New elephant stats proposal

[Yekaterina]

Elephants were used to shock enemy infantry and cavalry instead of knocking down fortresses, therefore I propose the following changes in their stats to make them more historically realistic and less OP for gameplay. Civs without elephants are very difficult to play because elephants can walk faster than rams and towers by default and take them out, giving elephant civs a huge defensive advantage. 

1. Change the hack damage to pierce damage.

Elephant trunks can bash other units and do huge crush damage, that I agree. However, their tusks were more capable at thrusting / piercing rather than hacking. Mauryans installed dagger blades onto elephant tasks to stab the enemy to death. This would make them much much more effective against enemy infantry / cavalry instead of buildings and siege, although their huge crush damage can still take out a siege weapon without much effort. When I played against an AI their elephant needed 3-4 hits to take out a pikeman, which is ridiculous as it would be able to throw  away 5 at a time.

2. No elephant racism.

Asian and African elephants were not that different in size, and the amount of food needed to feed one is approximately the same. Sometimes an African elephant might even be bigger than an Asian one, therefore there should be no difference in stats. I suggest we use identical values for both 'ethnic groups'.

3. Reduce health. 

850 health is way too much for an elephant, normally an elephant will die after being hit by a few javelins. I suggest we reduce it down to 450 for all. This way non-elephant civs would not feel too disadvantaged, considering everyone has rams. 

4. Berserker mode and area damage

I really like the suggestion of elephants dealing group melee damage. We can even add a negative aura for enemy units due to fear. The berserker mode from Delenda Est is also a great addition to elephants.

If elephant civs don't have rams then nothing needs to be changed. Elephant + ram + ranged is too OP. 

 

[Player of 0AD]

African forest elephants are much smaller than Indian elephants, so the "elephant racism" is okay

Reducing the health to 450 might be a bit over the top

Don't forget that the fighting system is not realistic anyway, it should rather be good for gameplay

I think that an elephant aura would be just annoying, and group damage or a special mode as well.
Group damage would make melee troops even weaker.

Fear aura would make elephants even more powerful. So: No thanks

 

[Yekaterina]

3 minutes ago, Player of 0AD said:

Fear aura would make elephants even more powerful. So: No thanks

I want elephants to be strong against infantry and not so strong against my siege towers ; )

To counteract the increased attack I massively cut their health so they can be killed quicker and do less damage. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

17 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I want elephants to be strong against infantry and not so strong against my siege towers ; )

To counteract the increased attack I massively cut their health so they can be killed quicker and do less damage. 

Make them vulnerable to archers and skirmishers.

[Yekaterina]

Elephants are already vulnerable to skirmisher and archers; they have quite small pierce shield. Decreasing health is the easiest way. Also an elephant would definitely die if it gets hit by a boltshooter or catapult directly. 

[Player of 0AD]

6 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Elephants are already vulnerable to skirmisher and archers; they have quite small pierce shield. Decreasing health is the easiest way. Also an elephant would definitely die if it gets hit by a boltshooter or catapult directly. 

How is 10 armor small? That's as much as a pikeman

Its a part of the game that units can survive multiple shots which would kill them in real life

Edited April 26, 2021 by Player of 0AD

[Yekaterina]

Ok. How about 1 pierce, 1 hack, 1 crush ?

[Yekaterina]

Make elephants have the same armour and speed as dogs? 

[Grapjas]

20 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Make elephants have the same armour and speed as dogs? 

Don't forget that some elephants wear armor, but even without it, i would say an elephants hide is way thicker than a dogs. 

[Silier]

just keep in mind melee elephants are phase III champion units so they should not have less armour in general compared to other champions

[faction02]

18 hours ago, Player of 0AD said:

African forest elephants are much smaller than Indian elephants, so the "elephant racism" is okay
 

I remember reading this arguments here too and I am no expert in history nor elephants but this morning I came across that video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxlmmtragFU

I noticed that they choose to put archers on bigger elephants and "melee" elephants are smaller one for Seleucids. 0ad does the opposite for Maurya. Don't know if something there could make sense to insert some changes...

On the topic of "elephant racism", I was wondering about the balance of the two types of elephants. Indian elephants feels pretty good compared to the other one especially because both takes 3 population space but one type has better stats. The Indian elephant is therefore more efficient in term of population space and quite good from this perspective. It is easier to move around 4 Indian elephants than 5 African elephants in the middle of buildings. But I am not entirely convinced that increasing the population space taken by the Indian elephants would be perfect... maybe 3.6666? 

