Hello All, and a Major Question

[vonsch]

Are you playing Portugal? If so, you want to learn to use jinettes. They are mighty fine units once you learn to use them properly. See this guide on mounted missile units for a lot of good info, but focus in on the sections on jinettes especially. In the early going they are simply battle winners, and they remain useful a long time with upgrades. They give you a hit and run force (if you need to inflict casualties out of proportion, then withdraw in strategic defense situations) that is cheap to maintain, can build up a lot of experience and become very powerful, and make great general killer units.

When I play Portugal, I use a few spear units as an anvil line, put a line of archers or crossbows in front or a bit behind, use jinettes to drive the enemy nuts around the flanks and rear, and use my general or some mailed knights as the hammer once the enemy is stuck into my spears. If you have archers (as opposed to crossbows), some aptly timed flaming arrows just before a charge crashes into the enemy unit, can result in an instant rout (and loads of impact casualties from the charge). One of those can trigger a mass rout if it's a good enemy unit. (Routing junk units is less useful, since the better ones turn their noses up at the fleeing riff raff and just soldier on.)

But, I admit, I auto-resolve a lot too. I don't play out many offensive seiges, for example. For some reason my multiple rams tend to get burned up before they reach the gates, though when I auto-resolve, they seem to never fail. And I don't enjoy the assualts on fortifications as much as more open and fluid field battles. I will play defender in a seige though, as I find I can often do better than auto-resolving.

As others have suggested, take a break from the campaign to try some custom battles. If you have a situation that's new to you in the campaign game battle, make notes of the forces and the terrain, save, go set up a similar custom battle and play it a time or seven. You'll find you can do MUCH better than the AI once you get some practice. The AI isn't very good at manipulating morale on the field. Morale is 2/3 the battle. I think the guy who said that campaigned in Portugal too.

Good luck.

E si e portugues, bem vindo!

(now back to killing the French...)

Ooops, I mean to link this thread on horse "archers"