Battles - how to win big with equal numbers?

[phonicsmonkey]

No, unfortunately I'm not going to tell you how to do this (hence the question mark) - instead I'm looking for a bit of help from you guys.

I consider myself a fairly experienced TW player but I'm really struggling to meaningfully win battles in this game so far.

It's wrecking my campaigns because while I'm on top of the economic management side of things and I'm keeping up with my neighbouring factions in terms of army size and composition I keep getting my sorry self kicked on the battlefield, leaving me wide open to invasion.

It's (very) possible I might just need more practice but I thought - why not ask my orgah buddies for some help?

My issue, I think, is that I have become addicted, through many many hours spent playing RTW and M2TW, to cavalry charges as a way of winning battles and inflicting massive casualties on the enemy for very little loss of my own. Clearly this is not going to work in this game as cavalry are more realistically balanced and in the early game appear next to useless except for taking out bow ashigaru and chasing down routers.

So, would you mind posting some tips for me as to how to win battles against equal or greater odds and maybe this thread can become a tactical resource for other players like me who are having trouble?

(BTW I'm playing on campaign VH or H and battles Normal difficulty)