How to beat deathstacks?

[Exanthos]

Even with mercinaries, my kingdom, and a river bounus, I still can't beat Fatmid deathstacks. So how do they manage a deathstack with a kingdom slightly larger than mine? And why are they holy-warirng the snot out of me? It's not like they have the whole southern part of the Medditeranian.

[Varainger]

Caliph gets the Mamluks, just like the ERE gets the Varangian guards.

[Mimir]

The only way I've managed to beat a deathstack is with a retinue. Levies are too mixed and random to really give you any tactical choise. 1 flank of pure cavalry, and the rest a mix of 30-50% archers and heavy infantry (some will say pikemen). If you mix in mercs and levies in that, you have to be careful with the numbers of troops so that the different flanks still are able to perferm at their best.

I mostly use levies for sieges, as bait or when the victory is certain (and of course before I get my retinues together).

[Cassilda]

Muslims tend to have tech advantage and get morale bonus from low decadence too.

[Spleens]

You could theorycraft and optimise retinue, but it's tedious and extremely technical to only give you a minor edge if everything else is equal.

You have the right idea in using terrain, other factors include a martial score and technology, and attrition. Mostly it's a numbers game though. Caliphs are ridiculously strong in the early starts, to the point where beating them with your own numbers is nigh impossible. However beating a 15k doomstack when a stack above 4K is relatively rare at those times is intended to be nigh impossible.

This means you have the play strategy instead of brute forcing it:
- Improve relation with him via your councillor to start with, however his successors will be a problem until you can build relation with them. This takes time. Combine it with the below:
- Marriage ties, if at all possible.
- Converting to his religion is a solid option, best done if you're old and likely to die soon, and not a pagan. Your heir keeps your old religion so switching back is just a matter of dieing, and prosetylising your capital and various bishop level vassals.
- After converting and waiting for your character to die, go full rage mode and war as many muslim neighbors as you can while ignoring piety and religious uprisings.
- The alternative is to swear fealty, but he will likely revoke your titles. Useful if you are plagued by non-muslim religious uprisings, he will doomstack them for you. Unless your are the same religion, then when he revokes your titles he will doom stack as well.
- Swearing fealty however does let you play with intruige and splinter the caliphate from within, trying your hardest to ensure his heir will be the one that has horrible stats; either through assassinating the good ones or via marriage ties/educating the kids with horrible stats.

If converting/fealty aren't options, you'd better hope relations with you, the Caliph and his vassals as well as in game events are in your favor. You never know, you could always hope for a Shia uprising that defeats his stack resulting in instant fracture without you doing a thing.

[Spleens]

At the very least, make sure you definitely take advantage of neighbour states being involved in their own wars and uprisings. Expand fast and hope for the best with the above strats. Nothing is more of a deterrant for invasion than a high centralization with 10/10 demesne for maximum levy, and good relations/opinion.

For any game your goal should be to have a duchy with as many counties in it as possible, with each county having as many holding slots as possible. Have your capital filled with at least 2 castle type counties you own. Your capital gets a +50% troop count, and other counties in your duchy get a +25%. Max Marshal score can also increase it to +50%.

[Neshamah]

Originally posted by Spleens:

At the very least, make sure you definitely take advantage of neighbour states being involved in their own wars and uprisings. Expand fast and hope for the best with the above strats. Nothing is more of a deterrant for invasion than a high centralization with 10/10 demesne for maximum levy, and good relations/opinion.

For any game your goal should be to have a duchy with as many counties in it as possible, with each county having as many holding slots as possible. Have your capital filled with at least 2 castle type counties you own. Your capital gets a +50% troop count, and other counties in your duchy get a +25%. Max Marshal score can also increase it to +50%.

WORD.

[Exanthos]

Wow. Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Just one more question: How do you make retiune?

[Meteor Bear]

You have to have the Byzantine DLC.

I play as Sicily and fight the Fatamids often. To combat them I hire the holy orders and pair them with the troops from my demsne because they have more heavy infantry and cavalry.
You also need to constantly breed, educate and promote the master strategist trait within your realm. With good generals and an army with a bunch of heavy infantry and calvary you will do well against most armies.

[Black_Rat]

Retinues are actually insanely powerful if you get thr right setup. As others have said figuring out the best comp can be a pain, BUT lucky for us there are people who are willing to do that work for us... Once you get to about 10k retinue you can take just about any army in the game (as long as you have the right comp and good leaders)

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/3dmra0/optimal_retinue_calculations_for_horse_lords_241/

[Draa]

Originally posted by Bombus Bonum:

Wow. Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Just one more question: How do you make retiune?

You make them under the military tab(?) in the retinues section..It's the one with the sword on it where you find your levies.

There's 3 sections on that page. Retinues, Troop Levies, and Fleet Levies. Click Retinues and you build them there. Just look on the upper right side of the page and you'll see how it works.

Check your retinue limit though. It can be found on that page. You need a high enough retinue level to buy retinues and if it's not high enough you'll need to put tech points into Military Organization on the Tech page. That raises retinue limts so you can hire more.

[Mimir]

Originally posted by Black_Rat:

Retinues are actually insanely powerful if you get thr right setup. As others have said figuring out the best comp can be a pain, BUT lucky for us there are people who are willing to do that work for us... Once you get to about 10k retinue you can take just about any army in the game (as long as you have the right comp and good leaders)

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/3dmra0/optimal_retinue_calculations_for_horse_lords_241/

Huh, I hadn't noticed the archer nerf. Seems like pikemen are the best unit now, with heavy inf beeing better in certain circumstances. But I suppose that light cav or archers are still needed against horse archers (e.g. the mongols).

[Exanthos]

It doesn't let me click on the reutines tab, and there is no Byzantine DLC. I'm playing vanilla.

[Mimir]

Oh. Retinues are part of the Legacy of Rome DLC. Then I'd recommend an even stronger defensive postion - mountains for instance. If the AI doesn't attack you, split the army and bait him into attacking a weaker force, and immediately reinforce with everything you've got. Ideally you could let him suffer attrition for a while before the battle.

[Legionary Guard]

Originally posted by Black_Rat:

Retinues are actually insanely powerful if you get thr right setup. As others have said figuring out the best comp can be a pain, BUT lucky for us there are people who are willing to do that work for us... Once you get to about 10k retinue you can take just about any army in the game (as long as you have the right comp and good leaders)

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/3dmra0/optimal_retinue_calculations_for_horse_lords_241/

Huh. Whadya know. I really just usually end up spamming Cataphracts.

But in response to OP: Basically everything they've said, and getting Legacy of Rome isn't a bad idea. Retinues alone are worth it.