Battle Elephants! 🐘 (AoE2)

[@EricBridges]

The only problem with Spirit of the Law videos is that I feel confident and knowledgeable after watching them.

[@candrarazaka4351]

and losing in the ranked just an hour later even after using SOTL’s calculations

[@rodneyharris3470]

​@candrarazaka4351 the man can't click for you

[@OPiguy35]

@@candrarazaka4351haha

[@stroervor]

Calc doesn't matter if we are sloppy with our start and micro

[@OminousFlyer]

Elephant fact Each elephant creates about one tonne of poo per week, which keeps the soil fertile and disperses tree seeds. Elephants also dig waterholes and create footpaths, literally changing the landscape around them!

[@LordVelari]

Should add this as an economy bonus lol

[@adi96adi]

Oh but when I shit outside everyone suddenly has a problem 🙄🙄

[@demiserofd]

One thing you didn't really get into is just how quickly you can produce them. You can produce 280% the HP from a single stable producing battle elephants compared to knights. Combined with their very decent base stats, that makes transitioning into them extremely easy, and pushing out enough units to make a difference even easier.

[@internetidiot4206]

@@Whisper0ak Counterpoint: Malay

[@Kubinda12345]

I always found it funny how battle elephants or elephant archers have a rider but Persian war elephants fight on their own.

[@Edelweiss1102]

They even have a UT called Mahouts, which were literally elephant riders.

[@jamestipsfedora]

War Elephants weep.

[@chaos_dwarf]

I think the halberdier whopping anti-ele damage was created as a counter against Persian war eles. I wonder if the devs have ever explored reducing the amount of halb bonus damage against battle eles, because +60 right now is pretty high (and was needed when war ele base hp was 470!)

[@inductivegrunt94]

Everytime I have Battle Elephants as an option I just think "Mass Elephants! Do it!" And I do it, without fail!

[@MaryamMaqdisi]

Battle elephants are possibly my favorite non unique unit. They’re just so fun to use

[@AtlasJotun]

@@MaryamMaqdisi Agreed! Even the 'thump' they make when attacking is satisfying.

[@Gufasa1]

My most flattered I've been playing Aoe2 was playing Malay on hideout and doing a 10 elephant Castle age rush. My opponent threatened to get me banned as I was clearly cheating as it was impossible to have that many elephants at that stage of the game😂😂😂

[@Nysyarc]

@@Whisper0ak Just people being sore losers at the end of the day. If I was ever genuinely suspicious that my opponent was somehow cheating I would just watch the replay file back from their perspective before throwing around accusations or reporting.

[@孙林可]

Sounds like someone who only knew Persian elephants.

[@raunaksingh7051]

When talking about how they do vs monks , it is also good to consider that Burmese have 50% discount on faith and makes it easier to pick up.

[@besacciaesteban]

I feel that the lack of mobility for elephants means you should direct them towards the enemy base as to force them to engage your elephants or risk having their base leveled.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

That's the trick, slow, tough and dangerous.

[@nemou4985]

@@Whisper0akHalberdier anti elephant damage bonus is too high

[@deutscher1a]

As a teuton: Try leveling my base, my elite deutschritter will level yours if youre not back soon

[@cristianmunozlevill1265]

I hope to see one Persian/Sassanid campaign in the future to make their elephants shine

[@murphy7068]

Hahah I love your consistency of adding elephant facts when ever talking about them.

[@Omerizorman]

Finally my favourite unit is getting a review

[@hansoskar1911]

The Dravidian Battle elephant is like the Internet Explorer. It certainly exists.

[@Edelweiss1102]

It's kinda like Spanish archers, it's so bad it actually might catch your opponent of guard.

[@Progeusz]

Exists as a point of comparison.

[@Progeusz]

@@Edelweiss1102Spanish archers can kill a lot of villagers in feudal age. Dravidian battle elephants can't do anything.

[@hanzzel6086]

I feel like if they doubled the healing and gave them a speed boost and/or health increase and/or cost reduction they could make a name for themselves.

