Are cataphracts really THAT strong? 9_6

[Halcyan]

Yeah. Steel Bow (War Elephant retinue) is pretty weak.

Also, the mix of Archers (Light Infantry) and Cavalry (War Elephants) is not that great, since it means the Cavalry Leader trait (which penalizes Light Infantry) is bad.

However, at least the Indian military leaders have the chance to get War Elephant Leader, which is actually a very good trait.

War Elephant Leader + either Light Infantry or Unyielding or Holy Warrior, generally makes for the strongest military generals.

The other good news about Steel Bow is you get to use the Elephant unit graphic, which is pretty cool!

 

[cloudwasher]

What was the terrain the battle took place on? I've won battles being similarly outnumbered by luring the enemy into attacking me on a mountain and having a leader with unyielding and/or a mountain terrain expert traits.

 

[September]

I read a retinue optimization guide on gamefaqs from last year which suggested that the most powerful retinues were:
1. Longbowmen + Defensive (1 to 2) with an English/Welsh Commander
2. Schiltrons/Pikes + Shock (3 to 1) with a Scottish Commander
3. Cataphracts with a Greek Commander
And, if you are none of those cultures
4. Skirmishers + Defensive (1 to 1) preferably with an English/Welsh Commander

I've guessed that if that's still true Steel Bow + Defensive, in likeness of #1, should be fairly effective, shouldn't it?

 

[Steel_atlas]

I read a retinue optimization guide on gamefaqs from last year which suggested that the most powerful retinues were:
1. Longbowmen + Defensive (1 to 2) with an English/Welsh Commander
2. Schiltrons/Pikes + Shock (3 to 1) with a Scottish Commander
3. Cataphracts with a Greek Commander
And, if you are none of those cultures
4. Skirmishers + Defensive (1 to 1) preferably with an English/Welsh Commander

I've guessed that if that's still true Steel Bow + Defensive, in likeness of #1, should be fairly effective, shouldn't it?

Elephants absorb a ton of retinue cap, longbows strength is that you can mass a ton of them, the downside of longbows is that they can get attritioned down especially in hostile conditions where as cataphracts can fight better in the desert because they dont have such high numbers.

 

[StrikerThrex]

Elephants in addition, unless they changed it they get no retinue bonuses, no bonuses from technology at all. So as time goes on they get even weaker, especially in comparison to Heavy Calvary.

I've tried playing with them, modding their stats up and down,trying to find some common ground to make them semi useful. Was going to make a retinue with light infantry, archers, and elephants, but in the end i just gave up. Anyone ever mod them somehow to make them useful at all lol?

 

[LACKADAISICAL]

I wish elephants were stronger, just because... er, well, because using elephants is cool

 

[Medicine Man]

Judging from the stats elephants are not intended to be used all on their own. Other than being cripplingly weak to Charge on Undefended Flank the few tactics that are triggered by/or benefit elephants also heavily boost heavy infantry, pikemen, and archers.

For example, the skirmish tactic Grey Wall has the following modifiers:
Heavy Infantry Defensive +300%
Pikemen Defensive +240%
Light Infantry Defensive +120%
War Elephants Defensive +150%
Archers Offensive +120%
Archers Defensive +60%
Light Cav Defensive -50%
Heavy Cavalry Defensive -50%
Horse Archers Defensive -50%

And the Force Back melee tactic has the following:
Pikemen Offensive +240%
Heavy Infantry Offensive +160%
War Elephants Offensive +120%
Heavy Cavalry Offensive -180%
Archers Offensive -100%
Light Cavalry Offensive -100%
Horse Archers Offensive -100%

You could probably use elephant retinues in combination with shock and defense retinues in a 1 to 1 to 1 ratio. They probably only suck because people are trying to use them the same way they use light cavalry or longbow stacks.

 

[unmerged(779862)]

I played an India campaign using a mix of defense and steel bow retinues with under 60% archers - a 3:1 mix IIRC for 1070A/900P/30E in 2000 men. They are still awful. In fact, I had a nasty surprise in one war where AI stacks of retinues + holy order + probably some levies was repeatedly actually able to beat these retinues in equal numbers. Being beaten by a non-horde AI army is really not something I expect to see from any optimized retinue stack - certainly I never had such defeats from the far cheaper skirmish/shock mix in other campaigns.

The problem is twofold:

First, elephants are absurdly expensive in retinue cap compared to their combat ability. Probably the least effective use of retinue points for any unit. Those 30 elephants in the steel bow retinue cost you 600 retinue points - the same as an entire skirmish retinue of 500 men. Sure, an "elite" retinue gets you more punch in a heavy attrition zone, but steel bow is not exactly super elite with 470 archers either.

