Ballista elephants

[volkanbadem]

When your city is under siege, if there are mounted units ie. horse achers in the stack around the city the B.elephants have the chance to attack rather than wait in the city. Attacking gives more promotion points than defending and they prevent horse archers from flanking so that not let your catapults get damaged. I think the addition is not that bad. Occasionally you need to defend during the war. Building roads around the city will help them withdrawing after the attack.

 

[Gumbolt]

Of course if you wait for the Ai to attack you then you would need B elephants. Better to work on diplomacy to avoid wars. If you do diplomacy well you can then decide when to be fighting wars and with hopefully a tech/unit advantage.

Ultimately if the Ai is over powering/laying seige to your cities with their stacks then you are doing something wrong. In most instances it is better to let the AI suicide their stack on your city. If I have cuirs I can normally wipe out an Ai stack comfortably.

Although I agree it's a nice unit if you start near ivory. Very situational unless you edit your start.

 

[Lennier]

Your cats being in the city prevents flanking.

 

[volkanbadem]

Your cats being in the city prevents flanking.

i did not know that. Now as i understand flanking is used against the catapults outside the city.

 

[volkanbadem]

Of course if you wait for the Ai to attack you then you would need B elephants. Better to work on diplomacy to avoid wars. If you do diplomacy well you can then decide when to be fighting wars and with hopefully a tech/unit advantage.

.

I do not say that elephants are for defending priorly. Wars are rarely won in a day. The ai counter attacks.

 

[Gumbolt]

I do not say that elephants are for defending priorly. Wars are rarely won in a day. The ai counter attacks.

They counter attack??? If you scout out their stacks then this should not happen. Bribe them into war normally helps. With decent diplomacy you should be attacking on your terms. If I have a phant stack I could have 8-9+ phants and 7-8+ pults. Remember you can pillage the Ai horse/metal. The unit has to win a combat to do flanking.

Generally I will either let the Ai stack come to me and kill it in the field. If they have no real stack I will send out my own of 20 or so units. (Around 1ad with phants pending on map and difficulty.) Normally by now most Ai stacks are half that size. It's all in the planning and scouting.

Of course choosing your battles is another matter. You don't pick a fight with a friendly war monger when you can pick off the easy fruit first.