Unique Unit discussion: War Elephant

Hey all! /u/ChuKoNoob has recently been doing weekly Unique Unit discussions, and today I'm going to take over for this week for the discussion about the Persian Unique Unit, the war elephant!

It is a very interesting unit, because it is a huge, lumbering behemoth of death, that is rarely seen in competitive play because of some very vulnerable weaknesses (we'll get to that later). It is classified as a cavalry unit, but it is also classified as an "elephant", meaning some units (notably halbs and heavy scorpions) will get some extra bonus damage against them. Here are its base stats (before blacksmith upgrades), as of the latest patch:

COST: 200 Food, 75 Gold

450(!) HP

15(!) ATK (+7 vs Building, +7 vs Stone Defense)

1/2 Armor.

Some hidden Stats:

2.03 Rate of Fire

LOS: 4

Blast Radius: 0.5 (Only elite in AoC)

Movement Speed: 0.6 (Affected by husbandry)

Training Time: 31 Seconds

Its upgrade cost is a whopping 1600 Food, and 1200 Gold , and for that several key attributes are improved:

600(!) HP (60 before 4.8)

20(!) ATK (+10 vs Building, +10 vs Stone Defense)

1/3 Armor

2.03 Rate of Fire

Frame Delay: 8

LOS: 5

Movement Speed: 06 (0.85ish after Mahouts + Husbandry)

Training Time: 31 Seconds (less after conscription)

Among the significant improvements that the elite upgrde offers are 150 more HP, 1 more pierce armor, and in AoC the blast damage (in the expansions they get the blast damage for non-elite, also). Also, the Persian Imperial Age Unique Tech is Mahouts, (for 300 Food 300 Gold) which speeds them up by 30%.

These stats are awesome! It's like a ram that murders melee units! Right? Well, not exactly, because there are two very major caveats: (1) They get hard countered by the halberdiers, because they get extra bonus damage vs the elephants. In post imp, the halbs deal a whopping 60 bonus damage to the elephants, taking them down in a mere 10 hits. (2) They are incredibly slow, and the Persians lack heresy. This means that

Here are some topics to discuss:

• How Important are the blacksmith, husbandry, and mahouts upgrades for this unit? It already has incredible stats, but it sure is slow

• How, if at all, has the inclusion of the splash damage for the non-elite version in the HD expansions changed the usage of this unit in competitive play?

• When it is used in the Persian Army, what roles does it fulfil? Is it a tanky meat shield, or a building crusher? Or both?! What units in the persian army compliment the war elephant well?

• Is this unit viable in competitive play? Is it too much of a hassle to get a castle out to start production? Does it's slow speed mean that many other units will simply out maneuver them? Or does it's incredible power mean that it is nearly impossible to stop.

• How does this unit compare to the battle elephant?

If you'd like to learn more about this unit, here are some resources you can go to:

• Wiki Page. Probably good for learning about its stats http://ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/War_Elephant_(Age_of_Empires_II)

• Spirit of the Law's Persian Overview

• JRed's War Elephant v Battle Elephant overview

• Persians Civ Discussion

• Resonance22's Elephant Regicide

• How many farmers to sustain elephant production?

• And of course, the most important of all: how to kill ten war elephants :)

Thanks for participating in this week's Unique Unit Discussion! See you next week!

If you'd like to see the previous discussion on the Kamayuk, click here