Quote Originally Posted by The Unknown Guy
Agreed. Early royal knights are fairly good, but not good enough so that their small number is still able to perform adeçuatedly, so I use them as assistance cavalry, rather than a pin up & smash role (althrough they can still do this at a pinch). Problem is, it´s easier to reach the building reçs for Royal knights (And replenish your offspring´s bodyguards) than the actual feudal knights. Hence it´s not that easy getting heavy cavalry. Which is precisely the strong point of catholics, and one I´m not able to exploit properly, besides. Right now I have a HRE game in the pocket mod where I´m trying to tech up, while disencouraging attacks at my borders with small garrisons in forts, and three huge armies that are nonetheless composed mainly by "scratch" troops, AKA: Urban Militia in the west, and Slav Warriors in the East. (They´re led by the Emperor´s family, however)
I enjoy playing Byzantium more. Breaking the enemy with projectiles and using Byzantine heavy cav as projectile support fits more my kind of game.


I´m thinking on switching my HRE game to an Italian one. Shipping lines might help me keep more in check the effects of my nerfing of Spanish Jinetes on the economical side
Urban militia can be decent defence troops, ironically when the attacking troops are amoured alothough weak to Spanish jinetes for example..I've won some up hill battles with them...Personally no matter what faction I play I always try to control the shipping lines, it stops your enemies from moving their troops except by land which is time consuming which in turn allows you to move your troops much more freely...I took over Portugal originally held by bandits,as caravel ships built there have +1 valour, its worth considering...the economical benefits are great I've over 500,000 florins, 8,000 profit per turn and a huge army (its important to upgrade merchant buildings though, I also control constantinople which is loaded)
P.S what does HRE and IIRC stand for, I've seen them in posts but not sure what they mean