Armenian Campaign: Cataphracts or Cataphract Archers?

**Zakor** · 04-26-2005, 18:01

I'm playing a campaign as the Armenians....Tough campaign. Bad starting cities (and just two) with a (s)low growth rate.

My question, however, deals with recruiting. Should I recruit Cataphract Archers, or wait for Cataphracts themselves. The stats are as follows:

Cataphract Archers:
9 Attack, 22 Defense, 3 Charge, 10 Missile
(Cantabrian Circle, Good Morale)

Cataphracts:
7 Attack, 23 Defense, 15 Charge, 9 Sword
(Wedge, Good Morale, Strong Charge)

Now, the initial answer seems to be, "It depends what you want them for."

However, given the threads that I am reading, ((about charge being "Bugged," and my uncertainty as to whether the whole "Charge" attack bonus is or is not applied, and my uncertainty as to whether weight is or is not applied to charge)) I am tending towards thinking that Cataphract Archers are the way to go, and that Cataphracts will be an intrinsic waste of time/resources, as...given the bugs, Cataphract Archers are equal or superior in nearly every relevant and applicable manner.

Is my analysis correct?

**Craterus** · 04-26-2005, 18:05

Go for both, that's what I'd do plus Cat Archers can fire missiles which adds to their usefullness..

**Zakor** · 04-26-2005, 18:18

Originally Posted by Craterus

Go for both, that's what I'd do plus Cat Archers can fire missiles which adds to their usefullness..

Given that charge is broken, it seems that Cataphract Archers are superior to Cataphracts in nearly every way, including the fact that they have missiles, which was...my point.

**Craterus** · 04-26-2005, 18:22

Could also depend on your strategy, I'm a mounted missiles and cavalry commanders so I'd go for both..

**Zakor** · 04-26-2005, 18:55

Originally Posted by Craterus

Could also depend on your strategy, I'm a mounted missiles and cavalry commanders so I'd go for both..

Which is better in a charge?

Which is better in Hand-To-Hand?

**Craterus** · 04-26-2005, 18:58

Charge, cataphracts
Melee - I don't know..

You say you don't have the buildings to recruit cataphracts so just make cataphract archer for now and when you get further up the tech tree, you could go for a bit of variation..

**Rodion Romanovich** · 04-27-2005, 17:54

Buy cath archers all the time until you get caths. Then if you want, you can replace some cath archers with caths, but it isn't even necessary in a long time. In fact you can do well with a combo army of 5 cath archers and 5-10 horse archers for a very long time if you just use clever tactics. You can even skip those footmen completely if you like to have more money for the cath archers. Armenia isn't a hard faction, they're as a matter of fact one of the easier once you find their strenghts. One VERY important strength is that a well-composed Armenian army only needs around 10 units to beat any other army in the game, whereas for example romans, barbarians, macs etc. need 20 units in order to have a strong army. If you bring 20 units to battle it's really overkill and the battles should be really easy to win.