Quote Originally Posted by stupac
With Hetairoi Katafractoi avg. generals bodyguard is around 50, and I usually can't defeat a unit of persian archers by itself
That's very odd! I've used rebel persian archers (3 units) as fodder to give a newbie general some experience, and IIRC only lost about 10 men out of the fifty-ish. Might have been an early bodyguard, too, I forget. Sounds like you're doing everything right, so are you sure you're actually on medium battle difficulty?

Chris A. T. - good point about the experience level. Though I've read that there's a big difference in attack speed giving you many more sword swings in the time it takes for one lance poke, and that this is the main reason one should alt-click for melee. But I don't have any quantitative details to know if this is true...

Disciple of Tacitus - yes. After playing in the east, even the best western cav (Equites Extraordinarii and Brihentin, AFAIK) are decidedly mediocre. Carthage might have a genuinely good heavy cav, I haven't really looked at their roster.