. It doesn't sound that far fetched for an elephant to take 20 years to mature enough to be used, reliably, for battle. Some animals do mature really slowly. They are typically the long lived species, but it does depend on so many factors. Large active predators would need to mature quicker than hebivores. Sturgeon (Acipenser, Huso) are an example of creatures that take ages to mature, it takes them about two decades on average. Males a little less, females a little more.

Do females really run from males? I've read an account where Pyrrhus alledgedly has a female in his group of elephants and that one of the elephants was even a calf (supposively, a blow to the head on the calf led the mother/grandmother to go on a rampage and thus prematurely stop a pursuit on the Romans - Heracleia, that was it).

when is the start of the game ?
I've a little difficulty understanding how this thing works, if there is no faction in India, how can you have a centralised authority either ? I would like to hear how this is being set-up.

280BC. India won't have a faction, but they might have a few settlements as part of a super/mini-faction. They are rather bland in ExRM 3.5, the only units in India are the spearmen, archers and elephants with javelinmen atop. The intention is for Bactria to move Southwards after a while. The Seleucids/Parthians can invade the same, if they want.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We might also try and get the Sai/Saka/Scythians to migrate down to the North of India, and then to eventually introduce the Yuezhi who would also move Southwards a little bit. But that will need the use of every trick in the modders manual , so might not happen.

Daqin, the major venomous snakes in India are the ones I mentioned, also called the big four. had to be one of them. are there any descriptions of the poison effects on alexander's army ? I think I can guess the poison type and snake species from that.

I don't know. I only saw a, brief,mention on wikipedia and had nothing further to say on the matter except that it was probably from a Russell's viper. No sources mentioned ¬__¬

Btw, did you get my map working?

No!
QI is going to give it a go when it gets back from his planned holiday. You're always welcome to help with it before then though

[Boom S]

disclaimer : given the extent of the map used in ExRM the elephant size discussion has no bearing on the game, IMO. subsequent discussions are for historical purposes only.

When I mentioned the elephants what I was actually trying to get across was the natural variation in size, so the genes and alleles that are always going to be present and will always create some variation in any decent sized gene pool. The Western side would have it's fair share of large elephants. The East might have more, still, but I'm not sure if the distinction between the two would be greater than for, say, horse breeds - which are far easier for man to manipulate.

Carados, but that is the very point, western India had far too small a number of wild elephants to support a sizable corps of the larger sized ones. just compare the size of the elephant corps of the gangaridai/vanga and that of puru/porus.
they would have had to make do with smaller ones.

female elephants were NEVER used for battle in India and AFAIK in the other countries which had local elephant populations and used elephants for war, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand etc. that pyrrhus did so, especially a suckling mother (!) points to the fact that he no longer had supplies from asia.

one reason is that females of the species are considerably smaller and weaker than the males but to understand it fully you also have to look at the habits of wild elephants, elephant herds are ruled by an elderly matriarch and all males are kicked out from the herd when they reach adolescence. once ousted from the herd male elephants form small bachelor groups or stay alone. male elephants constantly fight one another for mating rights in mating season. even otherwise, every few months in an year (no fixed season), a male reaches a condition called masth or musth when testosterone levels reach 60 times normal (you read that correctly !) and all he does is fight other males and look for females.
much like in humans, musth is most dangerous in young adult bulls and usually larger bulls fight them in order to calm them down.
wild females OTOH have no reason to fight ever in their lifetime and it is quite possible that one will run away from a large enraged bull elephant. so there is a lot to the theory that female elephants were not used for war. they made excellent pack animals however. older females in particular make very good leaders which mahouts use to control domestic herds.

[Boom S]

Carados, interesting that you mention russels viper, if I was choosing a poison for my archers it would have been russels viper venom only.

it's a very virulent concoction. even after treatment with modern anti-venom the bitten area frequently suffers a deformation. the venom is very quick acting and results in muscle paralysis, inflammation, discolouration of skin, kidney failure bleeding from gums, nausea and cardiac failure. even if death does not happen the after effects would be quite unnerving.
http://www.engin.umich.edu/~cre/web_...oduction_2.htm

I'll research a bit and try to find out if the symptoms are described anywhere.

