Awesome. Lot's of juicy stuff to reply to.
First of all, @ TCV- I was only saying that tongue-in-cheek.
@ Arjos- you are still taking a very slanted view. The Gaesatae were acting as a rear guard, and they were facing "half" of the Roman army. As I said before, it would be very stupid of a commander NOT to use javs against them. It's like in EBO where you have falxmen/Bastarnae in front of you during skirmish stages and you choose NOT to use arrows/javs against them (where you have the option of doing so), and instead, charge them with infantry. Does that mean as a general you are scared of them, or you are making best use of resources? Undoubtedly there is some argument that these dudes were given some respect, but I wanted sources where their capacity to lower morale was clear.
@Lazy- I do not think catas slant dynamics signifcantly towards Hellenistic factions. Catas are pretty easy to counteract. I've played against hellenistic factions many times and taken non hellenic whilst doing so. I've even had battles against 4-6 catas (in a 2v2) with me and my ally as non cata factions, and it was pretty easy to beat them. Pontos, Carthage, Ptoles, Sweboz for instance are great anti-cav factions. I am not 100% sure how the barbs fare since I am still a noob at controlling celtic armies.
Also, catas are very slow and cumbersome. Try running around very tired cataphracts. They get to that state very quickly, recover stamina very slowly compared to other cav. When facing them, you just have to wait for an attack and keep ur cav/spears in reserve.
@GG2- I completly agree with you. Having said that, I admit to the proponents of cata fear removal that it is absurd that an exausted, severely depleted cata unit lowers morale in the vicinity when it is running around- however, the same can be said of exhausted, depleted naked unit. I personally use Gaesatae to do that many a times- run them around purely to use fear effect. In fact, if anything, I use it more with Gaesatae than catas, since catas are a very expensive unit, and I cannot really afford to run them around purely for using fear effect.
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