How to deal with elephants
 

Masses of elephants are a big threat even early on, so how to deal with them effectively? Let us begin by looking on the elephant's weak points.

Weaknesses of the elephant:
Low morale: 9
Abysmal magic resistance: 6
Low defense: 8
Moderate protection: 11

From this information I have assembled a list of more or less effective early game spells to counter the them:

Thaumaturgy

Sleep N2 - low level (2), low fatigue (20), long range (30), good precision (+5).

Pros
Stops the elephants in their tracks instantly by giving them 110+ stun damage when they fail their MR check. The sleeping elephants will also block their brethren to great effect.

Cons
Not very good against hordes of elephants unless you yourself got lots of spell casters. It may also miss sometimes based on spell casters precision (combine with eagle eyes).

Panic N2 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), long range (25), some precision (+1), great area effect (5+).

Pros
If the elephants had low morale before they now have none. Spam this spell and you won't have any trouble scaring them off into their own units with the first javelin/bolt/arrow/stone volley. You can even cast this spell when the elephants are entangled with your own units in close combat as it won't hit them. A great spell against all low magic resistance units overall.

Cons
It won't scare the elephants by itself, just lower their morale. Thus you have to combine it with (preferably missile) units of your own.

Seven years fever N1 F1 – low level (1), moderate fatigue (30), good range (20), some precision (+2), some area effect (1).

Pros
The elephants won't heal after combat. Combine with arrow fire, retreat or fight to the death to delay. If playing Machaka this may be the way to go as they have no problem casting this and have cheap and fast archers.

Cons
Mostly for Machaka and mostly for delaying action.

Curse N1 S1 - low level (1), moderate fatigue (30), extreme range (50), extreme precision (+100), affects one person.

Pros
Will make the elephants useless if combined with arrow fire and/or javelin chaff. Then send in the real troops. Great spell for C'tis witch doctors. You can also find witch doctors easily.

Cons
This is a combination spell. Pretty hard to use if you don't play C'tis.

Frighten D1 - low level (1), almost no fatigue (5), extreme range (50), some precision (+5), small area effect (1).

Pros
Fear +15 attack in the square where it hits. That gives the elephants 18% chance of passing it. So it is pretty good. You can spam this spell to great effect. The more death mages the better spamming it together. For even better chance of success combine it with panic to first lower their morale.

Cons
Not very good at scaring off big hordes apparently. Will also hit your own troops so try not to use it when your troops are in melee with the beasts. No problem with mindless though

Terror D3 - moderate level (4), very low fatigue (10), long range (25), some precision (+1), great area effect (5+).

Pros
Just as Frighten but with lower fear attack (+10) and much greater area of effect. Excellent spell overall. A hordes of elephants are no problem if you have a couple of sauromancers spamming this. Just drive them before you! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Cons
Can be hard to cast for most nations not into death. Will hit your own troops. No problem with mindless though.

Check out the replay for a demonstration:
TerrorPanic

Note that the elephants all have +2 morale (11) making it harder for this spell to work.

Paralyze S2 – moderate level (4), low fatigue (20), extreme range (100), extreme precision (+100), affects only one person.

Pros
This spells needs no explaining. It will both:
Hurt the elephant – it may route.
Stop the elephant – it will block others.

Cons
No real cons. Astral are not for everyone. A bit high level for early on rushes.

Soul Slay S3 – high level (5), low fatigue (20), extreme range (100), extreme precision (+100), affects only one person.

Pros
This is THE spell to instantly kill the pesky buggers also known as elephants. If you can use it you should.

Cons
Astral 3 means it isn't for everyone until later in the game. Level 5 says the same. If you are being rushed you probably won't have it yet. Thankfully there are other low level spells that you can use in the meantime.


Bonds of Fire F1 - low level (2), low fatigue (20), moderate range (15), some precision (+3), small effect (5).

Pros
This is contrary to belief a good way to stop elephants when playing for instance MA Ulm or Abysia. Why? Because to escape the shackles you need high morale, something elephants do not have. When they are standing still they are easy targets for your arbalests (playing Ulm) and other fire spells (playing Abysia). If they eventually break free they will take some AN damage that will help them rout.

Cons
You have to be dangerously close to the beasts, so use screening. Also, the enemy may try to boost the elephants morale with banners. It won't be enough all the time though as the elephants need to take the test against 20.

