Quote Originally Posted by Ramses II CP
The biggest problem with the Moors IMHO is that you have to wait for gunpowder to get their best units. For anything else I'd rather be Egypt or Turkey.

That's an impressive blitz with 'em though. They're one of the 'harder' factions to play VH/VH.

Yep, the Moors unit roster was just starting to look interesting as the game finished, and yes the turks are better by miles early game. Sipahi/Turkoman vs desert cav, whose your money on? I have not played as egypt yet so cannot comment

Still the desert cav are very fast, so great for when you want to make sure you kill/capture every single man of a city/castle garrison AI reinforcement when hitting an army by a settlement to allow same turn rush in.

Also, a few units of desert cav can cause some reasonable damage to marching mailed knights/generals etc, although in conflict all other horse faction units send them packing in fairly short order. I just used 2+ generals in most serious stacks as my heavy cav with desert cav support, by the time I had the moors next level cav available it was virtually all done. My general units were regularly cut down to the slim end of single figures, although I only lost 10 or so generals overall.

I again relied on mercs wherever I could grab them. I rolled western europe fairly early so only spears/xbows available. The Jihad recruitable troops are only consistant in the south and east, although a wall of Ghazis rolling down the hill into the enemy as my generals smash into the flanks/rear usually worked wonders .

My main strategy for the Moors was to fight as few battles as possible (179 wins total for 106 province), I did this by basically rushing past and attacking weakspots wherever possible, relying on secondary waves to snuff out hotspots that develop. In the screenshots above you can see at various points I had 'hotspots' at bruges, nottingham, zagreb etc ie: AI had strong enough army that it was easier to rush past and draw them after me, then hit them with a secondary wave army

An example of my 'light' miltary style with moors. My first Jihad is to Constantinople. I only send 1 general+ 7 mixed units. His objective was to capture most of north african coast+ palermo etc, grabbing troops wherever then take constantinople singlehanded around 12/13.

Ok but Byzantine has a fair bit of land to raise cash from, and decent-ish armies early on, but they are usually fighting turkey/venice/hungary by turn 10 on VH, so I am gambling on 3-5 garrison + small floating army on Corinth as they have moved armies north/east. I get 4 units.

Sieging/sacking Corinth makes AI byzantine head its free armies down towards corinth by land/sea. However, I have now hopped back on my merc cog and sped across to rebel smryna? (castle below nicea). siege/sack creates another hostile border with Byzantine. They divert armies again, and also land a small HA army and siege corinth. I ignore it.

I then step my general out of the jihad stack and grab more non jihad mercs, these are set off to cause mischief/reinforce corinth. I then rejoin stack and sail on constantinople (I always coast hop with jihad/crusade armies ie: end of each turn on dry land). As I siege constantinople with a full stack, a captained HA unit 'false' sieges Nicea to draw any Byzantine loose armies - most of their forces are 2 turns out from constantinople that I can see...

Finally, constantinople falls on turn 14 as the Jihad ends, Byzantines turn and rush back to retake constantinople, but by now I am sieging Nicea properly after a quick hop on my speedy little cog! Byzantine Ai is really dithering now so I snap back and take Thesslonica with a weak garrison before they can defend in strength. Disheartened, the Byzantines trudge back down through Turkey to their last remaining Island..

On a final note, never underestimate the power of an enraged faction leader

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So after leaving my newly promoted general to oversee the siege of london, my Sultan heads north with a loyal family member engage in a spot of falconry and see the lie of the land (ie: check notts garrison and see if any mercs in reigon, spys too slow to keep up)

Suddenly I am ambushed by a gang of merry men! I actually clicked a bit nearer to nottingham than intended, and could have withdrawn, but the 'odds' made me go for it:


Still after a tough fight, my faction leader emerges bloody but victorious:


Victory has its price...