Professional armies

[sixwings]

Currently playing Kingdom of Leon campaign as H/H. I've conquered spain, north africa, france, england and ireland, currently at turn 200, early era.

I've never made it this long into the game, usually I win much earlier or get bored but I specifically turtled to reach the end game (I've never seen the Timurids come).

When do I start getting professional armies? The byzantine empire has grown out of control, so I sent a large chunk of my army, 5 stacks of troops, to help my allies Genoa (byz has conquered all Italy, Milan and has laid siege to Genoa). They have full on professional armies that are causing pretty heavy casualties among my troops that I can't sustain. Usually my armies consist of 4 longbowmen/pavise crossbowmen, 4/5 feudal knights, 4 spearmen, general, the rest dismounted feudal knights. I've lost A LOT of troops. They are coming with stacks full of scoutati and scoutati swordsmen and other professional units. Right now I also have 2 stacks with seige equipment sailing up and down the byzantine coast, sacking cities and burning the buildings to the ground. Just sacked constantinople and destroyed all of the buildings, then gifted it to the mongols hoping to piss off the mongols who have been very quiet in my game. Hoping that will slow them down a bit but their empire is so enormous that it kind of feels like a drop in the bucket.

When do I start getting professional armies and gunpowder units?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Here you go: http://stainless-steel-mod.com/

Also, I'd suggest you play late campaign, first 100 turns are just spear militias.