How would you add Elephants to the Fire Emblem formula?

[Runty]

I'm sure many of us have seen the Oliphant charge in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. That scene never fails to make your jaw drop. Of course, real life elephant charges weren't that destructive, but even in real life, a group of mahouts (elephant riders) could cause a lot of damage to an enemy that wasn't prepared for them.

So far, the Fire Emblem series has primarily focused on a medieval European setting with Hoshido being feudal Japan, but I really want to see some middle-eastern or north-African factions at some point, and not just as a scratch-the-surface thing like Almyra or Plegia. Both had some influences, but they still used generic-looking units.

One good way to represent a middle-eastern faction like Persia would be to have war elephants. We got the beast mechanics in FE3H, so those could be adapted onto an elephant unit for gameplay purposes.

Here's how I'd go about it. This is a rough draft, so take appropriate salt.

Quote

 

Elephants take up 2x2 tiles, similar to beasts from 3H, but do not feature the beast barrier mechanic. Instead, they have very high HP, Strength, and Defense, but terrible Speed, though their Movement range is reasonably good (i.e. 5-6 tiles normally). Initially, their Resistance would also be low, but they would later on get much better Resistance. Elephants can move through some units (they cannot move through units with the Armored attribute, such as Fortress Knights), dealing light damage if they pass through one of your units (trample damage; this damage cannot kill), and can also attack at range using Bows (because you can have several archers mounted in the Howdah on an elephant's back). Because of their 2x2 size, they can't go through tight chokepoints (which a player could easily take advantage of, and which could also influence map designs) and they are significantly slowed by various terrain types, especially trees. AI-controlled elephants only use their Bow attack if they can't melee an opponent, which is their preference (even if they could attack an enemy without retaliation). Their melee attack does much more damage on average compared to their Bow attack.

The first variant is the Battle Elephant, which is the first type you'll face in the story. They're pretty tough, but this early on they'll be vulnerable to magic. They also can only attack at up to 2 range with their bows.

Later on, they can be upgraded to War Elephants, which fixes their weakness to magic, have higher overall stats, and can attack at 2-3 range with their Bows. By this point, however, you (and the enemy) should have the necessary tools to deal with them, so they're still not a beat-all class.

 

That's just how I'd go about it, though. Having the elephant units as a 2x2 unit would help balance out their sheer power and prevent the player from wanting to make an entire army of elephants, since some maps would have chokepoints that the elephants wouldn't be able to go through. This would also help the player play around enemy elephants by letting them use terrain to their advantage, going through areas that the elephants can't follow.

In any event, it'd be such a good move for Nintendo to add them to a Fire Emblem title in the future. That's my opinion, though, so what's yours on the subject?

[Etrurian emperor]

I think Elephants being able to slam units several tiles backwards after an attack could be a good gimmick. Maybe also making them a cross between physical and ranged unit. Being able to attack with the tusk up close or the rider firing with a bow from afar. 

In general they'd likely be kind of an armor knight equivalent among the calvalry class. 

[Acacia Sgt]

Not going to happen in FE but I got reminded of:

But for FE itself, they could make good mobile ballista as well.

[lenticular]

There already was the Oliphantier overclass from the DLC of Shadows of Valentia, but from what I've seen (I never bothered with that game's DLC) that wasn't particularly elephanty so possibly shouldn't count.

I think I'd probably prefer any hypothetical future elephant unit to be kept simple rather than leaning too far into gimmicks. Just make it an armoured equivalent of a bow knight and I'd be happy. As an alternative: elephant beast units. We've had cats, lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, rabbits, ravens, hawks, and herons. Why not give us people who can turn into elephants? Even if they didn't do anything mechanically distinct, it would still be a cool aesthetic for a character or a unit type.

[Acacia Sgt]

14 minutes ago, lenticular said:

There already was the Oliphantier overclass from the DLC of Shadows of Valentia, but from what I've seen (I never bothered with that game's DLC) that wasn't particularly elephanty so possibly shouldn't count.

Yeah, it's just the horse with armor that made it look like an elephant. For its worth, the statue that granted the overclass was indeed that of an elephant-mounted archer.

[Jotari]

The four square spaces introduced in Three Houses seems like a decently good way to implement dragons, and was something I wanted to see the series try even before Three Houses.

Edit: I knew that Deja Vu was real. We had this thread before, complete with the LOTR opening

Honestly out of all the things Tolkien did to inspire the fantasy genre, the fact that gigantic war elephants didn't become a staple of the genre is disappointing.

Edited February 4 by Jotari

[Zapp Branniglenn]

the only elephant I want to see in fire emblem is the 18 MT tank from FE1. Bring it back, cowards

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Spoiler

Navarre "Maximus" Trunk. Because what is a speed stat and who needs it?

On 2/3/2024 at 4:38 PM, Runty said:

One good way to represent a middle-eastern faction like Persia would be to have war elephants.

For inclusiveness, we´ve decided to hand you an Elephant.

 

Fuck it, Merlinus with an Elephant powered caravan. Go ahead, try and steal something.

Alternatively, a mission where the player has to protect a herd/the sacred elephant.

Anyway, the further away FE stays from multi-tile units, enemy and player alike and all it´s movement hindering implications, the better. 

[lenticular]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:59 AM, Jotari said:

The four square spaces introduced in Three Houses seems like a decently good way to implement dragons, and was something I wanted to see the series try even before Three Houses.

