Moorish army composition !

[hisn00bness]

Ok so I had alot of fun with playing the turks last time using mostly siphahis and turkoman cav armies mixed in with the occasional naffatun abusage.
I always felt 'right' with the turkish armies; I'm not talking about historic accuracy either ; just plain simple gameplay related enjoyment.

So i start a campaign with the moors on vh/vh. Vanilla leaked 1.2; huge unit sizes
I'm at turn 97 right now ; Spain and portugal are gone; Toulouse and Bordeaux are mine; I sack most of western europe with regular jihads for money; and give the settlements to HRE afterwards (trying to make them into a worthy opponent for the endgame); North africa is my trading hub with a merchant HQ in timbuktu; The papacy is exiled above the alps; which are guarded by three armies so that my italian exterminated conquests can redevelop; I've conquerered yerevan and trezibond in the north of turkey; using it as a field base (one huge city one citadel) to launch lightning raids into egyptian and mongol territoy. England is under siege as we speak by two christian armies (and they ain't scottish) And I just got camel gunners ^^

so far so good. The problem seems to be that I can't find a decent 'awesomely feeling and cost efficient bug free moorish army'... Take my first eastern mongol murdering army for example:



3 tuareg spearmen riders (to kill lancers)
10 desert cav (to kill kahns)
and then whatever mercenary heavy cavy and light cav I can shop for; mixed in with highly chevroned arab light cav (brought in an entire stack of double silver ones from Europe)


This is a relatively cheap army and very efficient for its purpose. Quite capable of taking on the best the mongols have to offer in the field; but

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

the only reason it is so efficient is that the AI sucks balls

I get to kill their kahn and uber horse archers because they do not have the wisdom to make themselves scarce and use superior range against my unarmored desert cav. Every time I win a battle this way against the Egyptians or mongols I feel like I have just cheated.

My newest cav army that hasn't seen battle yet promises even more cheese since it incorporates four camel gunner units.



That was the least frustrating part. But what about fighting as the moors in Europe ?
Just doesn't feel right to bring desert archers; berber or lantuma spearmen; or desert cav there so my campaigning armies there tend to use :


-4 Arab light cavalry ( I love these guys; I think they are easily the best bang for buck cavalry in the game; I never use christian guard even though they have a decent charge, they seem to die just as quick and they cost LOADS to maintain)
- 6 Granadine Jinetes (javs + armour = perfect for the bag and inevitable crush)
- 4 Urban militia (cheaaaaaaap bang for buck unit) ;2 religious jihad nuts (flanking)
- 4 peasant crossbowmen (very decent as long as they aren't being fired upon; but with the continuous feinting and harassment of the cav they have free roaming against the cav limited western factions)



Well what's the problem here you say; that looks like a very potent force?
it's DULL !!!
Every battle works exactly the same way :

1. Initial charge of the arab cav to weaken their crossbowmen; Surround with jinettes and spread out the light cav on all sides of the opponents army.

2. use the peasant crossbowmen in symphony with javelins to murder the enemyheavy cav and their general

3. empty the last javelins in the backs of some spearmen

4. run through the urban militia and the religious crazy people at the very same time as from every vector your jinettes and arabs make one last charge

5. mop up the instant route.


Any other Northern morish composition I can think off is much more dull; as if you are going to play with lots of dismounted arab cav and dismounted christian guard together with maybe some sudanese gunners and cannons; I might have chosen the HRE and played a proper western army.





Please people give me ideas on how to make the moors fun again; I was going to wait this campaign out to go to the new world; but I'm feeling very tempted to stop the campaign and install some new mods.

[Jambo]

I'm playing as the Moors right now and I sympathise with your point, although I tend to use a mix of arab cav and christian guard. The infantry castle units are totally uninspiring because theyr'e all damn spearmen in various guises. Nubians and Berbers even look the same, have the same stats and follow each other in the tech tree.

So, I've decided to mod the currently unused Sudanese Tribesmen unit into the Egyptian and Moor barracks on the castle side, removing Nubian spearmen from the Moors in the process. This should hopefully spice things up a little and give the Moors and Egypt a unit that will help them get Swordsmiths guilds.... :)