Elephant archers need conversion resistance!

I've played 2 games recently against Indian civ opponents and although my elo isn't particularly high they were very straight forward. In both I was Ethiopians and they went for the elephant archer supported by pikes halbs in castle / imp (initially at least), an obvious counter you would think, so what did I do? Got the monks out to aid my army build (and when in imp got block printing).

Pretty much game over.

The problem isn't that they get converted, this is the same as all ele units. The problem is that once you convert a few of them you then have one of the best archer tank units in the game countering the bulk of their army. Use them like rams, stick a few in front of your army and it takes an age for their archer eles to take them out due to high pierce armour and hp.

I then proceeded to spam Arbs and halbs and eventually they tech switched but it was too late.

Maybe someone can tell me a way round this for the Indian civ but to me it feels like if you're matched up against a fairly even player it's impossible to stop them snagging the odd one here and there which is all you need.

P.s. my Arbs made sure their pikes / halbs couldnt engage the converted ele tanks, which as an army had much higher attack than their ele's enabling them to stop the halbs before they could take down my newly acquired meat shield.