Cataphract VS Heavy Cavalry | Age of Empires 2
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ต.ค. 2024
- Cataphract is a unique heavy cavalry unit specialized at destroying infantry, facing camel units and counter anything with anti cavalry bonus. Its weaknesses are archers as mentioned in the game's info but also other heavy cavalry, which is not mentioned though, implying that it might be neither good nor bad. But is well established in age of empires community that cataphracts can be countered with heavy cavalry. But is that true? Do cataphracts actually melt under the pressure of heavy cavalry? All we have to do is to put them to the test and find out what is really true.
First lets see the bonuses of the Cataphract. For Castle age it gets 110 hit point, 9 attack, 2 base armor and 1 pierce and 1.8 attack speed. Also it has 9 bonus damage against infantry and condotitero. A fully upgraded cataphract has 150 hit points, 12 base attack, 2 melee and 1 pierce armor and 1.7 attack speed. Its hidden bonuses are 12 attack against infantry plus 6 extra attack because of logistica. Also gets 10 against condottiero. Now that we have seen the stats of the unit we can test their fighting skills. First they will face generic knights, cavaliers, paladins and more
What are you thoughts on them?
They are meant to handle swordsmen and pike spam, not to mention handle units like eagles, woads, berserks, and ofc, huskarls. For the heavy cav, you need to be using your own camels or halbs. Catas are very well designed to fit the civ, but I can see why their heavy cost, and very niche use makes them see so little game time. One of my favourite uus since AoK.
not to mention cheaper camels and halbs
But remember, due to nature of Logistica Catas work better when is more of them. I kniw it will be super late game scenario, but in numbers 40 and more for example fight against Paladin will reverse and they start to win.
@@Bzhydack did tried with 40 catas. Still lose miserably
Yeah maybe like 40 cats to 30 paladins they might win with like 15% hp
They lose to anything with better raw stats unless it has resistance to it
@@DemonAgeOfEmpires2-wf8lv I remember making this test (like few years ago) and it was like 50/50 wins. Logistica is super random.
@@Bzhydack all battles are random. If cataphracts during a battle are slightly spread, very slightly, then logistica is useless.
Anti-anti cavalry
Anti anti cavalry cavalry
At least you can see the improvement between the non-elite Cataphract and Elite Cataphract with the AOE damage and faster attack speed, but without blast furnace still hurt a lot for them (they cost too much)
@@cmlcml415 too expensive though, don't you think?
@@DemonAgeOfEmpires2-wf8lv yup, let's not look at how much RSS you need to spend to get there 🙈
@@DemonAgeOfEmpires2-wf8lvI think if the Cataphract gets any buff it should be a cost reduction for the Elite upgrade. Anything else risks making it broken.
@@morgs5118 that might be the most reasonable way.
The scenario where steppe lancer steamroll the cataracts is historically unrealistic 😁but from the gameplay pow it's totally justified
@@rumatadestora haven't they met in history?
@@DemonAgeOfEmpires2-wf8lv yeah, they did. I mean that the mongol/tatar lancers wouldn't stand a chance with cataphracts in close up
@@rumatadestora true. Cataphracts was an elite shock wave cav, it would brake formations of other heavy cavalry. Basically the opposite of aoe2 lol
Pero todas las caballerias que vimos pierden contra el camello imperial excepto una.
La catafracta
Y el camello pierde contra literalmente todo que no sea cavalleria.
these comments r so hopeless. cavalry isnt supposed to lose to cataphracts just cuz they look cool or ar an elite unit, thats not how this game works ppl.
@@raptorhacker599 don't you think they are too expensive? I mean if I play byzantines and the enemy goes infantry, I will be using FU arbs, HC other even skirmish, or a mix. Catas are no longer useful, losing to both cav and archers.
if you go cavalry, and they go pikes, you now suddenly don't have to spend armory upgrades and arbalest upgrade timing, if they make camel too.
They are an anti cavalry specialist, and they do their one job quite well. In a loosing position, they're as hard to kill as the pre-nerf sicilians, even if they lost against heavier cavalry they were the best cav civ at one point because of no direct real counter.
