How good are Ballista Elephants? (AoE2)
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
- Analysis of the Khmer Ballista Elephant, especially how they compare to the Elephant Archer and Scorpion.
1:15 Comparison to Elephant Archer
1:45 Comparison to Scorpion
2:50 Hidden attack bonuses
3:55 Upgrades
4:30 Are they cavalry or siege?
5:20 Imperial Age upgrades
7:15 vs Skirmishers & Archers
8:12 vs Halberdiers
9:10 vs Cavalry
11:28 vs Siege
12:40 Final thoughts
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Game: Age of Empires II Definitive Edition
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yooooooo I wasn't aware the transport ship displayed elephant sprites, that's crazy lol
Yeah I found out some years ago 😆
So cute
Fact about elephants: 19 elephants are indeed heavier and take more space than 20 footmen on a ship.
Even more than 20 footman on land
I don't believe you.
Impossible!
It's not a real elephant fact if it's not accompanied by a tiny cute elephant picture, beware of fakes!
@@DarkOmegaMK2 Is that an eleph-act?
The transport ship thing is ace! Hope they patch the game so the same thing happens with castles when they're garrisoned :D
hahaha can you imagine elephants shooting arrows from the towers LMAO
Miniature elephants peeking out when castles are garrisoned inside ships?, that makes no sense, should be miniature castles peeking out.
Ithink thats an easter egg to memorize the good old meme that a ship either holds 10 archers or 10 elephants :D so probably not buts its an amazing find
@@Mut4ntG4m3r Tbf, that could be changed through a weight-stat if they really wanted to, but at this point it is too much of a meme.
little castles on transport ships
2:40 it's pretty funny to me that the ballista elephant handlers just drop the bolt on people's head in a panic when they get engaged in melee, disregarding the fact they are riding the most powerful creature on land
They should make so they bolts went the full distance.
This is where having separate melee and ranged attack animations would be nice.
I'd imagine that, if you poke an elephant with a pointy stick, it's going to fuck you up whether the rider tells it to or not.
Noooo elephants abide by balance reasons!@@SoWhat1221
I would love to see a compilation of all the elephant facts you have shared over the years.
Agreed strongly.
The elephant facts are back!
Also that transport ship thing is neat! Never noticed :D
What amazes me about your channel is that you've been able to maintain a very high level of content for years, uploading at a more or less stable rate.
I do miss your awesome guitar intro though.
He still has it, but he only brings it out for civilization overviews.
Elephants and Spirit of the Law, it's a combo that never fails to entertain.
Time to get my monk conversion prayers ready and get them to my side.
A really tough unit to measure the strength of. The massive hp pool doesn't always seem to compensate for the lack of damage, especially not at that price point.
Especially when that Health Pool is matched with proportionally high bonus damage.
Have fun trying to clear fifty of them in a choke point in a team game. If they're allied with Britons and Turks who can provide longbows and bombard cannons they're essentially impossible to push against.
@@lokenontherange this would be true even for sheeps
i feel ripped off with the second projectile upgrade what is the point of two if not two better than one
@@danielmahon1589 that was probably my biggest takeaway. It seems expensive for the amount of contribution, even when massed. A +3 damage upgrade would be stronger.
I love that after all these years elephant facts are still included. Especially when they tell me about a cute animal that I had no idea existed
I never knew the passthrough length depended on range! That's a really cool feature and it feels realistic because elephants are so much taller than what they are shooting at. Yeah geometry!
The problem is that it is quite a big nerf.
Elephant fact:
Cleaning forest and jungle warfare is one of the things elephants were used for throughout history and are still used for in modern conflicts such as in Burma.
Burmese are a very curious people.
Myanmar is the new name of Burma.
They're still using them for war in BURMA??
@@ntl9974 is suspect that the burmese use them for transporting weapons and ammunitions. Surely you wont see elephant charges.
@@light_david7 I'd assume he means WW2
One great benefit of elephant siege (despite them being so slow that they never seem to be in the right place at the right time), is they can be healed by monks (both automatically, and far longer ranges than villagers), and some (Dravidians) can heal themselves with unique tech. Those tend not to help fast enough in "nonstop 3 hour deathball community games" where you just send everything in till everyone is broke, but if you have time, or, resources are low, healing expensive elephants drastically cuts costs.
