You forgot to mention that there is another animation lock once the Raider Elephant actually hits a unit with its charge. And that the Trample damage does not stack, meaning there are instances where you want to stagger the activation for more damage (2 Raider Elephants sneaking into woodline, one activates first, second after).
They’ve also got one melee armour in Castle, which could be nice against MAA but one melee armour in this game is frankly nothing. I was thinking maybe you could FC and get some melee armour upgrades for a quick 3 against a Feudal opponent, but Spears having bonus damage against Raider Elephants (in addition to Culverins/Bombards) makes them really vulnerable as these bonuses were originally meant to target super high health Elephants.
They also get run down by Knights, which regular Horsemen can run away from. This is kind of a big deal.
You’d think the Trample would make it easy for them to get on top of Archers and Crossbowmen, but it generally stops them long enough for them to get kited and opens up for Spearmen to catch up. Additionally, their 0.75 attack range makes them super susceptible to Spearman Brace, during Trample or just during regular Charge due to their big hitbox. Raider Elephants kind of die before they reach either Siege or regular Archers. Hell, Raider Elephants do not benefit from their high health from Spearmen nor Archers due to overkilling.
At some point you got to ask, what is the point of having a unit with a lot of health if everything has a bonus or advantage against them? This is exactly why Knights are great, as they destroy units in short range even if they get countered, whereas Elephants are designed to always be weak, regardless of circumstance.
The Healer Elephant ironically is a better War Elephant, not only because it deals Splash damage comparable to War Elephant, but because they don’t get immediately obliterated and can sustain themselves (like a tanky unit should!). In addition to that, they can actually cost a reasonable amount. Even without a discount, they’re about twice as cheap as War Elephants, making them actually usable units. And that is without mentioning that they, like a big, costly unit should, actually provide meaningful support to the units around it unlike the War Elephant which for some reason has a Spearman on top (the most common unit in the game) as if this is any useful. I would actually kind of hope to see the Healer Elephant be renamed to Battle Elephant or something, and replace the War Elephant for Tughlaq. Keep the low cost, maybe nerf the healing (alternatively, make them AoE heal with no stacking), making it an actual combat unit that is cost reasonable unlike the monstrosities of Delhi.
The Ballista Elephant is really sucky. Deals far too little damage, and being tagged as a heavy unit sucks. I’m also disappointed that it has no animation, that it reuses Springald asset and that it uses the War Elephant skin rather than say, the Worker Elephant skin.
The House of Wisdom seems very strange, Collateral Damage tech was meant to amplify splash damage originally as I seem to recall this being hinted prior to release. Instead it seems to have been changed to a very niche use case.
And Tower of Victory, frankly, I’d rather have the original one from Delhi. Seeing as Elephants do not in fact fulfill every role of Infantry, perhaps this tech should be way tuned up, like 35% faster attack speed, because it is absolutely useless right now. Remember that this is only for Elephants, for whatever reason.
All in all, my impressions is that I’m not sure what Tughlaq are meant to excel at. The Forts can help them multi TC boom while maintaining some defensive positions, there is some cheese with the Amirs, the extra food is nice. But, it doesn’t seem very identity defining, their damage output is actually low for a Keep unless you put units inside of it, but it is still limited to only 10 units and kind of low health for a loooot of stone. The Worker Elephants are cool and I do like how they allow you to acquire Shoreline Fish very cheaply (as they will follow the Shoreline Fish route automatically with villagers), same with forests and Deer, but Tughlaq don’t have a clear economic boost that makes them stand out in any meaningful way. In fact, they have to spend more resources on technologies.
Nor do they have a clear powerful military strategy or benefit. The Healer Elephants sounded nice, but they’re suppoused to be support units. The question is, what are they suppoused to support? Default ass MAA and Spearman? I mean, I really wanted to like the Raider Elephant, but they kind of just suck. Horsemen in AoE4 have always kind of sucked compared to Archers and Spearmen, and rarely have they been worth massing, and the Raider Elephant is somehow worse than the default Horseman.
So what are they left with? Quick teching. That’s pretty much the one thing they’re good at and likely will get tuned back. Bank some resources, make some units, get into position then in less than half a minute, you will have an army capable of ending the game. And as enjoyable and satisfying as that is, this is meant to be the Elephant civilization which I don’t really feel.
s in the room…. a lot more tuning is needed that will take time..
. The trample button animation locks the units which allows the targets to get away. You can cancel the animation by timing the activation to be immediately as you execute an attack, but it’s still janky. While still on the trample ability, it only shines in forced, no kiting combat, however the elephants are so big with and with only a 0.75 melee range they run around a lot attempting to reach a target. If this civ is gonna have zero ability to catch raids they should have a stronger raider Elephant . Glided horseman have all better stats than Raider elephants except range armor and not having a special ability 
. I’m gonna pause here on this unit, because I can make a separate post on this unit and it’s lack of synergy and clear advantage.
The unit is just too strong and central to be locked behind Some of Faith.
, or have something STRONG?