im fed up with alone generals that kill hundreads...

[General Maximus]

I remember that once I had besieged a settlement, which was the capital, and the general was the king. I killed down his whole army, as the poor king didn't had the upgraded weapons and plate armors which my troops had. And as a result my whole army was still with me.

At last, only HE was left, his bodyguard were slain down the second-layer of the walls. I surrounded the central plaza, and began 'Executing' him by putting my cannon in front of him. I fired one volley, which missed the target. Suddenly he charged and managed to break my lines and kill 3-4 of my men. He retreated to the second layer, but my knights were already waiting for him (this was because the Plaza was already full by infantry and archers, and there was no space left for knights to come). He also managed to kill 10-20 more of them, but finally we opened the gate of the third layer, and my good old Armored Sergeants came in (I had saved them from over 200 years, and didn't upgrade their armor), and they finally managed to kill him.

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

Six STACKS of longbows or six companies?! Six stacks, good god man, I think England took a liking to this crusade if that is true!


EDIT
any who, to answer the rest of the majority of the thread (Not SoCCo, this is in general to about 60% of the posters): Either some divine being hates you, personally hates, you, and luck is totally screwed against you in this game, or you are completely incompetent at killing heavy cavalry.

Every faction has the units required to kill BG, and kill them well. It requires tactics, and paying attention to What Type of BG they are. Yes, I know they are melee monsters, but if the Infamous AI kills off more then 200 troops of yours with just the BG, then you are doing something grossly wrong. If BG give you this much trouble, I would hate to see how you handle Elephants or Gothic Knights.

I highly suggest the vast majority of people here start paying attention to the stats (Along with what weapons are being used) of the units they are facing, and recruiting. If after this you are still unable to properly kill BG, then you have likely ruined your economy and technological progress and settlement developments and are behind the rest of the AI factions, and thus it is your infirior troops (Due to you ignoring certain progressions, or managing your buildings poorly), that are getting you killed because you are using Antique troops.

So...let's be part of the solution...instead of part of the problem. .... {just using the quote, not directed at you ToD}.

So what do we know and can pass along.

1. Javlins are BG killers. Easiest from the rear or side though.

2. Once a BG is pinned with spears, apply AP units...{Axe, Mace, and what not}.

3. Massed crossbow bolts aimed at BG will thin the ranks.

4. Archer/artillery stakes will help, "if" you can get theBG to charge them.

5. Divert BG's attention with a isolation unit. Get him to chase it while you deal with his main troops.

So what other quick hints....

[SoCCo]

6 companies of longbows ( regulars not upgraded versions ). my bad.

my usual army is :
1 general
4-6 lonwbows
2 feudal/armored/heavy knights on foot ( must have shields for tanking purpose, they rip to pieces enemy infantery and light cavalery, so i'm not using units that use both hands for 1 weapon )
3-4 light infantery ( usually men-at-arms or upgraded versions, maybe macemen or axemen, same as above, must have shield )
3-4 spearmen. i use them to hold the line if i defend or as first wave of my attack just to tire/kill/rout the enemy first lanes.
2-3 heavy cav units
i use less longbows ( 4 ) and less heavy cav ( 2 ) on my offensive/crusading stack so i can free space for siege equipement. those are 1 mangonel and the rest catapults or trebuches, late i replace those with cannons. so 1 mangonel + 2 trb/cat/can

