Battle Tips.

[Zwobert]

I rarely win battles, and when I do I lose way more troops than when I instantly complete the battle.
What kind of tips do you guys have?
P.S, I normally play as England, Scotland, Denmark, or Egypt.

[Entropy Judge]

Use heavy infantry or good spear units to hold the line, and Heavy Cavalry to kill absolutely everything. What are you doing that's getting you killed?

Here's someone doing a Scotland Campaign, if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPW0zTSOmg

A Scotland thread:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=414952

Unit and Army Composition Guide:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=297600

[MooseUpNorth]

I rarely win battles, and when I do I lose way more troops than when I instantly complete the battle.

1) The game does not consider overwhelming force to be chivalrous or heroic. But overwhelming force does have the virtue of tending to minimize your losses while winning battles. If you can afford to keep a very large, very clenched fist to enforce your will, by all means, clench it.

2) High dread generals shorten battles... and minimize your casulties. High chivalry tends to lengthen battles with a corresponding butcher's bill. And so learn how to terrorize your foes and how to shock them... otherwise known as the art of causing chain routs. Hammer and anvil (learn how to do effective cavalry charges into the rear of the enemy's line) works well as a general purpose tactic.

Use heavy cavalry to cause routs, and light cavalry to capture routers. Consider executing prisoners to increase your generals' dread. (But not necessarily in your ruling line, who should be crusading often. High dread faction leaders come with a high price.)

Truisms to think about:

A) Winning wars is not the same thing as winning battles.

There was a poster a few years ago that asked about a situation he'd been having while playing as Scotland. He was suffering attacks from London every few turns, and while he was able to repel these attacks, he was unable to advance. His own cities were relatively poor and non-technological, while London's tech was much higher.

He had the strength to take one city, York or (barely) London, or repel England from his own town(s). But only the one. I advised him to take London, and that if he couldn't hold it, he was to raze everything (except the church) before abandoning it to the English.

London is the island's economy. Keeping it is ideal (as you need to deal with the French next, and their economy is repairable), but denying technology and money to the foe through scorched earth is better than not denying it to the foe.

B) Strike with strength where the enemy is weak; and not where the enemy is strong and you are not.
(Corollary): A large stack isn't necessarily strong. A small stack isn't necessarily weak.

Examples: A large stack is weak when it must cross a bridge, is encamped in a fort, or is exposed to an ambush.

C) AI stacks are weaker in cities than in the field... if you have catapults and know how to use them properly.

D) All stacks are doomed in forts.

E) Fortresses all have a place where you can use archers/crossbowmen against the town square. Find them and learn how to quickly get crossbows there.

[SoulBlade]

Play the tutorial.

[spicykorean]

The tutorial is pretty bad and simplistic.

[Re_Minder]

Basics: you need most of your (early) armies to be spearmen. While archers generally help a lot, they aren't a must. Cavalry is important, especially the general's troop. Heavy cavalry is probably easiest to use, and you should concentrate on it (rather than light cavalry) till you can win at least 1:1 odds battles. Light cav is much harder to use properly. Javelins too, use archers instead, either horse or not.

So.. two things are mainly important - whether your enemy comes to you or not (doesn't matter if its attack or defense battle, as long as his units move towards you or simply wait). If he is attacking, try to find a plain place where you could place your troops in such way that enemy would have to climb up to reach them (quite an easy task when you move your troops to the highest hill and simply turn them to face the enemy... it helps if archers stand above the spearmen). The most basic formation is this:

--SSSSSSS--
HHAAAAAAHH

(s-spears, h-horses, a-archers... obviously turn off the option that makes them run away when enemy is near... and spearmen should always cover the front line so that enemy wouldn't reach your archers)

Now you have two objectives: to prevent enemy cavalry from attacking your archers or sides and to smash your cavalry to your enemies' backs or sides when they engage your spearmen. Archers... well they help against light cavalry, approaching enemies, running enemies... generally not that useful. On normal and lower difficulties they should use fire arrows. Cavalry, however, plays a vital role as it usually breaks the enemy units when it charges their backs while they are fighting. The key to few losses is routing as many enemy units as possible, so don't chase the runners if you have another target to break.

Enemy archers -> either PC is quite stupid and you can easily cavalry charge->retreat kill them before their infantry reaches yours, or you can ignore them as long as they're attacking.

By the way, if the enemy is not attacking, you have to bait them... I won't explain it, just try moving your units and seeing when enemy starts to move towards you too.

I hope this is simple enough to apply and improve your combat abilities. When you learn how to lose less than autoresolve, come back for more advanced tactics.