I think because between going eles or archers, any player with minimun experience will choose archers, because frankly, archers are the most viable unit in almost any case…
experience is no reasoning…
My quesrion is why they suck cause they are definitely really strong units for their cost at that stage if the game. Malay even have heresy btw.
Because of the efficience of pike to deal with them… Less upgrades, cheaper, less TT, can force fights, doesn’t impact much the eco, insane Bonus against, you already have barracks from feudal… Plus the slow movement give enough time to react…
Actually… Why do Halbs go from +22 anti-cav to +32 but from +25 anti-ele to +28?
That’s weird considering that Eles per se are more an imp unit and knights more a castle age unit…
Malay arent exactly common all around
Main reason I imagine is that civs without halb will struggle too much more othereise
They are cheaper but they are still slow so easy target for monks. Even if you don’t care about the lost res you donate your opponent a tanky unit.
Also they get kinda countered by xbow. You add skirms opponent adds mangos. Contrary to knights elephants are again too slow to snipe siege.
Malay elephants are only good in castle age if opponent goes to greedy boom and can’t afford proper counter units.
I’m in favor of adding some armor against the Pikes bonus attack but some bonuses like Bengalis and UT of Vietnamese need to be rework. These two were think with the current damage output against Eles
IF we change anything with the spear line (which I’m still not convinced is the right approach as I think the Eles have too many issues why they don’t work not one single) I would only touch Pikes.
We all know that eles in the very lategame can be extremely powerful units already, the problem is that they suck in the midgame.
Also as I pointed out
Pikes counter Eles better than halbs do… which is kinda weird.
So if I would only change the Pikes bonus damage vs Eles to +18. This would mean if the ele player gets both armor upgrades the pike player would need 1 atk upgrade to bring them down in 6 hits (5 atm) without bloodlines. And with bloodlines the pikes would always need 7 hits to bring one ele down compared to the current 6.
As War eles function basically the same as Battle eles but are just strpnger cause you need a castle for them I don’t see a point why battle eles should have extra ele armor.
They had all of that. The folks made several nerf cries and got the unit nerfed so hard because they couldn’t play their beloved Franks and win all the time when matched against Khmer. And they did the same to Indians Camels too.
Unless you combine multiple bonuses into one civ - Khmer, Bengalis and Burmese civ bonuses, it’s not going to be attractive enough to go Elephants instead of knights.
A viable play against generic Camels and civs which don’t get halbs or extra bonus attack.
vulnerability to monks, not being able to mass enough with upgrades when opponent hits with 40 crossbows and all upgrades.
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Honestly i dont know how much work it would have been but consider they split the pike/halb bonus damage into groups like caverly and elephants but then again some are in the same armor group so it would be difficult
But hypotheticly if they split it and say its still 25/32 but 15/ 25 for eles for example
all eles have the cav armor class. One thing I already criticized in several threads that a lot of unit just carry one kind of armor class with them all the time. It would be so much easier to see what’s going on if eles just had the ele armor class.
Against Camels I can understand to some degree. Exploiting weaknesses of other civs I’m not the biggest fan of tbh.
But ofc one Idea that can be looked into.
Can totally agree with that. These are also two of the points that I have witnessed with them which make it extremely “unrevarding” to play them.
I think this would be a possible change, somehow make eles less vulnerable to monks (We had several suggestions how this can work in different threads already).
I also had already an or several Ideas how Eles can perform better vs xbows:
A) Speed Charge (like the coustillier but with speed instead that is triggered by an attack command)
B) Increased trample damage radius, so every time they hit an archer multiple others are damaged too Trample dmg amount could also be inc but i think the radius is more important
Edit: I got another one:
Eles are terrible in protecting Siege. With the other power units you often can add siege as they are good in protecting it. But eles cause of their clunkyness and low speed are really bad when the opponent tries to snipe your siege.
Pike vs battle elephant. 6 hits to kill.
Halb vs elite battle elephant. 5 hits to kill.
Main problem of BE in 1v1 – lack of timing when they’re useful.
In early Castle Age they’re easily countered by monks. In late Castle Age and Imperial Age – easily countered by pikes/halbs.
So to be useful in early Castle Age they should be monk resistant. I can imagine these ways:
- Make BE siege weapon, so monks will need Redemption.
- Add new special monastery tech which allows BE conversion.
- Reduce conversion range for BE to 5 (well, rams have 0 conversion range).
In late Castle Age and Imperial Age to make BE viable in 1v1 they need to be more resistant to pikes. For instance:
- Significantly reduce bonus damage from pikes and halbs.
- Give BE trample damage against infantry and foot archers (but not cavalry).
Improving BE effectiveness against pikes/halbs seems better solution from 1v1 perspective. But hard to balance in team games.
The only thing I can think of is to give to imperial age cavalry units (paladins and heavy camels) bonus damage against BE. Or may be introduce new Imperial Age stable technology adding bonus against BE. Also Parthian Tactics could provide some bonus against BE to cavalry archers.
Doesn’t even need to be significant. +10 elephant armor is a big help alone.
I do like the redemption option though, but it hurtd civs without redemption
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I do not know if it’s doable or not but
What about to increase the bonus damage of pikes against Elephants ( and Cavalry) in function of the Blacksmith attack upgrades
What I mean with this is that you have to invest on your pikes to have the output damage you need to counter Elephants units (cavalry in general)
In the same way you can add bonus armor to Elephant class with Blacksmith armor upgrades
Just an idea
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I like this approach.
Another idea is to make non-Elite BE stronger in general, but make Elite upgrade worth only in TG, keeping the same cost…
Something like this
Non-Elite BE: 280hp, 13 attack, +5 bonus vs buildings and defences, 3 PA.
Elite Upgrade: same cost, +20 HP, +1 attack, +2 bonus vs buildings and defense (maybe +0,1 speed?)
This way, maybe you can carrying a 1v1 match to imperial age playing eles without needing the elite upgrade.
Which is almost half of the civs. A bit unfair if you ask me. Also redemption isn’t something you just can tech into. Elephants status might change from useless to op with that one 11