One day I want to try a team game with mass elephants, and 100+ bohemian monks for healing.
A teuton is a great ally because of the double healing range and team bonus that resist conversion. Plus has bombard cannons.
Healing is really underrated. pulling back to heal your group and let a few more units join your deathball, as opposed to losing everything and statting from scratch, is often the better move, you'll keep the assault stronger over time that way.
Huh. I hadn't thought about it until you mentioned it, but I definitely assumed Ballista Elephant were just kind of a thing they made up for a scorpion civ. I never really thought they'd actually be a thing.
Armored/Siege Elephants are also a deceptively good counter. They are basically rams that can auto attack.
Rama with the big damage to buildings but they come n handy vs ships,help save other units while they soak up damage n stay alive and shoot anoying archers/skimorshers, with a lot of kaos going on the survive longer the scorpion dies way to fast
Intuitively, archer elephants and ballista elephants should cause some melee trampling damage when attacking.
It's not very competitive but I really like pairing Ballista Elephants with Khmer Battle Elephants. The Ballistas help to thin out melee units (and keep ships at bay) while the Battle Elephants wreck everything else.
Let me introduce you to the mangonel
I do like pairing them together u jus need a few cheap scouts to run down siege,and they go good with skirmishers to anoy the pikemen
0:40 yessssssssssssssss they are finally back!
Interestingly enough, while you'd expect them to be classified as either siege or cavalry archers, they're classified as melee cavalry. Might be so that blacksmith upgrades don't affect them.
It is so they get blacksmith upgrade but not parthian. Dunno why they even have parthian in the first place.
The added elephant fact in the first minute is probably the cutest thing I’ve seen this week
I found them really useful during the Khmer campaign, not that the campaign AI means much when the enemy finds a few palisade walls a more important target than your defenseless gold miners a few metres away :-D
6:33 Dang, it may not be very effective, but it sure does look awesome.
WHAT?! The transport ship thing changes everything!
That is the cutest thing in aoe2 I've ever seen. 🤗🤗
Lol yes 👍 🤣 😂
i love to see those elefants funking around if they stand still and u watch the video on double speed
aaaand of course great input thanks :)
The healing elephant bit had me chucking, thank you SOLT!
I love ballista elephant since they're much tankier, move faster and has smaller hit boxes meaning they're less likely bumping with each other
Still an extremely effective driverless weapon at most, the AoE2 Elephants.
You say ballista elephants are most common as a late game unit to bring a bunch of damage, but the few times I've seen them be really effective is in a castle age all-in play, especially if your opponent tried to boom, like in a Hideout map. If your opponent doesn't immediately bring the right counters, they can easily snowball.
Basically just like any other UU power unit really.
Nice! And I didnt know that about the transportship so great to learn and see :D
6:37 historically accurate elephant rocket artillery as used by the Khmer during the 13th century
is it a stretch to say that Double Crossbow needs to be a little better? maybe instead of having a normal pierce attack they should do a guaranteed 2, 3 or 4 damage, or they could just have the regular damage of an Ballista Elephant shot, or something?
Came for the strategic analysis, stayed for the elephant facts.
No mention of the Genoese crossbowman? They feel like a pretty solid counter to the ballista elephant. I remember one team game I played where one opponent went mass ballista elephants, and it was so satisfying to tear through them with a mixed ball of Genoese x-bows and hand cannoneers backed up by a few bombard cannons.
Genoese crossbow is one the most underrated units imo. So good on michi where everyone goes cav and elephant
So, think about as cavalry that's carrying a siege weapon. It's armor/speed/health is upgraded by cav upgrades, it garrisons as cavalry, it's converted like cavalry. It's attack is upgrades with siege techs, and the bonus damage it receives is a combination of elephant and siege... with the one weird additional element of hussite wagon.
Elephant facts is back, yay!
Elephant fact! Elephant fact! Hooray!
Elephant fact: This video contains elephant facts.
I like to play Acropolis vs extreme AI, 500 population, infinite res, Regicide. 400-500 of them are really good together. :D
Elephants should do bonus damage against cavalry and infantry. Or maybe take less damage from them (excluding the spear line). Historically accurate, and would move them more towards that tank role.
Right now they're really cool, but way too many downsides give them a high skill floor to use.