[@skipper472]

@@Edelweiss1102 Agreed, dravidian elephants are bad, but they are still strong enough that your opponent must tech into the very expensive halberdier upgrade, because dravidian battle elephants defeat all other non-elephant units in melee battle, including paladin and teutonic knight.

[@YossarianVanDriver]

It'd be cool to see Persians get battle elephants, but I'm a bit wary of their rework, just because I'm really fond of how simple they are. Just two bonuses and you're good for over 20 years.

[@nemossangeomatrix6841]

Yeah, we're definetly at a point, were "feature-creep" seems to start becoming a sligth problem. Like the romans had alternative versions of multiple civ bonuses and have some of the most overtuned unique units ever. I also fear that some of the simple unique charm will be getting lost. But let's wait and see what we get.

[@belisarian6429]

Current Persians are nice on paper, faster TCs knights with extra vs archers, trashbows. But in practice it falls apart somehow, their eco bonus is also strain on eco, their bonus dmg does not help them against their top counters and trashbows are too weak (also techswitch to Elephants is too expensive). But yea feature creep is something that developers should be vary of. As for Romans I think they have lot of bonuses because of need to compensate for missing gunpowder and archers, but yea they are still overtuned.

[@cirkleobserver3217]

Yeah over-designing can happen when older games are approached with a more modern, meta-sensitive approach. This can undermine the charm of classic games and cause them to lose their identity. Imo that’s exactly what happened to OSRS.

[@scorch6297]

I came for the elephant fact… I was not disappointed!

[@Hasvad]

The return of the elephant facts!

[@borwinschenck8873]

When i saw the titel my first tought was: hopefully there are elefant facts again.

[@BrownFoxWarrior]

Really looking forward to that Persian rework. They've been long overdue.

[@Dylyinyang]

get eradicated furry

[@daarom3472]

completely not looking forward to it. The civ is fine as it is and has been fine for 25 years. Why not add civs rather than destroying something that we have used for more than 2 decades?

[@Kyth_0734]

@@daarom3472 nah, compare to the other recently released civ, persians is pretty outdated by design imo

[@TheLeosMind]

@@daarom3472 Persians recived quite a lot of changes throught the years, and for me at least, it stills being a pretty generic civ with a faster eco building, with nothing else in between rather than trash bows and fully upgraded cavalry with generic gundpownder. They could use something else to make them more special.

[@FrostBeam009]

@@Lobo7-ik8cj Why? New civs are good the more the better.. People want new content

[@Steve-mx9rr]

I'm really curious to see what happens to the Persians and their war elephants. because of the elephant in the room* hint. + maybe a Caucasus DLC theme

[@StephenParlow]

Armenians, Georgians, Azeri, Kurds, Avars... So many to choose from!

[@fabiancampos4304]

Caucasus DLC Yes please

[@glenmcgillivray4707]

Hmm imperial age tech. Get elephant archers and war elephants and +30% speed for all elephants No upgrades to elite Just fast elephants charging around the battlefield. Supported by good Paladins, cavalry archers and archers with no gold cost.

[@jomolhari]

I've been out of touch with the community for a while now, what's that about the Caucasus dlc? I'm interested

[@fabiancampos4304]

@@jomolhari on the latest patch, the devs said that they haven't forgot about reworking the persians, and some say there is place of a DLC on steam Not announced directly yet though

[@Binarokaro]

I love elephants, I'm glad they're getting a nice spotlight (:

[@integralinsanity1641]

SOTL always giving the facts.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

I do like how there are several elephant factions and five different elephant units as I love using them in TotalWar games. And they just sound fun whenever you tell them to do things.

[@Goldenblade14]

Finally, a video all about elephant facts!

[@akaMaddy]

Battle elephants with husbandry and mahouts would be terrifying. 😳 Also kinda funny if you think about it. Superspeed(ed) elephants. 😂 Jokes aside i would really like to see elephants being used more, especially battle & war elephants. It's also a shame that a unique tech which adds self-healing to battle elephants only heals 30hp/min. That's less than berserks self-healing (40hp/min) for a unit that has triple the hp of a elite-berserk... I like the idea but it's just really useless like that. Same with one of the camel civs iirc. (Self-healing for camels but it's super weak and thus pretty much useless.)

