What aspects of nomadic life gave the nomads of Central Asia military advantages over nearby settled civilizations?

One experience Rome, Persia, India, and China all shared was conflict with nomads who came from the very broad region referred to as Central Asia. This region was dominated by the steppe, arid grasslands that stretched from modern Hungary, through southern Russia and across Central Asia (today’s Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan) and adjacent parts of China, to Mongolia and parts of present northeast China. Initially small in number, the nomadic peoples of this region used their military superiority to conquer first other nomads, then the nearby settled societies. In the process they created settled empires of their own that drew on the cultures they absorbed.