foot archers are arrow fodder? They work well enough for me. They're questionable on the attack versus sauros, but superb in defense and they own all forms of skirmisher except peltasts (still beat them though).
If you find them lacking, feel free to replace them, and some skirmisher cavalry would be nice if, unlike me, you can use them.
I'll take your word on the thorakitai, although used by the Sele AI they were only a nuisance to my hai archer army.
Also, hippeis are not heavy cavalry. They have 20 def and a +25 charge, which is... fine, but not heavy. The only proper heavy cavalry to have a lower charge than that are the Iberi Lanceari (23), and... nope, it says 43 in the file. I remember buffing their armor but not that.
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