[@ingoseiler]

Mahgrebi Camels is a very good tech for post imp Camel Archers. CA civs live off of keeping their CA alive in a deathball way beyond when gold runs out. The Berber Imp Tech elevates their C(amel)A quite a bit over other CA civs.

[@87JJosh]

Actually it helps a lot to maintain the elephants fighting more time It is not meant to heal the elephant to it's full HP

[@CrnaStrela]

It is meant for something that has less hp which are elephant archers and armored/siege elephants. Though even that the number still pretty low, now that stronghold got buffed, medical corps is easily the worst unique tech in the game at this point.

[@hanzzel6086]

Double it and give them an armour boost. That might start getting people's attention.

[@AnthonyAvon]

I play this casual Single player mode (Inf. Res. 500 pop, Acropolis, Regicide) and there's some useful information for me here. Khmer were hard to play against in that scenario and now I know why I can't win with them against some civs. You also gave me an idea for possible new way to defeat 500 Persian elephants. That's generally near impossible.

[@Bzhydack]

Celts or Etiopians and go full Siege Onager, should do de trick.

[@orionl7406]

@@Bzhydack I dunno, AI would probably be able to dodge Post imp SO spam from Celts and Ethiopians

[@2nightwehunt]

Khmer scorps, Mamelukes and Kamayuks might be the best bets...Siege Onagers can also work

[@abhijitchaudhari2362]

I have started upvoting your videos before watching them!

[@JohnSmithEx]

Fascinating.

[@krankarvolund7771]

I hope that the Persians rework won't be getting rid of the War Elephant, even though it diesn't seem to be really used, I think it's an iconic unique unit of the game ^^

[@Duke_of_Lorraine]

Elephant fact : sources from the 18th and 19th century indicate that battle elephants were extremely underwhelming at this point

[@bloopboop9320]

You gave an elephant fun fact. I don't think I've ever seen that in one of these videos haha

[@GaricG]

I love how you cant even overlook the prices of the techs! Amazing content as usual man!

[@rapipanmanoch6470]

Fun fact: In ancient Thailand, there’s the honor guard position in army whose only duty is to protect war elephant’s legs in the war. Wherever the elephant goes, these four guys will have to keep up in order to fend off enemy from getting close enough to injured elephant’s legs. It’s a prestige rank that only the best fighters will get promoted into

[@magesticalmysterium6856]

0:47, when Spirit said there is more in common than we expect I Agree. but I think he meant having one less Hack/Melee armour than the Knight (Pierce is identical. Hack/Melee is not)

[@pokefuranku]

Persian rework... wow, I'm hyped now :0 I love so much elephant units 💙💙

[@kln5705]

Probably not something many have noticed, but I absolutely love the new tone. It sounds silkier and calmer even than in some of the most recent vids. New mic, maybe? Either way, quieter narrations like these are damn amazing. Thank you!

[@demiserofd]

You underestimate the Bengali conversion resistance a bit. It adds 1 second to the MAX, but it adds THREE seconds to to MINIMUM, which makes a truly profound difference in how easy it is to evade monks. Bengali elephants can *consistently* evade conversions even from point-blank range, something no other battle elephant can do.

[@swisstravellearth6232]

Hi Sotl I love how you look at things and how you make obvious statements fun to listen/watch and how you jump on very specific topics! I would love to see a video about Archers Civs that doubles down with their UU on what they are already good at. Some of the obvious mentions: - long-ranged Arbalester for Britons and Longbowmen - anti-Archers Civ Vietnamese with Rattan archers and Imp Scirmishers - Mayans: what is the Point of having 4 great answers to archers: 1. Plumed archers 2. Cheaper archers (cost effectiveness counter) 3. Awesome Scirmishers 4. Eldorado Eagle Warriors - what other or new UU could help those and other civs with their weaknesses. Same kind of applies to good cav civs and mounted UU like Lithuanians, Magyars, to name a few. Or a already slow heavy armored Civ like Teutons also having a extremy slow UU…

[@guilhermecesar9185]

Great Video! I was wondering about this diference of civs on the last week. Plus, about the Persians, if they add Battle Elephants to the civ and give the bonus of Mahouts, probably the cost will be more higher than actual(300F 300G) and in if the speed will be that high, they could put less speed on the Battle-E and keep the same speed on War-E( something like 30% and 20-15%) for then).

