Best cavalry?

[kburkert]

what faction(in RTW not Bi) do you think has the best cavalry?

I think the Scythians have good cavalry units, but the britons have the easly broken/destroyed chariots and no other cavalry.

[Drusus Magnus]

Cataphracts can withstand all ammo a persian cav unit has to offer when it's shot to their fronts. After that they can easily mop them up.

Armoured elephants are considered cavalry as well, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

[Diurpaneus]

Without doubt a well trained cappadocian cavalry is deadly.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Some heavy Thessalian cavalry perhaps?

[Severous]

Hi

Ive only played two Roman campaigns that didnt go on for very long. Equites are a powerful force early in the game.

Toughest cavalry ive encountered was the Pontus faction leader. Pontic heavy cavalry bodyguard sufferred few casualties from archers and had a powerful missile and mellee attack.

[Slug For A Butt]

Just my twopenneth.
I've got to disagree with you this time Severous. I find Equites to be an utter waste of the air they breathe. They lack the same punch to charge infantry that they do to chase routers, the enemy is off the map before I can kill many of them.
And I find Pontic heavies or the Pontic Generals are easily despatched.
For me it's the cats or any purely melee General units. I only use cav to charge or chase so they are my favourites.
Obviously it depends what role you want cav to play, but if it's archery I stick with foot archers.

[econ21]

According to the stats in the Strategy guide, somewhat ahistorically, the Romans have the best regular melee cavalry unit in the game (Praetorian cav). Its combined attack and defence stat just nudges ahead of the cataphract. Roman general units (with 2HP) are presumably better still.

I take the point about the cataphracts armour and horse archers though. I was having the devil's own job mopping up some Hun horse archers in Goth's BI mod today, when I tried Roman Clibanri (cataphracts) and saw the arrows bounce off them. It suddenly dawned on me why horse archer factions like the Parthians and Sassanids also developed cataphracts.

[lars573]

The best cavalry is either armoured elephants or Scythian nobles.

[kburkert]

Hi

Ive only played two Roman campaigns that didnt go on for very long. Equites are a powerful force early in the game.

I find they are only good at attacking the back of the unit.

[kburkert]

The best cavalry is either armoured elephants or Scythian nobles.

Armoured elephants are good, i over looked them

[Severous]

Equites are not powerful individually. Accepted. Found that out against massed troops.

Its a strategic power they have early in the game. Widely available, easy to retrain, easy to gain experience. 3 or 4 Equites together with the general are enough to take control of most early Roman battlefields. The cavalry mercenaries I can hire, Barbarians and Samarites are far less useful.

Have been fighting Scythian nobles recently. Horse archers against them seemed ineffective. Had to mob the noble with loads of troops to kill him.

Pontus heavy cavalry felt powerful against me because they cause casualties I cannot avoid. Their ranged attack has to be sufferred whilst I use my usual missile tactics. And then they have a powerful melee. When my captain led missile army encountered the Pontus faction leader, with 48 bodyguard, he was many times more powerful than any other unit on the battlefield.

[Slug For A Butt]

I see your point about Equites being easily available, that's fair.
I'm still not too convinced about the Pontics though. I guess like you said, it comes down to individual tactics.

[SOSamurai]

My last scipii campaign has made me loath Elephants. Playing the campaign on huge Unit size, I was seiging carthage with my core army (pretty much all hastati, since it was very early game) and managed to get all my troops inside the walls just to see 1300 hastati get butchered by an elephant unit. entertaining to watch though, but it ruined my campaign. ;)

[Viking]

Cataphract archers. They should beat just about every other cavalry unit in the game, including Armoured elephants.

Edit: Maybe not Armoured elephants; so maybe the armoured elephants are the best; I haven`t performed tests on this.

[x-dANGEr]

The best melee cav unit is the 'Camel Cataphracti', simply because their attack is AP and they have the best armor. That is not considering the strategic conditions on the strategy map. Also, they have the 'scare other horses' attribute which gives them another bonus vs the tank killers unit which is 'Head Hunting Madians'. One of their downsides though is the low fatigue and speed.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I don't think the camel cavalry is that good. I would stick to Cibinari, but that may be a bit expensive, so I dont know...

[Barbarossa1221]

I love sythian nobles personally, strong melee attack and they got a bow.
But on that note the Cataphract archers definetly take the cake.
And the best cavalry thats not a HA is probably the Cataphracts despite its small size.

[Glaucus]

Campanion Cavalry are pretty tight.

Their charge bonus is considerable, more then cataphracts if memory serves me right. I like them the best, since together with selucid/macedonian phalanxes, and hammer-anvil tactics, their the hammer that wins any battle.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Some heavy Thessalian cavalry perhaps?

Wait, you're playing RTW, I'm sorry. I play the RTR mod, so I was going from there. Okay, well in my opinion the best cavalry in RTW, is either some of the cataphract cavalry, or sacred band cavalry from Carthage.

[Craterus]

I'd choose Cataphracts, Cataphract Archers, Companions, Gothic Cav and Sacred Band Cav as my top 5.

[Coldfish]

pontic cappadocian cavalry rullez...is the best

[Goalie]

Although i do like sacred bands, they arent the best cavalry, I think good ole Praetorian Calvary are the best.

[Craterus]

Yeah, I forgot about Praetorians. I prefer them to Sacred Band..

[Cras]

sassanids... by far!

[Garvanko]

Praetorians are the best Cav.

[Avicenna]

Praetorians are too unrealistic for my taste (what? strong Roman cavalry?) so I prefer the Parthian cataphracts or Sassanid clibs.

[Glaucus]

Whats the fastest cavalry that still can hit hard? That eliminates katafracts, so I think Sacred Band or Praetorian.

[Goalie]

scythian noble archers are good, they are good archers and good cavalry.

[The Spartan (Returns)]

Praetorians are the best Cav.

Don't cataphracts beat praetorian cavalry?
Parthia has the best cavalry witout a doubt. why it even has elephants!

[Garvanko]

Speed combined with power makes Praetorians the best, imo. Cataphracts can get bogged down too easily.