Cataphract vs Paladin

[Gungnir]

Which one is better to make as the Byzantines? I noticed that the Cataphracts have less armor and HP than Paladins, and less attack, so I'm wondering why I'd bother to create them when they cost more

[Mr_F0NG]

They have a bonus vs infantry in addition to trample damage(splash damage). While halberdiers still hurt, they can mow them down much more efficiently that paladins. They are a very late game unit due to the cost, but are the better option since byz paladins are missing some upgrades. If you are fighting other paladins, try mixing catas with heavy camel.

Mixing skirms with catas are devastating to infantry civs such as the Japanese. ♥♥♥♥ are normally pretty decent at dealing with heavy cavalry due to their halbs having faster attack speed.

They would also destroy goths.

Every unit has their optimal situation. If you are byz pocket in a team game and have a large knight army left when you hit imp you should really upgrade chain barding armor and at least do the caviler tech. If your numbers keep up you might consider teching into paladins. Otherwise as your ecomony expands you should really start working on cataphracts.

[Selaya]

Cataphracts have 16 bonus armor against anti-cavalry damage, ie they only take some 20ish damage from Halbs.
I think you have to research Logistica for that tho, not sure

[JoDi]

Of course a problem of the Catas is that they can only be created in Castles.

[kud13]

Originally posted by Selaya Jenkins:

Cataphracts have 16 bonus armor against anti-cavalry damage, ie they only take some 20ish damage from Halbs.
I think you have to research Logistica for that tho, not sure

No, the armor bonus is innate. Logistica gives them trample damage

[Selaya]

Right. Logistica gives more than just the trample damage tho, it adds +6 against inf:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=191310499

[Karlmeister]

Originally posted by Selaya Jenkins:

Cataphracts have 16 bonus armor against anti-cavalry damage, ie they only take some 20ish damage from Halbs.
I think you have to research Logistica for that tho, not sure

Yes. Adding to this, Cats take less damage too from Camels and Mamelukes too!

[Illidansturm]

Cataphracts has bonus againts buildings

[TriRem]

Originally posted by Illidansturm:

Cataphracts has bonus againts buildings

No they don't.

[Heisenberg]

Cataphracts don't take extra bonus damage from units that counter them (pikes and camels) and they actually do extra damage against infantry plus trample damage. They can pretty much annihilate the pikemen line.

I am guessing what you would want to do is make a mixed army of knights(/cavalier/paladin) and cataphracts(/elite cataphracts) and when your component of knights gets countered, deploy the cataphracts to clean up and have your knights deal with anything else. That's pretty much the idea - you can use cataphracts in quick situations rather than have to wait for a slower unit to deal with countering infantry.

So to summarize, you don't make cataphracts instead of knights, but more to complement them. You probably make cataphracts instead of the swordsman line. In the later stages of the game as a Byzantine player, you'd also want to get gunpowder units out as they're more easily amassed to deal with a large amount of infantry.