Please do a best deathball combo playlist for each civ! Basically if you are pocket and have the choice to make the most unstoppable army, what would you make per civ?
almost always ends up being halb+siege. Tends to be the hardest to kill and most cost effective. If we're talking head to head confrontation that is.
5:19 that caught me of guard, omg!
Something I thought about the other day that I realize you haven't covered:
When is it worth it to go for relics and/or how quickly does it pay for itself
That might be a difficult question as monks and monasteries are useful for other things as well and it depends on what castle age strategy you're going for as well.
if you need the monastery but not the monks (e. g. to reasearch fervor as bohemians for your vils) a relic pays itself after 3 minutes and 20 secs unless you could've done something great with the 100 gold. if you build a knight for that and the knight kills 5 vils, well then the knight is obviously better.
if you need monks but also have a buildup/idle time then a relic pays itself after 2 seconds.
as soon as you have to fight for relics it depends. it could already pay itself even before you bring it home just because you won the fights. or it could be a huge waste because you lost the fight/missed your timings...
SotL typically cones at things from a very data-oriented perspective, and I simply don't think data is an effective way to understand relic wars. There are way too many hard to pin down factors determining how much it takes to get a relic, and the cost is massively greater than the simple monestary + monk cost the pure data would suggest.
I always love the elephant facts.
Most importantly, they have the ability to fire weaponry that’s on their back. They’re so smart!
I GASPED at that transport ship detail.
Yay. Elephant fun fact is back!
How GOOD were Ballista Elephants ACTUALLY? And in this video we will cover these competitive formats (rip last khans lol).
Weirdest thing: at 7:55 the second bolt doesn't kill the middle arbalester. Should be doing 8 with main bolt, 3 with secondary bolts: in order to not kill with 4th shot, we had TWO secondary bolts that did no damage (8*4+3+3=38).
Second weirdest thing: the way the ballista elephant with 10 extra bolts would stop after killing a unit. It's like with Hussite Wagons before the upcoming patch that makes them fire simultaneously. This probably ends up affecting Chu Ko Nu firing at nearby units. At far units, they fire all their bolts even if they're wasted; at nearby targets, they might fire the first bolt, kill the unit, and then in their next attack they're just firing some weak secondary arrows.[Note 1]
Third weirdest thing: the variance in secondary bolt timing and how they travel further than main bolt and on a different path, regardless of where the secondary bolt originates (which is random). At 9:05 the middle three elephants start in sync, but then diverge.
It seems like we have an answer: how can you give a unit a technology that doubles its attack rate and still have it balanced with and without the tech? Just make the tech almost useless!
[Note 1] This should matter less with fighting against high HP units like paladins, and more when fighting infantry. We look for data: in AgeArena's tests, Elite Karambit (July patch) scores +42 vs longbowmen, and +32 vs Chu Ko Nu (meaning 32% of health left). Elite Magyar Huszar also scores +42 vs longbowmen, but only +23 vs Chu Ko Nu (meaning 23% of health left). In contrast, Huszar is better than Karambit vs Camel Archer (delta +9), Janissary (delta +4), Kipchack (delta +7), War Wagon (delta +9), Conquistador (delta +2), and old Indian unique Elephant Archer (delta +34), while scoring slightly worse against Rattan Archer (delta -3) and Arambai (delta -5).
Wasted attack: Huszar kills Chu Ko Nu in 5 hits, 5 wasted damage. Karambit kills in 7 hits, 4 wasted damage. That doesn't explain the bad score. Delta -9 vs Chu Ko Nu is enough of an outlier that there must be another explanation, which seems like it could be the weak attack after killing a nearby unit with first arrow; possibly also the low accuracy and arrow start position etc. that causes some arrows to miss a target standing next to to the Chu Ko Nu. But in AgeArena's video for Karambits, we can at least see how the Chu Ko Nu in the back is firing only a few arrows per volley. A naive player might assume that the first arrow in each volley is high damage, but we know this isn't the case.
Ballista elephants now seem to dominate the community games, as smurfing trolls create lobbies with "4vs4 black forest noob only" where one team is obviously a group who knows each other, because one player is Khmler, the other 3 are slinging him, and then he shows up with 200 ballista elephants and mows down all opposition while they are at most barely in early castle age.
That Rapairment Joke, I almost spit my coffe Spirit! HAhahaha Thank you for the video, keep your great work!
