The Cataphract

[SamSniped]

I've been on the forums for a while now, and the one thing I never see is anyone else saying that the Cataphract is a great UU. Personally, I am wondering why. First of all, the +2 strength it gets over a knight means that if it is unpromoted and facing a unfortified pikeman on a tile that gives no defensive bonus, it has a 50% chance of victory. Add in the fact that if it is built in a city with a Barracks, and either Vassalage, Theocracy, or a Stable, it can easily get a +35% bonus against a Pikeman, and if all of those are combined, I believe that's 9 or 10 XP, and if the latter is true, then it can get either a withdraw chance or a +35 versus a pikeman, which translates out to ~ 25% chance against a CB2 Pikeman. The only drawback I see is how quickly Cuirs come afterwards, but that's not much of an upgrade.

 

[lymond]

The only drawback I see is how quickly Cuirs come afterwards, but that's not much of an upgrade.

Actually, it is for several reasons. You must consider first strikes, ignoring walls, and the fact that Curs are a better tech path in terms of a Lib gambit.

Actually, I hear often about folks' love of the Cata around here. I disagree. Sure, it's more than fine and mid to low levels. However, the fact that Guilds is an AI priority tech really limits the life of Knights in general on higher levels, and this I think you will find the main complaint of the Cata from more experienced players.

It's not a bad UU by any means and can be fun to play with in the right settings. However, generally I will bypass them completely when playing Justy, except if I can get a Guild trade before MT comes in so that I can start building some Knights for Cur upgrade later.

 

[shakabrade]

Lymond said it all.

Edit:
However, it is all relevant only for deity, and usually for immortal.
On lower levels cataphracts are much better UU.

 

[uat2d]

I like the Byz horsie

It's better than the Conquistador, for example.

 

[lymond]

I like the Byz horsie

It's better than the Conquistador, for example.

OMG!.......I hope you are not serious...that's just nutballs sprinkled with powdered crazydust

 

[uat2d]

I never need explorers, why should I need the Conquistador?

 

[God-Emperor]

You have just done a non-sequitur. Explorers have nothing to do with Conquistadors. The two units are not related in any way.

The Conquistador is the Spanish UU replacement for the Cuirassier, compared to which it has 2 significant advantages: it gets defensive bonuses (the only other mounted unit which does so is the Immortal) and it gets +50% vs. melee units.

 

[Seraiel]

I waited long to post this one once

 

[karadoc]

The weakest thing about conquistadors is that their icon looks so similar to the explorer icon. It makes people forget to build them.

 

[azzaman333]

Good UU, but not a great one.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Good UU, but not a great one.

This was my feeling. The poll needs a couple more options, such as good, poor or average. I like the Cataphract but I could never put it as a great UU, not when the other great UU's are items like the Fast Worker, Quechua, Prat, War Chariot, Skirmisher, etc. It's a nice UU but it isn't in the "great" class.

 

[Archon_Wing]

And sometimes I have 20 conqs and 7 explorers. Why do they have the same icon? :S So people won't build the most dominant unit of its time for balance?

Anyhow, it would depend on how much you prize the regular knight. The problem is that you can get Cuirs almost as fast. Still in medieval wars they are nice if somehow you can get them before castles come up.

 

[SamSniped]

Now I see. I do agree that they are good on lower levels. In my current game as Justinian on Noble, I recently got Cataphracts. I'm doing rather well

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Knight rushes are already absolutely terrifying in MP, for the same reason Horse Archers are terrifying.

Imagine how much nastier +2S on knights means.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've seen people on deity doing crazy bulb gambits to hit cataphracts in time to blow the game wide open.

That's better than you'll get out of most non-super ancient UUs. If cataphracts aren't top tier, they're just outside of it.

 

[plasmacannon]

I like it too. It is a great fast unit in the field.
Against castles, you still need lots of seige.
So, really macemen do well enough and they can get City Raider 3 & be upgraded to Riflemen. The knights can't.
Plus, I am not a fan of Justinian's traits.
IMP/SPI only gives a reduction on one building, temples. Which you must have a religon to use and the production you choose to spend on missionaries for a more religous path.

When, I use "unrestricted leaders" and get Byzantium, but not Justinian, I like it.
With someone like Hannibal, I can tech up (and trade) to guilds and promote those cats faster.


@GodEmperor, "it gets defensive bonuses (the only other mounted unit which does so is the Immortal)"
In Civ3 it did, but in Civ4 the Immortal is a Chariot unit UU and does not get a terrain bonus.
They may have changed this back for Civ5 too.

 

[God-Emperor]

@GodEmperor, "it gets defensive bonuses (the only other mounted unit which does so is the Immortal)"
In Civ3 it did, but in Civ4 the Immortal is a Chariot unit UU and does not get a terrain bonus.
They may have changed this back for Civ5 too.

You need to review the Immortal. It does get defensive bonuses, just like the Conquistador (in vanilla Civ4 and with either expansion - it hasn't changed). In the XML the bNoDefensiveBonus tag is set to 0 for both, so they both get defensive bonuses from terrain, features, city defenses including culture, and they can fortify.

Not that this has anything to do with the Cataphract (which is a pretty good UU)...

 

[2metraninja]

I voted "yes" despite I actually played Byzantium only once. Now when I think of it, it was quite a success tbh.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I like it too. It is a great fast unit in the field.
Against castles, you still need lots of seige.
So, really macemen do well enough and they can get City Raider 3 & be upgraded to Riflemen. The knights can't.
Plus, I am not a fan of Justinian's traits.
IMP/SPI only gives a reduction on one building, temples. Which you must have a religon to use and the production you choose to spend on missionaries for a more religous path.

When, I use "unrestricted leaders" and get Byzantium, but not Justinian, I like it.
With someone like Hannibal, I can tech up (and trade) to guilds and promote those cats faster.

Well, I think Justinian's traits are okay (nothing special); IMP sometimes gets you those faster settlers and GGs, the main problem to me is that Byzantium has terrible starting techs.

 

[Iranon]

It's a decent unit, but unlikely to feature as a game breaker. The AI likes the tech path, so a beeline is a big tech sacrifice. On the upside, it means a significant edge you can trade for, but war in its time is either slow or costly and castles can really stop the fun.