So I recently made a post/ topic idk what its said , recently which was about the elephant archers and how crappy they are and now with Flaming Camels they have simply become too situational not even that just terrible and how bad they so I thought of some crazy Ideas that could Make them better this led to a lot of people coming out with even more good new Ideas on how to improve and I thought to put some of them here
So here are some of these Ideas and Also If like to add more it would be great:
1.Increase There Line of sight
2.Make them Fire Multiple Arrows Like Kipchk’s
3.Putting a Monk on its Back that can Heal it
4.Make it shoot Arrows Like a tower while walking
5.Give Indians Battle Elephants (I know its not a buff but it would help the Indian Elephant theme alot)
6.Make Them like Konnik’s Only when they Fell They give Create a Archer or some Variant of it .
7.Give them Long Bows Range
The reason why Elephant archers are bad: Archers are intended to be an offensive unti not a defensive one. Their offensive skills are much better, and SHOULD be much better than defensive skills, due to the simple fact that they have non-zero range. If you watch high level games, you can see that each player who goes with infatry or cavalry, always goes for the armor upgrade in blacksmith first, then the attack upgrade, while if he/she went for archers, then always reasearches the technologies which give an offensive boost first. This belongs to one of the fundamental differences between archers and non-archers, since they got range, their role is to play offensive all the time. This is why elephant archers bad, lack of mobility and low range makes them basicly weaker than a FU arbalest. How I would change them: Give them +1 range and +1 attack, but reduce HP by 60 for both elite and non-elite version. Decrease the cost aswell in proportion to the loss of hitpoints.
Elephant archers are technically the best elephants to fight Flaming Camels since they can pick them off at range.
I don’t think making them able to do everything is the way to go.
It would just make people completely forget about the Elephant archer due to its bad reputation.
Well, armor eventually matters for archer too. That’s why you don’t see say, Chinese cav archers, because no Parthian tactics, and also why Plume and Rattan archers are so good. And Elephant archers also get an attack bonus vs buildings, which is definitely an offensive bonus.
Armor matters aswell but definitely not as much as range or attack. Trading defensive abilities for better offensive abilities is always a buff for archers. Also note that elephants archers would still have a lot of HP after HP decrease, as far as I know they would only have 30 less than battle elephants.
I’ll give them more range. It’s okay for them to be weak in terms of attack, I guess, if they can outreach things, and resist againts cavalry
The reason I wanted to put a monk on their back is because they’re apparently supposed to be a defensive unit. Their shorter range supports this, so they automatically take the front position in a fight, but their severe lack of damage means they end up basically working as a ram except less tanky and less able to take down buildings while being more vulnerable to several units.
If they’re truly meant to function defensively, then just letting them heal nearby units would let them serve that role even in relatively small numbers, while being more durable than monks, yet retaining all the weaknesses of elephants. You still wouldn’t want the bulk of your army to be made up of them, but you’d benefit from having a few of them scattered through, to keep your other units healthy between fights.
Few halbs In front of them and they are toast
Making them konnik like with where a crossbow stands back up from the dead elephant doesn’t sound too bad. I think their range should be increased slightly but not their damage.
The trouble is, their short range is what makes them useful as meat shields. They automatically take the front line of the fight. I wouldn’t want to increase it since it makes them take substantially more micro to fill that role.
What about Arbalest ?
This is funny, as Elephant Archers kill Flaming Camels before they even hit, and are therfore the least affected unit by their introduction.
The trouble is, their short range is what makes them useful as meat shields. They automatically take the front line of the fight. I wouldn’t want to increase it since it makes them take substantially more micro to fill that role.
What? They don’t have a minimum range. Range has no impact on a unit’s ability to be a meat shield. Ranged units don’t usually make up the front line of a fight. Increasing range only increases micro potential, it doesn’t make it a requirement unless they get a hp nerf as well. But they are so slow that it wouldn’t be worth microing with them anyways.
Indians don’t get arbalest so I left it out. I guess the elephant archer could explode into a group of crossbowman if it’s an elite elephant archer. Even better if the devs make a trojan horse animation where the crossbowman have to burst out it’s carcass.
If a unit has a shorter range, it will have to get closer to the enemy right? Basically E.A will be closer to the enemy than other archers would.
Elephant Archers are tanky frontliners that can resist even Haberdiers and Elite Skirmishers. Their only real counter is Monks, and if it was not for their massive price an slow training time (the reasons why they are not actually trained most of the time), they would be the most powerful UU in the game, and the forums would be filled of cries for nerfs.
Elephant Archers are fine, and with Sultans UTand the Villager discount % per Age; Indians are a great civ.
Let us not even mention Shatagni HCs and Bombard Cannons, paired with decent CAs, Imperial Camels, a nearly full Archery Range roster, and Hussars.
I dunno that they’re ‘fine’, nobody ever makes them. That alone should be a pretty big warning bell.
Exactly. They have to stand a little closer than other things, so they automatically position themselves between the longer ranged things and the approaching attackers. It’s really quite clever in concept.
Honestly I’m still not convinced giving them trample damage wouldn’t help. If they’re meant to sit in front and be a meat shield, why not make them extra effective when filling that role?
They are too expensive and train too slow, specially when you already have FU Cav Archers, that is why no one makes them.
The do, however, beat every kind of Cav Archer in the game, in equal numbers.
Elephant Archers are supposed to be your super lategame undeniable push. A group of much stronger CAs that cannot be stopped, and whose only real counter is an 100 Gold unit.
Trample adamage is only for Melee units. If you give a Ranged unit Trample, it shoots an AoE Arrow that does not make any sense.
No reason you couldn’t make them do a second, half-damage attack around the elephant itself.
Their problem isn’t their per-unit health, it’s the fact that they’re very cost-inefficient. They cost more than twice as much as an arbalest but do less damage than a single one. Sure they’re better if they’re taking damage, but you generally never want arbs to take damage in the first place, so them being stronger there isn’t particularly useful.
The engine only supports one attack per unit. For example: Monk conversion is it’s attack, that is why you could never makes Tibetan Warrior Monks that could attack and convert at the same time.
Until the devs come out and directly say something is impossible, I won’t believe that anything is impossible. Silly to make assumptions like that.