How to deal with elephants

[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.

[Jazzepi]

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

[Salamander8]

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.

[sector24]

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.