I'm at about turn 110 in my vanilla 1.2 Byzantine campaign. I own northern Italy, coastal areas of the Balkans, and all of the middle-east except Baghdad and Yerevan northwards.

Caesarea is my most advanced castle-settlement. While I can train very strong armies, I'm a little disappointed at some of the units. For example, Latinkon have stats of 10/15, and despite being almost exactly the same in appearance and being recruited from the same level of Castle building, Normans Knights have stats of 13/17. And at the highest level stable I get Kataphractoi. These are very strong, 13/16 IIRC. However, these are still weaker than Norman Knights, except perhaps their armoured mounts giving a slightly higher mass value.

And while Vardariotoi kick @$$, and are available very early on, I would have thought some Kataphract Archers would have been brilliant for the Byzantines.

And despite the Byzantines historically having excellent spearmen, the Byzantine Spearmen unit in game is poor, equal only to the basic Sergeant Spearmen of western factions. I've had trouble holding bridges against the Mongols with them, not as issue in my Venetian campaign. Looking at other melee infantry, I think CA may have been aiming at creating sort-of proto-legions, and while Dismounted Byzantine Lancers and Byzantine Infantry are cheaper than Dismounted Feudal/Chivalric Knights, they are significantly poorer troops.

In terms of missile units, the Byzantines do get strong HA early on throught their Byzantine Cavalry, and Vardariotai are superb. But for their infantry units, while Byzantine Guard Archers are very strong archers, they still struggle against western crossbowmen or longbowmen etc.

It seems the only redeeming feature the Byzantines military has is its Varagian Guard. Stats of 20/15 look very promising, although I've only just recuited some and am currently shipping them off to the battlefront in Italy, where the Papacy and a very strong Milan are snapping at my territories.

Having been distracted by the Mongols and a tough but fun campaign so far, I've finally got a nice organised army, on its way from Caesarea to Rome. Composed of:

1x General's Bodyguard (+1 armour)
3x Kataphractoi
6x Vardariotai (+1 armour)
4x Varangian Guardsmen (+1 armour)
6x Byzantine Guard Archers (+1 armour)

Looking forward to steamrollering southern Italy (held by Papacy) and the surrounding islands...