I’d say the unit is a bit too bulky to have a specific anti-siege bonus, since when they are massed, siege is one of your go to options against them. :S Just too good to give it a bonus against them when they can survive so many direct hits from them already.
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With their rate of fire when they fire 6 arrows, BBC almost fire 3d cannonball.
19 arrows for time to shot 9 cannonballs.
9 cannonballs are needet to kill FU EEA
FU EEA need 14 arrow sto kill BBC.
So this is good for EA, but still is very slow.
SO fire 3 shots for almost 6 arrows for EEA. 5 shots for almost 11 arrows. Almost 7 shots for 15 arrows.
SO need 5 shots to kill EEA
Onager need almost 7. Theoreticly need 8, because EEA survive with 1HP, but areaeffect sometimes adds few dmg to the onager.
FU EEA need 24 arrows to kill SO. 15 arrows to kill onager.
So they die to the SO, but they are slightly better than onager. Probably massed onager will win because of areaattack.
Addition only +1 vs siege mean they can kill SO in 18 arrows, O with 12 arrows BBC with 12 arrows.
+2 vs siege - kill SO with 14 arrows, O with 10 arrows, BBC with 10 arrows.
Much better, right?
Not even mention trebs and rams.
And keep in mind, they still will be vulnerable for all the counters they are now - halbs, camels, skirms, scorpions (ok, maybe less to scorps), but now they have purpose to egsist. Now- come on, you dont need deal with mass EA, because noone make them 
What about a siege resistance instead of a bonus, so they take small damage to onagers (one of the main counter for archers), they cound be a unique meatshield unit.
Right now to protect units such as HC Indians still have better options, like rams, which absorb arrow fire (while EA takes bonus damage from ES) and at the same times they pose a real treat for building, while if you need to defend them from cavalry you would use Indians camels or halbs. That way at least they would have the role of protect weak units from enemy siege while also being able to return some fire.
Another idea could be to increase the damage versus standard buildings (no stone defenses, but maybe with a specific bonus towards the military production buildings) on a level of obsidian arrows. Again the point is that while they are a bit more mobile, EA are a worse choice when you compare them to rams, since they receive bigger bonus damage from units, and some of them are archers (ES, CA, GC), they can’t even be compared to CA, since they don’t have the strength that the mobility provides.
Making them REALLY good (more than now) versus buildings with the ability to take out the enemy military production (maybe they could keep this bonus but fire multiple arrow each with the same amount of damage, like a kipchak).
I will admit that I’m not convinced myself about this, but the EA is a difficult unit to balance, they take it straight from aoe1, but there the game play was different, and it have it’s role, here as a UU with a lot more counter it’s basically useless.
Making the EA anti-siege is redundant since Indian can choose from Hussars, Imp Camels and BBC already if they want to counter siege.
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I don’t think this is needed since they’ve 350HP but its also impossible to implement unless you’re gonna give elephant archers 30-40 melee armor
I think it’s enaugh to give and anti-siege bonus armor, i know it’s redundant but with a bonus vs buildings, could at least have a role as a siege-archer resistent meatshield that can help you push inside the enemy base by destroying the enemy production.
But siege dont deal special siege damage. Siege deal normal meele or pierce damage. And this mean if you want them invunerable to siege, you have to add them massive meele and massive pierce armor (like 60M and 100P) add them individual Elephant Archer armour and add every other unit bonus damage vs Elephant Archer equal to their normal damage. This is posible, but i doubht devs will make something like this on this scale. It happens (f.e. Condotiero) but it was very limited.
Yes, but EA is produced in the Castle, what is advantage in this case because could be created in emergency.
They just gave condotierro a class and anti infantry bonus armor and adjusted plumes, cataphracts and jaguars. They’ll have to re-invent siege for this
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Scorpions deal anti-Elephant bonus damage.
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Emergency defense could be an application but unless you make them produced stupidly fast you won’t have enough to deal with siege unless it’s a huge bonus. For instance as good as they are, Mangudai won’t save your castle if you just pump them one by one after the enemy sent a huge load of rams in your direction, while pumping cav from a nearby stable would be a better option. Also, spending 180 ressources as an emergency sounds pretty tough.
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I know. But this is minority of their damage and aply to all Elephants, not only EA.
I’m not an expert, so if anyone is correct me, but I think that it’s enaugh to give the EA a siege armor, and to the onagers an attack that related to that armor, so if anyone doesn’t have that armor, the attack it’s like there isn’t, while for EA they take less damage. I don’t know if I was clear.
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Sounds like a lot of work. I’d just improve on what the unit is instead of making unorthodox changes like this or archer garrison
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I don’t know if they can make a mobile unit that can garrison units, adding more attacks or armors is more easy.
The ram exists but yeah it’s a bad idea. But anti siege is a very situational buff, no one is gonna make siege to counter elephant archer when there are better cheaper options, even in team games, BBC is a better option
Yes but I don’t about the increment of arrow-fire with archers, I don’t see the purpose of create and upgrade both EA and other archer just for garrison the latters in the firsts, the output damage would be bigger if they are out, this way at least can protect them as a meatshield for range enemy’s units (onagers, ES), while HC protect them from halbs and camels.
Again, I’m not convinced myself, but it’s hard to imagine a role for this unit in aoe2de.
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If they make it actually good offensively I can see it being used, especially in this archer meta
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EA absorb the attacks of onagers and ES and the HC can protect them by killing halbs and camels.
The only option left to counter this combo would be with mass paladins, maybe supported by hussars, but then the Indians have the camels.
Also the EA should be only resistance to siege, without attack bonus, so that they counter onagers but ram can still be used to absorb projectiles.
But it is resistant to siege right now. Has 330 HP, can take direct treb shot. 8 BBC shots. 4 SO and 7 (probably) Onager shots. This is a lot.
And nobody cares. Because Ram can do the same better.
But rams dies to other siege, and Indians don’t have SR, so EA could be a more mobile meatshield that attack from distance.
Plus I 4 SO isn’t that much, I meant for them to be almost invulnerable to onagers.