A lot of people way back in the day were wondering what ES saw in the Tarkan, I mean it looks like a push-over when comparing the stats. Welp here's some tests to see which one is better to use for an attack. This is my trying to get back into testing so just bear with me here, since I have to have some sort of purpose here at AOKH now that I lost my nitch (and remember this is Marf, that one tester from way back when that never really got credit for anything I did). All units are FU for their time period, double checked to make sure the results are correct, and blah blah blah fuzzy stuff. If this goes over well, I'll do the follow up tests of the Elite Tarkan compared to the cavalier and the paladin to see how good the tarkan does overall compared to them, so speak up after reading this.

FU Castle age Tarkan vs FU Castle age Knight
Test 1
Knight wins with 65 out of 120 HP (54% HP left with the Knight attacking first!)
Test 2
Knight wins with 60 out of 120 HP (50% Hp left with the Tarkan attacking first)

Just for some extra info, the Tarken has 30 more Hp and 1 more armor than a light cavalry does.

Now the Tarkan vs the Knight in tearing down buildings

FU Castle age Tarkan vs a Barracks with no upgrades
Test results
The tarken took 2 min 39 seconds to tear down the barracks.
The tarken does 14 damage to the building

FU Castle age Knight vs a Barracks with no upgrades
Test results
The knight took 3 min 37 seconds to tear down the barracks
The knight does 9 damage to the building

The tarkan was able to tear down the barracks an extra minute faster than the knight could.

FU Castle age Tarkan vs a Barracks with masonry
Test results
The tarkan took 4 min and 6 seconds to tear down the barracks.
The tarkan did 10 damage per hit to the building

FU Castle age Knight vs a Barracks with masonry
Test results
The knight took 4 min 29 seconds to tear down the barracks.
The knight does 8 damage per hit to the building

As you can see, the tarken effectiveness is greatly deminished when someone researches masonry. Now onto how effective the tarken is against walls, towers, and castles compared to the knight.

FU Castle age Tarkan vs an unupgraded wall
Test results
The tarkan took the wall down in 1 min and 32 seconds
The tarkan did 21 damage to the wall

A FU Castle age knight does 3 damage to a wall

Just for some extra info, a wall isn't considered a building so masonry and architecture doesn't affect it at all .

As you can see, the tarkan is excellent for breaching walls, one advantage that 1 knight, let alone 6 knights can't do.

A FU castle age Tarkan vs a castle without masonry
Test results
The tarken does 21 damage per hit. Judging by how fast they die I wouldn't recommend using 'em against castles at all, even in large masses.

A FU castle age Tarkan vs a guard tower without masonry (at the max range of the tower)
Test results
The tower had 879 out of 1500 Hp left (58% Hp left)

A FU castle age Knight vs a guard tower without masonry
Test results
The tower had 1200 out of 1500 Hp left (80% Hp left)

A FU castle age Tarkan vs a guard tower with masonry
Test results
The tower had 1121 out of 1650 Hp left (67% Hp left)
The Tarkan did 23 damage per hit

A FU castle age Knight vs a guard tower with masonry
Test results
The tower had 1380 out of 1650 Hp left (83% Hp left)
The Knight did 9 damage per hit

As you can see, the tarkan does also very good vs towers as well.

Now here's the pro's and cons of each unit.

Tarkan Pros
Create very fast (with the patch that is)
Costs 15 less gold than the knight letting you mass more (ex. for the price of 10 knights you can get 12 tarkans and have 30 gold to spare)
Can tear down towers faster and more cost effectively than the knight
Can rip walls to shreads really fast

Tarkan Cons
Weak attack (only as strong as a light cavalry? Come on ES)
Comes out of a castle so you can't make a huge hoard fast unless you have some extra castles
Very slow attack speed

Knight Pros
Is a lot more affective against other units than tarkans
Comes out of a stable so you can mass 'em quicker

Knight Cons
Hits the old gold pocket if you lose a bunch in a battle compared to tarkans
Is slower at taking out buildings lacking masonry compared to tarkans

Overall tests summary
The tarkan is souly useful for taking out buildings, especially towers and walls. But if the enemy has researched masonry then the tarkan's only real advantage is in taking out towers and ripping walls to shreads. I guess ES meant the Tarkan in the castle age to be sort of a cheaper building smasher than the ram that can do fairly (when I say fairly, I mean slightly better than Light cavalry effectiveness) decent against units.

And for the record, I'm not saying that Tarkans are better than knights, I'm just showing you what their strong points are (so don't put words in my mouth). If you actually read this far I want to shake your hand, since most people would have wussed out and left after 2 or 3 lines of reading this (why they clicked this link and expected something different is beyond me).

If you like how this went then tell me, don't just read it and let it sink like my other tests. If I get good results for this then I'll post the Elite Tarkan or Cavaliers/Paladin update to it to compare them overall, but if this just gets 3 replys, one thinking they're in a different thread and the other positng some dumb @-ss question like "Why use tarkans when you can use knights?" (I just know some smart @-ss is going to post that) then I'll just say screw it then since it'd be a waste of my time.