So excited about more elephants!!!
Springald elephantsā¦ Already sound brokenā¦ I LOVE IT!!! 
Just imagine the current tower elephants with a springald?? Sounds cancerous lol, canāt wait to abuse, sorry but not sorry 
.
Next I wanna see how this new government mech works differently and similarity to imperial officals?
Uhhmm no they gonna nerf them at House of Lancaster level
See what happened with Demilancers!
Pretty useless now
Ballista Elephants are for the Khmer. In fact, the Dynasties of the East DLC shouldāve included some new major civs like the Khmer and Persians.
From the pictures shared we get elephants in feudal!!! Weāve been begging for feudal elephants and now we get 2!!
Iām excited to see the stars on the raider elephants. As light cav, will they still get a bonus vs other cav? Might be broken, but at the same time theyāll have to be slow comparatively to standard light cav, but hopefully not too slow like Palace Guards? Something in the 1.44 to 1.625 speed? Now Iām trying to think 
, what would the actual function of this unit be if this variant will NOT have a standard horseman unit??? Okay, unless this faction will get a skirmisher unit, the raider Elephants need to be able to run down kiting archers. Others not only will this civ be pick apart with raids they canāt catch ever but then archer blob will devastate light cav units with kiting and spear dance micro. But maybe the trample mech reference will be so fast and or unstoppable by spear walls? This way you can run past the front line, thru the archer blob then elephant body block the retreat??? Hmmmm
Aight my speculative stats on the feudal Elephant Raiders
350 HP 0/2 armor tusk dmg 15 (AOE), trample 10 (AOE) 20s CD on trample to get in and cause hell. Spear attack of 17 at 1.75 att spd, with bonus vs infantry!! walking speed of 1.44 to 1.625 TPS, trample doubles the speed for 10sā¦crazy 
. Basically this will be a berserker unit. retreat will not be itās thing. It will be for going literally headlong into a situation, the outcome is the outcome.
Hmmmm cost and train timeā¦ Standard food wood units have a 5.333 cost/train time ratio, and Iād like this unit to cost around 320 resources, but the train time would be too long if we keep to the ratio? Letās do 40s train time. This gives the enemy enough time to queue 4+ spears in defense (if you include walking across the map time).
Allegedly, the months old media tour build has the raider elephants costs at 200 food and 40 wood, 25 s??? Train time.
In terms of price and train time, itās as if this faction gets free Delhi Efficient Production?
Stats, can always change, but at 1.625 movement speed, and an assumed charge speed bonus, Iām envisioning some gnarly raids thru enemy tree lines. I hope raider elephants have sipahi melee range AND their tusk do splash dmg!!
1.625 is the same as knight speed so technically raider elephants can feint charge attacks then retreat the way knights civs do in feudal, but Iām a bit skeptical given the larger hitbox?
Last, whatās the base HP on a 2 horseman cost light cav? 250, IMO is too low, ITāS AN ELEPHANT! But my original guess of 300- something might be too high for a 2 horseman cost light cavā¦ Okay letās do 288 to 300.
Speculations
HP 300
Melee attack 20 , 1.75s att spd bonus dmg 20 vs archers melee range 1.25
Tusk attack 10, splash dmg, 2.875 att spd melee range 1.75
1.625 movement speed
25s train time
0/2 armor
Delhi will become redundant after they release. Just watch.
Instead of dealing with obnoxious monk micro with massive drawbacks to research speed such as a lack of momentum when aging up, your technologies are in fact researched faster,comparable to something like China. Sure, the technologies cost resources, but this is infinitely more engaging.
Hopefully they wonāt have obnoxious strategy-locking feudal sacred site bonus either.
Weāll it was projected by some the first slew of variants would displace the original civs and they didnāt really. Imo HOL is the closest to displacing the original but I think itās bc English is so bland and HoL is so EZ.
We already know that the mosque is locked behind castle age. They wonāt do sacred sites in feudal, not sure if weāve confirmed that theyāve lost the bonus resources on sacred sites. Itās worth considering that these variants will be as different from their base civ as templar knights is different from french.
All of them look like they will have mostly different units. Tughlaq Dynasty has replaced their horsemen with 2pop raider elephants, thatās already a huge change!
Thank god. Besides the way scholars and research works for Delhi, the number one reason I could never get behind playing them properly was due to that bonus. It incentivizes you too much to play into Feudal, and combined with how they have next to no momentum going FC, in addition to having no real eco bonuses for multi TC booming (besides free tech), Delhi becomes maybe the stalest of all civilizations in terms of engaging strategy.
