The Turks

[NihilisticCow]

I recently completed the Turks campaign (VH/VH) and quite enjoyed it. I pushed on the Byzantines relatively early, and was able to take Nicaea, which seem to distract them so I was able to expand a bit more easily. I also took Constantinople before the Mongols arrived (in force....). Holding Antoich as the previous poster mentioned would probably be a good idea, I didn't, and I wasn't able to displace the Mongols from there for a considerable time. The reason I didn't hold it was due to a crusade though, which you do have to be careful of...

I found the Sipahi horse archers very useful, as they do quite well in melee too, so they seem useful in chasing down enemy horse archers while continuing to shoot at them, especially in groups. This was especially important early in the game, as my enemies seemed to have significant numbers of horse archers. Foot archers, especially the non-peasant ones also will do the job against them when they're not in cantabrian. Getting too absorbed with horse archer numbers probably isn't a good idea though, I was finding 4-5 per 20 unit stack worked quite well, otherwise you're risking a bit too much in lack of melee power.

The basic spear militia aren't great but they aren't too shocking either, but the dismounted sipahis and saracen militia (and ottoman infantry, an "archer" unit) make quite a capable holding melee force and often can break infantry lines of their own accord even without the cavalry you should be charging with.

When the millions of Mongols arrived I got rather bogged down fighting against them, defending cities with decent numbers of the heavier spears is a must (and having a production line for retraining losses), but you can attack individual stacks in the open if you're confident with your cavalry or have a good position. I did though try to make sure I kept pushing on the Byzantines and then Venice with anything spare so that I was still taking some territories. When the Mongols finally burnt out, it was relatively plain sailing (except having to be quick taking the 45 regions).

As mentioned the 3 Janissary units are recruited from high level cities not castles, but it costs quite a lot of money to get there when for the early to middle part of the game you're better off with spears, cavalry and horse archers.

ps. Artillery is also very useful for taking cities in a hurry (i.e. just turning up and attacking), though this is true for any campaign, but it is highly useful to be able to take advantage of poorly defended cities instead of sieging and more defenders turning up.