With the update 39284 the trample damage of Battle Elephants was reduced from 50% of their damage down to 25%.
This change was mainly implemented to nerf Khmer in team games who were almost unstoppable with their strong eco and speedy Battle Elephants.
The update 39284 was released on July 20th, so I assume by now lots of people have made their experiences with the “new” Battle Elephants and how they feel about them.
So let’s break this down:
We have four civilizations that have access to the Battle Elephant. Those are the Burmese, the Khmer, the Malay and the Vietnamese.
Burmese:
They don’t have a civ bonus affecting Battle Elephants.
Castle Age UT - Howdah: +1/+1 melee/pierce armor (400F/300W)
Imperial Age UT - Manipur Cavalry: +6 attack vs standard buildings (650F/400G)
Upgrades missing: none
Khmer:
Civ bonus: Battle Elephants move 15% faster.
Castle Age UT - Tusk Swords: +3 attack (200W/300G)
Upgrades missing: none
Malay
Civ bonus: Battle Elephants are 30% cheaper.
They don’t have a UT affecting Battle Elephants.
Upgrades missing: Bloodlines, Chain Barding Armor, Plate Barding Armor
Vietnamese
They don’t have a civ bonus affecting Battle Elephants.
Castle Age UT - Chatras: +50 HP (250F/250G)
Upgrades missing: Blast Furnace
I think it gets clear that the Khmer have the best Battle Elephants. We all know that speed kills, so 15% faster movement is a huge bonus. Besides that their UT Tusk Swords giving them +3 attack is very cheap for what it offers. Furthermore they have all upgrades regarding Battle Elephants available. And on top of all that, while all of them do have nice economy bonuses, their eco is undeniably the best out of the four civs.
In my opinion the Vietnamese are in the worst spot. They usually go for Archers at first. While Elephants theoretically are a good meat shield and can easily deal with everything threatening the Archers, they also are extremely expensive to upgrade and the cost may not be justifiable if you also want to continue to produce Archers. If they want to go for Elephants either way, the Vietnamese at that point will most likely not have any Cavalry upgrades, maybe not even a Stable yet.
As far as I know historically the Khmer did have a tremendous force of Elephants in their military so I don’t want to take the title of “Best Battle Elephants” from them. But I feel like this is out of balance to a certain extend.
My suggestions:
Burmese
Howdah: +2/+1 melee/pierce armor
I heared some voices about adding +1 pierce armor but there is a reason why they changed it back in the days. They would just become omegatanks to everything firing arrows at them. So I think +1 melee armor is the better version to buff them.
Khmer
Battle Elephants and Ballista Elephants move 10% faster
This seems to be somewhat of a common sense here and is found in many threads. It’s a nerf to their supreme Battle Elephants as well as a buff to their Ballista Elephants that are basically never seen anywhere.
Malay
Elite Battle Elephant upgrade is 30% cheaper as well
The Malay Battle Elephant for them costs less resources than a Knight but they miss crucial defense upgrades and thus are killed quite easily. By reducing the cost for the Elite upgrade the Malay would get another power spike in early Imperial Age if they could again get some cheap Elite Battle Elephants onto the field. Because of the lack of upgrades the Elite upgrade otherwise is unjustifiable.
Vietnamese
Chatras: +25% HP
Compared to Tusk Swords, which costs the same amount of resources, Chatras is just bad. +50 HP on an Elephant is nothing compared to +3 attack. Having a bonus HP percentage instead of a set number, it allows this bonus to work well in Castle Age as in Imperial Age. +25% would be 338 HP (including Bloodlines) for the Standard Battle Elephants and 400 HP (including Bloodlines) for Elite Battle Elephants. That’s +18/+30 HP compared to the “old” Chatras. They will still be the Elephants with the least damage output due to the lack of Blast Furnace.
What do you think about all this?