How to handle Moors

[Diablo del Sur]

Hello, I recently started a campaing with Portugal (SS6.4, RealBadAI5.1, RR/RC, longer asimiation, BGR II, Vh/Vh, Savage AI, Late Era), and I'm having a hard time fighting the Moorrs. At first at least, they bring HUGE full stacks, with 4-5 Desert Archers, 2 Horse Archers and rest with Heavy Infantry and Spearmen, and is really hard to defeat them without having my entire army killed.

The thing is, that my Army has almost no cavalry, except for 2-3 units of Jinets and the General, and also, the only decent infantry (Light Men at Arms) ir very difficult to train, so I have to use Spearmen as my only infantry, and they SUCK! I try to use as much Levy Archers, Crossbows, and Javalin Men, added to some Artyllery in order to kill the enemy while arriving, but, in the end, the enemy infantry ends up killing mine, and fighting against my Missile Units.

Can you give me some advice on this? I'm not veeery good at map battles

[The Source]

ally with the other iberian factions or sicily so when you are at war with the moors, there is a higher chance they will attack them also. on a side note, build up for roughly 20 turns so you can get better trade,diplomacy,military and allies

[Brunotaurus]

Did you try asking the pope for an early crusade at Granada? It reduces their cavalry spam while also giving you the opportunity to get another good early castle and recruit some HI as mercenaries. Wait a few turns for the other catholics to bring their stacks in and with good fortune 1-2 catholics continue their war against the moors after capturering Granada. With Aragon at least i saw Genoa and Sicily taking 3 and 2 regions from the Moors and quickly wearing them down.

I have no clue though how BGR II effects the game as i haven't tried it yet.

[Ichon]

Moors fall fast if you go to N Africa by sea. If you fight your way over land towards Cordoba its more difficult but can be more fun.

[Mr Stereo1]

Moors fall fast if you go to N Africa by sea. If you fight your way over land towards Cordoba its more difficult but can be more fun.

This.

Although I think that sub-mod you're playing with alters the experience significantly, I spammed spies and assassins while playing as Castille and built up their experience and drove the Moors into a frenzy by constantly sabotaging/assassinating their buildings and generals. When they got forces together to attack me I called a crusade (Pope was bribed and my priests were fairly pious since I could dispatch them to Muslim provinces just next door to get some good traitrs) on Granada to get some support, and got most of my spies/assassins and mobile forces onto ships...

North Africa is a big place if you don't have ships, and once my fleet established naval superiority, it was very easy to storm all the lightly defended settlements with the help of my experienced spies.

[Knight of Heaven]

I recently been playing with Portugal, early era H/H, and at the start i was in a very bad position, only had Lisbon and Oporto, And very early stages, only could recruit spearmen with very limited numbers, and castle units none. Only peasents. The good thing it was my mailed Knights. The ones who could tip the balance. anyway, my salvation was a crusade i called to silves, so i could recruit crusader units Knights and one spearmen. I had to recruit Peasents to bolster my only stack too. And amazingly in battle with only one stack i defeated several Moorish stacks. The knights were crucial, with charge and run tactics. i eventualy captured Silves with a Heroic battle, and then badajoz ( Seville)with another heroic one, after that i was able to negotiate a cease fire, trade rights and they give me Toledo as compensation for starting the war. :p it was good becouse toledo was already a castle and with very high population soon i could upgrade to fortress. after that was much more easier,to recruit troops. But early one was very hard becouse i couldnt recruit units in none of my cities.
recently i called a crusade to granada, and conquer Cordoba in the process, épic battles in the meanwhile since the Moors had always alot of stacks, with alot of troops. They have only Murcia their last stronghold in Ibéria. Also The Sicilians conquer most part of North africa ( tunis and such) Genoa conquer valencia, and i saw several sicilian armies in ibéria trying to conquer Murcia, but they got prety beat up. The moors only have 4 regions left Murcia, marrakehs, Fez and melila

[Diablo del Sur]

I was saving the crusade for a bit onwards... is just Turn 7. But I already managed to get Sevilla, and I was in some trouble, since they were besigeing both, Sevilla and Silves. So I called the crusade (no religious units to hire ) and, with the increasing of moving points I could free both regions, even thought Silves was reaaaaaaaallly hard, because the had a complete and superior full stack. Now, my next steps is make an other general join the crusade, take Cordoba in the way, and then, when some other nations get to the peninsula, go for granada.

I hope the crusade lasts some turns, so it gives me the possibility to build up my economy with the free upkeep!

I'll tell you later about this, when its resolved.

BTW: Is there a way to prevent the General from the reinforcing army to just go in front of their army and crush into the enemy lines? Because im having that problem sometimes, and in order to help him, i have to sacrifice some of my precious Jinets, for him not to crush against enemy Spearmen

[Knight of Santiago]

Make sure the AI control box for reinforcing armies is unchecked before the battle starts.

[PerXX]

Make sure the AI control box for reinforcing armies is unchecked before the battle starts.

