[mivayan]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:

So, if we compare on a nation by nation basis:

• Man: The Knight of Avalon is powerful indeed, but he is hideously expensive in resources and he is not sacred, which gives the edge to the Red Guard of T'ien C'hi if you use blessing effects. If not, the Knight of Avalon wins hands down
• Marignon: Those sacred Knights of the Chalice are truly supermen. At their price (29% more expensive than the Red Guard) they had better be. Unit for unit the Knights of the Chalice are stronger, gold piece for gold piece I am not so sure
• Pangaea: the Centaur cataphract is inferior. It has low morale, low damage, and is non-sacred.
• Vanheim: Red Guard, meet your master. The Van is probably the best cavalry in existence despite its low damage potential, because it is exceptionally hard to kill. High MR and defense coupled with glamour means that the Van can survive many things that others cannot. It may only have 13 protection, but you need to hit the damn thing in the first place. Since the Van is also sacred, it can be made into a truly exceptional unit with a good blessing effect. Add to that the cost of 70 gold and 16 resources and the fact that it can be recruited in all castles, there can be no doubt. The Van is the best cavalry in existence.

In conclusion, I find that preciously few nations have better cavalry than T'ien C'hi, and that most of those that can be considered contenders either have cavalry that is awfully vulnerable to MR dependent spells or suffer from the fact that their cavalry is much more expensive than the Red Guard.

Great list, I'd just like to add that pangeas white centaur is great. 70 gold, 11 resources, sacred, berserk(+3), 22 hp, 16 defence, 14 mr, 13 str. Spear, hoof and javelin. The berserk can be really good, increasing the power of both the spear and hoof attack.

Downside is no lances, only 10 attack, 11 prot, 13 morale which probably makes them less effective on killing rearmost archers than red guards.

I did a test of 10 red guards versus 10 white centaurs with no blesses involved, 9 red guards and 1 centaur died. Then i tried it again, two centaurs died. I think the defence makes a lot of difference in this matchup.

For Pangaea I think the overall most useful Cavalary is the Centaur Warrior. While if you are doing a broad comparison they probably are not the best for cost effectiveness, but I'd rate them in the top 5.

CWs are great too, a non-sacred 40 gold Version of the white centaur.