Khmer have the most bonuses for Elephants for historical reasons, but now they don’t need them anymore. Meanwhile Burmese need something to do other than Arambai, and they need something against archers. Elephants with +1 PA would be -in some ways- better vs archers than knights are, but it’s not worth getting the UT. If you get the castle up, you might as well make Arambai.
Changes aiming to nerf Khmer Elephants:
- change the elephant speed bonus into a UT
- remove the elephant attack bonus
Changes aiming to buff Burmese elephants:
- make the +1/+1 armour bonus a civ bonus instead of a UT
- change the UT to give elephants more attack
After this there is a problem that the Khmer and Persian UTs would be too similar. I’d propose to change this in a manner which buffs WE when they are weak, without effecting their late game (much)
Changes to Persian UT:
- Remove the Mamouts technology and implement the WE speed increase in the base WE stats
- Make the UT instead grant WE scout-style conversion resistance.
Monks would probably still counter small numbers of WE, but at least they wouldn’t counter them as badly. In the situations where WE are strong, monks are unworkable anyway because of the micro requirement, so I don’t think the buff would make WE too strong in any situation.
If these changes are implemented, I hope we could one day see BE being buffed again, rather than the constant onslaught of minor nerfs the unit has been facing.
Sounds fair but it needs to be tested
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I am not sure about Battle Elephants. I don’t think War Elephants needs buff. 200 food and 75 with gold cost their base stats nice, 600 HP and 20 Attack with trample damage.
The only main counters for WE are the monks and eco
You want to remove those two? I don’t think so
I like however the speed buff and agree with you on the Burmese BE, it needs some love indeed
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Currently to go for 10 WE, supposing you already have Knights upgrades, you need 650 stone for the castle, then 600 resources for the UT, then 2700 to make 10.
All of this can be hard-countered by a monastery and 5 monks. I’d hope that with scout-style conversion resistance you’d need 10 monks. Still not worth it for the Persian player in most circumstances.
I agree with evilLord that it needs to be tested.
WE are strange units, countered only by halbs, monks, some UU, and sometimes siege.
kind of has to be, seeing as the other counters for elephants aren’t anywhere close to population efficient.
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Persians have good counters for the units that counter the War Elephants.
Hussars counter monks and siege.
Trash Crosssbows/Skirmishers counter halbs and monks.
They also have eco bonuses to support this triple combo. Along with this, you have camels and paladins for extra support.
I think the War Elephants are good as they are, they are not supposed to be massed or used solo. They should be addons to your cav army and should always be supported by trash crossbows and Hussars.
Imo massive civ nerf. You need to compensate it for 1v1
I like this due to arambai nerf and burma has always been not great, besides the arambai
Too much. I agree the WE is too situational. But Persia has a great eco, a very good military, it doesn’t necessarily need a great UU.
As has been mentioned a number of times, the WE of all units is incredibly hard to balance within the constraints of AOE2. It needs to cost more pop (at least 2)in order to properly balance it.
If you gave it scout level resistance it would be potentially unstoppable in TGs
2 Likes
Should be only for elite.
Imp age UT. I have nothing to disagree here since monk most likely won’t be a thread at that time.
Too powerful. Another small eco bonus would be better. Keep them as usual or the UT applies to Arambai/knight line as well. Reduce elite Arambai’s PA to 1 from 2 in that case.
Completely removing the attack bonus is again huge nerf. Give them +1/+2 attack in Castle and Imp. UT should be +15% speed in that case. The main problem with Khmer is their eco I’d say. I believe the 5% farming penalty does not work until you research handcart (I can be wrong though). Instead of dropping of 1 food every time their vils collect from farm, change it to drop only after they reach their carry capacity.
If you really give them conversion resistance, then it may be necessary. I don’t think Persians and WE need any change though.
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Funny to see these disagreements 
TBH I don’t know which one of you is right. The main reason I proposed changing anything at all about WE is that it’d be weird if 2 civs both had a UT which increases elephant speed.
I’d hope the BE base-stats could be increased by +1 attack, +2 for EBE. That way all 4 elephant civs benefit. And yes the movement speed could go back up. However I think the community would probably prefer having a period in which Khmer is definitely-not-S tier.
Which is the reason I’m proposing a pure Khmer nerf.
If that’s not how balance should be done, then you and @phoenix1089 are right.
Personally I really dislike the Khmer farming penalty. It feels unnatural.
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