Early in my campaign as Spain (my first) I had just forced France to pay me for a cease fire. I accepted because I was rather stretched out and wanted to build some infrastructure up and I had just completed my objective of taking all the provinces on the Mediterannean from them. I had an army beseiging Dijon under the command of a general Vaasco when the ceasefire was granted.

The very next turn however Milan laid seige to my newly captured Marseilles. I had a pretty good garrision (maybe even a depleted field army, can't remember) so I wasn't overly worried about that city. Milan to this point had all of northern Italy, Berg and two or three provinces in central Europe.

I sent the Vaasco's army in Dijon through the Alps to assault Berg, which was the only province connecting Milan's northern holdings to the Italian holdings. I captured Berg without an issue but my army wasn't strong enough to hold it and I was competely cut off from my other territories. I then moved the entire army from the fortress into northern Italy (just inside the border) and had my diplomat in Rome gift Berg to the Pope. This resulted in all of Milan's northern armies being cut off from Italy as they could not go through the Papacy's land.

Unfortunately this meant Vaasco was surrounded by three decent sized Milanese armies two turns away from reinforcements. The good news (i thought) was that they were mainly militia, the bad news was that Vaasco was outnumbered 3-1. When the battle commenced one army was on the right, one on the left and the largest right in front.

Although I prefer a defensive or methodical approach I could not fight this way as Vaasco's army would be encircled in short order. The Jinettes (I had 4 understrength squadrons) were sent around the back of the enemy in front and I ordered a general advance of all my infantry and heavy cav. Milan's main army began routing after a few tense moments but I did not pursue as I needed to reposition to deal with the two other armies that were now almost upon Vaasco.

One of the armies was mainly Genoese crossbowman and artillery and the other a fairly balanced force, although it was short on cav. I sent my remaining Jinettes and some heavy cavarly to engage the crossbow army and my dismounted knights lined up to face the other army along with my artillery (undermanned trebs and ballista).After several tense minutes, and a lot of cavalry micromangement, both remaining Milanese armies began to route. I don't remember the final tally but it was a heroic victory.

I managed to get Vaasco's army out of Milan to retrain and eliminated Milan from Northern Italy fairly quickly as all of their castles in Germany were cut off from the oh so rich cities in Italy.

It's my fondest moment due to the initial strategic coup and the resulting heroic victory (my first). I still have a two of those units of Jinettes 100 years later (gold chevrons). I also finally got around to eliminating Milan (and France) recently.