[Sardaukar One]

I've heard one theory that suggests the majority died. Having so many animals that the other person knows nothing about, you could easily give them those at an advanced age and laugh as you get the long straw of the deal.

By 278 BC, Antiochus I had to call up 20 elephants from Bactria. Presumably all of the 500 elephants that Seleucus got from Chandragupta were dead. Chandragupta probaly didn't give him an elephant under 40 years old. Good for the next decade or two. I think the Seleucids probaly knew enough about elephants to recognize geriatric ones but perhaps not much past that.
With Antigonus looming, Seleucus may not have been in a position to wait. Had to take what he was being given and head back to the west.

Are you sure? Man takes about 18 years before he fully matures (physically this is, I am aware that even men in their late 20's can be very immature ). You can use them in battle before then, but would they be thrust into the main battle line? More likely they would be used as skirmishers, assistants (holding extra weapons, missiles etc for their master/sire/whatever), or something else. It doesn't sound that far fetched for an elephant to take 20 years to mature enough to be used, reliably, for battle. Some animals do mature really slowly. They are typically the long lived species, but it does depend on so many factors. Large active predators would need to mature quicker than hebivores. Sturgeon (Acipenser, Huso) are an example of creatures that take ages to mature, it takes them about two decades on average. Males a little less, females a little more.

In India, one would presumably think that the issue of the age of an elephant in battle would not be much of an issue. There were enough elephants of age to choose from.
In the west, they may not have had much choice. I think the real problem with age comes when you are asking your elephant corp to go up against an enemy elephant corp.
Do you really want a teenage elephant fighting a fully grown adult?

Do females really run from males? I've read an account where Pyrrhus alledgedly has a female in his group of elephants and that one of the elephants was even a calf (supposively, a blow to the head on the calf led the mother/grandmother to go on a rampage and thus prematurely stop a pursuit on the Romans - Heracleia, that was it).

Yes, females run from males. I quoted the mother elephant before. Her little Boo got beaned in the head with a missile or something, turned around and ran off. Mummy followed causing chaos.
But the Romans didn't have any elephants. So using females becomes much more viable now.
Using females and young elephants is mainly an issue when going up against an enemy who also has elephants. Not to say that you can't have problems using them versus an enemy without elephants.
But the dangers are very much highlighted when the enemy has its own elephants.
Of course, one has to wonder why Pyrrhus allowed a mother elephant and her calf into combat in the first place. He might have felt he had to take the gamble. And the only way to get the mother to fight was if her baby went with her.

280BC. India won't have a faction, but they might have a few settlements as part of a super/mini-faction. They are rather bland in ExRM 3.5, the only units in India are the spearmen, archers and elephants with javelinmen atop. The intention is for Bactria to move Southwards after a while. The Seleucids/Parthians can invade the same, if they want.

I'd like to see India be a challenge. I'd really like to see India be a faction.

wasn't arguing for super-elephants, I was arguing for weaker elephants in western India.
what on earth is a yubsteb ? but since eastern India does not feature in the map that's a little moot if you don't have a pan sub-continent faction.

What do you mean my weaker elephant? Is that like the smallest starting offensive lineman on an NFL team?
Isn't the yubsteb that giant elephant for RTW? Based on the elephants from LOTR?

@ sardukar one, texts like the buddhist canons, the epic mahabharata and the most authoritative one is arthashastra, the corpus by chandragupta maurya's mentor and prime minister, chanakya.
if you look at the greek sources, they say the same thing.
this is from wiki but reliable AFA I remember from my history books.

Have they translated any of them into english?
I've read people referencing them. Like you presumably.
If by the same thing you mean elephants are bigger in one part of India to another, that trainee war elephants are put through assault courses etc, I don't think the Greek sources say that.
I could be wrong on this, and if so, please quote pages so I can look it up.

gangaridai, which means heart of the river ganga refers to region of bengal. now bear in mind that this kingdom was barely larger than that of puru (porus) and yet, while puru could muster only about 80-200 elephants, depending on whom you believe, gangaridai could field 4000 elephants, even accounting for exaggeration that is a big number.

elsewhere, plutarch mentions that alexander's soldiers were intimidated about fighting the armies of prasi and gangaridai, both are mentioned as having a large number of elephants.
now contemporary Indian literature does not mention any kingdom called prasi or gangaridai but both can be easily understood if they are taken to be geographical, rather than political terms, gangaridai certainly fits that description.
prasi is more difficult but a plausible explanation is the hellenic pronunciation of the term prachya or pasya meaning east. alongwith the description of prasi as neighbouring gangaridai, this then means a kingdom centered around magadh, which was then ruled by the nanda emperor dhanananda.

