We didnt make inf more expensive and even increased their speed and reduced archer speed. Still archers can kite quite easy so we will try to buff inf in that regard again.
Inf is just as effective against cav as they were before, except that we removed the throwing weapons, which made the melee better, but frankly really tipped the balance in favor of cav.
We'll employ some changes to buff inf vs cav.
1) You did make infantry more expensive. Increasing the price of heavy infantry from 140 to 160 did lead to a higher price. The price increase would have been fine if a medium infantry class was introduced.
Empire
With 300 Gold Of skirmish, the player can only go legionary once and recruit. Going recruit is not as feasible and the unit has no survivability.
Sturgia
The same problem with the empire faction, the brigand also does not have the survivability of "Medium" infantry classes at this level.
As if right now the only factions that have medium infantry are Battania and Vlandia.
Khuzaits only feasible option has also been increased from 120 to 130.
The only faction that was left untouched somewhat was aserai infantry.
Based on the price increases I mentioned it is safe to say the devs did increase the price of infantry without giving them an alternative.
2) Archer kiting would work but in most cases, players can just run unequip their weapons and run away. If a player focuses on returning back to the fight the archer can just shoot again.
The problem is
a) archer acceleration should not be better than infantry.
b) The game forgets positioning as archers can outrun shield infantry. Solutions would be decreasing archer speed and not making infantry shields a significant burden infantry.
Overall the archers should have around 70-72 unit speed the same way sharpshooters are. If you notice these units focus a lot on positioning and not running away especially given the time it takes to reload a crossbow.
In a way you have to nerf archer speed without making them sitting ducks for early game cavalry charges so ultimately a cavalry nerf is required as well as a small archer nerf.
3) Cavalry
Bump lancing is too powerful.
a) Horse survivability is too high, the fact that horses can take a pila/throwing spear and survive should not be a thing.
b) Hooked spears are supposed to be the perfect counter for horses and yet they are not a thing.
c) Spear work against infantry but not cavalry. Meaning that a rider can hit a player while standing still with a spear while the player is not able to counter the horse with the spear because the hit is negated. In most cases, a rider can come right in and the attack will be ignored completely. (i am not sure if this is the cav rearing glitch but this is usually my experience)
d) Add to point C is that bump stabbing while powerful completely ignored the distance needed for a rider to hit an infantryman so at the end of the day both units are not playing the same game.
e) Cav is the most risk-free class in the game as it is the one class that does not do friendly bump damage. This means a player can just run around in a fight with a horse and bump infantry while completely negating the risk of his team being exposed from friendly bump damage.