Change V.

-Changed number of elephant mounts from 6 to 8 (so it is now 66% of the original amount of 12.

-Adjusted elephant speed so that the armored and Indian elephants are a little faster than what I had them previously.

Change IV.

***Extensive changes to elephants, reflected now in the description of the mod***

-Corrected auxilia elephant armor to be type leather, instead of cloth.

-Changed armored Indian elephant armor to be cataphract type, instead of leather.

-Adjusted elephant speed so that the smaller elephants are the fastest (original speed values), the war elephants are about 75% as fast (based on scientific comparison with African elephant vs. horse speed), and the armored Indian elephants are 60% as fast as the fastest and smallest elephants.

-Adjusted walk speed of armored Indian elephant to be slower than non armored types.

-Adjusted the mass of elephant units so that the smallest ones are 2500 (original: 4000), Indian elephants are 4000 (unchanged from the original), armored Indian elephant is 5500 (original: 5000). This mass is scientifically based on the actual metric weight of these animals.

-Adjusted the height of all the elephants to be more realistic, originally they were all the same size.

NOTE: Keep in mind that although African elephants in general are indeed larger than Indian elephants, historically Indian elephants used in battle were larger than the African elephants used in battle, because it was all but impossible to tame the adult massive African savannah elephants, so the much smaller African forest elephants were used in large numbers by the Carthaginians instead.

-Adjusted hit points of elephant units based on mass and the presence of armor.

-Added 50 bonus hit points to all war elephant units (to better differentiate them from non-war elephants).

-Adjusted morale of elephant units so that Indian war elephants are the highest (60), while African war elephants are 75% (because they were more difficult to control and more prone to panic), and African non-war elephants are 66% of the African war elephant morale (or 1/2 the Indian war elephant morale), because these were the most difficult to control and easiest to panic since they were not trained war elephants.

-Doubled upkeep cost of all non-war elephant units, and war elephants are triple the *original* upkeep cost of non-war elephants, while armored elephants are triple the *original* upkeep cost of war elephants. Originally elephant upkeep cost was woefully inadequate, equal to the cost of some cavalry units; elephants were expensive to capture, train, feed, and maintain and their cheap upkeep ruined balance especially since their numbers are not limited in the campaign (so full elephant armies were not only practical but also a forgone conclusion).

-Increased the recruitment cost of armored Indian elephants to be 2x the cost of non-armored Indian war elephants, because these elephant units are so effective now (better armor, mass, health than the original levels).

-Corrected the weight class of all elephant units (original weight class assignments were inconsistent).

Change III.

Reverted BOTH of the following back to the their original values:

{
-Reduced the mass of elephant units by 1/2. This was done to cause elephants to "bog down" on packed infantry units, thereby allowing said infantry to fight back. The way it was before, elephant mass was so extreme that everything short of a solid pike formation would allow the elephant to flatten everything in its path, without any real worry of being slowed down, as the elephants could easily move on and through every unit on the enemy's side. Elephants can still flatten units, but care must be taken not to go "too far".

-Reduced elephant hit points by 1/2. This was done to make it possible to kill elephants now, which was quite rediculous again. Given their speed, they could easily charge any skirmisher or scorpion unit before and flatten them before they could amass enough HP damage to kill substantially hurt them.
}

In other words, elephant HP and mass are now back at the stardard levels. This was reverted because the realistic reduction in elephant speed has made it unecessary to penalize the elephants further in this regard (previously they ran so blazing fast that you had no way to hurt them before they plowed through your line -- only having time to hit them with one volley of missiles at best -- but now with realistic speed you are now able to realistically do damage to them on their approach). It is amazing how much a simple change can fix an issue.

Synchronization update.

Change II.

-Run and charge speed of elephant units now reduced slightly, based scientifically off the real world difference between elephants and horses. Specifically:

African Bush Elephant
(Loxodonta Africana)
Top speed: 24.9 mph

Horse
(Equus Ferus Caballus)
Top Speed: 54.7 mph

Scaled difference of: 45.5%

In order to give the elephant the benifit of the doubt, this scaled difference in speed in Rome 2 is based on the fastest horses (light horse units), so run and charge speeds were reduced acordingly based/scaled off of light horse. The difference here over the standard game's elephant speed is subtle, but important, as it gives a little more time to react to elephant charges and engage with skirmishers. Elephant walk speed has been left the same, simply because walk speed is not comparable to horse walk speeds, and the original walk speed is thought to be "good enough".

Change I.

-Corrected Roman veteran legionaries units to allow them to throw pilum (using fire-at-will or engage-this-unit commands).