Also, even if the reinforcements are controlled by the AI, you can still sort of order them around, if you click the generals icon in the top right corner, you can select Aggressive, Defensive and Shoot-out stance, as well as when you have the Generals Icon highlighted you can order the entire reinforcing army to move to a specific place on the battlefield. The AI might override the order though...

[Diablo del Sur]

Also, even if the reinforcements are controlled by the AI, you can still sort of order them around, if you click the generals icon in the top right corner, you can select Aggressive, Defensive and Shoot-out stance, as well as when you have the Generals Icon highlighted you can order the entire reinforcing army to move to a specific place on the battlefield. The AI might override the order though...

Thank you for the help. In which of those three stances does the AI works and perform better? I've noticed that when I put shoot out, infantery somehow gets left behind and missile units go in frot, sometimes engaging in melee combat, but when I use the other two, infantry enven, the good one, gets HUGE casualities without killing a lot of enemys...

Any advice, other than to practice in order to control both armies myself?

[PerXX]

Thank you for the help. In which of those three stances does the AI works and perform better? I've noticed that when I put shoot out, infantery somehow gets left behind and missile units go in frot, sometimes engaging in melee combat, but when I use the other two, infantry enven, the good one, gets HUGE casualities without killing a lot of enemys...

Any advice, other than to practice in order to control both armies myself?

If the combined forces of the main army + the reinforcing one(s) are less than 20 units, I'll just disable the AI and opt to control all of them myself.

If the armies combined are more than the 20 units, I'll usually select the defensive stance, and then order the army to join up at or just behind my own army, trying to delay actual combat until my armies are united. Once the actual combat breaks out, I'll then put them on aggressive stance.

That's of course if the two armies are spawning reasonably close to each other. IF they spawn on the other side of the enemy, I'd select defensive stance, and have them position themselves behind the enemy, but not close enough for actual combat, so that once the fighting starts, they can attack the enemy from behind.

No matter what you do though, be prepared for the AI to do something stupid

[Diablo del Sur]

If the combined forces of the main army + the reinforcing one(s) are less than 20 units, I'll just disable the AI and opt to control all of them myself.

If the armies combined are more than the 20 units, I'll usually select the defensive stance, and then order the army to join up at or just behind my own army, trying to delay actual combat until my armies are united. Once the actual combat breaks out, I'll then put them on aggressive stance.

That's of course if the two armies are spawning reasonably close to each other. IF they spawn on the other side of the enemy, I'd select defensive stance, and have them position themselves behind the enemy, but not close enough for actual combat, so that once the fighting starts, they can attack the enemy from behind.

No matter what you do though, be prepared for the AI to do something stupid

I've been noticing that random stupidity, haha. Thanks for the advice, and yes, usually, my controling army is 20 units and the reinforcing is around 15-20 units too, so I'll do as you said.

One last question, is there any recomendation of composing the armies? I guess I should keep my best quality units in my controling army leaving a bit worse on the AI's? Or does the AI manage better some kind of unit (missies, cavalry, etc)?

[Diablo del Sur]

Make sure the AI control box for reinforcing armies is unchecked before the battle starts.

The thing is that im not that good in battles to control more than one large army!

[Ichon]

It depends on situation. I find AI can actually do very well with cavalry if they join battle late. AI also can do very well with a small force of skirmish HA- larger HA forces it tends to run them into melee. AI does the worst with archers- usually leaving them on the maximum range and moving them very slow if on shooting stance or even worse sending them into melee. Infantry the AI can do ok with in some situations but not defensive ones where you need the infantry to hold position. Even in defensive stance the AI will sometimes break formation and pursue the first routing enemy. On VH most enemies reform at least once before general is killed and that pursuit can cost heavy casualties.

Usually its best to control your most effective units yourself and give the AI the cheapest units or the ones you can replace easily. I did find AI can be quite effective with old generals who still have alot of HP due to traits gained earlier. Take a couple of your 60+ year old generals and give them to AI with some mercenary heavy cavalry. I've seen AI break enemy army by itself with just those forces. Not as efficiently as I could but in battles where you are facing 3 enemy armies it can be handy to let AI loose on 1 smaller army while your forces focus on the other 2. The AI with cavalry can sometimes completely break the other army or at least badly damage it as long as the enemy doesn't have lots of heavy cavalry or AP units.

Aggressive stance usually means all out AI attack- don't use it until you don't care if AI does not obey commands.

Shooting stance- usually only effective for HA cavalry as they can retreat quickly enough. Infantry archers tend to not move at all or move too close.

Defensive stance- the most useful stance, AI generally obeys and holds position. If AI has archers you can move them up to support your other army and the AI will put them on fire at will so it is actually more useful than shootout stance most of the time. If the AI does attack most of the time you can order it back into position. However this stance is almost useless for cavalry except to make the cavalry hold position before ordering aggressive stance and all out charge.

[Diablo del Sur]

Thanks Ichon for the very good explanation!!! I'll try to make my way out against 2 full stacks of Moors!

Rep+!

PS: Whats rep for? lol!