I see an Elephant Fact, I click the like button. I'm a simple man.
Me too
I loved the elephant archers from AoE1
The platypus of the aoe2 universe
ELEPHANT FACTS ARE BACK!!! HECK YEAH!!!
Rattan archers... I used to fight these elephants quite often with them. But they're basically just equal in cost effectiveness.
Great elephant facts, but aren't the bonus damages at 3:06 wrong? Wiki says elite has +4 vs stone defense, +4 standard building, +4 building, which should mean +8 vs barracks, +12 vs towers, +4 vs castle; or non-elite should do +5 vs barracks, +8 vs tower, and +3 vs castle. Castles aren't classified as stone defense, or they would take 5 damage from extra tower arrows.
I think this system confuses even the developers, since it often results in units doing extra vs towers, but that's another discussion.
3:46 If villagers get +6, shouldn't it get completely nullified by the +20 armor that ballista elephants have in this class?
Doing 100% damage to a long swordsman/ samurai/ tectonic knight/ pikeman / cataphract that got into melee range with no pass-through damage is _a lot better_ than doing no damage if you absolutely must target the unit in your face instead of trying to target a unit farther away.
Never really saw Ballista Elephants as anything special. I used them a lot in the Khmer campaign but more just as Elephant Archers. Maybe I just had the wrong mindset while using them. Yeah, I should go back and use these guys again to really get the correct mindset for them.
Spirit's Elephant Facts however are good and make me really enjoy this video, especially that transport ship bit with all the Elephants sticking their heads out.
Ballista elephants paired with hussar is an extremely effective combo especially paired with Khmer food eco. Ballistas en masse easily handle halbs and the hussars can deal with siege and provide that much needed meat shield. Id say ballista elephants are not viable in a 1v1 as it requires quite the boom to get the number and upgrades and meat shield to make them effective. But they are killer in team games if theyre pocket. If the flank can do good damage in castle the Khmer player fast imps and starts pumping out elephants. Its essentially game over after that
I'd go for ballista elephants vs cavalry over scorpions for the simple fact that theyre much, much tankier. Don't matter if the scorpion has higher damage output vs paladins if it cant' live long enough to abuse it.
Yesterday I lost to a Khmer because I was unable to counter those f❤king elephants. Today I saw this video. Later on this afternoon I went into ranked with another Khmer. I knew it. This was my revenge. I counter them with rams (?!). I won 🤩 you are the absolute best scientist of AoE2
woah early upload (6:00am here) way to start the day!
Knights and Ballista elephants seem like the ultimate combination for fighting as they can force them into a corner and have strong armor while the ballista elephants just whittle down the hp of the target.
I think you undersold the Ballistae Elephant's capability against cavalry vs scorpions. Scorpions generally cannot run far and have minimum range. I find that if I have 40 fully upgraded Ballistae Elephants I can take on approx. 60 paladins with only minor losses. You cannot say the same about scorpions.
In AoE 1, the Academy was like a Super Barracks that could produce just one unit.
Meanwhile, Horse Archers and Elephant Archers are produced at the Archery Range and you don't even need a Stable to produced them!
I always thought that moving the Hoplite to the Barracks (with an Academy pre-requisite) and having the mounted archers being produced at the Academy instead as "multi-class" units.
In this version, the tech requirement of having a stable to build an academy would actually make sense
@@L3monsta Exactly!
God I love the ballista elephant. I honestly just love it when they give us cool wacky units like the ballista elephant or the flaming camel. I hope we get more in the future. Just imagine: cannon elephants, ballista camels...
3:48 i guess that's not all too bad considering most of tgeir counters are melee units that can be killed before they make it once ballista elephants are a big mass. Making bombard/ siege onagers their only big counters. I can't see mangudai as a direct counter as they will die too fast magyar huszar seems like a soft counter but i still can't see them win a mass vs mass.
Siege rams are a very interesting one though especially siege rams filled with pikes/ helbs
Conclusin: someone, someday will try to fight Ballista Elephants with garrisoned Mongol Drill Siege Rams.
I never knew that was a thing with transports!
the elephant fact returned
Feels like I wouldn't expect to see them instead of the scorpion for most players even with these buffs. Especially when the extra health is so often matched with bonus damage from units avalible to most if not all civs. Which sucks a bit because I want to love them.
I want a laser gun mod for the Elephant. I like seeing the burst fire from the multi mod.