I'd count this as a good argument against multi-square elephants. If we're going to have four squares become the standard for units like Demonic Beasts or Corrupted Wyrms, then it would feel weird to have elephants be that same size. I'd rather have an elephant take up the same amount of space as a horse than the same as a dragon.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

I'd count this as a good argument against multi-square elephants. If we're going to have four squares become the standard for units like Demonic Beasts or Corrupted Wyrms, then it would feel weird to have elephants be that same size. I'd rather have an elephant take up the same amount of space as a horse than the same as a dragon.

Unless we go with GIANT ELEPHANTS

Grey as a mouse,

Big as a house,

Nose like a snake,

I make the earth shake,

As I tramp through the grass;

Trees crack as I pass.

With horns in my mouth

I walk in the South,

Flapping big ears.

Beyond count of years

I stump round and round,

Never lie on the ground,

Not even to die.

Oliphaunt am I,

Biggest of all,

Huge, old, and tall.

If ever you'd meet me

You wouldn't forget me.

If you never do,

You won't think I'm true;

But old Oliphaunt am I,

And I never lie.

[SnowFire]

If any real-life weapon of war deserves the 3H monster treatment, it's elephants.  They absolutely took up the space of 4+ soldiers and had a very long time-to-kill; they could take an amazing amount of punishment = lots of HP.  Even if you inflicted mortal wounds, the elephant might well still keep going for a full 15-60 minutes.  The only way to kill an elephant in an "instantly drops dead" way was to shoot an arrow at point blank range directly into its brain, which, well, good luck with that.  They were pretty much the tanks of the ancient battlefield.  Really the only problem with them...  and it was a huge one...  was that directing elephants and making sure that they fought the enemy could be tricky.  There's definitely stories of elephants panicking and trampling their own side.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

One question worth asking is, "how big is one tile, anyway"? This seems to vary from game to game. Or sometimes between chapters in the same game. Like, in the Archanea games, one tile can be a small forest or mountain. ...Or a single door, chest, or throne. It would be weird for an Elephant to take up multiple tiles outdoors, but it'd be just as bizzare for it to be confined to a single tile indoors. At some level, disbelief just has to be suspended.

Anyway, my preference for Elephants as mounts would be that they're puppy-sized elephants. Just big enough to fit one rider, and take up one space. Likewise if we get Rhino, Camel, or Alpaca riders. However! If Elephants are being fought as enemy monsters, they should be 2 x 2. Just make 'em massive, give 'em a second pair of tusks, maybe a third set of legs, or a clubbed tail. Make it clear that what we're killing is something different from real-life elephants, but is instead a novel monster heavily inspired by elephants.

...Maybe call them "Nastodons", because they're so nasty.

[lenticular]

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

One question worth asking is, "how big is one tile, anyway"? This seems to vary from game to game. Or sometimes between chapters in the same game. Like, in the Archanea games, one tile can be a small forest or mountain. ...Or a single door, chest, or throne. It would be weird for an Elephant to take up multiple tiles outdoors, but it'd be just as bizzare for it to be confined to a single tile indoors. At some level, disbelief just has to be suspended.

Not to mention Fódlan, where a single tile can be an entire battalion of soldiers, or it can be a door. There is definitely a whole lot of abstraction going on here.

I generally tend to conceptualise things not so much as "how much space does this unit physical take up?" but more as "how much of the battlefield can this unit effectively exert control over?" If Marth is on a given tile, then an enemy unit can't rush past him and through that area without getting into range that allows him to engage them. So, for a group of units all on adjacent tiles, it's more like a skirmish line than a shield wall. There's still a lot of handwaving required to make this work, but it does go some way to explaining the difference in scale between indoors and outdoors, as well as how a wyvern takes up the same amount of space as a teenage girl.

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Anyway, my preference for Elephants as mounts would be that they're puppy-sized elephants. Just big enough to fit one rider, and take up one space. Likewise if we get Rhino, Camel, or Alpaca riders. However! If Elephants are being fought as enemy monsters, they should be 2 x 2. Just make 'em massive, give 'em a second pair of tusks, maybe a third set of legs, or a clubbed tail. Make it clear that what we're killing is something different from real-life elephants, but is instead a novel monster heavily inspired by elephants.

I like this take.

11 hours ago, SnowFire said:

Really the only problem with them...  and it was a huge one...  was that directing elephants and making sure that they fought the enemy could be tricky.  There's definitely stories of elephants panicking and trampling their own side.

I wouldn't exactly call this the only problem with war elephants. Rather, I believe that the bigger problem was one of logistics. Elephants eat a lot. This means that they were expensive to raise and train (especially given how slowly they breed and mature), and then expensive to actually get onto the battlefield, where feeding them took away resources that could have been used for feeding men and horses. So if you had the choice between one elephant or one infantryman, you would probably take the elephant. But given that the actual choice was more likely to be one elephant or dozens-to-hundreds of infantry or cavalry, then elephants generally just weren't giving a good return on investment.

[Hrothgar777]

I would give them the ability to pass through enemy lines (and inflict minor damage) so long as their movement is as such that they can land on an empty panel. Similar to that one attack in Engage. They would have buff defense but lesser mobility to normal cavalry.

[Alef Zero]

I remember a game very similar to FE called tears to tiara 2 - one of the characters could ride an elephant, and it worked similar to mount/dismount of three houses. Unlike mounting, the elephant was a separate unit, that took a slot.