Edited April 27, 2021 by faction02

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

On 26/04/2021 at 4:54 PM, Yekaterina said:

Elephants were used to shock enemy infantry and cavalry instead of knocking down fortresses, therefore I propose the following changes in their stats to make them more historically realistic and less OP for gameplay. Civs without elephants are very difficult to play because elephants can walk faster than rams and towers by default and take them out, giving elephant civs a huge defensive advantage. 

1. Change the hack damage to pierce damage.

Elephant trunks can bash other units and do huge crush damage, that I agree. However, their tusks were more capable at thrusting / piercing rather than hacking. Mauryans installed dagger blades onto elephant tasks to stab the enemy to death. This would make them much much more effective against enemy infantry / cavalry instead of buildings and siege, although their huge crush damage can still take out a siege weapon without much effort. When I played against an AI their elephant needed 3-4 hits to take out a pikeman, which is ridiculous as it would be able to throw  away 5 at a time.

2. No elephant racism.

Asian and African elephants were not that different in size, and the amount of food needed to feed one is approximately the same. Sometimes an African elephant might even be bigger than an Asian one, therefore there should be no difference in stats. I suggest we use identical values for both 'ethnic groups'.

3. Reduce health. 

850 health is way too much for an elephant, normally an elephant will die after being hit by a few javelins. I suggest we reduce it down to 450 for all. This way non-elephant civs would not feel too disadvantaged, considering everyone has rams. 

4. Berserker mode and area damage

I really like the suggestion of elephants dealing group melee damage. We can even add a negative aura for enemy units due to fear. The berserker mode from Delenda Est is also a great addition to elephants.

If elephant civs don't have rams then nothing needs to be changed. Elephant + ram + ranged is too OP. 

 

Messing with the elephants would do one of the following , increase the disparity between very good civs like seleucids who have almost all of the troop types  and civs who are already starved for options in battle like the greeks, if u nerf their health then its a very heavy nerf and u risk people not even using them wich would partly undermine the identity of the factions that can field them, witch will result in the game having a little less varity overall.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Bonus hoplite vs elephants?

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Bonus hoplite vs elephants?

Very nice idea. This would boost the Greeks a lot. Do you think the Chinese need something like this? They have neither rams nor elephants. 

What about Romans? I guess they can do pretty well at defending against elephants it's just they lack a bit of attacking options now considering catapults are nerfed. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

19 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

They have neither rams nor elephants. 

I think the agreement was for all factions to have siege rams.

[Lion.Kanzen]

22 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

 

What about Romans? I guess they can do pretty well at defending against elephants it's just they lack a bit of attacking options now considering catapults are nerfed. 

Skirmishers must take down Elephants and may be bonus for Bolt shooter vs Organic Units. in compensation for slow firing and to diminish the effectiveness of accuracy (in case of not being enough) or simply the bonus would be vs infantry and elephants.

Edited April 27, 2021 by Lion.Kanzen

[Yekaterina]

I edited the xml file for infantry spearman to give it 5x bonus against elephants. I changed the pierce to 5 and hack to 3, because I think spearmen should be pretty decent at melee. Also very low prepare time because the dudes should be ready for battle. Hope this will help:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Entity parent="template_unit_infantry_melee">
  <Attack>
    <Melee>
      <AttackName>Spear</AttackName>
      <Damage>
        <Hack>3</Hack>
        <Pierce>5</Pierce>
        <Crush>0</Crush>
      </Damage>
      <MaxRange>4</MaxRange>
      <PrepareTime>50</PrepareTime>
      <RepeatTime>1500</RepeatTime>
      <Bonuses>
        <BonusCavMelee>
          <Classes>Cavalry</Classes>
          <Multiplier>3.0</Multiplier>
          <Classes>Elephant</Classes>
          <Multiplier>5.0</Multiplier>
        </BonusCavMelee>
      </Bonuses>
      <PreferredClasses datatype="tokens">Human</PreferredClasses>
    </Melee>
  </Attack>
  <Cost>
    <Resources>
      <wood>50</wood>
    </Resources>
  </Cost>
  <Identity>
    <GenericName>Spearman</GenericName>
    <Tooltip>Counters: 3× vs Cavalry.</Tooltip>
    <VisibleClasses datatype="tokens">Spearman</VisibleClasses>
  </Identity>
  <Loot>
    <wood>5</wood>
  </Loot>
  <Resistance>
    <Entity>
      <Damage>
        <Hack>5</Hack>
        <Pierce>5</Pierce>
        <Crush>5</Crush>
      </Damage>
    </Entity>
  </Resistance>
  <Sound>
    <SoundGroups>
      <attack_melee>attack/weapon/spear_attack.xml</attack_melee>
    </SoundGroups>
  </Sound>
</Entity>
 

