In an army vs army fight when there's 300 horse archers running about against your factions more balanced army it's just a constant barrage of arrows.

With RBMs drastically reduced shield hitboxes the arrows just whack your infantry in the face and legs. God forbid you're playing a faction with lots of smaller circular shields.

If the horde of horse archers gets around behind they delete your archers in about 2 volleys.

Cavalry can kind of fight against them but no faction builds enough cavalry to take on the horse archers. Plus many of them have large shields on their shoulders which can block melee hits. Meaning many hits they take in melee get autoblocked while they still have their bow out.

I think the Saka faction needs less horse archers in armies, those shields removed and maybe even way less ammo on them. They should have more regular cavalry. As even an army of about 700 they'll only have a handful of around 30 regular melee cavalry.

They've got far too many horse archers for RBMs mechanics. I don't mind RBM however it's reduced shield hitboxes make fighting large armies of Saka impossible without janking their AI into a corner of the map. Even when you outnumber them and have more veteran troops. Have to autobattle with send troops just to win.

I know balance is WIP but I hope these are helpful suggestions. So you don't have to go through the pain of trying to fight them as the Kanicians.