There is problem with these units, not directly because they have strong damage, I don’t want to take it away from Khmers. But there is a problem with collision and AI.
These elephants take so much place that you cannot attack them properly with camels and pikes.
VS such a strong units you can loose 40 camels just because they are messing and struggling to tou them. Pikes cannot even reach them.
Onager (the only real counter) you need more time and ressources to have enough of them.
Is is the wish of devs to make them so compact for you cannot enter their group ?
At least Archers can do the same but they are even closer and one shoot of onagers can destroy all of them. It’s not the case for Ballista where you have no space between them even if they are not sticked to each others.
When they’re stacked on top of eachother, even one single Onager can be devastating. Ballista Elephants are way more expensive and harder to mass than Arbalesters, so it stands to reason instead of one Onager shot flattening them, you’ll need several.
All of which are definitely obtainable for most civs and don’t need ‘more time and resources’ to have ‘enough of them’.
You can also use monks. They’re definitely not OP any more, at least since the nerf that made them (even more) vulnerable to Onagers.
In most of team game I play, Khmers are top score (far away) and if another member of team also have onagers so the team with Khmers will advance little by little.
According to there should be more space between them for you can enter a group a bit easier.
Rams are potent against them. You might try garrisoning some halbs inside your rams to approach quicker and when the rams die, they’ll pop out to deal some heavy damage to them. Armored elephants are great too.
But bear in mind they’re a very expensive unit, so if you’re not attacking with as many resources as they have invested, you probably won’t win.
In team game average elo below 1500 “expansive” is not a problem. It’s very easy to boom. I know what can be done against them. The problem is that the AI bug against them. Units stop attacking coz of bad collision.
When archers mass in one point it’s annoying but one shoot of onager and they disapear (so it’s risky to do it with archers). Balista elephants are occupying a large space so the impact of onager is weak.
That’s why rams are so useful, they do splash damage on the upgrades, which can hit every one of them at the same time. Clumped ranged units are always hard to fight with melee in mass.
Rams do negligible damage though. That’s not the reason, the reason they are useful is because they soak up so many shots due to the really high pierce armor.
Wow, that’s actually a really good point. I didn’t even consider that, it seems so illogical. But yeah, it makes sense when you think about that. And for siege rams, you’re up to +65, which is a huge amount.
If you want real amusement, Dravidian Siege Elephants with Wootz Steel ignore armor, so they do like 4 damage to every unit in a 2 tile radius. They can kill entire groups of archers in 10 attacks.
Here’s something I’ve learned to do before claiming that a unit is OP. Go and play that civ, and that unit. So, I’d recommend that you play like 10 games as khmer, and with ballista elephants. Then, you’ll know the unit well. You will know what they can do, and you will see how your opponents counter them.
That being said, there are more than a few solutions. First, Siege rams/siege eles, as many have pointed out. Second, bombard cannons. It is expensive, but it’ll do the job. Third, Onagers. Fourth, bombard towers. Fifth, heavy cavalry like paladins/battle elephants. Sixth, heavy scorpions. Seventh is a specific trick. You need to clear out an area around them. Don’t let them get a choke point. Then, use split formation on halbs repeatedly to surround them. If ballista eles get surrounded, they just hard die to halbs. Eigth, anti-siege or anti-elephant units like the magyar huzar, mangudai, or even organ guns. I hope that’s enough to work with.
If you are playing a post-imp death match, michi, or something like that, Dravidian siege elephants are a surprisingly good unit. They will, in fact, destroy even heavy cavalry like cavaliers in equal numbers. Of course, it is not resource balanced. They are also hard countered by onagers. But no other ram type unit is as good in melee.
A certain civ got advantage at a certain timing. You aren’t gonna wait for them to get ready.
Balista elephant need castle and mass, the timing is slower than everything that does not need castle.
It is also slow in speed so that you can always trade your base for theirs
Honestly, if the Khmer player has a mass of like 40 Ballista Elephants, it will be hard to stop (Onagers will still do fine), and expecting one Onager to counter 40 Ballista Elephants is nuts.
But what have you done in the game so that the Khmer got to 40 fully upgraded Ballista Elephants in the first place, especially given the situation presented by OP, Onagers are ‘too much resource and time investment’. This just doesn’t compute.
In team game it’s very easy to boom. The Khmers pocket boom while his friends are fighting. In 1v1 Khmers aren’t a real problem. It’s even easier for them on closed map like Black Forest or Arena (team games).
And the OP thing according to me is area of collision which make every other units completely stupid AI… Even if you surround them with melee like camels, your units become idiots after they kill the Balsita you clicked and melt.
Im not sure this is intended, Balista shouldn’t take that much space.
And in team games, it’s even easier to afford Onagers (and Siege Onager!), so Khmer booming - somehow completely freely, what are you doing? - should not be an issue.
You’ve been presented with several options already, and all of them can work. Monks, Bombard Cannons, Onagers, Siege Rams, all of them work.
Ah, I got confused by what you meant with ‘AI gets confused’. Have you tried patrolling or attack moving your units into the Ballista Elephants?
I think civ balance is more based on 1v1 open maps than anything else. Team games always feel lopsided, that’s just the nature of the game. Barista Elephants need multiple castles to mass them up and only really excel in the late game with upgrades. So you just need to focus on killing the Khmer player sooner. Nerfing them for team games on closed maps will just make them completely useless on 1v1 open maps.
