Roman Catphracts!?

**The Stranger** · 05-09-2005, 19:28

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** · 05-09-2005, 19:40

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** · 05-09-2005, 19:55

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** · 05-09-2005, 20:25

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** · 05-09-2005, 20:41

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

**pezhetairoi** · 05-10-2005, 02:14

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** · 05-10-2005, 03:40

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

**cunctator** · 05-10-2005, 15:12

Originally Posted by 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.

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** · 05-10-2005, 15:52

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** · 05-10-2005, 17:57

Originally Posted by cunctator

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

**The Stranger** · 05-10-2005, 08:18

Originally Posted by 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.

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