@@BassRukarioGuerrero by the time your opponent has FU halbs, good luck reaching FU catas..
They are too expensive to just counter cheap infantry
@@DemonAgeOfEmpires2-wf8lv they don't have to directly do it though. They are okay just curbing the potential of the pike line, remember they're still way more mobile. Your complain seems to align more with the rock paper scissors system.
@@raptorhacker599 still I think bloodlines would make bizantines perfect.
I am curious. What justifies the price of the Cataphract? Is it really just good against infantry and camels?
Answer to the end of the video question:
I am not a very good player, but I think they need a bit more armour. Boyars absolutely trash them and even konniks beat them without even resorting to their second unit.
Every Cav in this scenario is killed by Byzantine Camels (except Konnik) and Camels share upgrades with Catas, so you will basicly have them anyway.
Understandable VS boyars, but I hate how bad they performed agaisnt monaspas and leitis, those units needs a huge nerf
@@sgtpepper8581 leitis gets destroyed by hussars wtf r u talking about?
@@pillbox2079 I believe that being both bad versus archers and cavalry and at the same time being super expensive, they need a buff. I don't know what kind of buff but something
@@DemonAgeOfEmpires2-wf8lv
Well, they have good hitpoints... I still think that a bit of armour would help.
cataphracts need a buff
they got slaughtered 😂😂😂😅😅
Unit numbers should be equal
Catas need some discount and the logistics to be merged in elite version 😊😊 🎉🎉 pierce armor is weak with 1 also but i understand they need some weak spots but brutal force and archer fire are many weak spots
@@Spiror yeah, they are too expensive for what they are
if you combine catas with camels i think would work perfect vs heavy cavalry and pikes. it is then hard to stop
@@mamut1418 it's one of the best combos. My favourite when playing Byzantines.
They still super expensive for what they do(tech upgrades still very expensive as well), maybe could cost slightly cheaper or get +1 melee armor to deal better against heavy cavalry and be weak against archers only.
@@ramosfelipe exactly. Too expensive to lose to both archers and cavalry
That weakness is covered by the cheap camels and halberdiers, it's that way by design
@@morgs5118 as a civ yes.
What's the difference between equal and total resources
Cataphract its a great unit but needs a buff, maybe +2 attack and +1 pierce armor, its too expensive
I think that'd break it though, it's intended to be in a niche that's strong against usual cavalry counters, enabling the cheaper camels to both survive and cover the weakness against heavy cavalry. The same goes for the cheap Byzantine skirmisher, it complements the Cataphract's ability to mow down pikemen while covering its weakness to ranged units. It all comes down to how well you pick fights and use your own counter units.
However, I do agree that the Elite upgrade and even Logistica should be reduced since its hard enough getting a mass of Cataphracts nevermind the high cost of fully upgrading them
I think people look at the cost and hugely underestimate the Cataphract. Not a lot of players tap into Knight once they get into Castle Age, especially for civs with terrible cavalry. I lost a game against the Byzantine Hard AI because I expect it to spam trash units or camel, so I went pikemen and crossbow and got trashed by horde of Cataphracts. I could not switch to Knights in time because there were so many Cataphracts at the time and the AI also started deploying camels
@@quakethedoombringer it comes down to strategy. But Catas are expensive for what they have to offer.
Knights are the main unit most players use in castle. Even bad cav civs use knights in early castle.
You’re Greek aren’t you?
Yeap
pummeled by every cavalry available in the game and that proves that they are not a powerful cavarly specially with that price of them 😀😀
u know they r an infantry specialist right? cavalry is supposed to be a direct counter to them
@@raptorhacker599 yep yep for sure but as a cavarly it is not cool to be taken down that way ..... that what i meant 😊😊
@@abdelrahmantarek8161 too expensive to lose to both cav and archer/CA
Cataphract: by defintion an heavily armored unit. Armor => 2/1... They must be at 3/3.
they have hidden armor that lets them beat camels and pikes
That'd break the unit, it has a specific niche to fill which is covered by its resistance to anti-cavalry damage
:)
I think your giga-hellas accent should seriously be nerfed
@@kodacv1612 perfection