Qm said

[lch]

I don't think that the Troglodytes need to get nerfed. Their trample effect is a lot less effective than size 6 tramplers, and trampling units have the problem that they always storm deep into the enemy ranks. So while their initial attack can kill a handful of units, the volley of hits from the other units surrounding them can easily kill them in one turn. The real problem, like KO and QM already said, are hordes of tramplers that occupy a large part of the battlefield so that they don't draw hits as easily as a loose group of tramplers.

Kristoffer O said:
Elephants are supposed to break easily, and devastate the own army if they do. But if you mix them with high morale heavy infantry, they do not rout as easily. This is thematically unsound: elephants that doesn't rout because they know that their brave human friends way back dont care if some of the elephants die or get poked by spears.

This seems to present the obvious idea how to "fix" this: Make morale mixing dependent on location of the units. A little like standards, units should be inspired by their comrades in their squad around them and may get morale boost through that, but not if they fight the enemy hordes on their own, while the rest of the squad is far away.

CUnknown said:
Perhaps the best thing to do is raise the resource cost on the elephants so that you can't mass them as easily, in addition to possibly raising the gold cost.

I would not raise the gold cost, but I already thought myself that they could use some more resources. LA Arco's elephants are quite resource intensive, but the normal ones can even be massed with sloth scales.

[MaxWilson]

Why would Ulm be trying to beat an army of tramplers in the field? I play SP, but my understanding was that there were numerous situations in MP where you have to go up against an army that you can't defeat in the field, and that a critical mass of tramplers is just one of them. I'm thinking of an E9N9 Niefel rush in particular. Is it not typical in that case to fight a delaying action instead, trying to raid around his forces and hit him in the pocket book? Giants and elephant hordes cost lots of upkeep, especially in the critical masses under discussion here. Ulm is ideally suited for this kind of stealthy warfare, and going toe-to-toe seems like a bad plan. It's exactly what the tramplers would want you to do.

Edit: actually, this is exactly how I would handle this situation in SP, so maybe the SP/MP distinction isn't relevant here. It's just that, while I enjoy tactical puzzles in SP, I'm hesitant to suggest that the solutions are relevant to MP.

-Max

[Shovah32]

The reason Arcos elephants are so resource intensive is their armour. Rather than tough, unroutable killing machines you get unroutable killing machines that are practically impossible to kill without magic.

edit(max posted while i was typing):
Ive been hit by an elephant rush as ulm in multiplayer and avoiding them is not an option. With high resource, mapmove 1 troops and not enough provinces to mass any cheaper indies(i think i had maybe 6-7 provinces when i got attacked) i was doomed from the moment they hit me. I took a few elephants out in the final battle in my capitol by trapping them in the gate with the bonds of fire spell(if thats the name, cant remember) and hitting them with about 15-20 maul and flail troops but in the end they just ran through and killed my mages and that was me dead. Raiding round them early on is simply not an option because they can simply divert for a turn and kill your raiders/take your capitol and kill them with a second force while cutting off all of your income. The reason nations like ulm are particularly vunerable is that they have very weak early magic, very weak troops vrs tramplers(few, small, heavily armoured troops) and only a few troops who are too slow to out-maneuver anybody.

[krpeters]

Thoughts on elephants & morale:

An easy way (for the programmers) to eliminate the "combining infantry with elephants" bug would be to weight a squad's morale by each unit's (original) hp. So it would take 7 heavy infantry to balance out one elephant's low morale... at which point the whole advantage of using elephants (high attack, low resource) would be eliminated.

Regarding the huge effectiveness of an elephant rush... I've used this strategy often, it does seem unfair that smaller squads get pasted. Keep in mind, though, that the effectiveness depends on concentration. If that 50 elephant squad breaks off into two 25 elephant squads, a moderate (100) sized light-infantry contingent can take them. So when you see the elephants coming, get out of their way, then charge into the enemy's territory (how many 50 elephant squads can he have?) and force him to chase you.

Alternatively, the problem of so many elephants in a single squad could be addressed by changing the squad rules limiting units in a squad by hp. A rating "50" commander would be able to lead 500 hp-units of troops -- 62 vaetti, or 7 elephants. Forcing the elephants into many squads could disorganize them sufficiently. (How is a single commander herding 50 elephants in the first place???!!!)

[quantum_mechani]

MaxWilson said:
Why would Ulm be trying to beat an army of tramplers in the field? I play SP, but my understanding was that there were numerous situations in MP where you have to go up against an army that you can't defeat in the field, and that a critical mass of tramplers is just one of them. I'm thinking of an E9N9 Niefel rush in particular. Is it not typical in that case to fight a delaying action instead, trying to raid around his forces and hit him in the pocket book? Giants and elephant hordes cost lots of upkeep, especially in the critical masses under discussion here. Ulm is ideally suited for this kind of stealthy warfare, and going toe-to-toe seems like a bad plan. It's exactly what the tramplers would want you to do.

Edit: actually, this is exactly how I would handle this situation in SP, so maybe the SP/MP distinction isn't relevant here. It's just that, while I enjoy tactical puzzles in SP, I'm hesitant to suggest that the solutions are relevant to MP.

-Max

Raiding to avoid confrontation with a superior army is a very powerful tool, but it isn't a cure-all. In the early game, your mages at the capital need to be at least enough deterrent that the enemy doesn't simply beeline right there and take it. With Ulm vs early elephant horde, this usually isn't the case.

What I would like to see for elephants is periodic squad numbers/average morale value independent morale checks. If whenever an elephant hit it had a chance to trigger such a morale check for the whole squad, that would greatly reduce the incentive for giant mega-squads. It could be an ability like any other (called panic or something) and could probably be thematic with some other units too.

[lch]

Or make elephants afraid of size 1 units... like Markatas.

[Gandalf Parker]

I like that. It fits. And it goes with the rock-paper-scissors thing. Make a unit which some think is a waste, useful in breaking what some think is too powerful an option.

I had always thought that the elephants were more susceptable to the rain-of-arrows morale check also. It always seemed as if I had little problem with elephants if I had lots of slingers, so boosting slingers vs elephants might be worth doing also. Or make elephants hate flyers.

[CUnknown]

lch said:

This seems to present the obvious idea how to "fix" this: Make morale mixing dependent on location of the units. A little like standards, units should be inspired by their comrades in their squad around them and may get morale boost through that, but not if they fight the enemy hordes on their own, while the rest of the squad is far away.

QM said:

What I would like to see for elephants is periodic squad numbers/average morale value independent morale checks. If whenever an elephant hit it had a chance to trigger such a morale check for the whole squad, that would greatly reduce the incentive for giant mega-squads. It could be an ability like any other (called panic or something) and could probably be thematic with some other units too.

I really like both of these potential fixes a lot more than morale capping, preventing the mixing of elephants and other units, or even my own suggestion of just raising their gold or resource cost.

Great ideas, guys!

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

How much supply does 50 elephants take, 300? If the effect of starvation was a bit more dramatic than it is right now, you'd have a counter tactic right there.

[Edi]

If animal leadership were a separate category of leadership, that would solve the problem nicely since you would need specialized commanders to handle the elephants, which means falling behind on research or something else.