Many of his videos don’t make sense in actual combat.In the scenario we are discussing, there are far more ranged units than cavaliers,hit and run bro
bodyblocker It is very important in the game, but the elephant is not suitable, it is only used for taking damage. Too expensive price, and speed, can only be used to deal with cavalry, because it is a melee unit, the damage output is limited. Its usage scenarios are limited.
a 4 range unit with zero charge mech is not gonna hit and run on knights??? you can hit and run the War Elephants but again; there are 20 something knights in the mix and 40 some HC behind them; AT SOME POINT… the mixed army WILL catch up to your hit and run units?? And if we’re talking skill for skill; the knights would smartly break off and flank to force a pincer move on the 80 HC.
Take the link knights vs HC video; it had zero micro; but if the HC were hitting and running how long do you think they could do that without getting touched? heck overran??
Maybe we should have played the game a little longer instead of arguing pointlessly here
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The PUP Delhi War Elephant has greatly improved. With the reduced cost and tweaked Hp/dps; they both last longer vs their range counters PER cost AND they kill knights at a higher efficiency than before!!
The 850 hp; 50 tusk dmg (80 tusk charge dmg); 25 spear dmg (+40 bonus vs cav); 4 melee armor and 5 range armor for 750 resources cost can BEAT 4 standard 230hp castle knights with net neutral BSM upgrades SIMULTANEOUSLY!!! Thats 750 res vs 960 res! Which is the 2nd MOST efficient bio unit trade that DOES NOT require micro/composition.
Also? Delhi has a not well understood advantage that can provide a window of even higher efficiency of War Elephants vs standard knights. And that is Delhi can often have +1/+2 BSM upgrades when the opponent does NOT have the respective +1/+2 BSM armor. This is because the optimal playstyle of delhi is get free upgrades while using the free resources to keep pressure on the OP, WHICH in turns prolongs the time the opp can afford to still produce units AND afford to get BSM upgrades. I mention this point because a PUP War Elephant kills a standard knight in 5.76s (no charge dmg). But have just +1 melee BSM upgrade when your opponent knights do NOT have +1 armor results in the WAR ELEPHANTS killing a WHOLE 2 seconds faster (3.76s!).
No unit in the game benefits THIS much in kill time by just having +1‽‽‽ Over the enemy.
For those that want to see the basic math I’ll have to add it all later.
But i got a feeling you’re gonna see a whole lot more Delhi War Elephants being used given these facts.
Edit
I also did the math on one PUP War Elephants vs 7 standard castle age MAAs. And the Elephant would WIN assuming no micro. In other words the only melee unit WAR elephants can’t optimal engage are spearmen!!
Revisit this Unit with current stat and gameplay analysis:
Comparing the cost and function of War Elephants vs Lancers; then next post will be compared War Elephant in cost/function to the Spearman.
Pros for the War Elephant:
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Cost per population favors the War Elephant vs the Lancer slightly; technical pro but the saving is legit negligible.
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HP per cost favors War Elephant at 18% superior to the Lancer.
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Effective HP vs spearmen and effective HP vs crossbow and effective HP vs HC favors and effective HP vs MAA favors the War Elephant over the Lancer (there is a 3rd level analytics that actually bites War Elephant ## ### ### b/c of this…)
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War Elephants clearly kill other cavalry more effectively than Lancers
against the War Elephant in comparison to the Lancer:**
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War Elephants are woefully immobile with only siege and Tower Elephants units being slower…
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War Elephants actually perform WORSE in large scale fights BECAUSE of how efficiently the opponent can soak them with often less than overkill damage using focus fire as oppose to the micro intense task of picking off individual Lancers thru focus fire while attempting to minimize OVERKILLING…
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War Elephants are practically HARD to mass by comparison to Lancers given the large upfront cost AND 60s !!! training time. I’ll explain, if your eco could only support 1 Lancer per 35s alternatively you would only be able to ALMOST support training 1 War Elephant by the time you were done training 2 Lancers and started the 3rd Lancer AND the 3rd Lancer would have completed training 15s before that 1 War Elephant completed. So the only scenario where the cost efficiency of War Elephant would practically be better than 3 Lancers is if you had the total cost for each scenario up front! (unrealistic)
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War Elephants are NOT versatile ENOUGH by comparison to Lancers.
