How to defeat Byz in early

[Mr White]

As others have pointed out, the swordsmen are at their best when 2 ranks deep; 4 is the correct depth for the spearmen. In this case, though, the Byzantine infantry were going to beat your infantry line anyway.

I am aware of that but I was considering the fact that their byz cavalry ( or in the worst case the kats) would charge my swords and I wanted some protecticion. All my other non-spear infantry was deployed two ranks deep.

P.S. If you ever get caught with a bunch of infantry facing mainly horse archers, a good way to weather it is to put your infantry in woods and use the spread-out formation. In this case your charge succeeded because the enemy had such low morale; it won't always work.

In my defence, the horse archers were between my infantry and the woods. On the other hand, the AI doesn't really know how to use it's HA's and a head on charge with an expendable unit can keep the horse archers busy for quite some time ( and render it almost useless). I wasn't planning to wait until they could get some shots of so I charged them with 3 units and I would send some more to surround them or to drive them of so I could reposition myself.
But You are right that in a normal situation taking on HA's with inf is not the way to go