Quote Originally Posted by Ragabash
But the problem comes when unarmored skirmishers, slingers and archer kill half of my heavy cavarly with knives and branches.
I've found this problem with almost all versions of RTW - vanilla, BI, EB, RTR etc. The fragility of cavalry in the "realistic" mods only makes it more obvious. It looks like charging cavalry don't "connect" very well with skirmishers - they visibly crash into close order heavy infantry, but seem to just get "caught up in" loose formation, skirmishing infantry. The retreating skirmishers then stop and "coagulate" around the cavalry, who have lost their impetuous, and often do severe damage on them.

Some people have recommend stringing out your cavalry very thinly when charging skirmishers and even adopting a loose formation, so you connect (charge bonus?) with more of them on impact. Some have even suggested charging through the skirmishers and then recharging back.

Personally, I am reluctant to charge lowly skirmishers with my fine, expensive, but vulnerable, cavalry. I reserve them for more decisive tasks. Instead I rely on slingers etc to see off the pests, but I agree it does not feel right.