recommended difficulty

[atila9000]

im quite sure there has been thousands of threads about this very same question.
so, im playing as the crusader states, early, M campaign, H battle. if i play this campaign on hard difficulty, its quite complicated, but if i play on M difficulty, its kind of easy, the fatimids have never laid a siege to any of my settlements. they have lost cairo to the hungarians due to the crusade, but i guess they are about to take it back.
so far, i only fought one "huge battle", 1900 vs 2200 aprox. i lost 50 men aprox. most of them cavalry, and they lost a 93% (including the 1300 captives). the thing is that they formed a battleline in front of me but never attacked. meanwhile, i was hitting them with 3 armenian archers, 1 levy archer and 2 militia crossbowmen, whereas they only had 2 javelinmen, and 1 javelin cavalry. by this point, one of their 2 generals were killed. after a while, they started retreating (not routing) and tried to escape from the battle, but i killed the other general with a templar and crusader knights, then attacked with those and 2 eddessan knights (30 men each), the general and a javelin cav... instant and massive rout. in less than one minute, 1300 men were captured.

is this common of this AI level? and is also common the fatimids passivness? (im using savage AI though)

[Delvecchio1975]

it's not common, but i've seen it happen when one unit gets stuck around a rock or something, so that the AI cannot move their line forward as one. Rather than leaving the one unit behind, the AI then holds everything up. you get a lot more of this during siege battles, when units gets stuck under ladders and on walls ... not sure if this was your case, but it sounds like it.

[Strengelicher]

I always play vh/vh and cannot confirm the AI behaviour the OP describes from my own observations. Savage AI only influences campaign play, not battles AFAIK.

[atila9000]

update:

its turn 45 aprox, the fatimids have been hit quite hard, they only have 4 regions: alexandria (capital), luxor, medina, and another settlement. i want to take their capital and sue for peace. the problem is that i have a 1400 men army, quite experienced (specially the cavalry, all silver or gold, but very depleted). they have aprox. 2500 men around alexandria, so im on the defensive right now. im holding the birdge in the north-eastern nile, when suddenly 2000 men attacked me, with 1 unit of catapults. any ideas you can give about this battle situation?
in the north, i lost edessa and recaptured damascus from the turks, and the coastal regions are in peril because of the enemy superior numbers, thats why i need the army in the south.
so far, neither the pope nor an iman called for a holy war, so i think i should call one against the turks to help me.

is there any way that i can make the AI to accept peace, because i offered them peace, trade, map info and 10000f, and still didnt accept