Eastern cataphracts

[Pharnakes]

Just a possible fault that I have noticed, all eastern (Hai, Pahlavi) use a lose spaced formation like horse archers, whilst all other heavy and medium cavalry (including Hai and Pahlavi) use close formations. Surely they should also charge in close order "knee to knee" formations? I don't know about any one else but i find that this severely limits their abilities in charging against close order sluiced infantry especially.

Is this intentional or a bug?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Wolfe,
I think that it may be a bug, although you will have to check with the great EB team first. Hope this helps you, cheers!

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

I've always thought it was intensional. It seems like something that would have been noticed if it was a bug.

[Fondor_Yards]

Don't Zradha Pahlavans and Nakhararakan Aspet fight close order, and only the elite parthian and saka cataphracts fight in open formation? Havn't played an eastern faction since the patch, iirc thats how it was before.

[Pharnakes]

Thanks all, though I went ahead and closed them all up on caligula.

Cheers

[artavazd]

also i think they need more "punch" charging the phalanx from the rear does next to nothing while the phalanx turns around and devastes your very expensive cataphracts. So i highered the charge and horse mass for the cataphracts.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

How do you change for density of the formation?

I think the looseness has something to do with the effectiveness of the cataphract when fighting horsearchers. Arrows should be less effective when the cavalry fights in a loose formation.

Of course the effectiveness of cataphracts and all other troops against the phalanx cannot be portrayed in RTW since the phalanx is not weak at it's flanks and rear. As mentioned above, they just turn 180 degrees and slaughter your expensive troops.

[antisocialmunky]

Try to keep your horses away from Phalanxes unless their engaged, there's a phalanx bug with reflecting charges even from behind for those who don't know...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Mad Guitar Murphy,
To allow your mighty units to be in a dense/a scattered formation all you have to do is go into your "...EB\data\export_descr_units" and remove/add the formation "square" for the unit you desire to change. With square the unit remains in a tighter formation (as like most units) and with no square formation set then the unit remains in a scattered formation (like a vanilla R:TW peasant or gladiator unit). Good luck, cheers!

[Watchman]

Personally I'd suggest just altering the formation values. The EDU explains the meaning of the values right at the beginning of the file -

; formation soldier spacing (in metres) side to side, then front to back for close formation
; followed by the same measurements in loose formation.
; followed by the default number of ranks for the unit
; followed by the formations possible for the unit. One or two of
; square, horde, phalanx, testudo, or wedge

- and, indeed, for some reason the EB default setting for the various cataphracts is the rather wide one used by various light skirmisher cavalry (3, 4, 6, 6, 4, square).

Personally I altered the blighters to use a much tighter "1, 3, 3, 6, 4, square, wedge" scheme - that's actually a tad closer ranks than most close-combat cavalry use. "Knee behind knee" is presumably supposed to be somewhat uncommon by this date after all, and it *is* specifically mentioned in the description of some of the catas suggesting a level of disticntiveness. Although I gave the assorted lighter lancer/archer types, non-lancer horse-archers (say, Baktrioi Hippotoxotai) and steppe-nomad lancers looser orders to represent these guys either being archers first and shock troops second, or simply what might presumably be regarded as a bit less specialized formation.

YMMV, the above is of course just the approach I decided to use. Feel free to copy it if it looks promising or something.

Speaking of catas, is it really intented the Hayasdan can't recruit Nakharakharan Aspets (their kontos/mace guys) in their starting capital ? Seems a little odd, that.

[Mad Guitar Murphy]

Thanks for the help guys.

[The Persian Cataphract]

Problem addressed. This will be fixed by the next update.

[Pharnakes]

Thanks

[hoom]

I've always thought it was intensional. It seems like something that would have been noticed if it was a bug.

Problem addressed. This will be fixed by the next update.

Heh, funny how some bugs get missed that way, we get that at work all the time