Cataphracts in R: TW.

[x-dANGEr]

After I read Dough Thompson's thread about Eastern Cataphracti in BI, it opened my eyes on the ones in R: TW. Just checked export_unit (In R: TW) and it appears that Cataphracts have this:

type             east heavy cataphract
dictionary       east_heavy_cataphract      ; Cataphracts
category         cavalry
class            heavy
voice_type       Heavy_1
soldier          east_heavy_cataphract, 27, 0, 1
mount            horse cataphract
mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest
formation        1.2, 4, 2.4, 6, 3, square, wedge
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         7, 9, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         8, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, blunt, mace, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    ap
stat_pri_armour  18, 5, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      0, 1, -6, -1
stat_mental      8, normal, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 940, 190, 100, 150, 940
ownership        parthia, armenia, seleucid

I've been playing this game since it went out and I just opened my eyes on this, they have a secondary attack with AP. Which tells my mind, wouldn't it be better to use the secondary weapon than the primary one? Just Alt+charge would be better I think, with the AP bonus, they would be too effective, that the extra 2 attack in the primary wouldn't matter anyway. Thoughts?

P.S. Same geos for Cataphract Camels

[Ciaran]

That´s the way I use them, charge them in and let it hackout with their maces. By the way, if you charge them in with Alt pressed, they will use their lances for the charge (including the higher charge bonus) and the maces for the melee.

[orangat]

Roman cavalry have similar stats in their secondary weapons also. I didn't realise it until looking at the export file because soulflame's unitguide didn't list them.

[Watchman]

Most heavy cavalry and a fair few of the others have a second weapon besides their default lance/spear, nigh invariably with a higher base attack value but lower charge bonus. The idea is obviously to use the main weapon for charging and then draw the sword, mace or whatever for the melee. Given that alt-attack results in the cavalry charging with their lances and switching to the secondary weapon after a moment, I'm guessing it tells them to put the spears away once the charge value bonus has been exhausted.

I tend to press alt-attack even with light cavalry that lack secondary weapons, purely out of habit.

Alt-attack is also how you make missile troops melee, although you probably knew that. Quite useful when you want your horse-archers to run routers down and not waste arrows on them, or need your chariot archers in the rear of the enemy phalanx *now*. Although with elephants (whose default attack is to charge in and stomp) alt-attack means "stand and shoot" instead...

[Doug-Thompson]

The old R:TW cataphract really is the best of both worlds — A spear for charging and a mace for up-close work. It was like having a BI cataphact and a clibenari all in one.

[Watchman]

I dunno, I found the Sassanid Clibs to be the most overall ubar. It's the damn bows that do it. Those buggers have so much armour they can just sit there and shoot to pieces anything that'd run away from them if they tried to close in and bash their skulls. I consider them the *real* tanks in the RTW scene - they've got guns too, after all. They double nicely as ridiculously arrow-resilient archers; I've seen Comitatenses caper uncertainly around in front of a few, and had they been any *normal* sort of archers the Commies would no doubt have been coming on like a public prosecutor...

The original Catas are nice with spears and all, but I don't really think the higher charge bonus makes that much difference. Not compared to the all-around usefulness of the bow, which also makes raking up exp depressingly easy.

[Doug-Thompson]

Well, yeah. I was referring to the comparison between clibs and catas. Overall unit-wise, then you're right. You can get arrow-shooting catas in R:TW but you have to mod the game to make Armenia and Pontis playable.

[Watchman]

Sassanids get both Clibs and Catas too. Their Clibs just happen to be a bit different from the ERE Equites Clibanarii (who if I recall correctly have shields, but no bows).

Pontus doesn't get Catas, nevermind Cata Archers (Armenians have a monopoly on those AFAIK). Not on default settings anyway. Cappadocians are a sort of poor man's BI Cataphract.

[Doug-Thompson]

I stand corrected. Anyway, no dispute here: "Tanks" with arrows beat "tanks" without as a general purpose unit. No question.

[Watchman]

Just ask anyone who's played the Russians in MTW.

[Doug-Thompson]

That brings back memories.

[x-dANGEr]

But still in a comperision between R: TW catas and BI Clib, you must count the cost. Catas in R: TW are relatively easy with this secondary mace option to attack which AP. That WILL help me a lot in MP. And the Cataphracts archers in R: TW have a secondary 'sword' attack with no AP and as far as I think even a wrose morale than Catas'.

[Watchman]

Unit costs between vanilla RTW and BI aren't really compatible anyway - for one RTW Peasant unit costs on Huge unit size a happy 100 denari upkeep, while an equivalent BI unit costs something like 18... but is only half as effective as a garrison.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but the Sassanid archer-Clibanariis have maces too. *And* two point higher base armour than the RTW Catas... Equites Clibanarii only had 18 armour if I recall correctly, but they had shields by the way of compensation. And maces.

[x-dANGEr]

I'm just commenting on this:

I stand corrected. Anyway, no dispute here: "Tanks" with arrows beat "tanks" without as a general purpose unit. No question.

In R: TW that doesn't seem to apply, Cata Archers are relatively weak facing a melee cata.

