Ptolemaics H/H?

[Faravid]

I've played RTW for several years but now for the first time playing RS. I started out as Egypt which is my favorite faction due to personal interest in it, and because it's usually the "noob" faction in most situations.

So I fire up H/H since that's what usually is the "right" difficulty for me in mods like IB and RTR. So I go as Ptolemy IV to face Antiochus. But goddammit I can't win the battle where the Egyptians are supposed to curb stomp the Seleucids.

The thing is that I can't kill even a single elephant. I order over 500 men including all my cavalry to attack the elephants and 3 minutes later I haven't killed a single elephant but the elephants alone have wiped out a third of my whole goddamn force. How does one win that battle? My elephants rout after ~3 fire arrow volleys made by the enemy, so they aren't very useful (and they weren't in IRL Raphia). I don't have any major problems defending against their infantry but the elephants are just killing me. They just hang around until the battle is halfway through and then they just charge at my pikes and kill everyone.

[Larkin]

Elephants are a little OP. You can edit their defense down in the descr_strat if you desire.

Cavalry are useless against them, you'll do better with spearmen and skirmishers in particular. Fire arrows are also a good idea.

[Faravid]

I had two squads of archers empty their quivers with fire arrows but nothing happened.

How does an average experienced player deal with the Seleucid elephants? I don't want to be quick to edit descr_strat since I want to play the mod the way it was intended, but I don't want to play on Medium since then it gets too easy later on.

[Larkin]

the way it was intended

Well in 2.6 the elephants are being toned down. So it wouldn'e be too bad.

[Spartan999]

you can always change the export_descr_unit to make the units less stronger

[Stelios]

or you can retreat from the battle. go to alexandria. buy some catapults and go to antiocheia in the north like i did and drink some wine in seleucid palace on H/H as well
if you have catapults u dont have to change anything in export_descr_unit

[Faravid]

or you can retreat from the battle. go to alexandria. buy some catapults and go to antiocheia in the north like i did and drink some wine in seleucid palace on H/H as well
if you have catapults u dont have to change anything in export_descr_unit

Hmm, that could work.

If that fails I suppose I should just gimp the 'phants a bit. They are ridiculously powerful. Suppose that I'm going to nerf them, which file should I edit? Assuming that I'm playing as Ptolemaics in 1-turn campaign.

[Faravid]

For the hell of it I tried out the Seleucid side and I destroyed every single last man of Ptolemy's army including Ptolemy himself while suffering only 400 casualties (I managed to lose 1 elephant, amazingly enough). Perhaps the problem isn't just Seleucid elephants, but rather the Ptolemaic army which seems to be tragically handicapped compared to the Seleucid elite force.

[Post Hoc]

Edit the EDU, Cataphract elephant stats were a mistake in 2.5.

[Faravid]

Edit the EDU, Cataphract elephant stats were a mistake in 2.5.

Got it.

I lowered the elephants' armor from 48 to 25 and changed nothing else, think that's good?

[fableofsea]

Yes they're tough, but you're still able to kill them.