Tughlaq can send them to the grave for all I care.
I havenāt seen them keep other things that make Delhi ultra powerful, such as the ability to double production speed. Delhi also has the ability to heal their army and capture sacred sites in Feudal. On top of that, they donāt need to gather gold beyond 2-3 monks, so their economy is a little bit more agile than Tughlaq!
Delhi is powerful in feudal, certainly, but they also have a very strong castle age (compound of the defender + keep TC tech is nasty), and some strategies involve rushing to imperial age for their handcannon elephants (most OP unit in the game IMO)
On that, does anyone know which age we unlock the healer elephant? If itās castle age we may see Tughlaq have a tremendous power spike in age 3.
Iām looking forward to getting my hands on this and playing with/against it on the ladder. I would much rather face Tughlaq than Delhi, what they lose as a variant looks a little less frustrating to play against.
And curiously, though the build is apparently 2 months old, fans were able to take some screenshots of the Raider Elephant who had a production speed of 25 seconds. Thatās quite fast for a unit that represents two Horsemen, so Iām curious to see if it is limited to them only.
The Dome of Faith allows you to build healers in Feudal Age, maybe even Elephant ones. I believe they can be produced out of the Fort in Castle Age too.
But genuinely, it looks all tech is researched in 5 seconds only, even university ones, and the addition of worker elephants is quite good. And of course, the other elephants too. Tower of Victory seems to grant Elephants more attack speed rather than infantry. Hell, this is actually the Elephant civilization I wanted all along compared to Delhi. I mean look at this.
EDIT: Apparently the Forts are available in Feudal age!
I can already see people asking for that to be nerfed. 2 melee armor, 3 ranged armor, 260 hp, and three attacks to kill an unupgraded villager.
These will be insane for early harrassment!
Iād assume the first Tusk (Melee) is their base attack, and the second Tusk (Melee) is their charge attack.
They apparently lack a bonus against cavalry, so knights will still be strong against them (Yeah).
Their dangerous feature will be their area of āāeffect attack, which will make them more lethal than the Gilded Horseman. However, theyāll take more damage from spearmen, since they also count as elephants.
Theyāll definitely will be balanced in a future, perhaps in terms of cost.
Are these the statistics to the Elephant Raiders? Eeeeeeee
Basically the raider elephants are feudal knights with a larger hitbox, no heavy tag, and no significant charge dmg, but likely a splash unit??? 
YIKES (PLEASE ALL VE TRUE)
Letās dig deeper.
1 raider elephant should be able to defend itself against 2 more mobile horsemen type units.
Should be able to kill cheaper heavy unit cav: sofa, keshik, KT feudal knights, etc.
Should trade with early knightsā¦maybe a controversial take?? A wood unit trading with a gold unit???
1 raider elephant is more easily microd vs archers than 2 horseman attacking in sync. Especially if splash dmg occurs always and not just during the charge!!
If splash is permanent, 3 raider elephants (equivalent to 6 horseman in cost) with deleted villagers the way Chinese fire lancers of old use to decimate a clump of villagers on mining or on wood lines?!! Canāt wait 
Dome of Faith WILL be the standard build if it grants healers in feudal bc nothing is more important than healing your expensive units (ask French).
If this civ gets the same starting resources as parent Delhi then the age time will be hella fast since they donāt have to chop 50w nor build a dark age mosque; huge tempo to spring them into early raiders, which means lots of civs will automatically be put on the defensive.
Really looking forward to this faction
Where does it specify they have splash dmg? And why relic do they have such low melee range???
But I agree they need to be powerful!! Not having a standard horseman is a big big issue both early and ultra late game. Horseman are exceptional strong units when weāre talking utility. So if you donāt get one at all?? What do you get??
They have an ability that they can activate which causes AoE damage around them. Theyāve made an animation where they lift their front limbs and slam them down, the damage lasting for a few seconds. I donāt know the damage specifics of this ability, though.
You can see it being activated here in the 19:55 minute mark, and again at 21:00 against enemies.
Sacred Sites for the win!
Beasty posted something a few days ago. Apparently itās a screenshot of Delhi (well Tughlaq) and its fort governors.
Apparently, along with Knight Templar, this is the 2d time an upgrade has images with vivid colors, aside from gold and blue.
Iāve checked, and several of the bonuses reference important cities in the Delhi Sultanate, mainly in the Northern region.
So much history, Iām already looking forward to playing with it. But anyway, Iāll have to wait until November.
Not Delhi Sultanate but its variant Tughlaq Dynasty
