| “ | Powerful ranged cavalry that can fire while moving. | ” |
| —In-game description | ||
The Tower Elephant is a unique elephant ranged cavalry unit of the Delhi Sultanate in Age of Empires IV. It can be trained at the Archery Range starting in the Castle Age. It is also available to the Byzantines as a mercenary unit.
Overview[]
The Tower Elephant behaves somewhat differently to most units, because it can be considered three units in one, or one unit with three independent attacks. Each Elephant has two mounted Archers which deal ranged damage, and also a separate melee tusk attack as well. The mounted archers can attack while the elephant is moving, allowing them to fire while retreating. These Archers are not the same as their dismounted counterparts. For example, each Archer on the Elephant does 15 damage with an attack speed of 1.38s, whereas a standard Veteran Archer does 7 damage with an attack speed of 1.5s, but with a bonus against light melee infantry, which the Elephant's archers don't have. With its melee tusk attack, it can attack buildings, including Stone Walls, and it does not possess a Torch attack.
The Tower Elephant does not have a standard Elite upgrade; rather, it is upgraded by an Imperial Age technology called Howdahs, which essentially acts as the Elite upgrade. With this upgrade, the Archers are upgraded to Crossbowmen, gaining +11 bonus damage vs heavy units. However, these mounted Crossbowmen retain the same attack speed as the mounted Archers (1.375s for the Crossbowmen on the Elephant vs 2.125s for normal Crossbowmen), so the Crossbowmen mounted on the Elephant are ~50% better than normal Crossbowmen.
Tower Elephants are not affected by Silk Bowstrings.
Tactics[]
At first glance, Tower Elephants can seem like an unstoppable force with no obvious counter. With their very high hit points and multiple attacks, they can take down most units 1 on 1. However, in addition to being balanced by their extremely high resource and population cost, they can be taken down by the appropriate counters. A common mistake that many players make is thinking that they are countered by Crossbowmen, but they are not classified as Heavy units, meaning they don't take any extra bonus damage. In fact, their very high pierce armor makes them explicitly designed to counter Archers and Crossbowmen.
Instead, the main counters are Horsemen and Spearmen, because of their bonuses vs ranged units and cavalry, respectively. Unlike versus other ranged cavalry, Spearmen do quite well against Tower Elephants because they can't be kited, and even though they may suffer some losses from range as they get close, it is worth the trade, since a single Tower Elephant costs more than 12 Spearmen. Because of these counters, Tower Elephants function well in compositions with Men-at-Arms, which do well against both Horsemen and Spearmen. The high armor of Knights and Men-at-arms is not as effective vs Tower Elephants because of the latter's high damage, so they have a fairly neutral matchup in the Castle Age, and an even worse matchup once Howdahs is researched and Tower Elephants gain the +11 bonus damage versus heavy units. Mangonels do bonus damage vs Tower Elephants, but are not very cost- or population-effective, and function better as an auxiliary damage source. In the Imperial Age, Handcannoneers are also an effective counter because their very high damage, which will normally overkill other units, can be used to full effect against the high hit points of the Tower Elephant. Bombards can also be used to reasonable effectiveness because of their high damage and range.
Further statistics[]
| Strengths and weaknesses | |
|---|---|
| Strong vs. | Archers, Crossbowmen, Heavy (after Howdahs) |
| Weak vs. | Spearmen, Horsemen, Javelin Throwers, Handcannoneers, Camel Riders, Genitours |
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
 Hit points
|
 Biology (+25%) Howdahs (+25%)
|
| Attack | Tusk attack Bloomery (+1) Decarbonization (+1) Damascus Steel (+1)Ranged attack  Steeled Arrow (+1) Balanced Projectiles (+1) Platecutter Point (+1) Howdahs (+11 vs heavy units)
|
| Armor |  Fitted Leatherwork (+1 melee) Insulated Helm (+1 melee) Master Smiths (+1 melee) Iron Undermesh (+1 ranged) Wedge Rivets (+1 ranged) Angled Surfaces (+1 ranged) Howdahs (+4 ranged)
|
 Movement speed
|
 Mahouts (+10%)
|
| Creation speed |  Military Academy (+33%)
|
| Aura and ability enhancements | |
|---|---|
 Attack speed
|
 Zeal (+50% for 3 seconds)
|
| Creation speed |  Garrisoned Scholar (+100%, requires Efficient Production)
|
Mercenary Tower Elephant[]
The Byzantines can purchase Mercenary Tower Elephants with Olive Oil from a Mercenary House after researching Eastern Mercenary and Elite Contracts. Once unlocked, they can train automatically from the Golden Horn Tower. In addition to generic upgrades, they benefit from the following Byzantine unique bonuses:
| Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Hit points
|
 Elite Contract (+25%, grants Howdahs)
|
 Regeneration
|
 Triumph (+2 hp/s while active) Pilgrim Flask (25 hp/s for 6 seconds, requires Cistern of the First Hill)
|
| Attack | Elite Contract (ranged attack +11 vs heavy units, grants Howdahs) Triumph (+4 while active)
|
| Armor | Elite Contract (+4 ranged, grants Howdahs)
|
| Movement speed
|
 Naval Deployment (+50% speed for 12 seconds after unloading from a Transport Ship) Triumph (+10% while active)
|
| Creation speed |   Conscriptio Influence (+20% per Cistern water level) Trade Post (+50%)
|
Changelog[]
- Originally, Tower Elephants had 960 hit points. With Season Two Update 17718, they had 860 hit points. With patch 20249, they have 600 hit points.
- Originally, Tower Elephants had 4 ranged armor. With Patch 20249 they have 7 ranged armor.
- Originally, Tower Elephants had a Siege Tusk with 100 siege attack. With update 6.0.878, they have +50 attack vs buildings. With update 7.0.5861, the siege tusk is removed. The melee tusk can attack buildings and gains +40 attack vs buildings to give approximately equal DPS as before.
- With update 7.0.5861, Incendiary Arrows correctly benefits Tower Elephants.
Gallery[]
