Played some last night (battle difficulty hard) and I'm killing Indian melee infantry just fine with company cavalry. I am even wiping out the Indian cav (I am using Mongol feint-and-flank tactics on them lol). If your cav is dying to the melee infantry it could be that they're stuck in melee too long. After I hit with a charge I almost immediately run them back out to reform and charge again, and I always use my cav in teams of 2 or 3. 3 cav units charging an infantry unit from 3 different directions = rout.

I understand your feeling about the level of micromanagement though, I don't like micromanaging them myself if I don't have to; right now I already have to deal with both light infantry and artillery micro.

If the cav in India early on isn't doing it for you, you can always recruit regiments of horse in Europe and ship them to India in 2 turns. I've never been Portugal before but I believe regiment of horse is a generic unit every European faction can recruit early in the game. With those units you should have no problem, that is some decent cav there.

I agree with you on the cav appearance. It sucks, but hey, the animations are pretty cool.