the weak indian war elephant

[havanf]

i've been playing civ3 from the release - mostly as the indians but also as the japanese or babyloneans. conclusion: the indian war elephant is weak. Its strong if its the only unit you have (i.e. no iron or horses) but theres no way to predict that in a game so you take a chance when you play the indians.
like the "war by proxy" thread - they were defeated by pikemen (same defence as the elephent offense agreed). I've had them lose to the zulu UU.

I'm not sure how you fix this, but given that the indians are commersial,religious, they can fund an army and maintain it, but its a pathetic one at that.

[havanf]

i should add - becuase its a regular knight - its hard to get a leader without throughing a horde of elephants at an enemy. with the vassal strategy (i think the indians would be the best civ for this) - you need the leaders and the indians (although ideal) - don't produce

[Kekkonen]

The War Elephant might give some sort of an advantage in MP; you can stop anyone from building knights by going for their iron or horses, but you can't stop Gandhi from churning out those elephants.

[Osprey]

I don't know about those war elephants. Maybe just some bad luck on the random computer die rolls but I had the Indians drop off a single elephant while we were at war. I hit it with knights, swordsmen and defended with Impis (I was Zulus). At first, that thing was killing my guys without taking one bit of damage. After going through about 3 of my units like butter, the forth one (I think is was a knight) inflicted some damage to it. It took me six units to kill it. I have an entirely opposite viewpoint from yours about the worthiness of the elephants but it's probably just my bad misfortune with the randomness of combat results. I'm pretty certain if I ever get around to playing the Indians, my elephants probably will be having a hard time with Warriors!

The Osprey

[havanf]

the war elephant should be no different than any knight (stats wise its the same). its weird (or unlucky) that the 1 elephant was able to roll through 4 guys - definitely not my experience.

the bigger concern is that as a UU - its weak (or weaker). the indians (commercial, religious), have the money and happiness to mount a reasonable army. but the army is the elephants and its really hard to get a leader or even beat back other civs. in addition to cavalry being the immediate upgrade - its a catch 22 - you upgrade to cavalry and get the stats but lose the leader generation - or stay with the elephants and keep losing units.

anyone else with ideas or comments

[Jason]

Leaders are generated with any unit, not just UUs. It seems to me the Indians are fine for a UU. The French one is pretty soso. Worse offensively than a longbowman. The only thing you need your UUs to do is start a golden age, if you haven't already.

[havanf]

sorry maritimer

i think you have it wrong. the UU are the only ones that can get a leader - unless you've got one in some other manner - thats my understanding

[Janders]

ANY unit can give leaders. UU's are usually just good and fight a lot... so you prolly see more leaders out of them.

[GDI]

Janders and Jason are certainly correct: Any combat unit can become a leader. I've had both Longbowmen and Knights turn into leaders in a couple of different games. In the first case, I was the Greek while in the second I was the Persians.

[Sevorak]

Just have to add my voice. I've gotten 5 GL's out of four games so far, and NONE out of civ specific units, though I tried hard.

-Sev