The reason I am going so heavy on footsloggers is cost. Cav is not as efficient. Mobility means little in seiges and it costs relatively a lot. And replacements are more expensive too. And with the high unit count for defenders, it takes a lot of units. Which means paying maintenance on them longer. So I really look at the maint versus "firepower" ratio. The up front cost is a small part of the total when multi-turns are ensured.
Looking at the rosters, the only reason to use cav in a seige is to get it done fast, not cheaply. They get there faster, and if the defenses are light, they can get the job done. But they take far more losses in the tight spaces of a city than in the field. They aren't suited to the task. Though with very thin defenses they do well because they force the city square defense (instead of gate or walls) and there they have SOME room to at least attack flanks (sort of). But I autoresolve most seiges. I hate that pathing stuff. It's annoying. Very hard to even reform a unit into a different formation in a city.
But as things progress I expect to use more cav as the mobile (and destructive) arm. For things like crusade attrition and depleting defenders in the field, it's superior. And for strategic defense, denying easy access to my cities. Being able to throw cav at walls is a bit unrealistic anyway. So don't see the current thing as bad. The player does have the choice. It just makes sense, due to other factors, to choose infantry for this stage. For Egypt.
The numbers may work differently for the Turks, in which case I would force sallies and defent them in the field HA style. With infantry storming is viable. With pure cav you flat can't (though you can hire a few infantry merc units on the spot, cav is still not cost effective in the streets on the whole, at least if there are more than a couple defending units).
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