Obviously the ancient cavarly isnt better than the medieval but in every battle the cavarly has to be important dont you remeber that alexander win all his battle with the" hummer and the anvil " dont you think that the hummer is the most important? . and remember in medieval cavalry the impact was strong but with all de armor the horse and the knight were so tired , and remeber that in de medieval age who have horses was the rich poeple not everyone... that makes the cavalry so dessicive , becuase the ordinary people hasnt the equipment necessesary to hold on a cavalry attak ! . so i think that maybe isnt necessary to toned down the cavarly if you want a more realistic battle you need to :
1- investigate about what units hold on the calvary ( spearmen wolud be more effective against cavarly ) like the javelins are effective agains the elephants and chariots
2-when the cavarly attak the firist line of the horses wolud die and the horsemen fall and die or continue fighting like infantry and the firs line of infantry if thay are simply soldiers no bonus calvalry they die at least two of his entire lines just in the impact , but if they are spearmen they must to hold on and die only the first line
3-the spears didnt break in the crash that makes the palahnx ( in the rtw and eb) invulnerable and they didnt separe his lines in a unlikely territory like mountains or forests when they sholud be separe and vulnerable to the normal infantry.

----- my final point is : if you want the game realistic make the calvarly dessicive (that's why they are always the half number of the infantry) and think in my point about phalanxs


what do you think?