The Persian Elephant Attack

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The Persian Elephant Attack

In A Nutshell

Like a W.W.II Panzer rush, the Persian elephants are the tanks of AOE. The speed, strength and trample damage of a Persian elephant attack can clear all opposition from the map. Special care must be paid to the home base, the farms run out fast and some defenses are denied the Persians. Use the navy to counter the weaker defenses. A fleet of Persian Triremes can hammer any target in range very fast. The core of this Strategy calls for quickly getting to Bronze Age and building the Elephants, Triremes and Catapults that can crush everything in your way.

The Persian Elephant Rush In Detail

An experienced player will already be able to achieve the Bronze Age fairly quickly. Once there, a balance of fairly expensive units is the plan, so there needs to be a solid resource base in place. Go for the food to get through the Ages quickly. Start collecting gold early, you will need plenty later on. You must also lean heavily on your wood supplies, almost as much as you concentrate on food. The wood goes to building Docks at strategic locations. You must use them to fish from early on, place them accordingly. Try not to block the waterways by dropping docks in the thin passages, but scatter Docks far and wide.

As soon as Iron Age arrives, the Stables produce war elephants, the Archeries train elephant archers and Docks crank out Triremes. Your Siege Workshops should also be working, but they only to supply one force of Catapults. Though this is difficult to do for rookie players, for a Veteran it means putting strong forces on the map first. Like Rommel with hordes of Panzers, the Persian Rush is mass of unstoppable tanks that roll forward in a group. 2 or 3 groups of war elephants hold the front line, and behind them elephant archers work like machine gun nests and selectively take out Priests, enemy siege weapons, or support the front lines with covering fire. You should have one group of catapults, sheltered in the core of your army, launching artillery volleys at towers, enemy military buildings, or clusters of enemy units. Watch carefully what the catapults are shooting at, do not let them target the enemy harassing the front lines or the collateral damage will cost you. Have them hold ground if there are no safe targets for them to fire at.

This combination is quite effective on the ground, and you can use the Trireme fleets to support the flanks. You can also use the ships to launch preliminary attacks that would divert enemy units to the far side of their Town. Send some Triremes ahead of the army, find and attack the enemy's emplacements from the opposite direction of where your land forces will strike once they arrive. This will either divide the enemies forces, or it will have them scurrying around whithin their defenses, attacked on two fronts. Have the Triremes target enemy ships and docks first, hold the water and the enemy will face on ongoing attack on two fronts, and left alone your ships will scour the waterfront clear of everything your Triremes can reach.

This alone can win the game, even if the ground assault falters. The second wave of military being trained in your town, and at the advance military bases, should be on their way quickly. If the Triremes pestering the enemy can keep them occupied long enough, the succeeding waves of elephants and catapults should be able to cut through all opposition given enough time. As well as offensive towers and military bases, this type of assault can incorporate offensive docks to keep the Trireme pressure on, not letting the enemy out of the dual attack grinding them down.

In team games this Strategy can be used to hold the center of a combined attack, with the Persian elephants as the heart of the military thrust itself. Also, allied armies attacking simultaneously can use the Persian Elephant Rush as the Anvil that the Allies can hammer opposing flanks into. That means the enemy can be driven forward into the Persian lines and be crushed by the unmoving force that faces them. Allied Players should use fast military groups that can round up and scout out the enemy, which is then flattened under the thunder of Persian Elephants. Also, a frontal assault by a Hittite Catapult Drive can incorporate this horde of elephants by using them as a much better shield as they advance leaving only scorched earth.

Merlin