The first thing I learn Elephants very bad on large maps especially against Mongols or any civ which build fast knights.
Seconds thing is about 1 Elephants isn’t the same as 4 Knights though it’s almost same by resources spent.
War Elephant cost 600f\400g. 4 Heavy Knights 560f\400g. Spearmans cost almost nothing. But 1 Elephant is not the same as many other units, it’s 100% gonna be surrounded and die.
So the third thing I realise Elephants doesn’t work without support. It can be Tower War Elephant + something else.
If there anybody with good elo and winrate for Dehli what army composition you use with Elephants?
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I was thinking about this, i assume it will be something like Spearman+Archers/Xbows + Some Elefeantos and Monkas behind it to heal.
Eventually in late imp Spearman, Elefanots and Handgunners?
Dont have the Elefantos Charging in but slowly waltz your way direction enemy base and then use them to siege down buildings.
Is only theoratical though, dont have too much exp vith Dehli in 1v1.
Sounds nice in practice
And no idea how to get to the point where you can start moving out, probably need even stone walls at one point simply to prevent beeing stuck at home to defend against raiding knights.
I’m not high elo but I think the idea is you don’t build loads of them. They work well supporting an army they can work on a psychological level where the other player focuses too much on them because they look scarier than they actually are while your other units do the real damage like their MaA and Lancers that can get boosted damage from unique tech.
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dehli sucks is way underpowered. i wouldn’t even bother playing them in current french/rus meta unless you want to torture yourself with horrible games.
also china needs huge buffs china feudal is problably worst experience there is in game
Can’t speak to having a good elo, but I feel “mass Elephants” are too easily countered by Springalds (and bombards in Imperial) - which every faction (imo anyway) should be throwing into to their army once they can.
With that said 1-2 tower elephants (especially early into the castle age) can be quite scary for an opponent - as its basically a living ram that can march into the enemy base and therefore end the game there and then. Its not quite as resistant to TC/outpost fire, but it doesn’t care that much, it can’t be mobbed by villagers, and what amounts to 3-7 archers (depending on what they are shooting) mow down troops. Its large hit point pool also means its risky to try and snipe in small microable battles - but equally if one is left up and things attrition down to low numbers of units, it can just eat what’s left - and then go kill villagers, buildings etc.
Unfortunately I feel the regular war elephant isn’t really worth it. Its a slow melee unit - which is therefore hard to micro. The spearman on the back does reasonable damage to cavalry - but given the discrepancy in cost with regular spearmen, I’m not convinced its that impactful. You get a big health pool - so if your opponent does just attack move into them you get a lot of time to do damage with the rest of your army before they die, but it just feels like the tower elephant brings so much more.
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Actually, the elephant is the support for the army. You have to make 2-3 of them and you can siege anything. You should use them as a tank with a lot of healers. The most important part is scouting without that you won’t know which unit composition is the right for the “current” situation.
Also, it’s quite important to use more than 1 mosque, as it speeds up your researches. And this is where scouting gets important. You have to check the main composition of the enemy because you need to tech against it. As it is quite slow with Delhi, you have to be extremely careful. Of course you can use a lot of blacksmiths, but you have to be extremely careful with resources. Early rush, raid, and villager hunting is very popular by now, so you need some archer or spearmen to protect yourself.
So if I try to play with elephants, i try to rush for wood to make fence and protect myself with outposts and towers. And speed up for a3. Meanwhile scouting as much as i can, and prepare a few soldier to protect the base. When you reach elephants, i use only the melee ones with 5-6 scholar to heal them. Other units are based on the enemy. I think MAA is quite useful in any case.
Elephants mixed with man at arms and siege or archers is really strong, man at arms beat pikes, siege and archers beat crossbows, elephants and man at arms seem to hold up well against massed cavalry, although French may give you some issues
I like to use them as a distraction or tank support since they are so good at wrecking buildings and you need so many units to take them out fast.
Elephants are just rams with selfdefence and not dying on torches. The same as rams, they are better in early game (rams in feudal, elephants in early castle age) than in post imperial game. Im adding 2-4 elephants to my upgraded feudal army (veteran archers, veteran spears) and im going to snipe enemy landmarks/TC.
Delhi is not very strong now, but I think elephants are not the problem.
Also tower elephants are better than standard ones. They can destroying enemy buldings while shoting to units and repairing villagers.
btw. I’m not very good player, but I have decent results playing Delhi on 1200 elo level.
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