Indian Unique Unit: War Elephant

[Tventano]

4/3/2

The War Elephant is the Indian version of the knight. Though it shares the same attack, defense, and move ratings of the knight, it requires no natural resources to build, whereas knights require both horses and iron. This distinction allows the Indians to easily produce these powerful juggernauts in any city, irrespective of trade networks.

Difficult to judge what influence these resource requirement really has. But it is interesting at least.

[Martinus]

If a bit unrealistic. I mean, what do you think is harder to get worldwide? A horse or an elephant?

[Inverse Icarus]

true that.

but this is a huge advantage to the indians.

see, if you found a new city, and it's not on the trade network (no road/harbor/airport link) it cant build a swordman, because it has no iron.

so if you found a city on a new continent early on, be prepared to defend with warriors for a while.

[The diplomat]

it is a huge advantage because it means that any city regardless of trade will be able to produce these war elephants units. Other civs will need to have both iron and horses in order to build knights. So while they are trying to get iron and horses and are worried about protecting there trade network, the indians can produce war elephants as much as possible!

[tniem]

Yeah world wide easier to get horse than elephant but not in India.

It sounds like they have thought about the unique units and hopefully have tested them to death. No resources could help a lot if resources are hard to come by. We will see.

And using an elephant looks cooler than a horse would.

[TechWins]

The War Elephant could prove to be a very potent UU.

Too bad a normal elephant unit wasn't included.

[jsw363]

This has serious implications for any game with the Indians.

I also think that it's kind of unrealistic. As counterintuitive as it is to allow the Indians to use elephants, which seem to be scarcer than horses, was this the only way they could balance the units? I wonder how widespread elephants were before the modern era. Were they really that commonplace?

[Martinus]

Originally posted by tniem
Yeah world wide easier to get horse than elephant but not in India.

I didn't mean India.
Now Indians land in Australia and wheee... we have war elephants. While I really rarely whine, this time they could have thought better

[PGM]

I don't think it's that unrealistic. Let's look at some angles:

* How can a horse be as tough as an elephant (4-3-2)? But the question isn't horse vs. Elephant, it's Knight vs. Elephant. And the human part of the knight unit is much more important than the one in the Elephant unit. It's not the horse fighting, it's the knight, but the Elephant does its own fighting, with much less human interference. That's why they're both 4-3-2, which rings true to me. It seems to me that a knight wearing an armour and using a sword could do as much damage as a War Elephant, while it could be as hard to kill.
* Horses - if a civ wants to train a mounted military unit, trading for horses is a must, if you don't have horses near you. Obviously, if you do have horses, you don't have to trade for it. But in India's case, since they didn't have horses but did have elephants, it would be ridiculous to get horses abroad when they could train their own special units, just as powerful, easier and much cheaper.
* Iron - swords and armour require lots of it, while an Elephant wouldn't.

It's just my opinion, but even if it weren't realistic, I have a feeling this could very well be... fun.

[Gramphos]

It may be very powerful as they may get the unit long before anyone else, but it may also be a useless bonus as they already have both iron and horses.
Conclusion: Then Indian Unique Unit is a wildcard.

[saracen31]

Agreed Gramphos, it's a wildcard. Depends on the game. Which is a good thing, none of these UU's should be too powerful.

A knight needed iron for the armor, elephants did most of the fighting themselves. So I think while it may be a wee bit unrealistic resource-wise, I don't have a problem with it.

The Indians will be a civ to watch out for early in the game. Luckily they're generally peaceful.

[Fiil]

Originally posted by Gramphos
It may be very powerful as they may get the unit long before anyone else, but it may also be a useless bonus as they already have both iron and horses.
Conclusion: Then Indian Unique Unit is a wildcard.

Won't elephants come with the same invention as the knights?

[korn469]

posted by korn469 on 21-8-2001
while there might be a picture of an elephant in the game, the unit in question if it is in the game will be based on either a horseman or a knight

harlan, was i close or what?

[red_jon]

Fine, the Indian AI is usually peaceful, but what about MP games? Doesn't this give a hugely unfair advantage?

[Fiil]

I think it's rather funny that the elephants on the map (ivory) won't have anything to do with producing war elephants!

But as I predicted earlier on they game probably couldn't handle a resource that was both luxurious and strategic!

[Dauphin]

Based on the graphics at the civ3 website, the Indian war elephant looks more like an African elephant. Is it me, or do they look like that to you aswell?

[d_dudy]

personally, i don't think it's an advantage at all. i mean, surely anyone wil some hills and some valleys will have horses and iron. i think the indians are gettin a raw deal

[Akron]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Conclusion: Then Indian Unique Unit is a wildcard.

