War elephants

[LukaSlovenia29]

A long time ago, I wrote a post stating that War elephants not using horses makes them OP. At the time, that opinion wasn't accepted. After my current game, I'm writing again to ask the community whether each War elephant should use up 1 horse, or if at least the number of War elephants a civ can have at any give moment could be limited (using the code from Assyrian Siege towers)

In my current game, I'm bordering Monty and he's gone berserk building War elephants, spamming them left and right, along with horsemen. At one point I think I saw 10 war elephants around my cities at the same time, along with horsemen, swordsmen and other military units. It has made war against authority warmongers (especially with Monty's Jaguar->Spearmen) incredibly difficult despite strategic placement of my cities, choke points, my building horsemen/swordsmen etc.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[randomnub]

no to horses requirement, yes to some cap (1*barrack? but new code needed so flat number is ok as well)

 

[Grabbl]

It seems reasonable to limit them somehow, ideally tied to the number of ivory the player has, or with a generic limit (or even horses, if nothing else). In my games, a real War elephant catastrophe is rare, but certainly unbalanced.

I like the idea of 1 per barracks, if feasible.

We should add a poll, perhaps?

 

[Owlbebach]

I don't think so actually. In fact Horseman are stronger than Elephants. This is due to their production cost, which is very high. You really need only 1 or 2 Elephants in your army because of the debuff they have. All others should be Horseman because of production cost. 3 Horsemen are stronger than 2 Elephants

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Grabbl, you're right, a poll would be prudent. @Gazebo , what are some feasible options code-wise regarding capping/limiting war elephants? So we can include code-wise-feasible options in the poll and not some unreasonable options.

Owlbebach, if we're talking about the human player, I agree, but in the AI's hands (especially higher levels due to production bonuses) it's better to have 10 war elephants&4 horsemen than 10 horsemen&4 elephants, for example.

So some of possible options for the poll/discussion:
1. One horse for one war elephant
2. Cap for elephants - 1 per barracks or armory
3. Cap for elephants - a flat number (4?)
4. Leave elephants as they are, except lower their combat strength to 15 (= horseman)
5. Leave everything unchanged.

Any other ideas?

 

[CrabHelmet]

I agree with @Owlbebach. Yes, War Elephants > Horsemen in absolute terms, but in reality, the production cost for Horsemen is so much lower that for equal amounts of production, you get more out of focusing on Horsemen than War Elephants. You only need one or two War Elephants to ensure the debuff is present. So I don't think they need capping; you're actually playing sub-optimally if you're making loads of them.

This is true *even for* the AI. If they could have 10 War Elephants, or for the same amount of production 16 Horsemen and 2 War Elephants, I'm more worried about the latter.

 

[Grabbl]

But there remains the problem of unlimited access to horsemen. If I could build any amount I want of both of them, perhaps 20 horsemen are better, but at the time they come online, I usually don't have all my horses connected, or I don't have that many of them at all (of course depending on mapscript). Horsemen already are more or less the strongest unit of their time (and in whole classical, neglecting UUs), that's why they are limited in number and why a unit of comparable strength such as the elephant should be limited, too.

We could also leave the poll with simple "cap" and "no cap" options, as the exact implementation is more of a detail and can be discussed also without poll.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

What Grabbl said -> War Elephants are slightly more expensive, stronger, and unlimited-by-amount-of-horses Horsemen.

 

[IcyAngel]

I've never deemed war elephants to be problematic -either in my hands or the AI's-, but if anything we can cap them at e.g. 2 per copy of Ivory (if that's codable).

 

[bigcat88]

Always prefer to build horseman, elephants cost too much production. Only build them if there is no horses, then I can build 2 or 3 elephants. I don't think that we need a cap on elephants, they are not so strong to cap them.

 

[Dawnpromise]

I'd say war elephants are fine as is, but if a cap is going to be placed on them It'd be nice if war elephants got a cost reduction to compensate. As is they're a really niche unit for early game warfare that phases out when the game starts picking up.

Besides doesn't ivory tend to spawn in the same type of regions horses do? Kinda lessens their value IMO.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Problem with war elephants is when the AI spams them. Due to the production discounts it can mass-produce elephants, in addition to horses. For example, if an AI has access to 8 horses, it can only build 8 horsemen. But if the AI imports one single ivory from across the world, it can build 15 war elephants even it has no horses. That's the problem that not-capping/not-tying-to-horses causes with war elephants. So a cap would be proposed that would be reasonable for both the human and AI civs (I'd recommend either 1 per barracks/armory or a flat cap of 4), to prevent AI's mass-spamming.

Another problem - unless I'm mistaken, even if the AI loses access to Ivory, its war elephants will continue to heal normally. That's a big advantage compared to horsemen, where you can often disrupt the AI by pillaging its horse pastures.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Bump for @Gazebo

 

[Gazebo]

I think they’re fine.

G

 

[Giza]

I don't think war elephants need a nerf. They are very expensive to build or buy and have less movement. I never saw them as a menace in the AI's hand.

 

[ElliotS]

I'd like to point out that as far as the 'unlimited war elephants' thing goes: If you don't take horses with them, you're quickly going to have 'unlimited wasted hammers' because you can't upgrade them to knights.

 

[CrabHelmet]

You can upgrade them to Conquistadors, though.

 

[CrazyG]

You can upgrade them to Conquistadors, though.

I think his point was if you build a bunch of elephants, but don't have matching horses, you cannot upgrade them because you won't have a horse to fulfill the knight's requirement (or conquistador/cataphract). So building unlimited elephants isn't a great idea, unless maybe you are able to conquer a bunch of horses

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Dawnpromise]

If anything I think War Elephants may be too niche and need a buff or some manner of adjustment. I almost never see them and even when I do get the ability to make them myself I have far better things to spend hammers on.