1. Hi new Civ4 player here. I was wondering when given the choice to build both either War Elephants and Pikemen (assuming you have all the necessary resources and technologies), what would be your choice of units to counter enemy mounted units?

2. Now of course, what might be the more important question is that assuming you can only build one but you might soon have access to building the other (ie, you're very close to getting ivory, iron, etc.), then what would you do?

3. My initial thoughts on this question so far is that War Elephants appear to be a "luxury" unit that if you can build it, you should have some, but only in moderation. I have noticed the AI has a tendency to build a lot of them when they can.

4. I have also found that a good strategy when playing either the Greeks or the Zulus is that it's better to have 2 Phalanxes or Impis than to have 1 Pikeman or War Elephant, both from a financial and strategic point of view. I was wondering if the experts player agrees with that statement.

Thanks for your comments. By the way, I only have the Warlords expansion.

War elephants for sure. Both have str 12 vs. mounted units at the same cost, but war elephants can be useful offensively as well. They are also available much earlier than pikemen.

War elephants for sure. Both have str 12 vs. mounted units at the same cost, but war elephants can be useful offensively as well. They are also available much earlier than pikemen.

Actually that's not how it works, only Combat promotions directly alter a units own strength. All other modifiers work against the unit it's fighting. So what this means is

Pikemen vs.
Chariot: 6 vs 2
Horse Archer 6 vs 3
War Elephant 6 vs 4
Knight: 6 vs 5
Cuirassier: 6 vs 6
Cavalry: 6 vs 7.5

War Elephant vs
Chariot 8 vs 3
Horse Archer 8 vs 4.5
War Elephant 8 vs 8
Knight 8 vs 7.5
Cuirassier 8 vs 8
Cavalry 8 vs 10

Not that this changes your conclusion much. What this all amounts to is the pikeman has a slight advantage on everything below the Cuirassier, and is exactly the same vs Cuirassier and Cavalry. Now does this make up for the 2 base strength difference it loses to the War Elephant? Probably not, add in the stable which gives you level 2 elephants out of the gate and the clear winner is the War Elephant.

But, as was mentioned, you don't always have access to ivory, and iron is more common, so often one doesnt have the luxury of choice.

But, as was mentioned, you don't always have access to ivory, and iron is more common, so often one doesnt have the luxury of choice.

This. War elephants are designed to be a unit that would be really strong, arguably overpowered, if you could get them reliably, but are rare.

I don't like this implementation of them much.

Actually that's not how it works, only Combat promotions directly alter a units own strength. All other modifiers work against the unit it's fighting. So what this means is

Pikemen vs.
Chariot: 6 vs 2
Horse Archer 6 vs 3
War Elephant 6 vs 4
Knight: 6 vs 5
Cuirassier: 6 vs 6
Cavalry: 6 vs 7.5

War Elephant vs
Chariot 8 vs 3
Horse Archer 8 vs 4.5
War Elephant 8 vs 8
Knight 8 vs 7.5
Cuirassier 8 vs 8
Cavalry 8 vs 10

Not that this changes your conclusion much. What this all amounts to is the pikeman has a slight advantage on everything below the Cuirassier, and is exactly the same vs Cuirassier and Cavalry. Now does this make up for the 2 base strength difference it loses to the War Elephant? Probably not, add in the stable which gives you level 2 elephants out of the gate and the clear winner is the War Elephant.

But, as was mentioned, you don't always have access to ivory, and iron is more common, so often one doesnt have the luxury of choice.

I don't think you're doing the correct math. The promotions affect the unit attackings base strength. Then a ration of the modified strength compared to the base strength is determined. That ratio is then applied to the defenders strength. And the combat odds are determined using the attackers base strength vs the modified defnders strength. Example is using a knight. the contemporary mounted unit of pikemen.

unpromoted vs unpromoted.
War elephant 8+50% (12) 8 is 66% of 12 so you multiply the knights strength of 10 by 66%. The odds are then 8 vs 6.66 or 73%
A pikemen is strength 6+100% (12) 6 is 50% of 12 so you multiply the knights strength by 50% The odds are then 6 vs 5 or 73%
With Combat2 and formation the war elephant gains a slight advantage. However an aggresive civ can get formation promotions with just 5exp where a war elephant needs 10. without a GG settled you can not get 10exp from scratch. You can get 9 with barracks/stables/vassalage/theocracy. However mounted units can get shock from the very beginning which negates the formation bonus for the pikes.
I would have to give the overall advantage to pikes for the flexibility in promotions and the ability to take advantage of defensive bonuses.
War elephants are really meant to be strong overall attackers vs stacksin the years before engineering.The high base strength combined with combat 1 and shock (available right from the start without help from civics) means the worst case scenario (attacking a combat2 formation spearman from an aggressive civ running vassalage or theocracy) the combat odds are 50%. without the third promotion they defeat spearmen 69.7% of the time. Once pikes are in play for both sides war elephants are best for stack defense vs crossbows.
I have attached screen shots showing how the end result of the math from above.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd242/civcorpse/pike.jpg

Oops, you're right, my math is off, but you don't quite have it exactly right either. Basically it's (attacker base str + combat bonus) vs (defender base str+(net of all other bonuses involved))

So for an unpromoted WE vs unpromoted knight
WE is just 8 since he has no combat bonus
knight has a -50% bonus from the war elephants mounted bonus which is:
10/(1+(50/100)) = 10/1.5 = 6.66
If the knight had combat 1 it would be 10/1.4 = 7.14
If both had combat 1 it would be WE(8.8) vs Knight(7.14), as combat is the only bonus applied to the attacker, the rest are applied to the defender. I just tested this in world builder and this all bears out.


revised WE numbers(all unpromoted)
vs Chariot 8 vs 2.66
vs Horse Archer 8 vs 4
vs War Elephant 8 vs 8
vs Knight 8 vs 6.66
vs Cuirassier 8 vs 8
vs Cavalry 8 vs 10

I believe that's right.

Pikemen takes engineering, which takes machinery, which is why people say war elephants have no good counter early (especially shock elephants). Also, you don't need horseback riding for elephants in warlords. And shock knights do reasonably well vs pikemen, whereas formation is much harder to get.

Let's say you're using war elephants to counter attack a stack. If you used a spearman/pikeman, it would die horribly to an axe.

Pikemen takes engineering, which takes machinery, which is why people say war elephants have no good counter early (especially shock elephants). Also, you don't need horseback riding for elephants in warlords. And shock knights do reasonably well vs pikemen, whereas formation is much harder to get.

Let's say you're using war elephants to counter attack a stack. If you used a spearman/pikeman, it would die horribly to an axe.

Basically comparing war elephants to pikemen is comparing apples to oranges since they come at very different times. As for the spearman/pikeman dying to an axeman that will never happen...the crossbow would have butchered them way before the axeman ever did :D