Definitely. But it sorta gives you an extra resource. You don't need any horses b/c you have elephants, so instead of trading for horses, you can trade for some other essential resource instead. This will be a hard unit for Firaxis to balance though, as it depends entirely on the map.

[Akron]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Conclusion: Then Indian Unique Unit is a wildcard.

Definitely. But it sorta gives you an extra resource. You don't need any horses b/c you have elephants, so instead of trading for horses, you can trade for some other essential resource instead. This will be a hard unit for Firaxis to balance though, as it depends entirely on the map.

[Falconius]

I like how every week on this forum there is someone saying that this Unique Unit gives its Civ too much of an advantage. Well, if EVERYONE has too much of an advantage, guess what?

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Fiil

Won't elephants come with the same invention as the knights?

Very important question. Nothing has been said about that. Historically, they came earlier.

[jsw363]

Originally posted by PGM
And the human part of the knight unit is much more important than the one in the Elephant unit. It's not the horse fighting, it's the knight, but the Elephant does its own fighting, with much less human interference.

I guess I'm not too sure about this, since I'm not an expert on Indian history, but I don't think that the elephant (animal) actually fights. I confess that I actually don't understand how War Elephants combat, but I doubt that the elephant is grabbing things with its trunk in an attack. I would think that the mahout (driver) does most of the fighting.

Big Crunch- I guess I'm not sure. The tusks seem like a male African, but the ears could be Indian. (That's the only ways I know how to distinguish between the two.)

Fiil- I agree. If they go to all the trouble of creating a special resource (ivory) that relates to the elephant, you'd think that they'd use it.

[TechWins]

Big Crunch - Aren't Indian elephants primarily black? Or is that African elephants? I know one of the two is primarily black, while the other is a greyish color.

Yes, the Indians could be getting screwed on their UU but so could the Chinese. If it is just as likely that Indians won't have any resources of need (none are required for UU) and the Chinese to have iron and horse resources, then the UU's appear to be balanced. What I mean is that the Indians might be getting a raw deal that their only bonus for their UU is that they don't have any resource requirments; the Chinese might be getting a raw deal that they have a lot of resource requierments. So I guess both of the two's UUs are wildcards.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by jsw363


I guess I'm not too sure about this, since I'm not an expert on Indian history, but I don't think that the elephant (animal) actually fights. I confess that I actually don't understand how War Elephants combat, but I doubt that the elephant is grabbing things with its trunk in an attack. I would think that the mahout (driver) does most of the fighting.

Depends on what the opposition did to them. From what I gathered, the mere presence of elephants was a deterrent -- it frightened horses and soldiers alike. The mahouts could certainly attack, but the real carnage began if/when opposing infantry would actually engage the elephants... there are accounts of elephants brutally impaling soldiers and crushing them underfoot, probably out of fear as much as anything else. Couldn't find anything about them using their trunks, though

Dan

[KrazyHorse]

Elephants were real terror weapons in their day. Remember how tall an elephant is. Now remember that the infantry they went up against had spears and swords. An elephant standing still might be an easy target for twenty brave men, but a charging elephant gives no chance to coordinate an attack. Elephants can move right through the thickest portion of the battlefield faster than a man could run over open ground, and would leave swathes of injury and death behind them.

[Inverse Icarus]

dan whisks by without mentioning multiplayer.

must have missed those threads.

::glances for the most pessimistic smiley::

[Urban Ranger]

Elephants are nasty when aroused. They just go around trampling, and nothing in the ancient battlefield can stand in their way. Warhorses would be terrified. Men ran away easily. They were like organic tanks.

Regarding the question of how easy it was to acquire elephants, I reckon it wouldn't take a lot of them to form a War Elephant unit, and they can be raised locally. It wouldn't be too hard to raise 100 elephants or so in 10 - 20 years.

[Skanky Burns]

Dan was meantioning in another thread about a game he was playing against the Zuluz (among others), where he eventually prevented them from going on the war-path by denying them resources. Seems like this tactic would fail against the Indian UU But either way, its is interesting that the UU differs from the base unit (knight) only with resource requirements.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Fiil
Won't elephants come with the same invention as the knights?

Probably, as it replaces Knights, but if you already bave Iron and Horses you have no need of a unit not requiring them.

[Harlan]

I'm really glad to see the Elephant as the Indian unit, and not some strange thing like the Rider happening again. If it was up to me, I would do the Elephant stats a bit different though. As someone else pointed out above, they were like the tanks of the ancient world. Certainly not the equal to a Knight. Their stats should be significantly better than the Knight, but also their cost should be signficantly more (also very historically true). That way, the bigger firepower doesn't make the Elephant any more powerful than any other UU.