Is Kingdoms more Challenging?

[Delwack]

I think one of my problems with leaving troops "at home" is I always feel I could be putting them to better use by conquering my enemy's territory even faster, being able to take on more of their soldiers at once, and pushing in futher and faster than I could if I left them on garrison, so I have a nasty tendancy to move all these "cheap, poor units" out to my front lines, once against leaving my cities as poorly defended as they were before. I never seem to have enough troops on my front, ever. Then again toward the end-game of most america campaigns, I am sieging multiple cities with multiple stacks at once, so I suppose I only have myself to blame.

I do get financially strapped as new spain during mid-campaign, I like to abuse large armies of mercs as cannon fodder. When I played as the apache however, I found in many cases I could have nearly limitless armies and not even bat an eye at unit upkeep. (30 per unit? oh yeah, train more units!) I tend to be more of a blitz-style player, which makes me very offensive minded on the campaign map. I should probably be a little more defensive minded since if a faction that doesn't share buildings with me takes over the city, all my buildings get razed to the ground, which turns a good production center into a now-useless city.

[CannonBall]

Just got Kingdoms and playing Crusades Byz M/M. Cash was not a problem even early on, the AI was a little bit more aggresive, the battle AI still the same stupid moves - predictable. Right now turn 50 and Mongols showed up South of Bagdad, Turks are getting slammed from Antioch, Byz, and Mongols and on their way out. Taken almost all Turk terrritories, except Bag, Tak, and 3 more I can't see yet. Planning on war w/ Antioch and they have full stacks everywhere w/ those cannons sepulcher units. I think Antioch is probably going to be the most challenging. I've got 7 full stacks surrounding their territories waiting for hammer to fall, may have to start assault early as Antioch is countering my stacks w/ units from inside their territory. Like the mongonels except too inaccurate, stupid things explode right on my own units.

When Venice showed up in Constantinople, that was a pain, but they walked around for 8 turns before I got tired waiting for them to do something and attacked them. That took out 1/2 each of my 2 stacks.