Playing as the Moors?

[Faeelin]

Hi, I was wondering if someone could give me advice.

I'm doing fairly well with the Moors; it's 1265, I've taken Sardinia, and eliminated Portugal and Aragon. I did a quick dash and sack of Rome before scampering off, to boot.

But it seems like as time goes on and the Europeans get more heavy plate, I will be in trouble. Is there anythign I can do?

[Goofy]

Hi, I was wondering if someone could give me advice.

I'm doing fairly well with the Moors; it's 1265, I've taken Sardinia, and eliminated Portugal and Aragon. I did a quick dash and sack of Rome before scampering off, to boot.

But it seems like as time goes on and the Europeans get more heavy plate, I will be in trouble. Is there anythign I can do?

Do you have a screenshot to post here? It would make things more simple.

[Faeelin]

Do you have a screenshot to post here? It would make things more simple.

A screen of what?

[Goofy]

Screenshot about your campaign status so it would be easier to give advice.

[XICenturionIX]

Invest in training AP units if the heavier armour is the problem.

[InsaneHanz]

Try to get citadels as fast as possible. Try to fight most of your battles in the open so that you can take out their heavy infantry with cavalry. If you take out Sicily early, Italy will be easier to take.

[Tyrenia]

What difficulty are you playing? In Hard, the AI gets Citadels & Fortresses much more quickly than you, so a good tactic if you are in need of one is to wait until the AI upgrades one of theirs, then take it, or, give one of yours to another faction, wait for them to upgrade it, then trade back for another province.

Simple.

As for playing the Moors, hold out until you get Camel Gunners. These are quite good, and will help significantly as Europe gets plate armour. Or alternatively, you could take Iberia (and possibly Italy) and hold the rest of Europe behind the Pyranees (and Alps). Then go for Byzantium and Egypt, and if you're not VERY rich by then, you've done something wrong.

[Sir Walter]

When playing as the Moors, I got North Africa to the edge of the Fatimids, (halfway through Libya) Spain and Italy and just sat on it getting rich. That was in Early Era so it was easier, they get much better later on and you don't. But if you're afraid of heavy plate, crossbows and siege weapons are good, and so are high-end spearmen.

[Staffen]

As the Moors, I always avoid large pitched battles after the initial grab of North Africa, Spain and (sometimes) Sicily. At that point, enemy armour becomes a real problem, just like you said.

I usually dig in and only engage half or even quarter stacks of enemy forces near my borders, try to make peace treaties or even alliances, play the ambush game, anything to avoid (crusading) armies showing up at my doorstep.

Second, I try to destabilize (sp?) bordering Christian regions with assassins and spies. And if I have any to spare, assassins try to take out any general that comes to near to my territory.

Third, naval blockades can seriously hamper the Italian faction's economy and mobility, leaving France as the one serious threat.

And if worst comes to worst, always have javelin cavalry murder enemy generals before battle lines clash. Or build mobile armies with bowmen and javelin cavalry and play like a horse archer army: do some damage, then retreat everything from the field. It'll gain you a loss, officially, but in reality you can probably manage to destroy an enemy general and dozens if not hundreds of his men at the cost of only a hand full of your own.

Summing up, the key to survival until gunpowder (waiting for Camel Gunners before you re-initiate your offensive is an excellent suggestion mentioned above) is digging in, avoiding large battles and using every resource available to you, including navies, assassins, spies and terrain (a.k.a. the Pyrenees).

[The Noble Lord]

And if worst comes to worst, always have javelin cavalry murder enemy generals before battle lines clash.

That is extremely hard to do, you loose so many good men trying to pull out something like that.

[Sir Walter]

That is extremely hard to do, you loose so many good men trying to pull out something like that.

Plus javelin cavalry have no fear in my experience, and don't mind standing still and getting killed by slow spearmen while on Skirmish and Cantabrian Circle!

[Point Blank]

Plus javelin cavalry have no fear in my experience, and don't mind standing still and getting killed by slow spearmen while on Skirmish and Cantabrian Circle!

Next RR/RC update has significantly improved mounted javelin behaviour, including skirmishing and better throw animations.

[PerXX]

Next RR/RC update has significantly improved mounted javelin behaviour, including skirmishing and better throw animations.

Stop adding new (although excellent!) stuff to the patch! I crave the update now!

[Sir Walter]

Next RR/RC update has significantly improved mounted javelin behaviour, including skirmishing and better throw animations.

[Staffen]

That is extremely hard to do, you loose so many good men trying to pull out something like that.

That depends. If I have rookie javelin cavalry attack an enemy general while I'm micro'ing some other unit, they're doomed to fail, rout and die.

If, on the other hand, I manage to train up some experienced jav cav in rebel fights and rout chases, then micromanaging them will quite often be succesful. It's not a guaranteed win, but having 2 javelin cavalry units in my stack that will take out an enemy general in 25-30% of my field battles ... is kinda nice.

[The Noble Lord]

If, on the other hand, I manage to train up some experienced jav cav in rebel fights and rout chases, then micromanaging them will quite often be succesful. It's not a guaranteed win, but having 2 javelin cavalry units in my stack that will take out an enemy general in 25-30% of my field battles ... is kinda nice.

Yeah, but on the battlefield and in the midst of all the impending slaughter, it is extremely hard to micromanage them and when you do that it's sort of hanging in the air. I've tried numerous times, but almost always it's near to impossible to sneak in on enemy general and kill him with javelin cavalry.

[Sir Walter]

Yeah, but on the battlefield and in the midst of all the impending slaughter, it is extremely hard to micromanage them and when you do that it's sort of hanging in the air. I've tried numerous times, but almost always it's near to impossible to sneak in on enemy general and kill him with javelin cavalry.

In my experience, the only sure-fire way of killing an enemy general is professional spearmen (not mercenaries if you can help it) or seriously good cavalry that you don't mind losing a large amount of... some tough heavy infantry do the job too, but only in infantry-heavy factions like Byzantium.

[Staffen]

Yeah, but on the battlefield and in the midst of all the impending slaughter, it is extremely hard to micromanage them and when you do that it's sort of hanging in the air. I've tried numerous times, but almost always it's near to impossible to sneak in on enemy general and kill him with javelin cavalry.

You're absolutely right. Therefore, like I said, I always avoid large pitched battles. I prefer to engage an enemy stack with 2 generals and a couple of jav cavs. The generals distract the enemy units (they always make a bee-line for the commanding generals and I tend to use his colleague to draw archer fire). At the same time, the only real micro-ing I have to do is wheel 2-4 jav cavs around the enemy line and murder the enemy general.

After that is done, I charge my generals into their archers and any flankable sword infantry, then I retreat. I get a registered loss, but I also kill an enemy general and a decent chunk of infantry. I then make the 'actual' attack with my bigger stack, as the enemy stack is at it's weakest now.

The only problem is that every Iberian faction is able to field light cavalry. In some situations, the above tactic results in a light-cavalry arms race where you have to take enough light cavalry to distract / defeat all enemy light cavalry!

Makes for some real fast-paced, unique battles though.

[Lemming69]

will the new rr/rc be sheduled for release in the coming months?

[themoob]

If I don't have javelins, the best way to kill generals are with your own, after peppering them with some arrows so the balance is in your favour.