gollum, when I did the tests I also noticed the thing you said about the heavy cavalry running back and forth in two of the fights, and now that I think of it, it's pretty sure that did have something to do with the outcome of the battle. It looks to me that both tests show that when the camels and heavy cavalry are evenly matched, the camels can cause serious trouble to almost all types of cavalry. I would imagine based on the results that if you would make the heavy cavalry use some of their stamina before entering the battle the camels could stand out pretty well and maybe even manage to defeat Templars or some other high class heavy cavalry.

Thanks for your further researching, those results might be very useful for me since the Egyptians have huge numbers of camels standing by my borders just outside Palestine. Looks like I'll have to keep my cavalry far away from those camels, I'll be using my spearmen and archers mostly.

@Glenn, from your description it sounds that you could manage to take down the French, but as they are more developed than you, it might prove quite costy. If I were you I would propably take a short break from fighting and modernise my armies, and after that strike the French from a large front at once. Try to attack as many provinces on the same turn so that after the battles (which you hopefully will win) they will have as few provinces to regroup themselves as possible. This way you can then isolate them into small "pockets" and defeat them much easier.

You said you have 3800 men standing in the pyrenees, are all those deployed in Navarre? If that is so I think you could cut the garrison there down by at least 2000 men. Navarre is very easy to defend since anyone invading there from south France will be facing steep mountains, and you can easily defend it with a small force against vastly larger enemy forces. If you move some of the troops away from there, they are free to be used elsewhere, like at the Genoan border, or you can also use them in the invasion against France when the time comes.

During the peace time develop your economy as much as possible, Iberian peninsula has some real moneymakers and once you get a good trade fleet, you will be churning out tons of cash. Make sure you have savedsome money for the wartime, since it looks like you could also have to fight Genoa, and their ships can be a real nuisance to your trading fleets, and usually the income drops pretty much during the wartime. Out of curiosity, how much is your annual income?