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War Elephants are too STRONGLY and CHEAPLY countered by spearman. While War Elephants do have more effective HP vs spearman than knights; knights have the mobility to pick their spots and retreat; meanwhile War Elephants are forced to commit more times than NOT. And given how cheap and effective spearman are; that is THE most NEGATIVE aspect of the War Elephant IMO.
I need to start a new thread. While taking the time to do the research on spearman effective HP per cost soaking dmg from every unit type I discovered as a matter of cost efficiency and mass friendly and overkill friendly…the spearman is TOOO WELL ROUNDED…
And ThIS the MATH suggests it before we even consider imperial academy upgrades or civ specific bonuses… sigh; spearman might need a nerf???
Now back to my scheduled comparison next…
The War Elephant compared to the spearman, IMO unveils the sheer quality of the spearman more so the functionals of the War Elephant, but I digress, let’s get into it.
First let me establish how I determine EFFECTIVE HP of a unit.
I define effective HP as the amount of apparent HP a unit has when measured by the number of strikes required to kill said unit normalize to attacker’s base damage output. This would mean effective HP of any said unit is subject to the ATTACKING units damage output.
Example:
Veteran spearman have 110 HP with no innate armor. But their effective HP when being attacked by a veteran archer only amounts to 56HP?! Why? Because the vet archer does 14 damage (7 base and 7 bonus) to a spearman per strike. This means 8 strikes from a veteran archer would kill veteran spearman. Once you normalize those 8 strikes by the 7 base damage of the veteran archer it is as if the spearman had only 56HP from the veteran archer’s base attack perspective. This tool becomes useful so you can readily compare 1 unit’s effective HP to another type of unit’s effective HP when each are being attacked by the same unit type.
Example 2:
War Elephant has 850HP with 4 melee armor and 5 range armor. The veteran archer only does 2 damage per strike to the War Elephant (7 base - 5 range armor). This means from the veteran archer attack perspective it would require 425 strikes 
to kill said War Elephant; which equates to an effective HP of 2975 Hp (425 strikes times 7 base vet archer attack).
Still we are missing 1 more step of normalization and that is PER COST. So we’ll take each unit’s effective HP AND divide that by the unit’s total resource cost.
(Note: when you also normalize for population… the spearman overall efficiency cannot be beaten by any other bio unit…)
As the 2 previous examples of a War Elephants effective HP per cost vs vet archer’s damage compared to a spearman effective HP per cost vs vet archer’s damage we have
WAR ELEPHANT: 396 HP per 100 resources
VET SPEARMAN: 70HP per 100 resources
This comparison you’d continue with these 2 units being attacked by every type of attacker.
Vs MAA
WAR ELEPHANT: 171 HP per 100 resources
VET SPEARMAN: 150 HP per 100 resources
Vs Crossbowman
WE: 86 HP per 100 resources
VS: 150 HP per 100 resources
vs Lancer (no charge dmg*)
WE: 138* HP per 100 resources
VS: 150 HP per 100 resources
vs Spearman
WE: 37 HP per 100 resources (super duper effective counter especially against an immobile unit…aka DESIGN SHORTCOMINGS…)
VS: 146 HP per 100 resources
And so on and so on… the spearman HP has the highest effectiveness vs the most different types of units. Among other things… So i propose a fix to the WAR Elephant since it is immobile by comparison to other bio units and has SUCH a strong and cheap counter in the efficient spearman.
GIVE the War Elephant EVEN MORE melee armor. I’m talking 4 more Melee ARMOR!!! this would only improve the WAR ELEPHANTS effective HP vs spearman attack from 37 HP per 100 resources up to 43 HP per 100 resources which still keeps the spearman as THE OFFICIAL MELEE COUNTER to the WAR Elephant and this would NOT effective any range unit abilities against the WAR ELEPHANT…but the plus 4 melee armor would make this immobile creature impervious to ANY other NONSPEARMAN MELEE unit!!!
As is??? This unit is NOT better at being a frontline unit than the spearman which has sufficient to superior effective HP vs all other units period except vs archers??? Stating it again plainly for those in the back:
The spearman matches or OUTPERFORMS the WAR elephant as a frontline unit vs every enemy composition that’s not archer mass dominant composition. And even WHEN it is an enemy archer mass composition… the spearman outperforms vs that composition comparatively to the WAR Elephant vs a spearman frontline composition 2 to 1 in favor of SPEARMAN!!!
