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.