Lords of the realm 2 is one of the best dos/win 95 games ever made. There are some bugs in the game and tricks for winning battles that could have been designed better however the game is still really fun and very addicting. From county management with keeping everyone fed and happy to making castles to fighting real-time battles to diplomacy this game has it all. Castle to win requires just 1 battering ram to knock down both doors and a few archers.
Place the archers right at the narrow neck leading to the flag and they will kill everyone around the flag.
If the enemy has enough units they may rush the archers so keep some mace men or similar unit to protect the archers. A very small army is thus able to capture even the best of defended castles.
Fighting the battle is often times the best because one it is fun and two you often have a much better chance of winning. Expect in the case where you are defending a royal castle then it is in your own best interest to let the auto-calculation feature work so that you will win with less losses to your own army. I find that grain
works best for feeding the people in the county however cows also work great because you can often feed your people with just the cheese.
Be sure to capture a county with a stone quarry quickly so that you are able to build your castle and go straight to the royal castle as it is the best defense once you complete it an additional 150 troops will be sent to the castle even if you do not have the ability to raise such an army or have the weapons produced for the army to be worth anything so it is a great help. I find that archers are the best unit in the game that or knights as both are able to take out lots of units.
Knights are useful even in small groups but archers usually require larger armies to be extremely effective but once in a large group of archers they are able to take out even an equivalent number of knights with little loss. One on one however the knights would destroy them so keep your archers group and if possible keep other units even if it is peasants up front to take the hits so the archers can keep destroying your enemies!