Cataphract without bows?

[bobwalt]

Byzantine Cataphracts should have bow lance and mêlée. I feel cheated; does anyone know a way to fix this?

Bob

[Artorius Maximus]

Yes, this bothers me too, I really would rather have high upkeep Cataphracts that have a bow, spear, and mace, rather than just, you guessed it, a mace! ;(

[pike master]

CA was so nervous that the poor chap who did the animations forgot the bow.

[Xehh II]

Are Kataphraktoi supposed to have bows?

[Lusted]

Kataphraktoi were trained with both lance, mace and bow. In M2Tw thet use just lance and mace. However their lack of a bow is made up for by the Byzantines rather good HA units like Vardiotai(very good in melee as well) and Byzantine Cav.

Oh, and units can onyl have 1 primary and 1 secondary weapon in game, so you can't add a third weapon in.

[Xehh II]

That's kind of stupid, it would be awsome to see Kataphraktoi with bows.

[pike master]

had em in bi. dont know what happened after that.

[Midnight]

Vardariotai pretty much work as Kats on steroids anyway. I can't make heads or tails of the Byz cavalry roster - why bother training anything after Vards?

[Slaists]

Vardariotai pretty much work as Kats on steroids anyway. I can't make heads or tails of the Byz cavalry roster - why bother training anything after Vards?

I suspect, CA has forgotten/overlooked some building restrictions for many elite troops. It was similar in MTWI though: in the vanilla version high and late period units became available right away (regardless of game year) as soon as one built the building of the appropriate level. In a subsequent patch, they restricted high and late units to their respective periods though.

As to Vardariotai: their easy availability relative to much weaker units does not make much sense right now. One can build them pretty much from one the lowest level castles. Due to their availability, there is no point in training byzantine cavalry and scythicons. Also, neither byzantine cav. nor scythicons have good stamina whereas Vardariotai do, adding to the obsoleteness of the former right at the start of the campaign.

It is similar for the Turks who have access to Turcopoles and Turkish Horse Archers pretty much at the same time. Turcopoles outclass Turkish Horse Archers by far, making the latter obsolete at the very start of the campaign. I am not sure about Azabs either... a weak unit, available from a high level barracks, with the previous level javeline armed unit having better combat stats... Seems like a bug to me.

IMHO, it would make sense to allow Turkish Horse Archers being available from the most basic castle structure, whereas Turkopoles would require some combination of higher castle + stables. Vardariotai could be restricted in a similar manner. This would make the basic units more valuable.

[tsu33]

An answer to the above poster, Vardariotai does become available at the very beginning, but it is the main strength of Byzantine early army, who require the overpowered Vardariotai to expand and match the HA army of Hungary and the Turks, also to make up the fact that they do not receive any advance gun powder unit and artilery.

You also mentioned that there are no reasons to recruit any other low tier HA other then the Vardariotai since they are overwhelmingly outclass by the Vard. But the problem is, Vardariotai only become available by upgrading your main castle building(2 for castle and 3 for fortress+ if i remember correctly, which isnt a lot), you cannot increase its maximum slot number from stables. When i play the Byzantines during early game period, my Vardariotai slot in the castle is always empty due to the constant retraining and new recruitment. I always find myself in need of more HA on the front line, but there are never enough Vardariotai for me to recruit. So I have to get some Byzantine Calvary due to their large recruitment pool, not to mention the fact i dont care about charging them into suicidal situations since they are dirt cheap and easily replacable, which isnt something i can say about the Vardariotai(too expansive )

About the Cataphract, ya they should get bows and become a unit like the Russian dvor. The cataphract is terrible compare to other high tier heavy cavalry at its present state, and is completely outclassed by the elite ones such as Lancer or Gothic knight. The only advantage they have is the AP mace, which is only useful for taking out other cavalry units. I would rather use a higher charge bonus cavalry such as the Latinkohs cause the main point of using cavalry is to charge down the infantry, not to fight in melee!

In short, BUFF THE CATAPHRACT !!

[pike master]

all those different units were for those multiplayers with the notions of uber all cav armies

[Carl]

Oh, and units can onyl have 1 primary and 1 secondary weapon in game, so you can't add a third weapon in.