Prison of Fire F3 - moderate level (4), moderate fatigue (30), long range (25), some precision (+2), good area effect (3+).

Pros
Just as Bonds of Fire but with better range and greater area effect.

Cons
Harder to cast. I see this spell mostly as an Abysian counter to elephant horde. This spell will give them plenty of time to massacre the elephants will fireballs and the like.

Rage F2 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), long range (25), extreme precision (+100), only hits one person.

Pros
Makes the elephant kill his mates and hopefully the juicy commander(s) with banners. Great in combination with Prison of Fire and Bonds of Fire.

Cons
This will usually hit the spot, although it is hard to cast for most nations.

Confusion A3 - high level (5), very low fatigue (10), long range (25), some precision (+1), small area effect (1).

Pros
Similar to rage but with an area effect and more random result. A possible counter for air heavy nations.

Cons
Way too high level to stop an early rush.


Enchantment

Flaming Arrows F4 - medium level (4), very high fatigue (100), gem cost 1, BF effect.

Pros
Flaming arrows will pierce the little (11) protection the elephants have and then hurt them bad.

Cons
None really. Hard to cast and not really low level.

Nothing else in enchantment except rituals that I won't touch with this guide. You could perhaps use the various undead battlefield summoning spells to wear the elephants down.


Alteration

False Fetters A2 - low level (1), very low fatigue (10), very short range (10), no precision (+0), moderate area effect (2+).

Pros
I can't see how the elephants would get free of this in a hurry. To get loose an elephant would need to roll a DRN (2d6 unlimited) of 15 (15 + 6 MR to exceed 20 that is needed to get free). This happening isn't very likely.
Another good thing is the area effect of this spell, and its cheapness and low level. It is highly recommended that you use it if you can. Combine with hard hitting infantry.

Cons
Obviously the very short range. You have to get awfully close to the beast before casting but as the spell is so effective against them it isn't that dangerous.

Body Ethereal S1 low level (3), moderate fatigue (30), very short range (1), area of effect 1.

Pros
Will make it much harder to hit the enchanted unit, and this will save them from being trampled most of the time (75%). Use this on the soldiers your are sending into the fray, but be sure to back them up with other spells to even the odds even more.
Not very expensive on the fatigue in reality as you can usually buff your mages a level cutting it in half.

Cons
None really, this is a real lifesaver.


Construction

Nothing here except way up the research tree.

Evocation

Flame Bolt F2 - low level (1), low fatigue (20), long range (40+), some precision (+2), only hits one person.

Pros
The earliest and probably the best (until pillar of fire) raw fire damage spell to kill elephants. Good precision (for a fire spell), really good damage (22+ ap) and low fatigue. And as elephants take are size 6 they take up one whole square so area damage of 1 is not needed.

Other contenders:
Flare: does area damage of 1 but cost 50 fatigue and has no precision boost, it is also higher level.
Fireball: Higher level and less damage and precision, also area damage of 1.

Cons
You need something else to stop the beasts first, before you can really start pound them. So why not Prison of Fire?

Slime W1 – low level (1), low fatigue (20), long range (25+), some precision (+2), area effect 1.

Pros
Surprisingly good against elephants as they almost always get slimed due to their abysmal MR (6) and then start to move real slow. Trample becomes less effective and their defense is halved down to 4. Now you can actually kill the beasts in close combat. All this for a very low level spell.

Cons
Not very good when the elephants come in very large numbers. But then you have better spells and this can work as a complement before going into close combat. Combine Slime with cold bolt/blast and falling frost for very good results.

Cold Bolt W2 - low level (1), low fatigue (20), very long range (45), some precision (+3), only hits one person, high damage (19+).

Pros
Very good at both stopping and damaging the large and easy to hit creatures. Actually much better than its fire equivalent above, Flame Bolt, except the lack AP. Combine with same Slime found at the same level and commence pummeling the sitting ducks.

Cons
As with Slime you have need better spells when the elephants come in very large numbers. That or a large group of spell casters.

Falling Frost W3 – high level (5), low fatigue (20), long range (25), low precision (+0), great area effect (5+), high damage (17+).

Pros
Same as cold bolt but area effect. Use this, slime, and archers when the ellies come in horde numbers.

