I remember when I made the blunder to use halberdier mercenaries and varangians in my High era campaign (Hard) as the Byzantines against the Horde. My biggest mistake is that I planned to press the Mongols in their corner of the map in order to redeuce maneuvrability of their horse archers. It was in Georgia but it stilled tired my men and finally they broke. It was only the bunch of crap spearmen and various archer units that saved the day. I had to bear my amry being decimated by the enemy arrows. Finally, his reinforcement also ended and after I managed to hold the key position. I won by time since the enemy simply stood on his position and did not dare to attack me either. I find it fair. The casualties were 3:1 so it was OK. My general won -6 morale and made him useless. I have already won a previous battle against the Horde so it was the end of the strength of the Horde. I managed to bring additional reinforcements during the next turn and the situation was patched. But from this moment on, I won't try to press the Horde. I must wait for them and slaughter them.

I have saved some pictures in a heroic battle against the Almohads. It was really dramatic one and I could never forget the Berber camels. I plan to post in the pictures of your Empire in the near future.

Basically, I always pull in the most distant edge of the map on a hill. Then wait for the enemy to come. Basically, it takes me a lot of time to sort out my reinforcement, though I don't rely too much on them. I love when the enemy routs to send all the cavalry and the Bulgarian brigands to finish him off. With the valour bonus the Bulgarians can be good fighters.

About the valour units. it depends. Usually when I face an enemy full with archers (Horde is an exception), I tend to put lower valoured units on the field with the hope I can save the higher valoured.

Spanish are also awesome but I don't have much time recently. :P