Ok guys, I am playing as the Moors, Late Era, Savage AI, H/H. It's turn 21 and the only settlement I've managed to capture is Seville. I am currently besieging Silves, Toledo and Salamanca and I have the power to take them. It's 3:1 at Toledo, 2:1 at Silves and Salamanca (to me obviously). In the struggle for Iberia as a whole, against the 3 Iberian kingdoms combined, Id say I have the slight lead. I have beaten the Portugese and Castilians in 2 seperate battles which really crippled a large part of their army, and my armies in the respective regions outnumber theirs. Ceasefire with Aragon, alliance with France.

When I fight them in an open field, it's no problem. My infantry do the tying up and I let loose with my Fari's, Grenadines and blobs of Arab cavalry usually backed by 2 Gen. bodyguards to give that extra punch when needed.

But the problem lies whenever I do a siege assault - the cavalry is obviously much less efficient and Moorish infantry is just too damn crap. Bedouin and Arab infantry just dont seem to cut it when up against Men-at-Arms and Spearmen Sergeants. Nubian Spearmen, Spear & Urban Militia is the same. They just cannot for the life of them storm a gate or some walls. About an hour ago, I manually chose to assault Silves (1 stack followed by another full stack of reinforcements vs 70% of a single Portugese stack). I had infantry with 2 battering rams, 1 siege tower and 3 ladders. Now each time one of my units got to the wall, or when they rammed down the gate, they IMMEDIATELY fleed. I'm talking about putting up a fight for roughly 10 seconds before fleeing straight away. I was bedazzled.

At Toledo, one of my spies opens the gates. For assaulting Toledo I chose a specifically infantry-heavy army. In Toledo, there is a Gen. bodyguard, Feudal knights on foot, men at arms and crossbow militia. That's it. Yet my massive mix of Nubian spearmen, Bedouin & Arab infantry and both types of militia got minced and lost. I mean, they nearly won, but no, they eventually lost. And this was 1000 vs 300.

I saved just before assaulting Silves/Toledo because I knew it was not going to go as well as I had hoped. I won Seville by maintaining the siege and forcing those inside to sally forth (because I knew it would've been a disaster otherwise)

Help? Am I doomed to forever maintain sieges and wait for them to sally out? This isn't very effective as it often gives them too much time to build up and counter attack.