Template:AoEIIUnitsIn Age of Empires II, the Cataphract is a unique unit to the Byzantines which has an attack bonus against infantry. In the Conquerors expansion, the Byzantines can research Logistica, which gifts trample damage to the Cataphract. Without the upgrade, Cataphracts are roughly equal in statistics to Paladins; however, with Logistica and their attack bonuses, Cataphracts become superior to Paladins overall. The unit can be trained from the Castle.
Upgrades
Cataphracts can be improved by researching technologies from the Blacksmith from Castle Age and beyond. Once Imperial Age is reached, Cataphracts can be upgraded to Elite Cataphracts.
Elite Cataphract
The Elite Cataphract is an upgrade of the Byzantine unique unit. It is available in the Imperial Age once the Technology for it is researched at the Castle. Like their predecessor, Elite Cataphracts have an attack bonus versus Infantry which eliminates their weaknesses against cavalry infantry units such as Pikemen and Camel units. Researching logistica gives this unit the ability to cause trample damage to all units surrounding it. Although the Elite Cataphract has better stats than their predecessor, the overall cost, speed and armor remains the same.
- Age: Imperial Age
- Building: Castle
- Type: Heavy Cavalry
- Hit Points: 150
- Attack: 12
- Range: 1
- Armour: 2
- Pierce Armour: 1
- Speed: Fast
Strategy
Due to its trample damage, good statistics, and bonus against foot-troops, the Elite Cataphract is probably the unit with the least weaknesses. Surprisingly, Elite Cataphracts are effective against almost all units which have bonus attack against mounted units such as Heavy Camel, Elite Mameluke etc. A fully upgraded Cataphract can deal as many as 12+2 attack damage. Yet there are two very important facts about Elite Cataphracts.
- They have 12 bonus damage to infantry (18 after the logistica upgrade in castle) and area attack (5 damage to units close to it, after the logistica upgrade).
- Elite Cataphracts have an additional 16 bonus defense. By bonus defense Elite Cataphracts can sustain 16 more bonus damage dealing with enemy's attempted counters. For instance a Halberdier deals 32 bonus damage against cavalry, this will be reduced to 16. Note that this bonus defense does not work on normal attack.
- By the two points above, Elite Cataphract is basically an all-rounded unit with only one possible nemesis (the monks). It is a mixture of speed, damage, armour, an ultimate unit which can turn the battle around if deployed well, or ruin the effort due to their high cost.
Due to its good statistics and bonus against foot-troops, the Cataphract is probably the unit with the least weaknesses. To one's surprise, Cataphracts are effective against almost all the units which have bonus attack against mounted units such as Heavy Camel, Elite Mameluke etc. However, Halberdiers are still a threat to them. Never send Heavy Camels or Mamelukes into battle against Cataphracts, since their bonus attack property doesn't work against them. The bonus damage dealt to the Cataphract is reduced by 12 (16 for elite). So the anti-cavalry bonus of Camels (10 bonus damage) and Mamelukes (9 bonus damage, 12 for elite) are nullified, Heavy Camels with a bonus of 18 only have a small effect.
Countering Elite Cataphracts
Despite their bonus against Cavalry, Halberdiers are still a threat to them though Cataphracts will win in one to one combat. Never send Heavy Camels or Mamelukes into battle against Cataphracts, since their bonus attack property doesn't work against them. The bonus damage dealt to the Cataphract is reduced by 12 (16 for elite). So the anticavalry bonus of Camels (10 bonus damage) and Mamelukes (9 bonus damage, 12 for elite) are nullified. Heavy Camels with a bonus of 18 only have a small effect.
Halberdiers
Though Halberdiers do not deal as much bonus damage to Cataphracts as they do to Paladins, Halberdiers are still a moderately good choice to counter Cataphracts. It is always advisable to send large groups of Halberdiers against Cataphracts, since Cataphracts have a very high damage bonus against all kinds of infantry. The groups of Halberdiers should be managed carefully since sending them into battle sporadically and sparsely would lead to little or no effect against the Cataphracts. While dueling, each hit of a Cataphract deals a damage of as much as 30 HP to a Halberdier, but a Gothic player could produce an army of halberdiers to outnumber the Cataphracts.
Paladins
This is the best tactic to engage Cataphract army, if you have enough Food and Gold. Paladins can wipe off a Cataphract army and even go on the offensive with little effort. Even though Cataphracts have trample damage, it doesn't seem to bother Paladins. Fully upgraded Paladins have 18 Attack and 180 HP [Teutonic, Spanish, Persian and Hunnish] and Elite Cataphracts have 14 attack and 150 HP . That means Cataphracts are no match for Paladins, furthermore since the Franks have +20%HP on each Knights, the Frankish Paladins should make more of a difference to the Cataphracts.
Archers
Note that Cataphracts have lower Pierce Armor, 1+4 once fully upgraded. That should hint that they do not fare well against masses of archers. Large groups of Arbalests placed wisely can stop approaching Cataphracts pretty well. It is also good to make use of Unique units if the player controls a Civilization which mainly has Archer-type Unique Units. Groups of Elite Longbowmen, backed up with some inexpensive units like Halberdiers would produce some amazing results. Other than Longbowmen, units like Chu-Ko-Nu, Korean War Wagons, Mayan Plumed Archers with backup would be a good combination to take out Cataphracts. Mongol Mangudai, or Heavy Cavalry Archers formed properly would also make fresh meat out of Cataphracts.