i use all my artilery ammo, first the long range stuff, then the mangonel. i always aim at the enemy general. he's always behind the main body of his army. depending on terrain sometime i change the target but i always make sure the direct line of fire is the same as the direction to the enemy general. one lucky burning bolder can kill 2-3 or more BG and sometime i get lucky enough and kill the enemy general. with the 2 siege companies i usually kill arround 10-15% of enemy units. the mangonel alone gets arround 20%. longbows next, since their range is higher than any foot archer i stay at safe distance, target the enemy archers. if their archer units go under 20 men/company i start to target the enemy light/no-shield-infantery. i always attack the enemy right side ( my left side ) because they don't have shields in that area. so they won't block arrows. i never aim heavy shielded infantery or cavalery with my archers. they are not effective. i use all archer units on same stack. usually after 2-3 volleys the enemy stack goes from full strenght to arround 50%. that's where i usually stop, as they will get more dmg due to innacurate when my archers hit the unit behind or next to that company. once the siege and archer units depleted their ammo, i charge the spearmen into their lane. close behind the men-at-arms will wait until the spearmen are about to be overrun or get low on morale. the 2 companies of heavy infantery will wait for the enemy heavy infantery to tire fighting men-ar-arms and spearmens. their charge will usually come in flanks, moving steady toward the middle of the enemy lane. this way i rout alot of troups. the heavy infantery will help my flanks and free them of enemy infantery, together with those troops they advance to the middle.
my heavy cavalery is always in reserver. 1 company for each flank, protecting the infantery lane. the king + another cav unit waits behind the heavy infantery, always ready for a charge to switch the outcome of a battle. close behind i have the archers and the siege boys, they wait to charge if the enemy is to strong and i lost most of my infantery ( sometime the enemy isn't routing that easy, or they charge with heavy cav and battle gets difficult ).
once the enemy lane is routed, or at least 80% units are routed and victory is certain i use my cavalery to hunt down routing infantery. they get tons of exp cause of that and it's best to have lvl 9 cavalery units, as their charge and def/melee dmg will improve alot.
i always have a castle that has the highest armor building constructed. i use my castles to build different units first. one goes for archery, one for barracks and one for stable. my 2nd tier of buildings of choice is always barracks as i use more melee troops and they lose men more often. the stable tier comes last in archer/barracks castles. my towns are always upgraded for income first, later for the other effects. my capital city gets the university, academy, library buildings as soon as possible. i use memeth's compilation and my generals are moved to my capital to learn and get good traits once they are of age.
i use flanking tactics, i use shock troops to deliver huge shocks to enemy units. i use AP units if i have any against enemy armored units. i use my heavy infantery and men-at-arms against enemy spearmens as they are best for that. i use my spearmen to tire the enemy men-at-arms or heavy infantery. i always waste all my ammo before i use my melee units if i'm the one attacking. i always choose to attack or defend on high ground. and i also use many more tactics depending the battle, the units, terrain, the enemy strenght.
so far i've fought about 150 battles, lost 15 in total. but trust me, if the enemy has a general or more at the start of the battle, at the end of it he's either drinking wine either dead. once the battle is over he usualy gets chopped into pieces. i send the head to his capital and i send the rest of the body to the eagles.

bit off topic, i'm sorry if it's against any rules. for those who really want some hard tactics in combat go try cossacks 2 - napoleonic wars. i belive it's the supreme game when it comes to battle tactics, but get some mods that improve the battle AI, otherwise it will become to easy once you learn the pattern that the AI is using.

[Fair Prince]

Maybe others have already had this idea before me, but what about making a new HP_Penalty trait for every general in the game?
It would reduce their hit points to normal level, so those nonsense last stand scenarios would be unlikely to happen again...

[Tears of Destiny]

Maybe others have already had this idea before me, but what about making a new HP_Penalty trait for every general in the game?
It would reduce their hit points to normal level, so those nonsense last stand scenarios would be unlikely to happen again...

Actually the default HP is now at 1 for all General Bodyguards, including the general himself (Or am I thinking of RR/RC again?). Only when the general himself starts racking up an insane amount of bonuses does it start getting unbelievable (I once had a general who racked up over 14 bonus HP by the age of his mid=thirties, finding the Holy Grail and Custom Armor and a few other things went a along way).

[cisse]

1. Javlins are BG killers. Easiest from the rear or side though.
2. Once a BG is pinned with spears, apply AP units...{Axe, Mace, and what not}.
3. Massed crossbow bolts aimed at BG will thin the ranks.
4. Archer/artillery stakes will help, "if" you can get theBG to charge them.
5. Divert BG's attention with a isolation unit. Get him to chase it while you deal with his main troops.
So what other quick hints....

I know all those things to work (to a greater or lesser extent), but I still have lots of troubles in my current campaign. I'm playing Venice, early campaign, and fighting Byzantine bodyguards and Scholarii. Man those guys are literally tanks! Three units of spear militia (two with bronze chev's, one with a silver chevron) and two units of mercenary macemen, and I still couldn't succeed to entirely kill the 32-something strong bodyguard unit. And they had been shot at by two units of militia crossbows before that.

Okay I was playing at VH/VH, but still this surprised me, a lot. I quit that campaign and now play at VH/H, but it's still tough. If only I had some javelin units!