How to defeat elephants?

[Diego Alatriste]

Hi there!
In my Ghaznavid Campaign I already destroyed the Chauhans in a Blitzkrieg, but now i fight against the Pavars.
I started my invasion with 4 full stack armies on their major cities and castles, so my economy was ed up, after only one turn they defeated 2 of my 4 armies, i conquered 2 cities, the got one back, and the other one is besieged. So my invasion was simply wiped out in 3-4 turns. My problem is that i loose naerly every battle against the Pavars, because of their elephant bodyguards. I only killed the Chauhans so easily, because their armies were more little and i could concentrate my powers on their elephants, but the Pavars use mass armies with 1-2 elephant units. I tried different tactis against them. Arrows and Meele weapons, except Maces, are worthless, cavalary is only a waste of money. Only javelins deal some good damage, but the Ghaznavids do not have really good javelin units, also to kill the elephants with javelins i nedd 1-2 Infantry units to bind them, so that they do not attack my missile units, but i need my infantry to fight their infantry! What shall i do? Are there any other effective tactics or strategies?
I hope you can help me!
Leo

[Savoyard]

It's the javelins. I don't know why, but that's the thing to use.

[brapollo]

In every Total War game, in every mod, the answer to elephants is always javelins. Though fire arrows sometimes work and so does artillery.

The strange thing about javelins is I've never read anything saying that is even a remotely accurate way of killing elephants. I doubt there is a single human being who has ever lived who could do serious damage to an elephant with a javelin.

[Diego Alatriste]

Ok, thank you

[k/t]

Javelins have the "thrown" attribute, which gives a big, hardcoded bonus against elephants.

In real life, I don't know how effective that would be. What's the best way to kill an elephant? That's a question to remember to ask a groundskeeper the next time you're at the zoo.

[Ichon]

I think all the javelin bonus against elephants is from Selucid and Roman chronicles which say that arrows and most other methods were relatively ineffective but that javelins maddened the elephants which then stampeded through their own armies lines. Most of what I've read says that usually it was very difficult to kill the elephants and the only way to stop them was to kill the riders whereupon the elephants then usually wandered out of the battle. MTW2 has the riders and mounts together though so... not really sure what the best solution would be. Elephants were difficult to kill so probably javelins and guns is about the best solution given mechanics or just lower their armor but increase their HP so arrows eventually have an effect.

[nein]

infantry javelin throwers are kind of in bc, they have a hard time firing without taking all day... some of them are even worse and only throw a handful of spears in the entire fight.

Against elephants mounted javelins are king, they are like elephant battlefield assasins

[Diego Alatriste]

Thanks fpr the many suggestions!
I tried some methods, in my opinion the best tactic against them is to ride with javelinthrowers on horses in their back, but everything else is crap.

[k/t]

The javelin throwing animation is way too slow in every mod. PB released a new, sped-up animation in the RR/RC forum that's free to use. You can also put the attack delay to 0 in the EDU, but it's really the animation that's the problem.

[Rudy727]

The javelin throwing animation is way too slow in every mod. PB released a new, sped-up animation in the RR/RC forum that's free to use. You can also put the attack delay to 0 in the EDU, but it's really the animation that's the problem.

what is PB..?? care to redirect me somewhere with links..?? itd be much appreciated (:

[RollingWave]

well ice age humans hunted Mammoths with Javelin, it is probably relatively more effective than arrow if only due to weight and the size of wound it opens, but that's like saying being stabbed with a pen is more deadly than being stabbed with a short needle... it's not untrue... but the likelihood of you being killed by said pen stab is still very low.

Yeah it seems to be rather difficult to kill the elephant outright in battle. the Mongols when in SE Asia won by just shooting a shite load of arrow on the elephant and their (mostly unarmored) infantry support from a long distances away. as their horses refuse to go anywhere close to those things. eevntually the elephants lost heart and turned and those infantry that hasn't been killed/ badly wounded by the arrows already were trampled.

[k/t]

Didn't they try to herd the mammoths off cliffs, though?

Oh yeah, elephants in this mod move way too fast. Slap a move_speed_mod 0.6 on them and your foot javeliners should do a little better.

[Ichon]

Elephants can charge fast over short distances though under controlled tests the fastest so far measured is 15 mph there are videos which can be analyzed of charging elephants which estimate a speed just under 30 mph. Average speed of a walking elephant is about 4 mph so close enough to a human walking speed for game purposes so from what I've seen it should be around .6 as K/T said as that results in nearly correct walking speed while the charge might be a bit slower than it should at that speed. If we want to compromise between a slightly faster walk and a slightly slower charge than probably .7 or .8- http://whyfiles.org/shorties/128elephant_run/

[brapollo]

Interestingly I was just reading Vegetius (ancient Roman author of a famous military manual) and he notes elephants are countered by, among other things, javelin throwers on horseback (not on foot) and artillery. So I guess the Total War games may be somewhat accurate in their portrayal of elephants.

[k/t]

But did those javelins kill them or just make them mad and run away?

[brapollo]

But did those javelins kill them or just make them mad and run away?

They actually killed the elephants. Or so it's reported.

[Ichon]

They actually killed the elephants. Or so it's reported.

It took quite a few javelins though but I think its obvious javelins can kill elephants as many were hunted to extinction long before BC era by men using spears and javelins.

[k/t]

Once you have 25 posts, you can edit your posts.

PB is Point Blank. The RR/RC Compilation has its own forum in the Stainless Steel submod forum.

[CaptainIglo]

Place Sogdian assault infantry or Kabuli Axemen or Mamluk Tabardiyya they chop trough elephant ranks like knife trough butter, belive me, it works, just try it out, and if you face the elephants from Tamerlan with the Artillery on their back, throw 1 unit of cavalry on them to keep them quite, harass with javalines from the side. Dont use Infantry cuz u'll loose 80% of the unit before reaching the elephants.