War Elephants

[kgwedi]

My thoughts, regarding the addition of African Elephants to the game.

The Elephants used by Hannibal Barca were probably not either Asian, or African Elephants. 2000 years ago the southern part of Algeria and Morocco was much greener, and was inhabited with Forest Elephants. These are less than half the weight of African Elephants. Now a days, Forest Elephants are only found in Gabon and Central African republic.

Because the average age of Hannibal's Elephants was about 50 years old, and his lead Elephants were 60 years old, Elephants were most likely captured in the wild and then tamed.

If Hannibal's Elephants were African Elephants, they would need to have been herded almost 500 miles. Herding male African Elephants is like herding cats.  African Elephant herds are always females and young. Males are solitary, and anti-social. All Hannibal's Elephants were male. Females run from males, and would trample friendly forces. I find it improbable that the Carthaginians were able to train or tame African Elephants.
Even old Tarzan movies used Asian Elephants, because African Elephants are so un-trainable.

Forest Elephants were much more available, and lots closer.
A Forest Elephant eats almost half as much as an African Elephant . Hannibal started with 40 Elephants. Each eats 400 pounds of food a day. So Hannibal would have needed to carry 8 tons of Elephant food for each day. Elephant food was scarce in the Alps. Hannibal would have preferred to have Forest Elephants, eating half as much.
This all my personal thinking. I love the war elephants in the game.

Edited July 8, 2020 by kgwedi

[Sundiata]

Welcome to the forum!

The subject was recently discussed here:

 

And some interesting visual information here: