Boyar tactics against mobile enemies

[Ludens]

Re Ludens: I believe the Trebizond archers use compound bows, which should give better range and penetration than the conventional short bow.

In history, yes, in game terms, no. There is no such thing as a compound bow in the game. You can check this in projectilestats.txt (strangely, there is a mounted longbow, but it is not used as far as I know, and I really don't understand why it is added). However, at least one mod (Medmod v3) has added compound bows to the game.

And I notice I completely forgot to mention light cavalry in my reply to the original post. Steppe cavalry are off course essential to the balanced Russian army. They are top notch light cavalry: fast and deadly.