AND IT GETS WORSE!! If the enemy composition is made of crossbowman AND spearman; it renders the War Elephant completely useless.
The War Elephant unfortunately has no definitive well purpose function 
…
- It’s an anti-cav that dies to anti-cav.
- It has less effective HP per cost than a spearman vs all incoming damages except horsemen damage and archer damage…
- It has 2 counters that it CANNOT escape.
- While it does permit delhi to resource dump into a similar power to resource option like the Lancer… this power to cost comparison is only valid when you have the sufficient resource UP FRONT (quite literally the original reason HRE Burgrave was changed from batch training to now faster training).
- It has respectable siege damage but you can get better siege damage for cheaper (rams), faster, less population and less susceptible to counters…
- It damage output EVEN vs horsemen is far inferior to spearman when normalize for cost…
This unit LACKS any CLEAR FUNCTIONAL advantages to the other units in the Delhi roster…
IMO give the War Elephant a CLEAR FUNCTIONAL advantage and role in the delhi playstyle(s):
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Make the WAR ELEPHANT a “super soaker”. Give ot high high effective HP per cost (or per time or per both time and per cost) vs everything!!! Example: return HP back to 1400 HP (at least 1300hp) and keep everything else AS IS. Spearman would continue to be a hard counter but the effective HP per cost of the War Elephant vs EVERYTHING else would be literally result in a tank; aka a TRUE frontline unit!!!
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Option 2: remove the heavy unit tag and add a moderate CLEAVE damage to the tusk DPS. Spearman would still remain a hard counter but now you’d have a crowd control unit that would draw in the anti-cav enemy units in which would favor delhi flanking with their ghazi raiders and lancers onto backline range units.
Make this make sense…
Abbasid Camel Riders have the Armor of a knight (after special castle & imp upgrades), has MORE HP than a knight, has the speed of a horseman* (with a castle upgrade) , and has ~80% the base dps of a knight, but does more dps than a knight against cavalry. DOES NOT have a Heavy unit tag (therefore not countered by crossbows); has a camel special debuff to all nearby enemy cavalry for 20% less dps AND its CHEAPER THAN a knight…
Meanwhile the War Elephant… its SLOW (easily swarmed and outmaneuvered) ; has a HEAVY unit tag; has only 1 upgrade; has zero area of effects aura or damage; cost more than 3 times the cost of a knight.
IMO; the Camel Rider is a unique unit that demonstrates a considerable thought investment
- cost efficient
- functional
- multiple upgrades
- multipurpose
- FUN!!!
Please revisit the design of the War Elephant, please!! HECK, ON PAPER? It appears you gave the Ayyubids the quintessential ELEPHANT (Tower of the Sultan )?!
Later designs tend to be more refined than earlier designs. I don’t know enough about Delhi to comment further, but Season 5 has me hoping they keep revisiting “old” civs / units / etc.
you’re more hopefully than me…
While I agree the more a person spend on refining an idea, typically the better it gets; but get this?! Camel riders have been out as long as Elephants has been out?? Camel Riders have been correctly patched; meanwhile–
" Fixed a bug where Cavalry units would sometimes be unresponsive to acquiring buildings as idle aggro targets. " (This is NOT fixed… Elephants still CONSTANTLY go idle)
and Delhi still has THE most bugs in the game; even the changes they implemented in the last patch has new bugs (infinite madrasa scholar production; wrong research timers displayed; villagers going idle even though they are RIGHT next to their next source of food (and I mean less than 0 tiles next to the next source…) )
So, I’m convince Delhi is last civ to be touched or is handled by a separate team thats NOT as meticulous as the other teams??
But we also know from the Ayyubids that they have Camel Lancers, and as such the faction has probably gotten more attention during post-release than the Delhi Sultanate has.
Pure speculation of course. There may also be mechanical challenges with Elephants vs. other unit types. At the end of the day, it’s up to the devs to make the unit worth their cost. I hope they do, despite not playing Delhi much at all.
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I agree with your speculation. The fact we have Ayuubids is proof they have spent considerable time trying to differentiate the units and playstyle of the core civ vs the variant. This would explain the new Ayuubid units foremention being so refined.
Secondly Delhi has been woefully unpopular… and "no fun " from a community perspective, so it makes sense if it has received less attention.
IMO the motivation to re-focus on delhi could produce the same effects as introducing the new variant civs. Tell he community you’re starting fresh and adding new ideas to delhi play and keeping the core ideas that vibe with the community!!
