Elephants

**General Danilius** · January 26, 2007, 08:43 PM

Hello. I've been a lurker in this forum for quite some time now and decided to sign up.
I've never owned a TW game before but I've played some RTW. I picked up the strategy really quickly since I like strategy games.

Now, I have a question regarding the Timurid elephant units. The first Timurids horde has arrived on my English-occupied Prague. I decide to engage one of their armies with a full army of my own. Once I engage I play the defensive and make a defensive formation and set all my units in guard mode. Problems come when the elephant artillery starts attacking my men. Then come about 2 units of elephant gunners, these two combined make cut down my front ranks easily. Even worse is their charge which makes what remains of my men rout. I do have 2 units of Longbowmen and most importantly 4 units of arquebusiers that I had nearby. Arquebusiers can't reach the artillery so I send a unit of Demi Lancers but the elephant artillery still maintains the attack and manages to fight off my Lancers.
Should I switch to the offensive so I can give my ranged units a good line of fire?
I could use some advice.

**Jimexander the Mighty** · January 26, 2007, 08:46 PM

Ok man In my experiences there is ONE way to deal with elephants, thats is LONG RANGE artillery. Try to get a cannon that can out shoot the elephant cannons. The elephants are very easily killed this way, and i do believe this is the only way.

**General Danilius** · January 26, 2007, 08:48 PM

Hm, that could do it. I did try with one unit of culverins. One positive aspect is that they drew fire, but not so positive when the culverins were destroyed. Ok then, I'll have to make some more culverins.

**Jimexander the Mighty** · January 26, 2007, 08:49 PM

Yes try to have at least 3-4 units of them, should work real well

**Tajir** · January 26, 2007, 08:53 PM

Offensive!

If the elephants are coming towards you directly, get out of the way. For good measure, you should send a sacrificial unit of peasants; maybe two, if one routs -- after the elephants.

When the elephants are occupied by the peasants, let the gunners lose on them. Then send your best cannon unit to blow the elephants to bits!

You can't have one rigid, uniform strategy when facing an intimidating unit, use guerrilla tactics, mind games!

Take a few cues from historical battles and current wars.

What do the Iraqi guerrillas do to fight American troops? They open counter-measure fronts on them; one RPG team to de-mobilize the marines, another unit of foot troops to run around and play decoy to marines, and the last unit to make the ambush and finish the squad.

*No offense to any US marines or families of marines, I'm just illustrating an example of guerrilla warfare*

**General Danilius** · January 26, 2007, 09:44 PM

Thanks a lot for the advice by the way.
I'm going for guerilla tactics as well as a solid artillery line

**Jimexander the Mighty** · January 26, 2007, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by General Danilius

Thanks a lot for the advice by the way.
I'm going for guerilla tactics as well as a solid artillery line

Perfect

**parvus** · January 26, 2007, 10:23 PM

very long range arrows on fire should make them go crazy

**Ippius** · January 26, 2007, 10:26 PM

Elephants are double edged swords. Yes they have a very nice special attack and have good long range BUT they flee even more easily than before. Use long range artillery and what's also good are archers with fire arrows. Trust me. They pwn elephants' morale.
If ur really desperate, mass them (ie. get loads of peasants or something like that) and swarm them becuase they even get frightened very easily that way!

**Tajir** · January 27, 2007, 12:11 AM

Originally Posted by Ippius

Elephants are double edged swords. Yes they have a very nice special attack and have good long range BUT they flee even more easily than before. Use long range artillery and what's also good are archers with fire arrows. Trust me. They pwn elephants' morale.
If ur really desperate, mass them (ie. get loads of peasants or something like that) and swarm them becuase they even get frightened very easily that way!

Camels scare horses, so you might want to pit those elephants against some foreign units.

**Ippius** · January 27, 2007, 04:24 AM

lol...Hopefully that'll work. But serriously...fire wrecks elephants. My bro used the rogan and vindaloo cheats to get an army of elephants...they were nearly destroyed by 2 squads of archers firing fire arrows constantly at them. He nearly lost the battle lol.

**sgt.kzi33** · January 26, 2007, 10:26 PM

OR you could use intiminateing weapons like gunpoweder and not bother to be too accurate (try and kill them if possible) but its better to panic the elephants and have the rampage through their own troops. But if they aren't anywhere close to their lines and or going through your own lines then go ahead and blow them to bits.....but be gentle.....elephants are nice creatures but its the humans forceing them to kill. PLEASE BE GENTLE!