Elephant upgrades

[Yekaterina]

Currently, there are few upgrades/techs available for elephants; it would be more interesting to have techs that upgrade elephants like there is for cavalry. For balancing considerations perhaps we can make these tech very expensive or slow to research so that elephant civs are not OP. Furthermore, elephants can only be garrisoned in their stable at the moment, which is quite inconvenient when you don't want to lose them to a crowd of archers. Therefore, I propose adding a tech or feature that allows elephants to be garrisoned in fortresses like other siege weapons. Realistically there should be more than enough space in a fortification for a few elephants to live in. 

Suggested elephant techs:

1. Health increase

2. Better armour

3. More pierce attack (Seleucids and Mauryans installed metal blades on elephant teeth to stab people with it)

4. Faster movement

 

Also we can give cavalry a tech that increases their attack values. 

[Stan`]

@borg-

@wowgetoffyourcellphone what techs does DE have in stock?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Elephant Stables

Numidian/Nubian Mahouts (Carthage/ Ptolemies): Greater Speed 

Elephant Roundup: Faster Train Time 

Forge

Tusk Spikes: Greater Attack

Elephant Panoply: Greater Armor (can swap actor to armored version)

Elephant Howdahs: Gives Howdahs to war elephants 

[Player of 0AD]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Currently, there are few upgrades/techs available for elephants; it would be more interesting to have techs that upgrade elephants like there is for cavalry. For balancing considerations perhaps we can make these tech very expensive or slow to research so that elephant civs are not OP. Furthermore, elephants can only be garrisoned in their stable at the moment, which is quite inconvenient when you don't want to lose them to a crowd of archers. Therefore, I propose adding a tech or feature that allows elephants to be garrisoned in fortresses like other siege weapons. Realistically there should be more than enough space in a fortification for a few elephants to live in. 

Suggested elephant techs:

1. Health increase

2. Better armour

3. More pierce attack (Seleucids and Mauryans installed metal blades on elephant teeth to stab people with it)

4. Faster movement

 

Also we can give cavalry a tech that increases their attack values. 

Clear "no" to garrisoning elephants ever in fortresses - how to ram down fortresses if elephants are in there? Right, not at all.

I'm also against additional buffs for elephants - why buffing them if they are OP?

So, only thing I could imagine is: Excluding them from the current armor upgrades and give them their own armor upgrades, for nerfing.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

I'm also against additional buffs for elephants - why buffing them if they are OP?

Their stats would be rebalanced of course. 

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Player of 0AD said:

Clear "no" to garrisoning elephants ever in fortresses - how to ram down fortresses if elephants are in there? Right, not at all.

We can already garrison our rams into fortresses and that will make ramming down the fort quite impossible, so what's the difference with elephants?

Ways to get around this:

1. Decrease default stats for elephants, especially Asian ones

2. Make elephant-related techs very expensive

3. 'Fortress expansion' tech - researched at a fortress and costs an extreme amount (say, 2000 wood, 2000 stone, 1000 metal). But after this tech is researched elephants and garrison in forts, and already garrisoned rams / siege towers can also be put into fortresses. We can limit the elephant garrison of a fort to be 3.

4. Allow rams to attack elephants

[maroder]

14 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Allow rams to attack elephants

please no.

Other elephant techs, yes why not.

[Lion.Kanzen]

23 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

 

4. Allow rams to attack elephants

No.  that doesn't make sense, and if it happened in real life, the elephant would defeat the siege ram.

[Player of 0AD]

32 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

We can already garrison our rams into fortresses and that will make ramming down the fort quite impossible, so what's the difference with elephants?

Ways to get around this:

1. Decrease default stats for elephants, especially Asian ones

2. Make elephant-related techs very expensive

3. 'Fortress expansion' tech - researched at a fortress and costs an extreme amount (say, 2000 wood, 2000 stone, 1000 metal). But after this tech is researched elephants and garrison in forts, and already garrisoned rams / siege towers can also be put into fortresses. We can limit the elephant garrison of a fort to be 3.

4. Allow rams to attack elephants

- The difference is that attacking rams can attack the defending rams and outnumber them, but they are helpless against defending elephants
- point 3 would increase the turtling aspect of the game too much

- even if rams can attack elephants, they are rather helpless against them

[LetswaveaBook]

I am on the side of wierd jokes. In addition why introduce techs that are to expensive to afford?

Also the practice of using war elephants died out(except in India and south east asia), so I don´t disagree with elephants slowly decreasing in value.

[Thorfinn the Shallow Minded]

16 hours ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Also the practice of using war elephants died out(except in India and south east asia), so I don´t disagree with elephants slowly decreasing in value.

While that might be the case, 0 A.D. reflects empires generally at their greatest (in which the exact time is admittedly a bit arbitrary).  During that time Seleukids, Ptolemies, Carthaginians, and Indians all used elephants in a variety of battles; having them decrease in value doesn't really line up to me at least.