"Sultant Ascend? " The title sounds like it should absolutely make room for delhi refresh!!
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I would say Delhi has gotten a lot of attention.
Frankly they needed it, I was playing back in the days where streamers made a Delhi bug tier list where they made a list of how impactful various Delhi-specific bugs were.
It was funny but sad at the time, because it was like 20-30 different bugs.
Elephants have also gotten a lot of changes over time (both nerfs and buffs), though I do agree they are in a pretty weird balance spot.
While both elephants are REALLY strong against the units they are strong against, they are slow and super easy to counter by commonly built units.
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Ah sorry I meant more in the design space, vs. bugfixing.
Of course, who knows what else the expansion could bring. Maybe the financial incentive gave them enough resource to bring more alterations to the base game (normal enough for expansions, but obviously we have no idea yet).
Fair, Delhi was just super broken for so long that meaningful. Tower of Victory and Hisar Academy didn’t work properly.
Keeps had research time increased by scholars instead of reduced which was huge.
Spearman were broken (veteran research time was 7x longer and they didn’t brace vs cav)
Tons of techs took way longer to research than they were supposed to (Sanctity/Honed blades probably most important)
Tower elephants didn’t get incendiary arrows or blacksmith upgrades.
And many more
Because of all this, making meaningful civ changes was basically impossible and it took like months to fix everything if I recall.
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Alright another War Elephant fix idea
First is bring war elephants to feudal. Ppl love elephants so please give us elephants 
ASAPP. Just War Elephant comes to feudal. Give it the early knight treatment where it requires a cheap and speedy castle tech for veterancy.
Next nerf the cost by 33% and all power levels by only 25%. Personally I’ve entertained the wrong concepts behind a War Elephant unit. A War Elephant needs to be a bulldozer, a plower unit. Not a fast unit, not a flanking unit. Should be a perpetually CHARGING unit that needs to be stopped head on (spearwall) or infinitely kited (crossbow/HC/cav archers).
Lets go over the total abilities then cost and statistics.
Abilities
Once a target is acquired the War Elephant will start a charging animation that will not stop until it either makes contact, or retasked or otherwise killed.
The charge damage will now be called Rampage damage and instead of being single target hit it will now be single damage hit and and bleed area damage in a 120 degree cone.
AND units hit by Rampage area of effect damage will have their mobility reduced by 15% for 7s.
Next while the War Elephant is actively in the charging animation it will obtain an armor of +2 range resist.
Lastly the ability Hone Blades will NO LONGER apply to MAA and Lancers but will exclusively apply to War Elephants providing a flat +5 damage to tusk dmg. And will be renamed Tusk Sword. And this ability will add the 15% mobility debuff.
Ppl like progression of units. This is quite literally the theme behind jeane of arc. So having this SHOULD be core unit available early and progress thru the ages and landmark choices WILL jive with the community!!!.
Fedual War Elephant
Will cost 300 food 200 gold and train in 45s. 550hp. 3/4 armor. Base trunk attack of 32 melee dmg on 2.88 attack speed. Base walk speed of 1.0 tiles per second. Charge speed of 1.375 tiles per second. Rampage damage (charge damage) of 40. Base spear damage of 16 dmg per 1.88s and cav bonus of 27*. Feudal War Elephant will not have the area of effect bleed damage; nor the 15% mobility debuff on targets struck by Rampage.
Castle veteran War Elephant
The veteran upgrade will take 150s. 680 HP. 4/5 armor. Base trunk attack 40 dmg. Rampage damge of 50 and now a 30% of rampage damage bleed for 6 seconds in a 120 degree area of effect with similar radius to firelancer charge. Houses of Learning Tusk Sword will add +5 tusk damage (45 base tusk and 55 for rampage base damage) and will also apply a 15% mobility debuff to all targets inflected by Rampage for 7 seconds. Visually War elephants will get their current castle barding. And metallic tusk covering if Tusk Swords have been reached.
Imperial technology
Beasty upgrade will continue to work as is. I think attack also should have some elite upgrade? And this is where the +2 range armor during rampage will apply.
At one point, the War Elephant will become a regional unit as there would eventually be more civs added to game with some of these civs being civs that historically deployed elephants on the battlefield.
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If true this is more reason to revitalize the base concepts and customize each variant.
Give us elephanto now plz and ty.