Faction strengths?

[ARCHIPPOS]

I prefer versatile, fast, and hard-hitting cavalry that can't necessarily hold in a melee over the heavy melee cavalry like cataphracts.

different troops for different tasks ... you can't crash medium-class cavalry on the back of a phallanx and leave it there for long (more than 5 seconds actually) ... and you can't chase down annoying horse skirmishers with your shinning kataphracts either...

[WinsingtonIII]

different troops for different tasks ... you can't crash medium-class cavalry on the back of a phallanx and leave it there for long (more than 5 seconds actually) ... and you can't chase down annoying horse skirmishers with your shinning kataphracts either...

That's why I said that you shouldn't leave them in melee, and I don't leave them in melee. The way I play, cavalry are not meant to be getting into prolonged melees, that's what infantry are for (different troops for different tasks, as you said yourself). If the enemy has heavier cavalry than me, I can charge them with my lighter cavalry to occupy them and then run over a reserve spear unit to tie them up (or just block them with a spear unit in the first place). Then I pull out the lighter cavalry immediately and the enemy cavalry are stuck fighting spear infantry. The way I see it, cataphracts and other super-heavy cavalry are rarely, if ever, truly necessary. The only situation in which they really might be is if your enemy is using cataphracts extensively themselves (to the point where your infantry cannot deal with it because in ahistorically huge masses, cataphracts are a tad overpowered). Against infantry, repeated charges by lighter cavalry can accomplish the same result of a more reasonable number of cataphracts (it may take longer though, and you probably can't charge from the front). And achieving repeated charges is much easier when your cavalry has speed, maneuverability, and stamina.

That is not to say that cataphracts are bad, they are very good units, but I just personally prefer the lighter shock cavalry units that focus more on charge and speed at the sacrifice of melee abilities. Cataphracts are like a big expensive sledgehammer, I prefer the precise (and in some cases still just as expensive) scalpel of more maneuverable cavalry, that's just my personal play style.

All nice, but I think I simply use my cavalry differently, if I want missles I use foot missle troops and have cavalry screen them. The greek psuedo-companions are nice enough, but I'm always afraid to get them into a melee. I dislike javelin cav, as I can rarely get more than 20 kills out of them with missles (probably a fault in my play style). I almost never counter cavalry with cavalry, I simply use a unit of reserve spearmen to kill them efficiently. Getting my flankers bogged down with a force they may not be able to escape from is a nightmare for me.

Take a look at the earlier part of this post (in response to Archippos), I think we actually use them kind of similarly. I can understand preferring foot missiles to horse archers, I actually find HAs to be annoying to control sometimes. I too dislike javelin cavalry, and none of the units I mentioned there were jav cav, nor would any jav cav ever make that list in my opinion. As I say above, I never get cavalry into prolonged melees with other cavalry, that's the job of reserve spears. Also, as noted above, the Thessalian and Epeirote heavy cavalry (along with the others on that list) aren't meant to be prolonged melees, their power is in their charge and speed/stamina.

EDIT: We're getting off-topic here, this can be deleted if necessary.