Crusades Campaign: Egypt

[frogbeastegg]

This topic is for the Egyptian faction in Kingdoms expansion's Crusades campaign.

[hellraiser]

Along with the Byzantines, I considered this faction a very easy one to play with. Apparently even more easier than the Byzantines due to their perfect starting location and easy to get objectives.
Settings M/M (autoresolve on).

1. Your first and obvious task is to wipe out the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. Egypt has the strength to do it and they must do it ASAP.
I amassed over 75% of the starting military units, called a Jihad on Jerusalem and continued to get the JK castles up coast, ignoring rebel cities.
All went well untill I reached Banyas where the biggest battles of all times began. The creme de la creme of the crusading kingdom's nobility awaited me, opposing 3 1/2 stacks to my 4 stacks (regular and mercs, mostly cavalry units). Autoresolve failed me so I needed to fight this huge, resource draining battle , myself :) And yes, I proved myself again that I am smarter than the AI on medium setting :2thumbsup:
Richard I died in the battle and the baron of Ibelin was trapped inside Banyas. Next turn, Banyas surrendered, Ibelin was killed and the remaining 2 JK cities rebelled = faction destroyed :laugh4:
This was turn 14 ...

2. Consolidation phase (a small one though) - retraining, upgrading , deploying stacks towards Principality of Antioch (PA) territories; sending 2 armies to capture some rebel settlements located in east;

3. The war starts against PA. This time it won't be just a walk in the park as it will soon unfold...
Tripoli and Baalbek captured in a breeze, confident fatimid armies continue to race north.
Much to their surprise, the spies revealed a huge PA army stationed just outside Krak de Chevaliers (victory objective) - the arrogant egyptian generals laughed at this puny attempt to stop their onslaught...
4 egyptian stacks attack Krak de Chevaliers, met by the garrison (almost a full stack), 1 full stack and 1 half stack parked just outside the castle. During the AI turn, PA launches the counteroffensive - result: all 4 egyptian stack routed with heinous losses!!! Badass Holy canons of Sepulchre, spears and heavy knights simply butchered my arabs...
I almost threw my PC monitor out of the window...
But, as it will soon be revealed, that was the swan song of the last crusader state ... Egypt at this stage was insanely rich and was producing over 20 units per turn...I took my time, merged some badly damaged units into new ones, received reinforcements and attacked again...This time, not even Jesus Christ and a full stack of christian saints could save the PA !
Their main stack was pulverized, Krak de Chevaliers captured and fatimid armies resumed their advance - after 2 more great battles, Antioch and Aleppo fell to the egyptians and PA retreated to Edessa and Adana. Egyptians decided to halt their advance and consolidate their gains. No more actions against PA were planned.

4. Meanwhile, egyptian docks of Alexandria built a mighty fleet ready to transport 2 1/2 stacks towards Constantinople to capture the final objective of the campaign. This huge force was led by the mighty sultan Saladin himself.
The fleet sailed towards the prize of all prizes, disembarked, a Jihad was called and the siege started. The venetian garrison of Constantinople could do little to prevent the city from falling and the victorious Sultan entered the Blachernae Palace, once the home of the demi-godly autocrators of Byzantium!

5. Click, click...for 10 turrns and Game Over in 52 turns :)

Strategy considerations - none :laugh4: Playing egypt is easy, their starting location is ideal, their enemies placed one after another and easy to destroy. And their economy is fantastic.

[Squints]

All I can say is :Assassins, Assassins, Assassins.

Okay, I can say more. Egypt gets battlefield assassins if you murder/sabotage enough. Begin killing priests and merchants as soon as you can, and then move on to generals once your assassins are good enough. If you have a surplus of assassins, go for some of the suicidal missions, too - I had a 12% chance for Richard the Lionheart, and I killed him. This was about 3 turns after he appeared, lol. He didn't even get a chance to fight anyone. My first assassin's guild (Hashashin, or something) was at one of my Western cities, which sucks because now I have to ship in my battlefield assassins when I need them.

[Crazy Larry]

Just started an M/H Egypt Crusades campaign, and it's been lots of fun. Seems to be the best balanced nation in all of the new campaigns, with lots of hectic fighting while actually having some semblance of an economy. Still early on, but I've conquered Jerusalem. I've gotten bogged down in fighting just south of Acre. Between all of the reinforcements that popped up when I took Jerusalem and Richard the Lionheart landing at Acre, the armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem have been too bunched together for me to force a major battle. I think I'm about to make a breakthrough though, as I've been picking off crusader armies wherever the y're alone and vulnerable.

I've found that an all cavalry army lead by a high dread general is very valuable in the holy lands. The crusader armies are so heavily focused on heavy infantry and knights that you can pick off whole stacks with minor losses, and given the densely packed nature of settlements in the holy land you can move from hotspot to hotspot very quickly. It's pretty simple to build a good cavalry general early on too. Call a Jihad against Jerusalem and have your highest dread general take the city. He should get the seal of solomon, which gives +3 to commanding cavalry. Then you can go on a rampage, reclaiming the holy lands from the infidels.

[kitbogha]

I'm surprised that there is not much interest in this thread. It's a great campaign to play.

As Egypt you start in a good position: Egypt has a good geographical position-scope for immediate expansion into nearby rebel settlements, a covered western flank, only one immediate enemy (the Kingdom of Jerusalem), plenty of decent starting units and a likely ally in the Turks.

