sometimes after reading the forums, i think that people only want civs to have very clear identities and not have flexible civs. One of my biggest complaints of newer civs is that they arent flexible enough (shu and wei are the most obvious examples now).
Knights are quite an important part of their strategy many times with their fast up from market abuse. Also they have been indirectly nerfed a few times already (ie. they are good vs calv civs and everyone is playing melee, their market got nerfed and their transport bonus also is kinda obsolete.
Fell to a market propelled knight push, did ya? Steppe lancers would be a LOT scarier.
Because Hindustanis are a rebuild of the old Indian where the designers tried to fully replace the knight line with the camel line - more peirce armor, building damage, and a third upgrade, but not even knight access. That it sucks is besides the point.
I used to refuse making knights as Saracens for historic style points only. But I guess the same can be argued about Berbers. Removing knights will surely nerf Saracens and I donāt know how to compensate.
If people are so caught up in the name, then the line could be renamed to not be so Eurocentric (though some people arenāt big fans of touching Ensembleās work. As for the unit design, people have been suggesting/requesting regional skins for units other than monks and trade carts. The devs could finally comply.
I donāt think itās necessary. Saracens also had heavy cavalry, which is what Knight represents. The uniquely European political/nobility aspect of the Knight has no weight in a war game. Skins are another story, though.