Need Tips on Defeating Eastern Armies

[Trajan]

What's up guys, as France, in the Crusades, I conquered Antioch, all the way to Jerusalem. The cities were left undefended so it was pretty easy taking them but as expected, the Egyptians are planning a huge counter attack. I was always nervous on going on a Crusade because of the much feared eastern horse archers but now that I'm there and about to face swarms of Egyptian and Turkish armies, I need some good tips on how to defeat them. Maybe you can give me some tips on how I should adapt my French armies to the situation. Here's my current setup in the Middle East:

1 General
7 Dismounted Feudal Knights
6 Dismounted Noble Knights
2 Crossbowman
2 Trebuchets
2 Noble Knight Cavalries

I'm thinking of making my armies more mobile for fighting Eastern armies by maybe getting rid of the artillery except for sieges and replacing them with archers. I'm also thinking of replacing my Noble Knight cavalry with hired mercenary horse archers so I can fight fire with fire. So you see, I'm kind of in a planning stage. I could really use some good tips and any help is appreciated.

[Oracle]

Alot of archers are good, and some fast moving cavalry. If you can get over to the region just south of Baghdad and hire some elephants.

Eyptians and Turks aren't the real problem, the real hard nuts to crack are the Mongols and the Timurids.

[Aldaris]

13 heavy infantry is over the top when fighting easterners, 5-6 should suffice. Go for crossbows, 4-6. That will help a lot. Light (and FAST) Cavalry will also help. Artillery is always good, I'd keep it if I were you. This will give you a lot of punch at ranged combat and make you faster and more flexible when fighting eastern armies which are generally lighter than their western counterparts.

[Ahiga]

If you are facing a lot of foot archers in the east, there's currently an exploit I found in my Turkish campaign where very often, if my horse archers are moving in shooting-circles, they will never be fired upon.

Again, if you are also facing lots of foot archers, rush your core infantry formation to them, and then have the cavalry move in while the archers start to run.

You're french, so if you haven't gotten to the military academy, you should if you can (I'm playing France too and I haven't come across it yet).

Personally Trajan, I would scrap conquering the middle east until a later point. What I did was seize Cyprus after the Venetians took Jerusalem before I could (They did again when it was antioch). When I ran in and took Acre, I realized it would be a pain to hold it while I was still stabilizing France and north Italy, so I gave it to the HRE. I'm thinking it might actually be easier to take if the europeans start to conquer up a lot of it.

But if you still want to go and conquer outremer, seize cyprus, and I think you should start to recruit lots of mercenaries, as suggested.

[lawngnome]

French have Scots Guard... they work nicely in this situation. So, too, does artillery with flame ammo. Horse archers generally have weak morale, and if you hi them with a few 1-ton-burning-boulders they tend to run.

Aventieurs or Scots Guard... load your armies with them... crossbowmen tend to have lower defense and slower reloads, so HA's might tear them a new one.

[Hurricane]

French have Scots Guard... they work nicely in
Aventieurs or Scots Guard... load your armies with them... crossbowmen tend to have lower defense and slower reloads, so HA's might tear them a new one.

I think there is an advantage to Crossbowmen (not just the unit Crossbowmen but any unit that has a crossbow) over Scots Guard if you keep them protected though, they seem to have more ammo (it might just be the rate of fire though) than archers and horse archers. So while the archers and horse archers have ran out of ammo, you can keep on shooting them for a lot longer.

Aventieurs sound really good, I'd probably have a ratio of 3/1 Aventieurs to Scots Guard.

[Trajan]

Thanks guys for all your advice.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

timurids are only problem i am facing in my (still) first campaign as HRE... they have concoured all middle east and turky and i have concored all europe, but now they are invading my balkan (constantinople and other cities nearby) with about 10 full stuck armies and every army has about 5 or 6 units of elefants!!!! ... i cant stop them really withought having a hell of a lot reinforcements and a lot of guns and fire arrows... (not to mention game crushes many times when battleing against elefants)... any idea what to do against them and what to do to prevent game crushing all the time?

[Endeav]

As France, ship over some French Horse Archers and show the easterners how fighting on horseback with a bow is done Plus Scots Guard/Aventuriers don't hurt as an achor (with awesome melee abilities).

This is late game, but Horse Archers only require an officer's academy, which is at huge city.

[Trajan]

Thanks, I already have a military academy in construction in Jerusalem. I ran out of horse archer mercs so I'm using the Knights Hospitaller.

[Hurricane]

The forums have been acting wacky for the past 16 hours or so

Anyway, It's probably best to have about 4 crossbowmen, 4 spear or pike units to protect the crossbowmen from frontal charges, 3 fast light cavalry, 6 mounted crossbowmen or horse archers (I think France has horse archers?), 2 long range siege weapons and a general.

[Mythos]

6-7 dismounted knights are enough. They are much better than the lightly armored eastern infantry. You need more (good quality) archers. 5-6 will take care of HAs. I wouldn't use crossbows. They are too slow and their AP is not very helpfull against light armor. You can also use mercenaries found in Asia Minor. Turkopoles, Turkomans for HA, Armenian heavy cav and Alan light cav. These guys are fast, fast, fast! After weaking the enemy HA with archers, they can take care of their remaining soldiers without too much casualties.