Welcome Lisabeanie ,

I will do my best to help you.

First thing though is to know what you are using and what your dad is using.

Second at the end of the battle when you see what won and lost list how many kills each unit got. Then compare that with how much you paid for that unit.

If you are paying lots of money then they should be getting lots of kills.

That is very basic advice.

Now for the real useful advice.

1) How do you like to fight? Make an army around that. [*] If you like to sit still then use lots of spearmen, archers and a few swordsmen/militia and a couple of cavalry.[*] If you like to attack then do the opposite... no archers, a couple of spearmen and lots of swordsmen, militia and cavalry.

2) If the problem is that all your units are running away... get braver units.[*] Go for valour upgrades.[*] Larger units that are not militia[*] Higher armour... units that take a bit to kill don't run fast... if a unit is losing lots of people quickly they get very frightened. On the other hand knights die slowly and are very brave against everything except spearmen.

3) Paper-Scissors-Stone
MTW is a bit like that.

Spearmen beat Cavalry
Cavalry beat Archers one unit to one.
Cavalrt beat Swords one man to one (ie 20 knights will beat 20 swordsmen).
Swords beat Spearmen
Archers beat militia.
Militia beat heavily armoured enemies... combine militia with spearmen to beat knights.

4) How powerful are your enemy?
When you look at the enemy unit see how many of the small triangle flags they have. Each one equals one valour... so if you see a sword unit with four triangle flags (pennants) then it has four valour.

5) Keep your general alive as long as possible.

6) Most of important have fun!