What's up with the Numidian Cavalry?

[The Navy Seal]

I will not play Carthage because of it's uu Strength 4 replaces the horse archer if anything it should replace the chariot. What do you think?

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I will not play Carthage because of it's uu Strength 4 replaces the horse archer if anything it should replace the chariot. What do you think?

It's because of how the combat works that its str 4, but as it gets 50% bonus vs melee, and from a stables gets what amounts to 2 free promos...

Combat I and Shock Num Cav will even beat a maceman, the majority of the time. Same promos will destroy axes and swords, so it can be very useful indeed.

 

[The Navy Seal]

But the Horse Archer can get those as well giving more strength and defense. And the Horse Archer get vs cats, trebuchets.

 

[moggydave]

It's not strength 4, it's strength 5.

50% vs melee means 7.5 vs axemen=v nice.
50% vs melee means 7.5 vs spearman=extra nice (chance of beating them)

w/barracks, stable and charismatic means combat 1 and shock promotions=85% vs melee= 9.25 vs axeman and spearman=VERY NICE

w/ financial=AWESOME

downside being HBR is expensive.

 

[FuRRie]

Good side of expensive HBR makes it a good trading tech

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Carthage's UU is a unit that can beat Everything of its era Except
Spears and other Horse Archers (and its close on both of those)

 

[dh_epic]

Yep. This is a pretty neat UU. It means you can't really use it as a city attacker anymore like normal Horse Archers, but they're absolute murder in the field.

 

[AriochIV]

Also because it starts with Flanking, you can get Sentry (+1 Visibilty) on your very first promotion, which makes for excellent scout units.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Also because it starts with Flanking, you can get Sentry (+1 Visibilty) on your very first promotion, which makes for excellent scout units.

The Numidian Cavalry just have uses which are very different than horsearchers. They are great fog busters if you have a tundra border with very good win percentages against axes, swords, archers and sentry promotions. They are worse than H.A. against archers but still very good and better against axes and swords.

They can serve as an early stack escort expecially with a shock promotion. They are a slightly weaker but faster classical age crossbow and can pillage and protect your stack against axes, swords and catapults in the field. The 50% against melee also makes a base N.C. slightly better than a H.A. against a spear although still an underdog. (6 vs 5 = 1.11 for N.C. and 8 vs 6 = 1.25 for H.A). On defence, N.C. can murder a stack of axes and cats especially with a shock promotion.

They are not great city attackers but shock N.C. can beat axes and swords in a city. If they are in your stack anyway they make good cleanup units for melee units with splash damage and damaged archers.

They are significantly worse than a H.A. against archers in a city so you can't use them as primary attackers and they lose to H.A. Otherwise, they are a versatile unit. Certainly not overpowered but not a unit to curse. Building a stable in one city and adding a couple of shock N.C. to early stacks instead of shock axes (which need Theo, combat or an agressive civ for shock) and a few for border defence can be very helpful.

 

[apopholeus813]

Even with combat odds not being in their favor the free flanking 1 and I always build barracks and stable in my military city and give flanking 2 your N.C. has a good chance of retreating, so if there are 2-3 traaveling together you can destroy pretty much anything you come across. This is one of my favorite units in the game now

 

[StarWorms]

Aren't they just basically axemen if they have 5 str and +50% vs melee?

 

[Xiahou Mao]

Aren't they just basically axemen if they have 5 str and +50% vs melee?

Axemen with 2 Move, built-in Flanking, and no vulnerability to enemy Axemen since they aren't a melee unit themselves.

 

[dh_epic]

And I think that sums it up perfectly!

 

[The Navy Seal]

Why I thought that the strength was 4, was because the manual sayes both.

 

[Darwin420]

I played a game over the weekend where my Combat I / Shock NCs were steamrolling enemy spears, axes, and swords. I might have just gotten REALLY lucky with the RNG, but my force of NC was nigh unstoppable.

 

[moggydave]

Why I thought that the strength was 4, was because the manual sayes both.

It does. Actually Carthage comes of pretty bad in the manuals line of mistakes, because it doesn't say in the manual that charasmatic mean -25xp for promotions.

In short Carthage is the best new civ and one of the best overall civs.

 

[Palantir30]

In short Carthage is the best new civ and one of the best overall civs.

Except that their UB is lackluster.

It's a nice building, cont get me wrong- it's just that unlike nearly every other UB, you cant build this one in all, or even most of your cities, unless you're playing on a specialized map. That's a pretty big downside, although it does pale in comparison to arguably the two best traits combined with those handy 2-movement, no bronze Axemen with flanking and no vulnerability to axemen.

 

[RobertTheBruce]

Except that their UB is lackluster.

It's a nice building, cont get me wrong- it's just that unlike nearly every other UB, you cant build this one in all, or even most of your cities, unless you're playing on a specialized map. That's a pretty big downside, although it does pale in comparison to arguably the two best traits combined with those handy 2-movement, no bronze Axemen with flanking and no vulnerability to axemen.

Numidian Cavalry are an axeman counter more than an axeman replacement. The penalty attacking cities, lack of access to city raider promotions, tech requirement, and hammer cost mean we will never be talking about Numidian Cavalry rushes. War Chariots are closer to an axe replacement than N.C.

 

[The Navy Seal]

The only problem is if the civ thier at war with has horse archers.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

And when they still have the free Flanking I promotion when upgraded. It is better to build a lot of them early than to build fresh knights and cavalry later.
With the financial trait and the cothon you can easily afford the upgrades.