Quote Originally Posted by Arkanin
I keep hearing this sort of thing, but if medium cavalry are unable to defeat lower-quality missile units when they are isolated and have no infantry support, when is it desirable for me to build cavalry over simply infantry or skirmishers? If their attack is too poor to beat skirmishers, it's too poor to flank even light infantry. This makes infantry the preferable flankers, too, as they have the staying power to win while flanking other infantry. I'm just not seeing what there is to get "used to" -- they appear tactically inferior. Surely the 7-8 skirmishers I could have for the cost of two units of cavalry would have fared better against the lone skirmisher unit.

Combinatorial tactics have so much synergy in this game, there is a very large range of power level a unit can have before it becomes dominant or unusable. But all the cavalry I have encountered are so far from the middle of that range that they no longer even have a cost-justified purpose (well, one or two of the cheapest cavalry to chase routers is good). If they cannot punish undefended ranged units or flank better than infantry, they are in a lot of trouble.

The only exception I have seen to all this is the macedonian bodyguard unit, which I think is simply much larger than other general units because someone made a mistake.
use other skirmishers to keep the enemy skirmishers tied up before sending in the cav. i would imagine that a unit of 40 cav surrounded by 120 skirmishers would have a difficult time not being swarmed and pulled off of their horses when there are 3 skirmishers attacking each horseman.

i hold back my cav until they can be used decisively against a faltering enemy unit or to stop enemy cav from flanking me...