The traits of the Mauryan EU, the Samnahya, appear contradictory, and the in-game description makes it unclear how they work:

On the one hand, the Ranged description ends with the phrase "Receives a penalty to its Combat Strength when defending against close-combat attacks.

However, on the next line, its trait called Elephant Platform reads "Ignore penalties from fighting in melee."

I interpret this to mean that the unit DOES NOT receive any penalty to its CS when defending against close-combat attacks, even though that's the typical penalty for Ranged units.

Is my interpretation correct?

I think so. Its trait just avoid the melee penalties

ppretorius wrote:

The traits of the Mauryan EU, the Samnahya, appear contradictory, and the in-game description makes it unclear how they work:

On the one hand, the Ranged description ends with the phrase "Receives a penalty to its Combat Strength when defending against close-combat attacks.

However, on the next line, its trait called Elephant Platform reads "Ignore penalties from fighting in melee."

I interpret this to mean that the unit DOES NOT receive any penalty to its CS when defending against close-combat attacks, even though that's the typical penalty for Ranged units.

Is my interpretation correct?

I understand it could create some confusion for some players. The first part it says that receive a penalty in close combat, as it is a ranged unit but in this case (imagine an elephant in front of you) this units does not been affected for this penalty (make sense as the "archer" are above so they can not receive "itself" the close combat).

To sum up, the class states the default behaviour, then the ability defines an exception.