Suggestion: Make Elephants Trample

[Darksaber1]

Bwa Ha Ha!
More powerful, later game animals would be good, but I don't want them spawning from turn one.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hmm..how about giving the Barbarian State a Rouge Elephant as a War Elephant UU, with a greater level requirement, no building requirement, and the War Machine-like ability? Most elephants are peaceful, but I can see a bull elephant getting mad and really messing up the place.

 

[Darksaber1]

Thats a pretty good Idea.

 

[Fenboy]

I am wondering why in a Fantasy-type mod we don't have, um, fantasy critters - things like Yeti, Gorgons, Cyclops, Hydras, and, well, invented things with names you cannot pronounce.

The only trouble there is it adds a lot more work for the art team I'm not sure they have time for

OTOH, IIRC Psychic Llamas is making a Hydra model (with changing numbers of heads!) that will be nice when its done.

 

[Darksaber1]

Really, Cool.

 

[westamastaflash]

I'd love to see elephants settleable like in AOI.

 

[thapagan]

I think being able to make a elephant pen that adds one or two hammers to a city might be nice. Then you would have a choice of a decent unit or a semi decent building?

 

[MaxAstro]

Elephant pen isn't a bad idea... alternatively, what about allowing elephants to transform themselves into an Ivory resource?

 

[rocklikeafool]

Elephants currently fulfill the function of mobile, randomly impassible terrain. In effect they are like walking peaks for most of the game. Why? They are a str 6 unit (so nothing can kill it until you are pretty advanced) but they don't attack, merely walk around randomly blocking terrain tiles. As they currently are, they may be fulfilling everything the devs intended, but they could be better.

So, my suggestion is to allow elephants to trample terrain improvements like the Doviello War Machine. I also suggest that elephants be able to move within cultural borders. That way, a roving elephant could wander in and trample your farm or road and generally run amok. There is historical precedent for this in ancient China where elephants used to be a major nuisance to cultivation until they were gradually displaced by hunting and human settlement.

To balance this, you might decrease the strength to say 5 so that players might have a hope of killing them earlier. I think this would add a new and unique element to this lumbering creature.

Also, if defeated by a unit with subdue animal, it would be great if they could become an elephant pen that automatically provided ivory.

I've captured elephants before usin a hunter. It ain't hard with the bonus gainst barbs and animals. But since they suck at attackin cities, I found em useless.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Elephant pen isn't a bad idea... alternatively, what about allowing elephants to transform themselves into an Ivory resource?

That's basically wat you do in Age of Ice to get the Mammoth Rider unit; you capture a Mammoth and it can be turned into ivory. As for the elephant pen, sounds cool. But it also seems more like somethin the Belsarephs would use.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Hmm..how about giving the Barbarian State a Rouge Elephant as a War Elephant UU, with a greater level requirement, no building requirement, and the War Machine-like ability? Most elephants are peaceful, but I can see a bull elephant getting mad and really messing up the place.

As long as I could capture it usin a hunter or beastmaster, that'd be cool. Like str 9 or so? W/o a -X% bonus gainst cities please. Cuz if it's gonna mess up the place, it needs to really do some damage. And it should be a hard unit to kill. (That's makes capturin it all the more satisfyin.) So, maybe have it show up when everyone's units are like str5 to 6. Maybe a modmod for this could be done.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'll probably include it in my modmod (now if only I could xienwolf or Vehem to go ahead and do most if the SDK/xml schema work for me...)

I'm thinking that it should never spawn, but that high level elephants (those which have been attacked and survived a lot) should cheaply upgrade. Yes, you would be able to capture them. However, I'm thinking that may be Crazed/Enraged elephant upgrades, so you may need to keep capturing the same one over and over again.

 

[Grand Seeker]

I like the current elephant as it is. If you send in a hunter with a few promotions
(subdue animal etc.) they are not that hard to get rid of. And you get a great war-elephant in return

 

[DuckAndCower]

currently its such a waste to capture 2 spiders and building the spider pens, only 1 is needed, and even that is useless if you already have silk.

I take it you're not a fan of diplomacy?

 

[Darksaber1]

In southeast asia, elaphants were, and still are, used as a replacement for tractors, and are used to pull heavey loads. I can see settling an Elaphant in a city for production, you could take it as a Goverment owened Elephant that is rented out to constrution sites and infastrutor operations, or the power things life bellows for smelters and the likes.

 

[Ekolite]

On thing I thought about yesterday was that it would be pretty cool if elephants, when hell terrain spread to their tile, were transformed into barbarian pit-beasts or manticores. I think that would be cool

 

[Darksaber1]

What about more monsterus, like Mumakil. The trick would be to make them diferent.

 

[KingOfLands]

All of the above is interesting (I too am enamored of the idea of capturing an Ivory depot), and as a Dwarf Fortress fan I'd love to see more "megabeasts" in the game, but mostly I'd like the elephant model scaled down just a bit, particularly now that the giants are shorter.

 

[rocklikeafool]

What about more monsterus, like Mumakil. The trick would be to make them diferent.

Ooh...4 horns, bigger, and freakin killers. Mwahahah!