Cons
None really. High level, difficult to cast for many nations.

Magma Bolts E1 F1 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), long range (25+), some precision (+2), only hits one person, 3 effects, very high damage (25+).

Pros
This is a very nice spell against elephants. Just stop them with the also accessible Fire Bonds/Prison of Fire first. This is the counter I use when playing MA Ulm and meet elephants early on. The smiths can cast both with very little research. Later you use the big brother Magma Eruption of course.

Cons
Hard to cast for many nations.

Nether Bolts S1 D1 - medium level (4), low fatigue (15), very long range (30+), some precision (+2), area effect 1, damage 20+ AP.

Pros
Pretty good against elephants in combination with frighten and terror.

Cons
Hard to cast for most nations.

Stellar Cascades S2 high level (5), low fatigue (20), long range (30), extreme precision (+100), great area effect (5+), 25 stun damage.

Pros
This spell is ridiculously good against elephants as it is easily spammable by low level mages (guru for instance), it has crazy precision and great area effect. You only need 4 hits to stop a large number of elephants completely. Then you can rip them apart with in close combat (extremely easy to hit) or missiles (100+ fatigue means lots and lots of critical hits).

Cons
High level.

Lightning Bolt A2 low level (2), very low fatigue (10), very long range (35+), good precision (+4), only hits one person, moderate damage (14+).

Pros
Easy to spam and quickly kill a small number of elephants.

Cons
Low damage.

Thunder Strike A3 medium level (4), high fatigue (50), extreme range (100), some precision (+2), area effect 1, damage 26+ AN.

Pros
Can both kill and stun elephants quite quickly

Cons
It really costs too much fatigue. Too high level of air is needed to make it useful to many.

Shadow Bolt D2 - low level (3), low fatigue (20), very long range (30+), some precision (+3), only hits one person, very good damage (20+ AN).

Pros
This is a good spell for both stopping (paralyze) and bombarding incoming elephants. Use it in combination with lots and lots of immune undead creatures.

Cons
None really. It is a pretty solid and easy to get spell. Hard to stop hordes of elephants with it though. But then you have:

Shadow Blast D2 - high level (5), high fatigue (100), very long range (30+), no precision (+0), extremely good area of effect (7+), very good damage (20+ AN).

Pros
This is an extremely good spell against all low MR, big sized, high HP monsters. Use it extensively.

Cons
Costs much fatigue so you will either need higher than 2 death or gems to cast it twice with the same mage.

Some of you might think that I should mention Vine Arrow. But it is not very effective against elephants as they have the strength to break through easily. Bonds of Fire is a much better ”stop” spell on elephants as they have to make the test against morale and not strength. Same with Tangle Vines.



Conjuration

Nothing here that merits a mention.



What do you think? Is there something that shouldn't be on the list or have I failed to mention something obvious?

Also, how do you combine the spells to the best effect with troops? Do you have a killer strategy? Please feel free to post it.

Happy gaming! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Edit
Added False Fetters comments.

Edit
Added Body Ethereal
Added Soul Slay

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

One problem here is that even if you're expecting an elephant rush and are preparing your counter, all those mages don't help much in expansion. The elephants on the other hand are great for expanding. So I even if the counter works, the guy having to use it probably suffers far more than the guy using elephants.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I tend to use slingers. Masses of them, spread out into as many groups as I can break them up into.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

The thing with these counters is that they are easy to access and that you can use your research mages to cast them without preparation. They are intended to complement your expansion or defense army.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

We have a policy of never dealing with elephants. We don't even like dealing with those who do deal with elephants.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I think this is an excellent listing, in a recent MP game I was facing some big elephant hordes (30 to 50 elephants) from Arco and to my great frustration I couldn't really deal with them. I guess that doesn't need to happen again! Thanks for putting this together Dedas.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I don't totally understand how that would work Gandalf. I haven't tried it though, have you? I mean against a real elephant rush, not just a handful of them.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

You missed False Fetters; slightly better than Bonds of Fire, as they have to make MR checks instead of morale, which start lower and is tougher to boost in the early game.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Oh yes, how could I have missed that? Thank you, I'm adding it to the list right away. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


@parcelt
Thank you for your kind words! I'm glad that the list can help you somewhat.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Crushers (con 5) are size 6 and difficult to kill. Why not put one in front of your army to distract the elephants?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I suppose that I could use the mini-map battle simulator to test it a bunch of times. Put a bunch of elephants on one team and a bunch of slingers on the other. Maybe someone else will care enough.