Didn't Chandragupta take over all these territories some 20 years later?

I'm certain not all of those 9000 were war-elephants. elephants are mentioned as useful to draw carts when the terrain is rough and unsuitable for bullocks etc. even otherwise elephants were used as pack animals to carry the enermous baggage train of the mauryan army. logistics was a big enough headache for the mauryans to constitute a separate office of the war logistics superintendent in addition to those for 4 arms of the army and that of the navy.
elephants have voracious appetites, in camp the fodder for the war-elephants were transorted by the pack elephants.
same with the 500 elephants, we can be sure that those were not all war-elephants. I've also read (don't remember the source but it was an historical one from the era) that seleucids complained that many of those elephants were old and sick but they didn't know enough about elephants to understand that at the time. however that could be just a reaction after losing many of the beasts to inexperienced handling.

If Chandragupta took over all the above mentioned territories, having a herd of 9,000 seems plausible to me.
Of course, I doubt he ever fielded this many elephants, but I think its rather meant as the amount available to him.
Yes, elephants eat something like 15% of their body weight per day don't they? Imagine the feed bill for a 100. Let alone 9,000.
I wouldn't like to be the stable hand.

I think the majority of the elephants given to Seleucus would have been male. If not all of them.
My guess would be that the elephants would have been older ones. 40 years plus. Young enough so that Seleucus can use them against Antigonus. But not young enough for them to be a long term threat.
No females so as not to be able to start a breeding program. If there were females, probably older ones.

I'd add that Chandragupta would not have given a Seleucus 500 elephants if this number could have been a threat to him. This suggests to me that Chandragupta had a lot more elephants available to him

I think the Seleucids got the raw end of the deal with Chandragupta. And you may well be right that they didn't understand elephants enough to be able to look after 500.
But I bet the Seleucids lost a lot of them marching through Armenia in the dead of winter for the Ipsus campaign. Who knows what happened to the 500? Probably a combination of things.

when is the start of the game ?
I've a little difficulty understanding how this thing works, if there is no faction in India, how can you have a centralised authority either ? I would like to hear how this is being set-up.

282 BC I think. Or is it 281 BC?
I'd love to see an Indian faction. The Mauyran Empire presumably. Didn't they have control over most of India at this time?

mauryan dynasty starts 6 years after alexander's battle at hydapses, when chandragupta starts by defeating remnants of alexander's satrapies in the region.
at the time of alexander's forays into north-western fringe of India, the strongest faction was that of the nanda empire.

Right. After Antigonus defeated Eumenes, he reorganized the East. Or tried to. The Indian satrapies were not discussed. They had been lost and Antigonus wasn't interested in doing anything about it.
Did send 1,000 of the unruliest silver shields to Aria. They were to be considered as expendable.

not true. elephants were bred and kept in royal stables called hastisala or hathisala but these were used as beasts of burdens. wild elephants were chosen as war elephants as they were fiercer.
since it's your word vs chanakya's, I'll trust chanakya

I was actually talking about the use of elephants in the west. In which case I would be right!

the basis of this statement being ? personal opinion ? original research ?

Name a western dynast who used elephants as pack animals?

again not true, captive elephants were not used for battle for the reason I mentioned and not for cost. greek armies might have done otherwise if they had no alternative. it was however not recommended.

Whatever the elephant was used for, they were captive elephants.

btw, you are sadly misinformed about elephant breeding habits. female elephants give birth every 5-6 years and stay fertile into their 40's.

Right! Which is why I said I find that hard to believe.

perhaps a little reading up on the issue before making authoritative comments won't go amiss ?