[@anonnymousperson]

Great content as always spirit. Question: do you understand how pathfinding works and why villagers sometimes take weird routes back to the town center when boar luring?

[@bluedistortions]

Fear

[@grayfox4711]

The Elephant facts were great also the vid was interesting XD

[@temporaryname8905]

Imagine being chased by an elephant with so much armor that you keep stopping to preach at the invaders 😂

[@dimitriss.7954]

Love the elephant emoji in the title!!! 🐘

[@azuresentry815]

Appreciate the breakdown as always! On the War Ele front, I'm nervous. War Ele is my favorite unit and I would like them to be a bit more viable in TGs but not if it means destroying their tankiness and general unstoppable quality they have now when you are able to mass them. I wouldn't mind something like Mahouts giving free Heresy to just War Ele or something like that, maybe some other bonus to production speed or the like. But I fear any really big changes will make them OP or totally change their identity. Guess we'll see!

[@AuronDdraig]

Now I just wanna see a Huskarl riding a Burmese chonker.

[@RisingChaosWriting]

you know, the idea of calling an elephant, of all things, a glass cannon, is very funny

[@OperationNonsense]

they were the tanks of ancient times before tanks were invented.

[@cjc2010]

Cute little elephant makes a cameo. I’m so happy.

[@quiqueleon]

You should have kept the name of civ on screen while talking about each elephant, there are so many that it's easy to forget which one you are talking about. Love all your videos.

[@2nightwehunt]

Hello sir. I was wondering if youve ever considered making a similar video as the one where you compared AoE2 &3 about AoM...I think that would be really intersting and the game really deserves it..its amazing

[@marekgolonka5881]

If I understand the AoE wiki correctly, Battle Elephants' trample damage doesn't ignore armor. I'm not sure how relevant trample damage is in big fights generally, but it seems Dravidians are the only civilization to have a really functional trample damage on their elephants, as without Wootz Steel the armor almost always reduces this damage to 1 and Dravidians can sneak in 3-4. Or am I missing something?

[@martijnbouman8874]

You are missing that the armor is taken into account before one takes 25% of the damage, not after.

[@marekgolonka5881]

@@martijnbouman8874 thanks! Bad for Dravidians, but good to know!

[@matthiasvandekerkhove3594]

Imagine the terror your opponent feels when your battle elephants rush into his base with the speed of an elite eagle warrior :p

[@Jondiceful]

Something that I would like to see done with battle elephants is a charge ability giving them a temporary boost of speed and trample damage. My interest here is both historical (that's how they were used) and game mechanics allowing a slow tank to briefly become a battlefield wrecking ball.

[@apocratos0174]

Hurray! Cant wait for more Elephant Facts!!!!

[@TheNethertyp]

Would have liked to see Battle Elephants vs. Knights equal resources.

[@kartiksaraf4676]

that's a battle you are never gonna get though. Knights and paladins will run away and raid your eco. They will never give a direct fight

[@valger3652]

With equal res knights always lose to ele. Need to outnumber enough to take a good fight. Knights have to use mobility advantage and decide when to fight and when just run. Though some uu cav bets ele cost effective, like boyars, leitis etc.

[@loudradialem5233]

You know what would be amazing? To give War Elephants to all South and South Eastern Asian civilizations and Persians. Then, give Persians a new UU. Probably a heavy cavalry type.

[@Marine_Dynamite]

Maybe they finally will put a rider on Persian war elephants

[@dirkauditore8413]

PLS YES

[@rubenmaessen4724]

When hearing about a Persian reshape I think about changing their double HP bonus on town centres and docks to Feudal age onwards and especially the amputated douchers because of it.

[@jonathanmoritz8768]

Any day I can learn more Elephant facts is a great day.

[@alex_zetsu]

I think they should give Dravidians Heresy. if the logic of giving it to Malay is that only civilizations with bad elephants can get it, then they fit the bill too.

