Camels do a whole 31 damage a hit. 27 after armor. Meaning it’s going to take 14 hits to kill. Have fun with that.
Heavy cavalry even longer. Monks work in low numbers but in larger numbers not so well.
Bet they don’t when you hit a critical mass. I watched viper use 39 ele archers and chew up over 70 supply of his opponents army and only lost 20 elephants. 70 supply of cavaliers, malian infantry and arbs.
Not saying eles don’t need love but if youre talking true counters to a critical mass your best bet is probably siege.
Well, Arbs are one of the things they hard counter. Infantry too, for that matter, though not as hard; they’ll do more than 1 damage, anyway.
Cavalry and infantry with anti-cavalry bonuses will chew them up very cost effectively though. And monks, of course, will ruin their day, because they’re resistant to themselves, making a conversion a pretty big deal.
But malian infantry? Literally has 7 pa.
Depends. Ea scale very well with numbers. Once you reach a critical mass rhey start wrecking
Sure, but they lack Halbs. Even without them, 30 of their pikes can beat 20 elephant archers.
But honestly, I’m not trying to argue that they’re useless, just that they’re niche and their elite upgrade is overpriced.
EA are pretty bad for their cost. The units stats are nice, sure, but I don’t think there is any situation, ever, in which there isn’t a better unit you can make. Maybe if you have no villagers and only a castle left 11
again, double those elephant numbers and tell me how many units it takes to kill them.
I’m not sure how you expect them to GET to those numbers, is the thing. By the time they can afford even 20, the other side can afford 30 pikes AND 12 paladins besides. Yeah, 40 will be powerful, but at that point you’re talking about having invested enough resources for the other side to field 30 pikes and 37 paladins, which will win 100% of the time.
The only reason they won that fight you mentioned was because the arbs were hard countered, but the elephants would have done that regardless of whether you used 5 or 50 - only with 50, they’ve got vastly more weaknesses than with five.
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Elephant archers need 20 hits to kill Heavy camels, obviously with thumb ring they are a bit quicker than camels, but camels cost 2/3 and don’t need castles.
Paladins kill elephants in 25 hits, but EAs need 45 to kill them, even Paladins cost less and don’t need castles.
Also amassing a niche CASTLE unit is not only difficult, but sometimes counterproductive.
In team games Persians can make War Elephants, but those aren’t niche, those are walking war machines who crush anything in their path.
Let’s say in a team game a Flank goes arbalesters, and the Indian player is not pocket, can happen, I believe even just 10 elephant archers can shred 60 arbs, no need to create 40. Better maybe to make 30-40 imperial camels and shred the enemy pocket paladins, or some HC to kill those pesky infantrymen.
But for 10-20 troops such expensive upgrade is really difficult to justify.
But remember that elephant archers have range so they can stack their attacks in the same palladin. 25 palladins cannot attack the same elephant archer at the same time especially in a choke point
And this is the greatest thing of elephant archers. They can hold so much damage before losing one of them and in the meanwhile they ate stacking all their sttacks.
See here in minute 27. https://youtu.be/_BmdQSuTw2k
Those were full upgrades cataphracts. They are worse than paladins against archers but you will see my point.
True, eleohant archers require a castle and are expensive, but they arent useless when massed.
Also, if the enemy had paladins indians maybe should go for imperial camels…
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I never said they’re useless. In their niche they’re extremely good, the thing is you usually don’t try to mass a niche unit, and if you don’t mass them, the upgrade is terribly expensive.
So you are forced to build a large number of them to make good use of the upgrade, which goes against their niche use, and so on, in a loop.
Imho the upgrade is too expensive at the moment, I don’t think a 60% discount would be needed, but perhaps they can start with a much lower number and see how it goes.
Exactly, you don’t blindly try to build an army of them because you can. But paying 1800 resources to upgrade, say, 10-15 elephants is nonsense.
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Why you would ever mass them? They are so hardcountered by so common units, you don’t want to have them as your core army. Especially as they are so expensive AND have low dps, even with the building bonus they push so extremely slow.
They only work as a great mass archer counter as they can buy so much time with their insane HP. And you only want a few of them just to buy time, nothing more.
Mass EA is just a complete waste of ressources.
The problem is that indians are balanced so they dont need a buff (although i would like to use elephant archers more often).
Maybe if they rework them in an incoming dlc (similsr to lithuanians receiving wonged hussars but losing blast firnace) i would be glad with an elephant archer buff
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Indeed, that’s why the upgrade cost is insane.
1800 res to upgrade maybe 10-15 EAs is beyond terrible.
If the answer then is “don’t upgrade”, then what’s the point of making it a castle unit? Could have been another Condottiero/Slinger.
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