Cataphract question regarding availabilty

[Redmeth]

Thank you for your appreciation!
Well at the start I used almost all cavalry units (Aorsi Riders, Sauromatae HA, Roxolani and a few nobles mostly Sauromatae and Aorsi the Roxolanii nobles need the highest kind of court and are weaker than the Aorsi nobles)
I did use some Scythian foot archers because the Sarmatian ones I can recruit in only 2 cities (I mostly chose nomadism but I think their area of recruitment should increase also)
The Hai were the first to attack me while I was expanding at the Eleutheroi's expense and really had some great battles taking the two Crimean cities and finally Olbia . I managed to take the Hai out as they only had 4 provinces (and their mines really really helped)
I had a hard time in the beginning against Parthia but it was fun (looking back after all these years of AS phalanx-dancing) those Grivpanvar were really nasty but the Parthian HA semi-cataphracts were the worst enemies I faced second to a phalanx army with a lot of Syrian archers and a few Catas (the Toxotai Syriakoi's armor really makes things hard for my HA to win archery duels)
After grinding it out with the Parthians I isolated them to Phraaspa where they held on for about 10 years before I decided to end their shame
If you look at the map you'd be surprised to know that I never fought Baktria the AS did that they were down to Taksashila which they held on to heroically and gained the other province by rebellion I'm at peace with them but their time is drawing nigh.
The Saka were good neighbours and had Marakanda, Bin-Kath and Sulek in their mini-empire (Gava-Saka I took from the Parthians)
In my battles with them I lost a major one because they had like 6 generals in one town and those Saka cataphracts are very tough the Saka Riders and Saka nobles are very good HAs because of their armor. Their foot archers seem good even better than mine (maybe they had more exp not sure) but I'm annoyed that they share the skin with the Scythians. The Lancers I found quite weak as my HA executed Parthian-shot after Parthian-shot on them as they tried to engage. I used merc phalangites from Baktra against the Saka Catas and overwhelming HA ended their small kingdom (large in square metres but...).
Well after reaching Galatia their great wild men became regulars of any invasion force and the Kluddolon are good hold the line type of guys.
Never used the Voinu as I did not expand west and certainly did not want to trouble the Getai (I'm a bit biased here )
Now the Maks are putting up a good fight.
Also I'm playing with my money-script it really helped when I was bored by the endless armies of AS (I did not make them pushovers, they are still recruiting mercs and building some elites but not every turn in every city a new elite)
It can be found here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83349
Excuse my self-promotion but I'm really trying to get the attention of EB members to maybe steer my ideas in a better direction, although I'm happy with it. (This campaign was started without the script I inserted ~215 BC since Carthage already had 1,5 million mhai)
If you have any more questions regarding my campaign more specific I mean I'd be happy to answer.
P.S. Any plans to reduce the distance penalty to order I'm playing VH/M and the unrest on VH I think is higher and coupled with the distance penalty makes a bitch out of governing the outlying provinces especially the steppe ones as I had to bring eastern skirmishers from the Hai lands because all my eastern steppe lands were nomadic and I had not expanded to Baktrian lands.
Instead of letting them rebel and re-exterminating them I used add_population negative not often and in small amounts but I imagined it as if I was sending some trouble-makers to tend to my horse herds.