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 minute ago, Yekaterina said:

I edited the xml file for infantry spearman to give it 5x bonus against elephants. I changed the pierce to 5 and hack to 3, because I think spearmen should be pretty decent at melee. Also very low prepare time because the dudes should be ready for battle. Hope this will help:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Entity parent="template_unit_infantry_melee">
  <Attack>
    <Melee>
      <AttackName>Spear</AttackName>
      <Damage>
        <Hack>3</Hack>
        <Pierce>5</Pierce>
        <Crush>0</Crush>
      </Damage>
      <MaxRange>4</MaxRange>
      <PrepareTime>50</PrepareTime>
      <RepeatTime>1500</RepeatTime>
      <Bonuses>
        <BonusCavMelee>
          <Classes>Cavalry</Classes>
          <Multiplier>3.0</Multiplier>
          <Classes>Elephant</Classes>
          <Multiplier>5.0</Multiplier>
        </BonusCavMelee>
      </Bonuses>
      <PreferredClasses datatype="tokens">Human</PreferredClasses>
    </Melee>
  </Attack>
  <Cost>
    <Resources>
      <wood>50</wood>
    </Resources>
  </Cost>
  <Identity>
    <GenericName>Spearman</GenericName>
    <Tooltip>Counters: 3× vs Cavalry.</Tooltip>
    <VisibleClasses datatype="tokens">Spearman</VisibleClasses>
  </Identity>
  <Loot>
    <wood>5</wood>
  </Loot>
  <Resistance>
    <Entity>
      <Damage>
        <Hack>5</Hack>
        <Pierce>5</Pierce>
        <Crush>5</Crush>
      </Damage>
    </Entity>
  </Resistance>
  <Sound>
    <SoundGroups>
      <attack_melee>attack/weapon/spear_attack.xml</attack_melee>
    </SoundGroups>
  </Sound>
</Entity>
 

did you do tests?

[Yekaterina]

Yes, I will send you a video

 

[Yekaterina]

@Lion.Kanzen should this apply to just Greeks or all spearmen? 

 

[Yekaterina]

This is a demonstration of 1 spearman vs 1 Mauryan elephant. I had healers to prevent it from dying. 

The attack rate of the spearman was 1500ms, I can't remember the default attack rate. I would imaging they can attack quite quickly because they have been training to stab people for their whole professional career

I suggest maybe 500ms? But to balance that we decrease the damage. 

[Yekaterina]

@Lion.Kanzen @Stan` I have tripled the attack speed of the spearman but also decreased its damage by two-thirds (1 hack, 1 pierce). The damage per second is the same but he has faster reaction, which is reasonable in battle.

[Grapjas]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

I would imaging they can attack quite quickly because they have been training to stab people for their whole professional career

Stamina control plays a big part in battles. You cannot fight full strength for long and the recovery time would be incremental. My feedback to your vid is that it doesnt look really look realistic to me. Doubling instead of tripling attack speed looks better i think. (but thats just my opinion ofc)

 

I do agree with your statement that eles should not be able to knock buildings over like they do though, but just a good melee fighting unit / anti siege unit. Like: remove crush damage completely and add pierce damage along with the hack damage they already have.

Furthermore, eles are already quite easily killed by ranged units and i would actually lean more towards them needing a buff (or rework like above), instead of a nerf. Against AI they are probably strong but in mp they are meh, situational at best.

[Lion.Kanzen]

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

 

This is a demonstration of 1 spearman vs 1 Mauryan elephant. I had healers to prevent it from dying. 

The attack rate of the spearman was 1500ms, I can't remember the default attack rate. I would imaging they can attack quite quickly because they have been training to stab people for their whole professional career

I suggest maybe 500ms? But to balance that we decrease the damage. 

4+ vs an 1 it should be the formula.

May be 8 hoplites.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone In your game they are quite balanced, the counters.

 

I don't remember how the elephants worked, what were the units that counter them?