Actually you can have 3. Treb's have their Cows their for example.

[Lusted]

That's a special ability and projectile type, not weapon.

[lars573]

I think the OP is overlooking somehting important. The lance/bow cataphracts is impossible to replecate in M2TW. Why? Well because they used wedges with lancers on the outisde and alternating archer lancer inside the wedge. Now all these guys had a mace as a side arm. But one guy has a bow (no lance) and the next a lance (no bow). They would have left them back at camp. No reason to over burden your mount is their.

[Carl]

That's a special ability and projectile type, not weapon.

Trus me, it's an extra weapon, check the EDU entry.

type             NE Trebuchet
dictionary       NE_Trebuchet      ; Trebuchet
category         siege
class            missile
voice_type       Heavy
banner faction   main_missile
banner holy      crusade
soldier          NE_Trebuchet_Crew, 16, 2, 1
engine           trebuchet
attributes       sea_faring, hardy, can_withdraw, artillery
formation        1.5, 1.5, 3, 3, 3, square
stat_health      1, 0
stat_pri         6, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, artillery_mechanical, piercing, knife, 25, 1.8
;stat_pri_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr    no
stat_sec         55, 3, trebuchet, 285, 30, siege_missile, artillery_mechanical, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr    ap, bp, area, launching
stat_ter         12, 3, cow_carcass, 215, 3, siege_missile, artillery_mechanical, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_ter_ex      0, 0, 0
stat_ter_attr    ap, bp, launching,
stat_pri_armour  4, 4, 0, leather
;stat_armour_ex   4, 0, 0, 0, 4, 0, 0, leather
stat_sec_armour  0, 0, flesh
stat_heat        1
stat_ground      0, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental      9, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        1, 430, 250, 90, 70, 430, 4, 100
armour_ug_levels 1
armour_ug_models NE_Trebuchet_Crew
ownership        england, scotland, hre, france, denmark, portugal, spain, venice, milan, sicily, papal_states
era 1            northern_european, southern_european
;unit_info        6, 0, 8

[Lusted]

Trus me, it's an extra weapon, check the EDU entry.

Yes it appears as such, but in terms of unit models and skeletons a unit can only have 2 weapons - primary and secondary. Siege Engines can have a third attack, but its not a third weapon.

[Carl]

Are you SURE it's seige engines only, I'm pretty sure the notations at the top of the EDU file list it as a third weapons entry.

[Lusted]

Are you SURE it's seige engines only, I'm pretty sure the notations at the top of the EDU file list it as a third weapons entry.

You can't have unit models with a third skeleton as far as im aware, so you can't have a third weapon.

[Carl]

Dosen't mean a thing to me but i'll take your word on it as you clearly know what your talking about even if i don't.

[bobwalt]

Would it really matter if it were a special ability or a weapon as long as it created the correct effect?

Bob

[Lusted]

We can't edit/make new special abilities, and we can't give the models 3 weapons/skeletons, so modders can't make it possible. Unless once we can edit meshes we make a duplicate kataphraktoi unit armed with bow and mace.

[pike master]

better a mace and bow then.

[Orda Khan]

Mongol heavy cavalry should also have a bow, would people like to see that? The Byzantines already have an over powered HA unit that is totally ahistorical

..........Orda

[Oleander Ardens]

Mongol heavy cavalry should also have a bow, would people like to see that? The Byzantines already have an over powered HA unit that is totally ahistorical

And Orda's fight for justices continues

But of course, you are right. Heavy cavalry carried almost always bows when growing up in a missile heavy enviroment. A powerful bow is a strong armour in it's own right, making think other HA twice to close in and shoot. Given that surprisingly few arrows hit in a chaotic, running HA battle and that decent armor is capable of stopping a great deal of shots from medium distances, and reduces the effect of all it is no surprise that every Horsearcher wore armor and usually tried to get better one...

Tactical and strategical mobility and logistics are an other topic

[pike master]

bad medicine. we need kataphracts with bows to act as armored missile units to counter more agile light horse archers. this will give realistic accuracy to game 8|