War Elephants

Nice! It's a shame they don't have replica tusk swords mounted, but it's a fantastic piece either way.

Were the tusk swords just strapped on? If so, I find it odd that displaying them would be controversial.

This is discussed at some length in the article and how the 2004 movie got certain aspects of the war elephants wrong.

From what my extended family in India told me, it is relatively easy to get elephants trained for work, but training war elephants was extremely hard and required a lot of time. Having said that, well trained war elephants, although harder to come by, held to their nerves during the battle and were very devastating; Given they encounter the army they were trained to fight.

During the first battle of Panipat, the invading Mughals had canons, which the opposing War Elephants were not trained for, and their alien sound broke their charge. If, for example, those elephants were trained with Canons in mind, they would probably have been successful in their charge.

I am talking about Indian elephants though.

Rome Total War (the original) is one of the most fun and replayable games out there. It's also still got a massive modding community, that have expanded the base game in enormous ways - the Rome Total Realism[1] and Europa Barbarorum[2] mods are very well done, if you want to go for a bigger and more historically accurate experience.

The successor Medieval 2 is arguably the high point of the entire series.

Rome 2 Total War was sadly not nearly as good; it may be playable at this point, but I was very disappointed with it.

[1] http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?26-Rome-Tota...

[2] https://www.europabarbarorum.com/EB1/

“Iterating for 20 years” is the most polite interpretation. They’ve been shoveling out re-skinned games with massive performance and AI regressions every few years.

The original tech was awesome. The people at the studio are awesome. The Sega > Creative assembly executive teams, not so much.

From my very, very brief reading on the subject, I would look up discussions of the historical accuracy of the battles (particularly the more ancient ones). It seems that in real life, battles would typically take _much_ longer (an entire day), with breaks, small skirmishes, etc. The idea that each unit could be directed in coordinated, rapid, precise, and decisive movement with one unit throwing itself wholesale into the other and either obiterating or being obliterated does not really reflect reality.

I hate to give such an uninformed perspective on here (where expertise is valued so highly), and I hope people will correct me if I am wrong. But skepticism, assuming it's not blind and unchangeable but to ensure accuracy, is usually a good thing.

Still some fantastic games, though. Wonderful, very satisfying and engaging tactical strategy.

Aside: The WH series is just fun. It's total candy, not a lick of realism or historical accuracy, just total fantasy and great visuals. The IP from GamesWorkshop has a lot of depth and breath that CA has been able to really bring to life with their engine. I'd recommend it to anyone with the sufficient computer resources and a few free weekends.

I actually did ride an angry bull elephant in real life in the jungles of Chitwan national park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitwan_National_Park) in Nepal when I was in 7th grade. I was on the elephant along with its mahout (controller) and my parents and let me tell you it is not fun. I saw it topple a boat full of passengers over (thankfully they stepped out into the river before he could do any damage and the river was 2-3 feet deep).

Apparently, it was mating season and he didn't like being separated from his female when we started the ride. The mahout eventually brought him under control but it was an experience worth remembering none-the-less.