But I dont see why its a question. I see the shards spell mentioned often enough when elephants are mentioned. I can get alot more slingers tossing a LOT more stones than I can get mages into the field.

Most of the answers I see focus on the elephants low morale, low defense, big size. Its not how hard you hit them but how often you can hit them so that they will rout back thru their buddies. When I run into elephants I look for cheap bulk with lots of attacks. Slingers, or the woodsmen with double-dagger attack. I also like to toss in those woodsmen with blowpipes to paralyze.

Oh yeah, and poison bladder bags. Its a cheap and early area affect.

Of course Im thinking early game mostly.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Body ethereal also gives you a 75% chance to avoid trampling. Easy to cast and can be effective if you've got some high damage dealing troops that just need to last a couple rounds to take the elephants down.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I have used elephant/mammoth rush many times. Only once has anyone stopped me and that was Bander Log with massed soul slay. It totally ruined my day, but was very, very effective.

I have had people try bonds of fire, massed archers/crossbows, single target evocation spells like lightning, shadow bolt, thunderstrike, firebolt, body ethereal etc and they have all failed miserably.

Sorry, to say Dedas some of those on your list are a little misleading. They will not stop a well put together elephant/mammoth rush.

A few final points, no player will ever put anything behind massed elephants just in case morale breaks and why just use elephants on there own? You support your elephant legions. As Caelum I support mine with archers usually scripted to fire archers or rear and small squads of flyers, again scripted to attack rear/archers. The aim of those support forces is to counter the counter to elephants ie...mages/archers.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I actually put some research and experience behind this and the above spell list what I came up with, all level 5 and below. There are better spells of course but on higher levels, capable of dealing with later game threats as it should be.

Another thing, I did never state that the spells above should work on their own, quite the contrary in fact - they work best in combination with other spells and units. For example, you don't need that many Bonds of Fire to make a huge difference when your army consists of lots of arbalests and foot soldiers. The elephants will come to you in smaller numbers actually possible to stop. The thing is to break the "wall of tramplers" and buy time for the real troops to fire and hack. Just some poorly scripted mages with with minimal backup will do nothing. We all know that.

Oh, and if you have anything better to offer in countering an early game elephant/mammoth rush besides running away please share. I believe we are all ears. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Oh I don't know Bob, I've personally had pretty good luck with frighten and in another case body ethereal (water blessed Bandar Log tiger riders - quickened 3 attacks plus a high defense). In another game I saw elephants crushing my neighbor and quickly researched up to enslave mind before they were turned on me. You think soul slay ruined your day? Elephants fear the communion. >:)

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Thank you Baalz, I will add Body Ethereal to the list. Oh and I just tested it myself in a little scenario I did. It works very well with simple units as heavy cavalry, units that you can recruit almost everywhere.

Oh, and archers and fliers are not that big a threat to mages in the back if you know how to protect them. You just need to roughly know how the combat AI works and of course know your opponent's scripting. I usually send in a scout with retreat order first, or spy on the enemy when he attacks indies to find out. People usually don't change their setup even though they should. Because you never know who's watching. He he he! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I think mind burn and soul slay should be on the list.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Soul Slay is already added. I'm a bit skeptical to Mind Burn though, mostly because I haven't tested it yet on elephants. It looks like it does too little damage. Maybe you have some experience?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

One of the problems with your suggestion is that it requires mages at all. As you say above you can even just use your research mages.... but if I have to pull my mages away from researching for several turns to go and fight elephants and then have them walk several turns back to a lab when its over thats bad news! Even if I win, I will be like 4-8turns behind in research. Thats just no good.

What I would really like to see is a list of units and formations that can counter elephants. I know for a fact that nets are quite dangerous to elephants, for example. So Ichythids (of all things!) are pretty good against them. Gladiators too, tho those are incredibly hard to deploy.

Does anyone else have purely military solutions to the elephant problem? Oh - and dont bother just sayign "archers" - they dont work. Either they dont do enough damage or the enemy player just kills them all.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

In my experience archers are useless...maybe massed flame arrows might be helpful but if you are facing a large elephant horde they will be at and then through your front line in 2 turns...