Pew pew pew pew pew pew
Spanish villagers squaring off against Ballista Elephants:
"We've got this."
Thanks for the fun and intresting video. Would you please do some gameplay again as well?
Best unit to masses for me after serjeant
Need a “How Good is the Samurai” video now
I never understood why elephants units are so slow, I personally would like faster elephants maybe more expensive, and able to also do melee damage at close range.
As they are now they look really strange to me
My brother and i on team rm go romans and kmer, kmer give extra range to my roman scorpians, and so black forest is won very easily as well as arena
The dirty joke at 5:17 is so funny!
most loses recently i lost to these ballista eles from khmer... so frustrating if 60 of those come running into you. i sent full upgraded palas but they couldnt deal enough dmg no idea how to fight those things
BBC and onagers but protect them from their hussars.
Battle elephant with balista elephant and scorpions, add a few hand cannoneers and thats a good army for a final push, add a monk or 2
wake up babe
new sotl dropped
These things on console in mass are an absolute nightmare
Was doing a coop khmer campaign with a friend last night on hard and i used these solely with crossbow and monk and absolutely obliterated all four armies charging at me with all sort of counters.
We got attacked since map start and my friend lost everything and moved into mine but these unique elephants pulled through.
I just played genbow into 'new' balistae elephant on fortress yesterday.
The elephants are a threat for sure but they were not overpowering in middling numbers.
I feel like the balance is in a decent place right now - like all siege if you let you opponent build up in peace it's strong but high cost, slow train time et all mean there's still counterplay if you get all up in their face early.
The funniest counter to ballista ele are siegeram, filled with halbs. Absolute massacre.
Why do I like elephant facts so much?
I'm a cambodian, and i never realise that the Ballista Elephants was real
Love these unit deep dives
Answering the thumbnail question here... Depends on who's using them
i dont like how some elephants are just wild elephants with armor and other have a rider to actually control the wild beast.
Honestly, they should get rid of the pass-through damage and make the bolt a single, hard-hitting attack, somewhat like the Korean War Wagon, and replace the Korean War Wagon with the Hwacha, which would have several projectiles like the Organ Gun, but harder-hitting and with lower accuracy, making it a true anti-army unit.
Spirit telling us to use light cav with ballista elephants.
*spear units have entered the chat*
Fun fact: Villagers can cut through trees on castle age. This is important to remember since your villagers will often cut through wood lines allowing enemy cavalry into your economy.
"Khmer don't have Bombard Cannons."
They used to, for a long time.
It's the true that the Ballista Elephant isn't great against siege or high defense cavalry, but if I'm playing the Khmer my biggest concern is when to use Ballista Elephants and when to use Scorpions, and I don't think that Scorpions are a great choice if my opponent is using Paladins (I'd rather invest more in my front line because the Scorpions aren't much good if the meat shields fall too fast) and especially Onagers. If anything I'd rather have the chunkier, non-minimum range elephants as range support against the Paladins. An exception could be made if I'm going for the food hungry Battle Elephants or even Hussars because Scorpions need wood. At least that's my amateurish take on things.
Kind of wish you included a bit showing a scorpion/Ballista Elephant (with a meat shield) comparison against Paladins in action
+130 bonus damage.... elephant: "I'm in danger"
But it tapers off (unlike a petard which damages everything in range equally).
@@RiskyDramaUploads I actually have no idea what unit that is. I just saw 130 bonus damage and ran screaming
Jazzy outro!!
0:38 Your elephant fact is wrong, although the hyrax is one of the closest relatives to the elephant, their closest living relatives are manatees and dugongs ^^
I caught this too. Recent molecular evidence suggests dugongs and manatees are more closely related to elephants than hyraxes are:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrotheria
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethytheria
@@filipprojects There's also slight morphological ressemblances, like the density of their ear bones, but yeah it's mostly genetic, because Afrotheria as a whole is too diverse to be found with compared anatomy.
Elephant like species used to also live in South America, North America, and Europe
And elephants are the largest land mammals ever on earth
Even though all the intel presented here is valid, whenever these are my enemy, i loose. Only once i got them with a mix of Hussars, Halberdeers and Siege Onagers.
I was on a Michi game earlier today and a Khmer player with Ballista Elephants kept poking holes in the woodline everywhere