battle tactics

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

I agree, in part. I would think that the majority of players at this point are mostly playing the mods.

Darth Mod in particular, has really great AI and Battle AI - if you have played it, you know what I mean...
tactics tend to be very important and you can't just steam roll enemy with plate troops like Vanilla. Esp the AI will field massive armies with far more varied and well-chosen troops.

Sadly I would need a new laptop with more space for DarthMod or anything else new, but a variation of its battle AI I think is in XAI, which is one of the better AIs.

Well obviously the AI will never be as good as a human.

Another problem with the default AI in stainless steel is that the AI is so aggressive that it will suicide attack into your well formed positions.

Suicide attack is a good description.

A custom battle in Stainless Steel AI

[bradavies]

I use the Turks very often. It's incredibly tough in the early period with them, because all you have going for you is Naffatun and Sipahis's (although they are both incredibly tough and awesome). It gets easier in the high and later periods though, I usually just go for pure arrow slaughter:

1 GB
4 Saracen Militia/ DM Sipahis lancers (to hold the line)
5 Ottoman Infantry (Just behind the spearman line, first to shower them with arrows, and then to be used as swordsman, cause it's the best the Turks have)
4 Sipahis
3 Sipahis Lancers (I use them to counter-charge the inevitable cavalry charge from the AI, so my spearman don't get instantly wiped)
and 3 Naffatun (Spread out behind the Saracen/DM Sipahi line, their bombs work absolute wonders and can rout DFK's in seconds)

This works incredible well on Vanilla, if your sieging, just replace the Naffatun's for some Artillery and an Ottoman Infantry. It gets even better in the late period, as you can work some Janisarries into the mix, as well as replacing the Sipahi Lancers with Quapakulu (although, I don't always do this, as I love the Sipahis thanks to their speed compared to regular Knights).

[Latinkon]

I always like using the terrain to my advantage. Especially on the mountain regions where I can place my troops on top of hills with cliffs and my enemy have only one way to go up. I remember once fighting against Hungary as HRE and I charged down a hill with Imperial Knights against Dismounted Feudal Knights. I only saw the enemy unit numbers rolling down from 60 to 0. The Dismounted Knights were exterminated with a single charge. I also got a heroic victory against the Turks in my Crusades campaign when playing as Byzantium. I was outnumbered and I placed my units on top of a hill with only one way of getting up. I had 3 Greek Fire units on front of my army and the silly Turks charged up and were burned and completely routed even with full numbers. Even the foolish general charged up and was burned. Right after all my enemies were routing I sent out my Byzantine Lancers to chase them and I took them all prisoner.

"We have sent the idiot to hell!" Perfect