after playing as catholics for the past few times, i am really enjoying having my only worry about the pope being if i want to kill him or not

so far i quickly teched up marrakesh to provide catapults, i didnt really tech up anything else in any city besides ports to increase trade. i then just pumped out militia and arab cavalry in my iberian cities< i was able to make crossbows in cardoba, but i dont remember if they were available at the start>

i quickly sacked lisbon after i had enough to storm the gates with sizable manpower advantage, after healing up from that bloody battle i rolled in 2 units of my new catapults from marrakesh and was off to toledo <i was supposed to take valencia for a mission, but the sicilians (annoying buggers) got there first, and seeing as i didnt want trouble on my coastlines in africa, i let them be> i kept a constant stream of militia, crossbows and horses pumping out of my cities

my catapults and 2 ballista i had were the heroes, toledo's awsome castle fell to me easily, i repelled the last portugese army from here with a lucky? flaming catapult missle which killed the king and the faction turning pamplona rebel.

my second army took a poorly defended leon, zaragoza fell to my huge army with the catapults and ballista (note: experianced ballista put down enemy like crazy. one unit had like 225 kills in a battle)

i thought the spanish were done besides maybe a wandering king in french lands but before i took pamplona a full stack spanish army showed up. i attacked them, as the battle started i was at the bottom of a very very large mountain...looking up at my enemy, like a miracle i found a pass up to the top at the very edge of the map and rushed my men (minus my beloved catapults) up it, barely beating the spanish to the highest point and charged down routing them and capturing about 400 men+a prince (wheres the damn king) and killing the rest, i lost no more than 20 men. thank god for 30 year old 9 star generals.

now i am about to get the sicilians out of here and i am set to take islands from sicily and get saucy with egypt, cuz they are getting too powerful and need to be checked

my best advice would be make catapults early and assault cities after u have 2 ladders, the cost of repairing walls after u take the city seems far cheaper than lost time


i found the last of the spanish living in huts up in normandy, trying to decide if i sail up there and burn the city or not