Second, grey wall is an awful tactic for a retinue. Sure, it looks nice with bonuses to lots of unit types and in fact it is an excellent tactic for a levy stack. For an archer-heavy retinue it is dreadful because of the poor offensive bonus to archers. Essentially, it's an upgraded shieldwall.
What happens is that the retinue picks Grey Wall most of the time which is a defensive tactic. They take little damage in skirmish, but there aren't many AI stacks that pose a serious threat in the skirmish phase anyway. Then, they close to melee where the archers are useless and a strong AI melee stack can actually beat them. A shock/skirmish retinue has the same problem with shieldwall, but at least it's super cheap so you have weight of numbers.
A pure defense stack would have fewer archers (just 40%) but it would be cheaper and you'd pretty much guarantee Volley tactic in skirmish which means you'll dish out much more damage per archer. Then, in melee, you have a strong army because the extra pikes stiffen your force more than a tiny number of elephants. Alternatively shock/skirmish mix with just under 60% archers gets you the best sieging force that can hold up in actual battles without using cultural retinues.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

It sounds like they're ideal to support lots of infantry, ideally pikemen and heavy infantry. So yes, I can see a lot of value in mixing them with defensive and shock retinues. Combined with the native archer bonus you should get a fairly good breakdown for skirmish and melee. Of course, they'll be shit in pursuit.

 

[clockworkBabbag]

I had battle with random adventurer. He had 28200 people, I had 10000 κατάφρακτοι. I also had 20000 levy 2 provinces away, but they didnt make it in time.
My best general had 20 martial, two others just 13. Battle took place in mountains, so i got deff mods.

Battle strarts:
28200 vs 10000
losses:
20000 vs 3000
survivors:
some 8000 vs 7000

Dont you think it's a "tiny bit" weird?


EDIT: second battle, my 7000 vs his 8000 - total victory, I lost only 800 people.

So, nobody's actually directly answered your question yet as to why cataphracts are so strong.

The thing about this game is that the combat favors extremely specialized armies, because of the way the tactics bonuses work. The tactics chosen in combat provide massive bonuses to specific unit types - enough bonuses to make technology/building bonuses mostly insignificant. Generals still have some influence, and the quality of a general determines whether they can use better tactics. But it's really the tactics that give the most bonus.

Levies and most AI stacks are going to be highly mixed and not optimized. Any tactics that are chosen are therefore going to be much less effective, due to some units in the stack getting penalties from the tactic.

Optimized retinue stacks, on the other hand, can be chosen to avoid these problems. The unit composition can be arranged just right to maximize the chance of good tactics being chosen, and also chosen so that no flank contains units that won't benefit from those tactic choices. Any well-crafted retinue is going to completely crush most anything except horde armies, even if they're outnumbered (I remember one time where I had one retinue of 21k hussars fend off the entire Ghaznavid invasion by themselves, with minimal casualties).

Add to this the fact that Cataphracts are actually one of the best retinue choices, even considering their cost (powerful skirmish from horse archers, powerful melee from heavy cav, and they work well together in terms of tactics) and you have a recipe for easily winning against stacks that outnumber you 1.5 to 2 times.

 

[Halcyan]

So, nobody's actually directly answered your question yet as to why cataphracts are so strong.

The thing about this game is that the combat favors extremely specialized armies, because of the way the tactics bonuses work. The tactics chosen in combat provide massive bonuses to specific unit types - enough bonuses to make technology/building bonuses mostly insignificant. Generals still have some influence, and the quality of a general determines whether they can use better tactics. But it's really the tactics that give the most bonus.

Levies and most AI stacks are going to be highly mixed and not optimized. Any tactics that are chosen are therefore going to be much less effective, due to some units in the stack getting penalties from the tactic.

Optimized retinue stacks, on the other hand, can be chosen to avoid these problems. The unit composition can be arranged just right to maximize the chance of good tactics being chosen, and also chosen so that no flank contains units that won't benefit from those tactic choices. Any well-crafted retinue is going to completely crush most anything except horde armies, even if they're outnumbered (I remember one time where I had one retinue of 21k hussars fend off the entire Ghaznavid invasion by themselves, with minimal casualties).

Add to this the fact that Cataphracts are actually one of the best retinue choices, even considering their cost (powerful skirmish from horse archers, powerful melee from heavy cav, and they work well together in terms of tactics) and you have a recipe for easily winning against stacks that outnumber you 1.5 to 2 times.

Additionally:

- All of the units in a Cataphract retinue are the same "type" (Horse Archers and Heavy Cavalry are both "Cavalry"), which is relevant for military traits and technology.

- The AI focuses more on troop numbers rather than unit composition. (If it paid more attention to unit composition, the Cataphract armies wouldn't be able to trounce the AI as much. Same thing applies to Catholic Holy Orders, which tend to have very strong compositions).

 

[Medicine Man]

hdghg: I see your point. On paper Force Back looks like a decent tactic for elephants but an elephant retinue will be more than 50% archers. The bonuses of Grey Wall and Force Back do not compensate for the archers being rendered useless in melee.

I tend to only play single-player softcore, so I have no problem editing the tactics a bit to compensate for this weakness. I've done something similar with the Norse Berserker Charge tactic in the past. What would you recommend? Should I increase the attack bonus for elephants in the Force Back tactic to 500% or perhaps change the Steel "Bow" retinue to be 30 elephants and 470 heavy infantry instead of archers?