Quote Originally Posted by x-dANGEr
A cavalry units costs as much as twice of a normal infantry unit and still loses to it. They made infantry too cheap and put loads of armor on it, making missile and cavalry almost useless.
Well, preferences vary. When I was referring to a good balance of arms, I meant one where the relative effectiveness in the game corresponded to that in history. We all may have different views about the history, but to me BI seems pretty reasonable.

I remember in pre-BI RTW, as a Roman faction, I could rout other full stack Roman armies with just auxiliary archers on a hill - they were like machine guns, cutting down swathes of hastati etc. As Carthage, my cavalry alone could destroy full stack Roman armies. Cavalry and archers were just too powerful, IMO. It was the age of the heavy infantry, afterall.

I think BI gets it just about right. I've played a fair amount as Roman factions and I will always take 3+ archers if I can. They are not useless. The battle may be decided by other arms, but the archers reduce my casualties and give my heavy troops a slight, but useful, morale edge. I find cavalry often decisive - far from useless - if used in what I take to be a historical manner - ie thrown into a fray at the critical point, from the flank, to cause a chain rout.

This is all from a SP point of view. I have no idea whether it is balanced from a MP point of view. The costing seems fine. If anything archers seem a little cheap, but the expensive cavalry is worth every penny. As WRE, I disband my cavalry at the beginning to save money, but as a result my battles are far less decisive than when I can afford a couple. Was it Napoleon who said that without cavalry, a victory cannot be decisive? Hoovering up routers has always been the primary function of cavalry for me in TW games, but I like how RTW and BI also give it a useful shock function.

Hordes in BI.. Really annoying, all peasents, all horsearchers.. With skirmish.. What a pain I liked the religion conflicts in BI though, I must admit.
I haven't seen a peasant in a horde. And I believe some - eg the Huns -were mainly horse archers and horse archer armies were a pain. I do feel sorry for the Huns when they try to assault a defended Roman city without good infantry of their own, but maybe that is a fault of the AI - they should just starve them out.