Ancient cavalry without horses

[Alcamar]

I (playing as Celts) was sharing a continent with the japanese and the romans. I noticed that the japanese were in control of a massive amount of ivory. The only other ivory was a single tile located somewhat outside of my core but since i like the SOZ and did not want the japanese to get it I decided to found a city there anyway and connect the ivory.
Meanwhile i set my research path in the direction of the required tech for the SOZ and started the Oracle as a prebuild.
That all worked perfectly, i founded a town, connected the ivory and was able to switch to SOZ and finish it.

So now the strange phenomenon occurs that I did not know the wheel nor horsebackriding but was able to build mounted units .

I think this is strange, ok building the SOZ requires ivory, but are the horses also made out of ivory?
I think the ability to generate the ancient cavalry should also require access to horses.

 

[Pfeffersack]

It may not be realistic, but I don't think it is a bug - not every unit in the game requires all the ressources it would need in reality to be created.I don't think you can make tanks of oil and rubber alone...
I think the reason is to make the wonder a bit more interesting, but I agree this wouldn't be necessary as it is too strong because of the stats of the AC.

 

[Bartleby]

One thing that always struck me as funny is if you've researched Military Tradition and Nationalism, and you have horses but not saltpetre...You can build a man with a rifle, or a man on a horse, but you can't build a man with a rifle on a horse.

 

[Alcamar]

It may not be realistic, but I don't think it is a bug - not every unit in the game requires all the ressources it would need in reality to be created.I don't think you can make tanks of oil and rubber alone...
I think the reason is to make the wonder a bit more interesting, but I agree this wouldn't be necessary as it is too strong because of the stats of the AC.

I realize it is not a bug, but put in the game deliberately. I only mentioned it because i was surprised to see it happen. At the moment i was able of building SOZ i realised that i did not have any connnections to horses, or not even knew of their existence. So I wondered what would happen if the wonder was finalized.

Now i look at the AC as some kind of foreign merecenaries with strong belief in Zeus and who have knowledge of horses and are paid in ivory.

 

[LLXerxes]

The game can't be 100% accurate.
Their weapons are ivory, and I'm sure they could muster enough small stray horses (not on the map) to do this.
Or, Zues could automaticly provide it for them