Slitherine

Okay. Has anyone come up with a way that even remotely comes close to standing up to them and/or beating cataphracts?

If they charge in their turn, they break off at the end of your turn. You never get to move again.

If you charge them, you get no bonus and they do.

So...is there a way? Besides standing uphill with pikes?

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

Pin them with an elephant - they don't break off - then panel them from flanks/rear with heavy cav.

Ha, I thought this was going to be a thread about defeating pantherboy! Goodness knows we need one.

With Cats another ploy is to encounter an idiot commander who manages to leave them totally vulnerable to being surrounded and attacked in flank and rear (no elephant needed for that). I speak from the humbling experience of exposing my guys to such a fate at the hands of Gallic cavalry and chariots. Ouch!!

Dont fight them in open terrain. Blast away at them with range troops.

Bosphoran seem to do ok. They are very expensive, use your numbers. Missle troops tend to chew them up pretty well.

Make a line of pointy weapon troops, ie spears or pike along the cats line of advance, eventually they will anarchy in driplets into your aforementioned pointy weapons.. Having medium troops or cavalry that can then flank them helps as they are engaged with your spears .... bottom line appears to be let them come at you instead of seeking them out...

edit

Also dont really worry about them breaking off, they are slow and cant move far and will likly anarchy right back into the same bad situation, hopefully thru their own troops...

Yes the anarchy seems to be a big thing with those guys. I have had a cat unit that I did not get to move for almost 4 turns as is anarchied, broke off, anarchied again broke its opponents followed up lost contact, anrachied into the routers for 2 more turns before the enemy finally died and they were waaaay off to the side of the battlefield. Once you get them down % wise they don't stand up so well. I say spears and pikes are most likely their worst enemy myself, and uphill too.

About a month ago I was preempting the arrival of SOA so i made a little scenario in the editor to simulate knights vs a pike block, I made a 6 by 5 deep formation of average pike boys (as the Ai forces) and a force of 9-10 cats, no other units, just wanted to see if the cats had a chance... basically after the cats got into range the game went on auto pilot... The front ranks of cats anarchy charged the pikes, were badly damaged, however they broke of and went back inline and then the next wave would anarchy, this repeated over and over , w me the player literally having almost nothing to do on my turn.... In like 5-6 turns of this the chain routes and disruptions started happening to the pikes and I eventally destroyed the entire force with only a few cats fragged in the end but none routed... Obvioulsy this wouldnt have worked out so good vs a human who would have simply spread out his pikes in line, flanked me etc but was quite entertaining...