Did The Onrushing Tide become easier or harder by switching Franks to Sicilians?

This is the 5th Bari mission. Where you play as castle age Byzantines, with Imp upgrades if you go the side missions, trying to hold Bari against a massive army. I beat the scenario about a year ago by just spamming cheap byzantine trash and using knights to take out any siege. Yes frank paladins are beastly, but enough pikes takes them down. Now when you play against Sicilians, you only have to fight FU cavalier, but you lose 50 percent of your bonus damage against cavalry.

TL DR: Would you rather fight FU Frank Paladins with pikemen or FU Sicilian Cavalier with pikemen? Unless someone can recommend a better Byzantine castle age comp to fight against Sicilians.