I just had a classic battle where cav really carried the day.

The setting was a BYz vs me (the Englsih) in rum. I attacked with a 9 star general and about 640 men aganist over 1500.

I had about 6 cav units in my starting line up, wit 2 more cav units in reserve. I started off hitting his siege engines with 4 cav units (2 HA and 2 Ms) while he actually came closer to my main units, which I didn't move. My cav wiped pout the seige engines and then tangled with an archer unit, his general. So much for the AI general hanging around.

Meanwhile I posted 1 HA unit outside his main troops up on a hill to his far right. I oringally rode them closer hoping to bait him, but he scared me off with several missile units. Meantime my xbow cav were peppering some of his spearmen and archers as they marched forward to meet my troops.

I decided I needed to try and engage him as 1) I am the attacker (surprisingly aggressive AI) 2) his missile troops outnumbered mine, so waiting is not a good option. I ran 2 groups of vikes at him and managed to tangle with his archers as they didn't run away fast enough and the 1 and half missile units I had kept peppering his other unts while I advanced with my men spread out to avoid too many casualities.

Back to my busy general killer Cavs, they were tired out a bit from chasing some archers off, but I brought them back in now hitting the other archers admidist the AI foot soldiers while quickly running my own troops up so that the cav wouldn't get completely annilated. Managed to rout them, though they did rally up with some incoming arbs and more archers on a hill near their flag. Ran my tired cav, uphill after them, letting them do the brunt of the fighting until my other foot units could arrive. Did a nice surround and charge, managed to pull it off, though my men were exhausted and battling up hill.

Also simulataneously, ran after some HA, nearly off the screen, my Cav were exhausted, now brought in my 2 reserve units (more cav) and chased the HA off and routed them. My general, a rk unit himself, finally gets into the action, attacking some archers on that last hill and taking out some nasty xbows that routed one of my cav units and a hand to hand unit .

Overall, the 8 cav units (9 including my general) saved the day, on a hilly map yet! Might even start bringing more of those guys, the cav were fun and hung in there.