About them in BI, I seem to like Catas more even their, look below:

type             clibinarii
dictionary       clibinarii      ; Clibinarii
category         cavalry
class            heavy
voice_type       Medium_1
soldier          clibinarii, 27, 0, 1
mount            horse cataphract
mount_effect     elephant -4, camel -4
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, power_charge
formation        1.2, 4, 2.4, 6, 4, square, wedge
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         7, 4, arrow, 100, 30, missile, archery, piercing, none, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    prec
stat_sec         6, 7, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, blunt, mace, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    ap
stat_pri_armour  20, 6, 0, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 3, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      0, 1, -6, -1
stat_mental      5, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 50
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 1430, 300, 150, 220, 1430
ownership        sassanids

type             cataphracts
dictionary       cataphracts      ; Cataphracts
category         cavalry
class            heavy
voice_type       Heavy_1
soldier          cataphracts, 27, 0, 1
mount            horse cataphract
mount_effect     elephant -4, camel -4
attributes       sea_faring, hide_forest, power_charge
formation        1.2, 4, 2.4, 6, 4, square, wedge
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         6, 9, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         9, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  18, 10, 4, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 4, flesh
stat_heat        3
stat_ground      0, 1, -6, -1
stat_mental      9, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 50
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 1390, 337, 140, 210, 1390
ownership        sassanids

Clearly, Clibinarii 7 damage arrows won't badly effect the 18 armour of Catas (And maybe the 4 points of shielding nto sure though). Moving on to the Secondary weapon, They have 6 damage points with AP + 7 charge bonus. While the Catas have 9 base melee sword damage + 9 from spear charge.
All that added to the fact that Catas armor in melee is 28, while Clibnarii's is 24. And still, the morale effect, Clibnariis' morale looks bad while Catas liik quit fine (5 to 9).

[Watchman]

Of course Cata Archers get buggered by vanilla Catas - those AP maces are a pretty big factor when you mostly rely on armour for defense and only one side has them.

BI Catas seems to have a pretty scarily high defense score in HTH though - even if you halve the armour, they still score 23 from the total armour/skill/shield sum and that's *before* exp and upgrades are in...

Hmm... Clibis have attack 6 and total defense 26, Catas 9 and 23 (against AP) respectively. They would actually seem to even out - the attack score of both falls short of the other's defense sum by exactly 17 points. 'Course, that's assuming simply summing up the totals tells the whole story which may not be a truthful assumption...

[Doug-Thompson]

While you've done your research, x-dANGEr, your looking at a one-on-one confrontation between two "tank" units. In overall usefulness, a tank with arrows beats a tank without them every time.

For instance, suppose there's some horse archers running around killing your infantry. You sent cats to get them, they just run away. Send some tanks with arrows to cover the infantry, though. They'll shoot any approaching HA to pieces while they're virtually immune behind armor. Ranged tanks are great infantry killers, too. Include them in your attack, and you have an effective archer unit that can't be killed or driven off without a major committment of force.

[x-dANGEr]

Yes, but still, I see Clibnarii has 'no' use in melee. Their morale is too bad that I consider it a risk to get them into melee while outnumbered. So maybe a HA that has some nice armor, that's what I'd describe them.

[Watchman]

You kidding ? They're pretty much the backbone troops of the Sassanids. Deployed even remotely sensibly they'll pretty much crush anything when commited to melee. Personally I tend to use a couple of Levy Spearmen as a second-wave support line to tie up anything that tries to outflank already engaged Clibs; given that the Clibs are sent after the better-grade enemy units present to begin with, the Levies are often able to rout whatever is left running around. Well, okay, Legio Lanciarii usually get first tied up with Levies and then flanked by Clibs, but that's the only exception to the theme.

The ERE have so much better troops to cover *their* superheavies' arses with it's not even funny.

[dkdnt]

speaking about cataphracts
check this out


they killed my elephants(i realy dont know i i recruit those) and other kataphracts. but they didnt count in this man. and he didnt count on +4 xp points.

[x-dANGEr]

You kidding ? They're pretty much the backbone troops of the Sassanids. Deployed even remotely sensibly they'll pretty much crush anything when commited to melee. Personally I tend to use a couple of Levy Spearmen as a second-wave support line to tie up anything that tries to outflank already engaged Clibs; given that the Clibs are sent after the better-grade enemy units present to begin with, the Levies are often able to rout whatever is left running around. Well, okay, Legio Lanciarii usually get first tied up with Levies and then flanked by Clibs, but that's the only exception to the theme.

The ERE have so much better troops to cover *their* superheavies' arses with it's not even funny.

Well, if you offer me a cata and a clib, I'd pick a Cata for flanking. You know what can 18 damage do to a unit from a flank.. I played the Saissaidns, and mostly relied on clibs, but I got a headache out of it. Playing on VH/VH, my levies always routed exactly 3 seconds after being engaged with the First Legions, even if I'd flank, a chain routing might start and my clibs follow them. So you see, their morale stabbed me in back a couple of times. Then I relied on Catas + Immortals + 1 ele a stack and a nuch of troops combined with HA.