I've found falling frost and magma eruption work quite well...blade wind too, poison cloud is another. Shadow blast works great too as it deals great damage and also paralyzes too.

Soul slay will work a treat, it deals instant death if they fail their MR save.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I didn't mean that you should wrap all the mages in your kingdom together to go on some crazy elephant cleansing crusade. What I meant was that you can use them as backup to stop an elephant rush happening at your front door, instead of just sacrificing your army alone in a no win fight. They could topple the odds in your favor with the right low level spells, spells that I wanted to make a list of. Oh, and we are still talking early to mid game here.


Yes, nets work well on elephants actually, as it stops their trampling for a turn (they soon break free thanks to their great strength) and lowers their defense to 1. So yes, against a few elephants this might work, but when you have a wall of them, well then you need to split them up, netting them piecemeal. This is where you combine nets with spells.
In other words: it all revolves around disrupting and dispersing the "wall of trampling". If it comes too close to your lines you are dead. You have to smash that wall before that happens, then it is fairly easy to you crush the bricks that falls through with your regular troops.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Unless you have flaming arrows wouldn't massing indy barbarians be more effective then indy archers?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Maybe it's just me, but I don't think elephants often have 9 morale. Most of the time they have 11, and sometimes quite a bit higher. It seems to me the whole idea of elephants panicking needs to be reworked. When I think of a low morale unit, I'm thinking about guys with 5 or 6 morale, not 9 or 11.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I don't think any unit in the game has base morale that low.

Jazzepi

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Lowest I can think of offhand are the basic slave forces (triton, merfolk, atlantians, not Lobo Guards of course) of R'Lyeh with 8.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

8 is extremely low, by the way, in enemy dominion it becomes a 7.

To give you an example, I was attempting to take over a province offered to me for sale that had 20 points of PD in it. With about 10 archers, my 7 morale 80 man squad broke in about four volleys.

Jazzepi

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Yeah 8 is very bad. That's the main reason I try to not build many of those types and stick with the less skilled, but mindless Lobo Guards as any R'Lyeh. Although I have had a lot of success with the cowardly troops with a hero with the valor hall of fame ability leading them.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that any unit actually has morale that low. But the in game description says that average human morale is 10, 8 is low and 15 is high. I have a hard time understanding how 9 is "low". One less than average isn't really panicky, is it? It sure isn't in games when elephants are used against me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Since I cannot find the thread that talked endlessly about fixing elephant rushes...I'll post this here. Why not just make it impossible to have animal and non-animal units in the same squad. It makes no sense anyway. A bunch of militia wouldn't be sharing a barracks with a bunch of war dogs, and no elite soldiers would fight right alongside elephants because of their unreliability. That way the Elephants 'relatively' low morale couldn't be boosted by high-morale units.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Markatas, maybe?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Honestly, the only way I've dealth with elephants successfully is to find the province that they're being produced in and use spells to reduce the population/resources to 0 or the put the unrest over 100. Once the elephants get on the field, the only thing that will stop them is an army much larger and more expensive.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

And again I am forced to wonder why there are unstoppable tactics. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Not wondering that there is one, but that there is more than one. Wouldnt that mean that one such tactic (for example, elephants) can be challenged by the other such tactic (dual-bless, Vanheim, etc)?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Starvation will send morale to the pits as well (-4, I think). Still, the issue with elephants isn't so much how low or high their morale is, but what it takes to trigger a morale check. Your best bet is to a spell causing fear (such as Frighten), as almost any other method involves inflicing a lot of casualties (which is very hard to do to elephants due to their very high HP) or getting close with a creature with the Fear attribute (which means expossing that unit to the tramplers). A morale of 8 means their is a roughly 50/50 chance of a rout depending on the current survivor bonus. Considering how not all nations have easy access to death magic, this isn't much of a solution. In the "qm said" thread, I propose a new game meachanic which pits the tramplers morale against the total weapon length in the desired square.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

It's not that Elephants are unstoppable. Dual bless is great, except that you either sleep your pretender or take bad scales or both. Meaning you have to commit a higher % of your resources to kill his elephants, while you beats you by simply having better scales or more research or both.