[@PregnantOrc]

Maybe the give Persian elephants a charge with trample. A last bit speed boost rather than full time speed increase. Giving them a more offense focused elephant compared to the others often more tanky ones. I have no idea if that would work for their tech tree though.

[@adamjohnsonstudio7910]

Persians do need that rework, but I'm ok with the war elephant staying more situational, as a matter of flavor.

[@Dabeyoun]

I don't think persians War Elephant should be that weak to pike/halbs. It's a super expensive unit, which makes it weak to conversions, it's hard to mass (castle+costs), elite upgrade is stupidly expensive... It's one of those units that should be a game ender, IMHO, if you let persians get to the point where they can spam EWE, it should be GG.

[@davidspackman7534]

Ya, I love persian War Elephants, but they are weak to one of the cheapest units in the game.

[@valger3652]

Actually war ele beat halbs with same res. Going for war ele is slow process and in most scenarios is not legit. And even persians gets there, monks is huge problem (combined with halbs)

[@Dabeyoun]

@@valger3652 Exactly my point. And still they get beaten by halb, even if they are cost effective, because halbs are easy to spam, phants are not.

[@derikaem8021]

How to fix BE? Battle elephants should get more punch at lower rate. Maybe attack rate 2.0-->3.0, attack 12/14-->18/21. This way they keep unchanged in straight fights but get less exploited by getting outmaneuvered

[@Naxhus2]

Surely the simplest way to fix the Persians WE would be to give them heresy. They're easily expensive enough that the mere loss of a WE is enough of a punishment.

[@prdiludi4432]

Oh great i just binged half of your chanel. Hi. Anotha one. LFG

[@vedocorban]

I'm a big fan of burmese chonkers. Cheap faith is also pretty clutch for them, though I wish it was a castle age tech. Unfortunately, most people would probably agree that only malay chonkers are actually viable.

[@a2rgaming863]

Sounds like you need to go to the custom civ mod and make the best elephant civ ever conceived. That or you can ask a friend nicely to do it for you.

[@XYZ-eo8um]

Since Dravidians have unique tech that allows their infantry and cavalry to ignore all armor I don't think they would ever miss those stable units...

[@hallamhal]

Finally, someone addressed the elephant in the room

[@TorTyr-z9h]

This game is amazing been playing since 2002

[@UnDeaDCyBorg]

I think it'd be really interesting to have a civ with faster, but weaker elephants, to allow them to be used like an in-between of knight and regular BE. Maybe in conjunction with Elephant scouts, because why not.

[@joshuastanaland7099]

Elephants just got a huge conversionn resitance buff for free today!

[@darkdill]

I think Dravidians have one other area where they shine the most: when you're playing x256 tech mod. Medical Corps basically makes them invincible once you research it enough times. Remember when Vikings used to have Berserkergang and they would regenerate so fast that you could only kill Berserks if the attack OHKO'd them? Well, you can't even do that to Dravidian Battle Elephants due to their 250 HP, so once their regeneration is high enough, there's literally no stopping them without Monks.

[@meinebosma]

Teutonic Knight episode?

[@tarille1043]

How do Bengalis elefantos perform with a Teuton ally? Is the overall conversion resistance particularly significant?

[@cybersteel8]

0:48 one less melee armour, not pierce armour

[@squatlebherz4434]

Seeing some Dynasties of India civ overviews coming out soon?

[@noahbawdy3395]

I miss this game so much.

[@cassiolins1203]

Yeah, Elephant facts!!!

[@swisstravellearth6232]

Awesome video, with great overview and insights. Could you say something about ingame performacnce of the battle elephants? Somehow, I can never make them work...

[@MrMarinus18]

0:50 With elephants you could actually have them cost wood instead of food since elephants eat a lot of wood. One of the advantages of their large size is a very long and very slow digestive system that allows them to get nutrients out of things that are too tough for most animals to digestist.

[@shnoogums1]

thanks for your videos sotl

[@somerandomyoutubeuser271]

Elephants are best!!! I hope they do justice to these cute guys in the rework!!

