Cav way too powerful

I think Kobal2fr explained it very well.
I had 6 units of Gendarmes charge a deep formation of armoured swordsmen in a fortress and my Gendarmes got stuck, I lost almost half of them to that single swordsmen unit before it routed. Later I lost the remeining Gendarmes in a similar street battle against armoured swordsmen and dismounted feudal knights.
Cavalry might have a mighty charge, but that is what it is supposed to have, it can then sometimes hack down infantry with swords, but good infantry will kill your cavalry in huge numbers once they stop.
Deep ranks can prevent that, my Aventurians set up in few ranks also got annihilated quickly by a cavalry charge while they slaughter cavalry that got stopped by spearmen before.

To sum it up:

It's difficult to charge with Cavalry. When it works Cavalry seems to be able to smash with it's mighty charge through swords, polearms and spears alike when the defenders are not formed in deep ranks. Spears seem just a tad better to stop the cavalry charge than the rest, while pikes seem to be quite o.k. in this matchup. The Schiltron doesn't seem to help the spearmen too much, the still get slaughtered.

When Cavalry stands still it dies fast as flies, even lowly peasants can knock down some noble rider from his high horse. As far as I've seen there is little need to recruit billmen and the like for specifically fighting cavalry, the AP bonus combined with the high attack makes them similar to slower Gazhis with lower moral.

Is the schiltron supposed to give you a defensive bonus though ?

Never used it much in Rome, but I had always taken for granted that it was just a formation without flanks or back, meaning it can't be routed by sneaky cav, but that other than that it was a pretty weak combat formation really (since you lose the ranks, you gotta lose rank bonuses too in the bargain, no ?)

Something more of a desperate measure/last stand thing than an efficient combat manoeuver.

I play French, all my armies have a big share of knights (mostly feodal, french and hospitaliers). i can't get them to charge properly, but by just mass charging whatever I'm facing I usually get a nice win, at the cost of some guys lost (maybe each unit down to 75 to 50% of their original force).
So, if proper charging is implemented, wouldn't knights definitely become OP ??

I can usually get my Byzantine generals to charge properly, but every time I've done it, the general has been stopped, directly facing the enemy. I've single clicked and the enemy isn't moving. When that's happened, the bodyguard unit goes through all the steps: walk, trot, sound horn, lower lances, and charge with mighty impact. If the formation gets disrupted in any way, or if the enemy unit moves at all, suddenly the charge goes out the window, out comes the swords, and they just to running in willy nilly.

So how to effectively charge the cav?

It seems that I only effectively charge the cav once or twice as terrain permitted(flat + no obsticles)

As the Turks, I've been using armies made up entirely of cavalry with no infantry whatsoever - mostly a mix of Turkomens, Sipahis, and Turkish horse archers, with a general's bodyguard or two for heavy cavalry. I'm also just starting to get Sipahi Lancers in significant numbers.

With this composition I've dominated any army I've come into contact with. However, I did take some *significant* losses when fighitng the Byzantines. They use lots of infantry and mounted skirmishers too, so it's a matter of outmaneuvering and catching them off guard, a process that can cause me to lose lots of guys to probing charges and archer duels. Of all the soliders I sent to fight the Byzantines, I lost probably half while fighting generals of equal or greater command. Against the Egyptians though, this army composition is faring much, much better despite them having mounted archers and heavy cavalry. Those Sipahis are capable of swarming in and killing off Mamluks quite quickly.

In my Byzantine campaign, of 4 field armies, three have no infantry at all. Two of those have no melee cavalry other than a general; they're exclusively horse archers. While the Byzantine horse archers can melee successfully, they don't charge the same way as lance cavalry do. They just gallop in full speed, and have very small charge bonuses. I tend to lose more men to friendly fire from unit getting in the way of unit or charging into lagging arrows than I do from enemy kills.

I saw some movie where cavalry charged normal heavy infantry units. It is some kind of bug that cavalry must be exactly in front of enemy units, but when it isn't t (even little) the cavalry takes great loses. It is little strange.


And about spearman - these formations are good but for first cavalry formations(light cavalry units). Later period cavalry shouldn't have problems with them.