Talk:Elephant Archer (Age of Empires II)/@comment-27726014-20190328190031/@comment-2003:DB:F3D6:1BD2:CC3E:B6B3:89AD:4CD4-20190728133249

"They are a worse version of the ballista elephant" -- not exactly. I totally get where you are coming from; putting their stats side by side seems to suggest such a thing. But once you factor in that EA's get improved via archer-upgrades and BE's do not, it looks a bit different. (It's still not a favorable comparison for the EA, but it looks less ugly. You also need to factor in though, that Khmer have more deficits as a civ overall) Rather compare them to the war-wagon (like Spirit Of The Law (YT) did, in one of his videos).

What I could see them do, if not flat out replace this unit (with a gunpowder-camel? - a cataphract-camel?... or how about a Timurid-like (see Medieval2-TW) bombard-canon elephant?), for giving them some saving grace is: a) give them a good bit more damage, but less accuracy (think: tanky, slow version of the Arambai); even consider a slight bonus damage against spearmen (i) b) have them be able to be boarded by foot-archers and skirmishers (3max?), for additional arrows (like rams get extra speed & attack from infantry) Could make for interesting tactical shenanigans, given the otherwise questionable anti-building bonus damage of the EA.if micro-managed correctly, your archers (which suddenly become much more alluring for Indians, despite their civ-specific deficits) or Skirmishers could be out in droves to counter enemy archers, and then board the elephant archers for the extra-damage (+protection) stone defenses, to move into the thick of the enemy base.

Thinking about it: why aren't war-wagons and longboats given that same treatment (i.e. being boarded by archers for extra damage) & re-balanced for that purpose? It would sure make for some interesting tactical decisions. Also I always felt that longboats should double as minor troop-transports (foot only; small numbers) anyway. Giving some real viking raiding-vibe...

// i) yes: spearmen! ... I'd rather see them be feared by gunpowder-units, siege (not feasable, as you'd have to rearrange armor-classes massively, to siege itself, maybe; tactically this would be much mor intriguing, though) and/or archers. The idea would be (if not overdone!), that they could hardly hit a spearman far out (because Arambai-like Accuracy), but as they get close, they suddenly stand a fighting chance. not like the abysmal "2 cheapish spearman can totally handle one extremely expensive EA like a piece of cake" we have now. It should still be somewhat (!) cost-effective (b/c no gold-cost) to face them with spearman, but not as totally lopsided as it is now!); in addition to the other suggestions this idea is tricky to balance, though; I can see that.