Golden Horde!

[Jxrc]

Halberdiers suffer from pathetic morale, very slow speed and are useless in the desert IMHO. Which is why I almost never train them.

Indeed, unless they are build in a city with a reliquary or cathedral, Halberdiers are pretty much a liability IMHO. They cannot absorb charges at all and are quite likely to rout if charged head on or flanked.

The best anti cavalry flankers available to the catholics are Chivalric Foot Knights. You can get these simply by dismounting Chivalric Knights on the battlefield. I'm sure that some of the various Crusading Order Knights dismount to CFKs as well, I'm sure Hospitallers are the only exception as they dismount to HFKs.

A bit too slow to be used as flankers but fair enough. Would say that Swiss halberdiers are the best for other catholic factions than the English though. Knights of Santiago, Teutonic Knights and Knights Templar can dismount into CFK. Nice to get in the early period (and the only reason to use Knights Templars who are not that impressive while mounted) but I find it hard to use them as I should because those units cannot be replenished ... They kind of become parade units for me ....

Arbalests or Pavise Arbalests are still the best missile units to field against armoured units.

Indeed

The best catholic faction for anti mongol defence are the English. Billmen and Longbows are pretty much designed to take down heavy cavalry and when combined with Arbs and CFKs the enemy doesn't have much of a chance.

Would not use longbowmen against the GH. Not enough anti-armor and they run out of amo too quickly. They are fine against "normal" size armies but not against an "early" GH. Any catholic faction can deal effectively with the GH if you get enough time to prepare. Started an early campaign with Poland on sunday afternoon. Took Moldovia, Kiev, Crimea, Lithuania, Prussia, Pomerania and Volhynia through a round-trip with my first king and consolidated (just took what I could grab without starting a war during the following 100 years - Livonia, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Rhodes and Malta). Money was very tight until I managed to have fleets coming from the Black Sea and the Baltic connected. Due to delay in development, I was only able to build arbs and CS from Poland and Kiev in 1210. Managed to muster something like 24 abrs and 15 CS in Kiev, let Crimea with a garrison of one CS and one X-bow. The Gh showed up with about 10,000 men in Khazar (plus something in Volga but I could not see). Next turn they attack Kiev (going for Crimea first would have spare them the bridge battle but the GH is silly). No big suspense there since they lost more than 3,000 men before pulling out. Next turn, the GH became even sillier since the Khan with one single stack (my two units duly retreated to the castle) attacked Crimea while the bulk of its forces attacked Georgia (held by the Byz). I split my army located in Kiev into two, a big stack for Crimea, the rest for Khazar. THe GH retreated from Khazar while the can was routed and captured (14,000 florins well earned) after a bridge battle for Crimea ... The GH tried twice to retake Khazar but many of the MHC had already been killed and my general was five stars so that it was no challenge at all (lost 1,500 men twice ...) it just took time. Then it was 7 a.m and I had to go to work (not a great idea tio spend the night killing MHA all night but got carried away )