Roman Catphracts!?

[Mikeus Caesar]

I was just looking through the .Org's screenshots of what was obviously RTW in development, when i found this: Roman Cataphracts!? Look at those horsies. They look a bit out of place don't they?

[aw89]

The Romans did have Cataphracts, just after the end game date.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Yes, but i think this indicates that maybe CA were thinking of letting you bribe over another factions armies, and keep all the units in it that you wouldn't be able to get, like in MTW. Currently, you play as the romans and bribe a greek army full of Spartan Hoplites and what-not, and it all disbands.

[Husar]

These cataphracts have shields, unlike the ones in the game, so I guess it was either just for testing or one of the many "features" and other stuff that didn´t make it into the game.

[metatron]

*cough*katanks*cough*

[cunctator]

There are also roman horsearchers between the two cataphract units. Perhaps this units will have a comeback in the expansion.

[itsgottabeworthatry]

Personally I think those units look very out of place. But they are probably just try outs for the expansion. With the Eastern Roman Empire and all that.

If they make changes to the skins and colours I think they would be a great.

[Aegisthis The Infantryman]

It would be quite good to have Roman Cataphracts in some sort of Rome: Total War expansion. However I'm quite certain there is one coming out.

Aegisthis

[The Stranger]

weird are these CA's screenies

[Craterus]

Hmmmmmmmm, Roman Cataphracts? That's a nice way to make them even more overpowered, give them the best cav on the game. And cav is supoosedly their weakness on RTW.

[The Stranger]

well native roman cav was weak, not the cav of the roman empire. they didn't base on cav but they had strong cav (germanic merc cav, gallic cav, numidian and more)

[Craterus]

If you managed to hold the Romans to Italy, they would build and build and their cities would grow and grow. Eventually, they would be able to produce cataphracts inside their native lands, which would be pointless and annoying.

[tibilicus]

Isnt there horse archers aswell if you look?! And also I think romans did get cataphracts as in MTW the byzantines get cataphract type units called Katphractoi and well all know about the Roman Byzantine links right?

[cunctator]

The regularized auxilia of the empire were not longer single ethic troops like the iregular late republican auxilia. When a new unit was formed in a specific area all of it´s soldiers were the same ethnic group and was named after that, like Alae 2 gallorum. But if this unit was send to a distant part of the empire it begun to recruit locals as replacement. So after a while only the name of the unit remembered their origin.
There were only a few special troops, like Maurian and numidian light cavalry, that remained single ethnic. The bulk of the imperial cavalry, as shown on the trajans column or described by Josephus Flavius, were uniformly equipped and trained despite of their name and the origin of it`s soldiers.

I think the main problem that the real romans copied weapons and tactics from their adversarys. The "standard" cavalry was derived from the celts because celtic cavalry made the greatest part of the iregular late republican auxilia cavalry. Even in the 2nd century ad arrian uses many words of celtic origin to describe the training of the roman cavalry in his ars tactica. Without contact with the sarmatians and parthians unit types like horse archers( part of the army at least sine 16ad.), cataphracts(~130ad) or contarii(~105ad) would never be introduced into the imperial army.

In current RTW it`s impossible to trigger unit avaibility to wars with other factions. The best thing i know is to make such units only avaible in specific
regions, which is not a perfect solution. The first known roman cataphract unit was the ala galorum et pannioniorum catafracta that apeared during hadrians reign( 117-138ad). Thats hardly a unit with it`s origin in the east. Also since the real romans abandoned use of native italian cavalry around 100BC there would be the possibility that the romans bottled in italy will have no cav. after some time.

[Craterus]

How long was MTW after RTW, Romans didn't have cataphracts at the time and shouldn't, imo.

[pezhetairoi]

Medieval definitely started after the Western Romans fell. The Eastern Romans only developed them fully at the time of whatsisname Justin, or what. Anyway. It was definitely in use by the time of Belisarius, but definitely there were none in Italia at the time of Romulus Augustulus.

