How to deal with elephants

[Baalz]

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.

[Meglobob]

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.

[Dedas]

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.

[Baalz]

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. >

[Dedas]

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!

[Folket]

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

[Dedas]

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?

[sector24]

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.

[Jazzepi]

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

Jazzepi

[Salamander8]

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