My plan as Egypt:
1) Start to build up Siwa, it will be useful as a launch pad for my assault on Constantinople later in the game.
2) Take the war to the Crusaders. They are not as strong as they seem. Their heavy troops are hardcore, yes, but choose to fight them at midday if you can, and in terrain that suits your mounted archers, and plays to your factions' strengths and they can be defeated.
3) Ally with Turks.
4) Use assassins. They really can make a difference in this campaign. It doesn't really matter-to me anyway-if Sultan Saladins' chivalry starts to fall as a result. You will be offfered the Assassins Guild, which allows you to produce some great heavy infantry. In the game I have been playing (currently on about turn 60) I whittled the KOJ's armies down then ended their faction by assassinating all their remaning nobles.
5) ASAP start producing artillery.
6) Take Jerusalem, then fight your way up the coast, taking all the KOJ's port settlements-this mightily increases yor revenue as well. You can sacrifice some of the castles and make hem into cities, which will also increase your revenue. Sweep inland and take all the desert settlements as well as mopping up KOJ resistance.
7) At this point I was caught off guard when one of the desert settlements belonging to the Principality of Antioch rebelled and became Egyptian. Sadly, this resulted in me being at war with Antioch, something which I was saving for later. I became slightly bogged down in a war of attrition with them for a while after this. At this point the Byzantines stuck their oar in too, so I was fighting on two fronts. They have a vast navy, so be careful of shipping troops to war with them.
8) Ah, Siwa....by now changed to a castle and stocked with an assault force, we head for a quick surprise attack on Crete, owned until now by the byzantines. Take it. Use it as a beachhead for landing troops to attack Constantinople, and a recruiting base for your Anatolian expeditionary forces.
9) It's a long slog, but by now you should be getting the better of the POA and take Krak de Chevaliers, Antioch etc. In my campaign I had one spectacular battle where I was holed up in Krak De Chevaliers, and being seiged by two full stacks of POA and Byzantine troops. It looked like the end, but by retreating to the second keep and having two lines of spearmen supported by one catapult and backed up by some Mamluks and dismounted gulams, I massacred them as they came through the gates with their ram-it was amazing the damage they took from the catapult and they routed soon after leaving me to take over 800 prisoners-immediately executed of course...
10) Launch attack on Constantinople, take the city. By now you should be nearing the magic objectives. The Byzantines can now be rolled up, using forces landed from Crete, Cyprus (an easy take early in the game, it's a rebel settlement) and moved overland from Constantinople and the middle east.

You should not have any trouble from the Mongols, a definate advantage, ally with them. You do not need to take Bagdad which is the win objective of several of the other factions.
I am really enjoying this game and do recommend it to anyone.

[Yaropolk]

Egypt has a big hometown advantage over both Jerusalem and Antioch: you will quickly grow a large family. Both Jerusalem and Antioch start out with only 2 family members each - the faction heir and the king. If you kill them both the whole faction is destroyed.

For Jerusalem its Prince Guy in the second coastal city and King Baldwin in Jersualem. You can wipe them both out in one or two turns using a Jihad on Jerusalem you will not have to face Richard, no Jerusalem reinforcements, and no shiny metal uberstack with Constable and Marshall in it. They will all rebel.

After doing the above race your guys up the coast to take over the newly rebelled provinces up to Tripoli. You have about 10 turns to clean up and consolidate your rule while your next Jihad becomes available.

Amass two or three armies at your northern borders, and get your spies north to find all the family members. Jihad on Antioch and kill Regent Renauld (was in Antioch for me), King Bohemund (in Aleppo), and my assassin killed the family member guarding the Krak de Chevaliers. Thats it, King Phillip went rebel, no Krak reinforcements, and now you can clean up the rest of the rebel Antioch territories.

One trick I used to avoid sieges is to attack any armies next to the city. The city garrison with the King or Prince would come out as reinforcements, and I could kill them without having to actually capture the city.

[leonardo]

Hi to everyone!!

[Brave]

~:wave: Leonardo but why don't you try introducing yourself here. (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=92444&page=27)

[leonardo]

what do you mean?

[Chapien]

One thing I have to say: Your king, Sal-ah-aldin (Saladin) is to good to be kept in a city. use him as an offence!

[TheDruid]

agree with using saladin but be weary ! : i found myself getting him killed in first battle.
Jerusalems great cavalry army got him. :s Second campaign i went for alia immediately and brought 2 generals to those 2 emerging stacks, brought another general.
so made 3 stacks, one infantry, one mixed and one only cavalry stack.
the 2 with infantry got damaged severly (but won) , had to go to reinforce them.
and then i got Richard the lionheart ambushed by my cav. stack.
:) this was fun.

they were moving (set up ) like this
Richard Cavalry Infantry Sodeer Archers Spearmen
of each type 3 units.
i let my 5 mamluk Arch. take the spearmen.
got 5 arab cav to the archers
the rest were those jav horses. taking Richard and his cav.

kept a Gulam and 2 Jav cav's to defend general.
it was a massacre :)

one of the most amusing battles i fought.
think i'm going to ambush more.
The road from egypt to Jerusalem has some great bushes to do it.
Meanwhile i went for the Islands, and was planning for Constantinople so the turks could fight out with the christians while i defended with ambushes or brigde battles whilst capturing the other side of the map.

[Chapien]

agree with using saladin but be weary ! : i found myself getting him killed in first battle.


This is true. But you can easily wipe out most of Jerusalem's cities before Richard arrives with Saladin and his sons/grandsons/family members etc.

[whtdoesitmatta]

This Campaign is so fun!
Saladin in my campaign became maxed out in Command, Chivalry, Authority, and Piety till I picked up a Pagan Magician.

I also gave one general the ark of the covenant and the seal of solomon to max out his dread.

I have defeated the Kingdom of Jerusalem back to the far south east provinces. and Have the entire coast line up to Anitoch.

This is one of my top 3 campaigns ever.