[@CBRN-115]

I love the elephant fact

[@torri776]

Personally, I believe that Dravidians should have access to the Elite Battle Elephant (ostensibly the most generic Battle Elephant, but not the most useless since it would be historically accurate), the Knight (yes, that would negate the Saracens' unique limitation) and have their Horse-based cavalry be 25% faster since they don't have Husbandry, giving them a fantastic Castle Age raiding option, giving them more time to scale their Infantry armies. Maybe this is too overpowered, but Dravidians just feel really weak due to lacking options outside of the Elephant Archer and easily exploitable, slow moving infantry. I would also triple the Castle Age UT's effects on Battle Elephants, since their Elephant Archers and Siege Elephants are good enough already. They will then stand out by way of regeneration (and armor negation given Wootz Steel) as opposed to just sucking to the point of obsoletion.

[@robincray116]

12:50 No, we should have Mahout battle elephants. It may sound stupid but it will be fun like Mongolian Drill Seige Rams. It will differentiate them from other battle elephants. It will also differentiate them from War Elephants.

[@Whomobile]

Burmese elephants just really hate archers for some reason

[@goncal7099]

Idea for the devs: Give dravidians an elephant as a starting scout. Make it a bit weaker but not much. Lack of speed should already be bad enough for a scout unit. I'm curious how that would play out (specially in Feudal with the ability to make elephants from the stable)

[@michaeltaylor8698]

My prediction is that Persians will get battle elephants and have their UU replaced. The war elephant will then become a scenario editor unit for campaigns

[@quaintserpent]

Dravidian elephant is my fav. It ignores armor as all elephants should and beats the 💩 out of Teutonic knight. 🙌🏻

[@RMOB]

Oh, the elephants on the games are so cute.

[@theOGSG]

Your favourite animal!

[@hbarudi]

1. Malay: give them castle age cavalry armor. Burmese: give them castle age archer armor. Tatars: give them castle age infantry armor. No civilization should miss any castle age blacksmith tech only those in the imperial age. Malay can get less discount on their battle elephants. 2. Give persians the battle elephant for a cheaper option than their unique unit.

[@justincronkright5025]

Persian War into Battle Elephant with Charge Attack? Maybe that's the route they'll take with them if they add them to that civilisation as they've been adding more and more as the game goes on right. Or just scale up their damage a bit and keep the 50% trample of WAR Elephants somehow instead of the 25%. This would give them Elephants versus pikes against halb civs later on, knights versus archers & siege to a fair extent given their team bonus & camels versus other battle elephants and knight civs. I just really want a Magyars Eco Bonus to be completely honest - I've said hussar/light cav line gains food/wood during combat, but to get them to not be 100% war-like... Maybe to further the raiding theme that is internal to their own civ - by giving them gold/stone miners generate food/wood at a fairly reasonable rate (you mine things & we either steal it or you give us wood for our cav archer arrows or food for us & our horses - battle of Lechfeld... SPOILERS - yes they lost, but the before and after this battle provides a lot of ideas for the civ)! It's not like Magyars have some insane Castle Drop Strategies so this would bypass worries about them becoming too strong in castle & would up their Arena potential for example.

[@AtlasJotun]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Spirit's favorite animal is... a rainbow trout. Khmer chonkers gave me my first ever online win, stomping a bunch of French ponies. I had never seen anything (not even ETK) smash Frankish cavalry so resoundingly, leading to quite the false sense of invulnerability. Until I met a good monk player- tears in my eyes as I was forced to slay my own heretical hefalumps- and later a player who massed halb. The bigger they are :.(

[@n.f.ch.m.ph.67]

But Burmese have discounted faith and it's way too expensive otherwise, so, in Imperial Age, they have by far the best elephants against monks in my opinion.

[@JoeLiningToolFilms]

I hope they don't mess up war elephants

[@AvelierPlays]

Why dont Ethiopians and Malis have Battle Elephants? Didn’t Hannibal get his elephants from Africa?

[@FirstLast-wk3kc]

12:06 ... And Darvidians are best at being worst!

[@pr0cr4st1na7or]

Didn't get mentioned but Burmese also get 50% off researching Faith (although by that point in the game, Monks aren't your main concern)

[@likeaboss1104]

Hey guys spirit of the law here!