I would not describe any statement or comment that begins with "I find it hard to believe but...", authoritative. Its anything but authoritative.
To think otherwise is asinine. Its so asinine that I have to ask do you know what authoritative means?
Because you certainly don't know how to recognize an authoritative comment.

I'd add that I find it hard to believe that an elephant only had one calf. And the more I think about, the more i'm sure this is not the case. But I do know that its about 15-20 years before a female will look to mate. That the gestation period is close to two years. And that a calf relies on its mother for milk for at least three or four years. Usually longer. Sometimes a lot longer.
If this is the case, i'm not really sure a female elephant would stick to your 5-6 year plan.

I will find you the exact quote. btw, how many elephant training manuals have you read anyway ?
complex drills as in turning quickly, fighting in formation, whether or not to charge and if so in what way and so on. do keep in mind that an elephant is an extremely intelligent thinking creature. unlike horses for example, an elephant actually fought in the battle and that does not involve just mindlessly running through opponent soldiers as is portrayed by most western historians !
a good mahout and his elephant can perform amazing feats, he can for example get the elephant to attack one particular opponent while ignoring the others, the opposing general for example. in a battle abilities like these are invaluable.
the real 'expert' elephants were even trained to fight with weapons held in their trunks !

I have a number of books on elephants in the ancient world. Sorry, no ancient Indian texts.
No training manuals either.
I think you and I have different ideas on what complex mean. Saying that, i'd really like to see a corps of elephants in wedge formation.

I know that the use of elephants in war was different as the years rolled by. Burma(vs the Siamese), the Mughals etc, etc.
They carried cannons on their back, were used more effectively in sieges etc.
I know that they put metal coverings(not sure what they are called) on their tusks to increase the damage they could do. Did they do that in the Mauyran empire?
I want to say I did read elephants holding weapons with their trunks. But it sounded rather stupid to me though. Was this widespread? Surely not!
I'd add that the mahout targets the individual target. Not the elephant itself. I don't know how you can train an elephant to target a specific target in the middle of a battle without the mahout directing.

both kinds were used. and no, there is no particular advantage to using captive bred elephants as pack animals.
to this day, India's forest department captures wild elephants to be used as jungle patrols since automobiles can't go where elephants can.

A captive bred elephant would seem like the better fit to do manual labor. Not saying a captured wild elephant wouldn't be fine, just saying a captive bred elephant would seem to be a better fit for manual labor.

not odd at all, releasing good elephants into forests means you ar bolstering the genepool.
the mauryan empire designated some forests as elephant forests and maintained these with their own superintendent and forest guards.

Probaly not if you captured then from the wild in the first place. Might make things easier too when you need to restock your elephant corps.
When I read that, it came over kinda like the national levy. When needed, the Mauryans would go out and capture some elephants. Then, when the campaign was over, they would release them back into the wild.
Of course, the Mauryans would have a standing elephant corps plus elephant for whatever else.
Just the elephants that were no longer needed were released.


On a final note, I would add that I was often talking about elephants in the west, not in India.
We seem to have gotten our wires crossed over this.
As this is a thread about India, the blame is mine.

[Boom S]

@ Sardaukar One, you come across as unnecessarily aggressive, I'm not sure if it's intentional. whatever be the reason it is unwarranted.
I do not want to harp on this but my references to 'authoritative comments' were not the ones you mentioned but others, there are a couple of them even in the last post. so yes, I can recognize authoritative comments but you may want to brush up elementary arithmetic a little.
for example

I'd add that I find it hard to believe that an elephant only had one calf. And the more I think about, the more i'm sure this is not the case. But I do know that its about 15-20 years before a female will look to mate. That the gestation period is close to two years. And that a calf relies on its mother for milk for at least three or four years. Usually longer. Sometimes a lot longer.
If this is the case, i'm not really sure a female elephant would stick to your 5-6 year plan.

which adds up to 5-6 years, which is what I said. FYI 5 years is the avg gap between births, more than 6 years is not unknown but uncommon.

as you mention at the end the discussion was about elephants in India and in that light, I'm sorry to say your comments are mostly incorrect.

english translations of most of the texts should be available, of the arthashastra there is a penguin international edition, you might want to have a look.