Elephants and Archers

>The Manual for the Deluxe Scenario Builder says that Archers only get their
>+1 fortified bonus on defense.  Is this right?

No, the manual is wrong.  We ran 100 real battles with an archer and 7 other
strength-4 units attacking 8 strength-4 defenders, and the archer won 73%.
The archer is clearly conveying a bonus to the attacking side.
The actual distribution of outcomes matched the WarBOT prediction almost exactly.


>I just checked the elephant and it loses
>it's -1 enemy stack when attacking a Dragon also.

Not right.  It's just that the dragon's +1 balances the elephant's -1,
so the net bonus for the defender is 0.

>I just noticed something interesting about the elephants and the cancel
>non-hero creatures. It seems if the defending stack has an elephant WITH a
>cancel non-hero, it will still give a -1 to the attacking stack. But if the
>elephant does'nt have a cancel non-hero,(dragon,demon etc.), then his -1
>does'nt work???

The elephant's -1 is *always* applied (as is the archer's +1 fortified),
but sometimes it just balances an enemy's +1.  If you put an elephant
and a cancel-non-hero together, then the cancel-non-hero cancels first,
and *then* the elephant's -1 is tacked on, leaving the enemy stack with a -1 overall.

In the first battle, the defending demon cancels the attacking devil/dragon,
the defending archon cancels the attacking hero, and the elephant tacks
on a -1.  So the net bonus on the attackers is a -1, which is right:

>Terrain:  Enemy city 1 or 2 prod
>
>BONUS  Total   Fortify   non    hero   -enemy   city   Cancel
>AT       0        0       1       2        0            HN
>DF       1        0       1       2        1      1     HN
>
>              Entered   Modified
>Attack Units  Strength  Strength  Winning %
>*Hero             5         4     0.10756
>Devil             7         6     0.06749
>Dragon            7         6     0.02251
>Griffin           6         7     0.00461
>Pikeman           4         3     0.00000
>
>Defense Units:
>*Hero             5         6     0.89244
>Archon            8         9     0.80939
>Elephant          6         7     0.56216
>Demon             7         8     0.33940
>Griffin           6         9     0.10690
>
>Defender win with  3 units remaining

In the second example, the defenders have no demon, so the attackers
get the benefit of their +1 non-hero stack bonus, which is then
balanced by the -1 of the defending elephant, leaving the attackers
at a net bonus of 0:

>Terrain:  Enemy city 1 or 2 prod
>
>BONUS  Total   Fortify   non    hero   -enemy   city   Cancel
>AT       1        0       1       2        0            HN
>DF       1        0       1       2        1      1     H
>
>              Entered   Modified
>Attack Units  Strength  Strength  Winning %
>*Hero             5         5     0.20540
>Devil             7         7     0.13334
>Dragon            7         7     0.05002
>Griffin           6         8     0.01138
>Pikeman           4         4     0.00002
>
>Defense Units:
>*Hero             5         6     0.79460
>Archon            8         9     0.68975
>Elephant          6         7     0.43464
>Griffin           6         9     0.25291
>Griffin           6         9     0.05393
>
>
>Defender win with  2 units remaining