I'm not sure what you mean by Vanheim. Although they are a ridiculously powerful nation, trampling is the one thing that really messes them up. I think the reason people talk about elephants so much is because they require no strategy. Oh look, elephants. Build a fortress in that province, all of a sudden you can make 7-8 elephants per turn. Look at me I'm a master tactician. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Well my favorite response tactic to any large unbeatable army of any type is to create armies of stealth to whittle down their support funds by taking provinces, taxing them at 200%, fading into the wilderness to attack another province two or three away. This forces them to invest in PD, move armies around internally instead of massing them to attack someone else, and make some hard choices about budgeting for awhile. It might not be a "winning" strategy but it has been known to cause them to lose their "winning" strategy long enough to knock them off the top rung. Its a great ally-tactic.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

"Well my favorite response tactic to any large unbeatable army of any type is to create armies of stealth to whittle down their support funds by taking provinces, taxing them at 200%, fading into the wilderness to attack another province two or three away. This forces them to invest in PD, move armies around internally instead of massing them to attack someone else, and make some hard choices about budgeting for awhile. It might not be a "winning" strategy but it has been known to cause them to lose their "winning" strategy long enough to knock them off the top rung. Its a great ally-tactic."

And my favorite tactic is to mind hunt the stealth commander before he can stealth away and kill his leaderless army.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

No mention of an awake pretender killing the pachyderms?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

*Insert stealthy astral mage here* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

@Rytek:
Certain awake pretenders, generally size 6 pretenders with good defence/high prot, can handle elephant rushes. Size 6 is almost required without high fear and/or awe(trampled to death without - berserk elephants are evil). The high protection/defence on the size 6 is important because elephant trunks, although only at attack 10, can pack quite a punch(17 damage).

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

i noticed that. what you have done to my spies is not very nice. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif But I must say, nice job.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I'm posting some small replays on the first page when I'm using the different spells in the list against elephants. Be sure to check them out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Added a replay when I'm using Terror and Panic.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

I just found out an interesting fact. Awe works against elephants. That surprised me. I didn't think that awe would effect trample.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Afaik stealth is resolved before global spells.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

It does not matter if stealth is resolved before the mind hunt is cast or not, since mind hunt works on stealthed units.

I mean think about it, how can you hide your mind?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

Along with the rest of you, I imagine. Maybe in a hole?

How do stealthy units hide?

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

A mind hunt is looking for your brain waves. It is cast from a remote province. Visual sighting is not used for the spell.

So the spell is working as intended imho. You can hide your body from prying eyes, but you cannot hide your brain waves from a mage doing a mind hunt.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

If I remember biology class correctly, a staff of storms may do that pretty well, or maybe even a ring of tamed lightening.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

No no no, you got it all wrong. It's looking for the MIND, and as we all know, the mind is located in the center of your being, in your heart, while the interior of one's head is there to remove the extraneous heat from the body. I learned this from the Pteleos of Arcoscephale, the reknowned philosopher.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

In other words, we don't know how Mind Hunt works.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

As far as awe affecting trampling-have you ever avoided stepping on a flower? It's the same principle.

As far as having real tactics in the game-we'll never have that until we have field fortifications and other factors that depend on an army's location on the combat map. Putting your archers behind your melee troops isn't tactics, it's just obvious common sense.

As far as elephants go, pygmies would hunt them with spears. They'd just run up to the elephant and stick them with the spear. Seeing as how pygmies are the smallest people, as a whole, and elephants are the largest and most dangerous quadrupeds, it can be supposed that pygmies are some brave little bastards.

Elephants are already overly nerfed, anyway. They should definitely have a gore attack, bull elephants should be capable of going berserk, and there's no reason they shouldn't be outfitted with armor. So, when faced with an army of elephants, I count my blessings.

Re: How to deal with elephants
 

1: Crossbowman, if available.

2: Casters with some low-level spells like:
Earth Grasp
Vine Arrow
Slime
Sleep/Sleep Cloud.


One key to successful trampling is, that the tramplers stay in formation. If you manage to break them up by delaying a few of them for a turn, than those that do not get delayed will hopefully find a swift death in your troops.



I'm not sure, does Awe help against trampling? In that case, the Naiad Warriors could help a lot, too.