[lars573]

That screenie is from about 2003 and is just a promo with the first itteration of the Cataphract skin.

[The Stranger]

If you managed to hold the Romans to Italy, they would build and build and their cities would grow and grow. Eventually, they would be able to produce cataphracts inside their native lands, which would be pointless and annoying.

than, you create a hidden resource and make them produceable in a region only

[cunctator]

Medieval definitely started after the Western Romans fell. The Eastern Romans only developed them fully at the time of whatsisname Justin, or what. Anyway. It was definitely in use by the time of Belisarius, but definitely there were none in Italia at the time of Romulus Augustulus.

The romans used cataprahcts since around 120-130ad. The horse armour found in dura europos( ca. 250 ad) and the descreptions of ammianus marcelinus clearly shows that they had been fully devoloped before the fall of western rome. Thats long after the game ends but also long before emperor justinian and general belisarius time in the 6th century ad.

[tibilicus]

Ahhhhhhhhh so its a promo. Any one think you could mod the game to make a roman cataphract unit? To the moding forums !

[The Stranger]

The romans used cataprahcts since around 120-130ad. The horse armour found in dura europos( ca. 250 ad) and the descreptions of ammianus marcelinus clearly shows that they had been fully devoloped before the fall of western rome. Thats long after the game ends but also long before emperor justinian and general belisarius time in the 6th century ad.

yeah but the CAT's were most used in the eastern part of the empire

[pezhetairoi]

Ah yes. Someone's named himself after Fabius! Woohoo!

[Beefy]

Tis a nice screenie tho! wish my graphics looked like that!

[cunctator]

yeah but the CAT's were most used in the eastern part of the empire

Yes. In the Notitia Dignitatum there are only 2(probably only 1) units of Clibanarii and 2 (also this two may be the same) cataractarii listed for the western empire, compared to 6 clibanarii and 7 catafractarii units in the east.

The Notitia Dignitatum is a list of "0ffices" of the eastern and western parts of the roman empire around 400-425ad.
(http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sar...aPatterns.html
http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~halsteis/notitia.htm)

[professorspatula]

In my personal mod, Cataphracts are available to Romans, only in the East however. But only Cappodocian-style cataphracts. Having the best cavalry as well as the best infantry would be a bit much.


As tough as they are in their armour, a large magnet would sort those tanks out.

As to Cataphracts in the CA screenshots having shields, the shield cataphract model comes with the game. You just have to do some modding if you want to use it. It makes the Cataphracts nigh-on invincible, so it's best to leave them without the shield - which CA probably realised.


A bunch of Cataphracts wielding neon blue lances race to the sweet shop before it closes to buy some lemon sherberts and a quarter of Mint Imperials, yesterday.


One day I'll get around to finishing my mod and stick a webpage for it up.

[AntiochusIII]

Scary Roman cavalry you've got there, professor.

Though they would be better off with a Sassanid-style cataphracts (in other words, current vanilla Cataphracts) as the "Roman cataphracts" came late and they were used extensively only when the Sassanids rose to power in the East.

The Roman cataphracts in Medieval:TW are the Eastern Roman Empire ones, as the East Empire was...well, closer to the original development of cataphracts in the (Sarmatian) steppes and Persia - and the West broke up, thus, losing a central authority that desires cataphracts in use as the warlords prefer their own ways of fighting and no money for such an expensive form of cavalry anyway. Knights would rise later on...

These men weren't used extensively until the decline of the Empire, and I'm sure the Diocletian-Constantine reforms (that massively increases the empire's army size) fully integrate cataphract-style cavalry as the norm in the Roman army.

*Off Topic: And to think, the Swiss phalanx was famously feared in Europe more than a millenia after the armies of the ancient world discarded the phalanx as an ineffective force. I wonder what Alexander-style army would fare against the barbarians that break down Rome...hmm...*

[Hold Steady]

Don't forget Time Commanders

They featured a lot of out-of-time-frame battles, including a what-if-it-went-like-this battle of Troy. Could be that many troop types where developed only for the sake to dress up these battles.