Egypt

[Cheetah]

EARLY ERA EGYPTIANS

1. Opening moves
Invade Syria on the first turn with everything you can, leaving garrisons in only Antioch and Egypt.
After that, many players wipe out the Turks immediately. I garrison Antioch and Syria and wait a turn or two. There is a good chance the Turks will offer a ceasefire and then get into a war with the Byzantines. Then you can attack again and wipe them out with less trouble.

2. Units to train
Desert archers will help you defeat Turkish horse archers, and are a good unit throughout the early era.
Bedouin camels are not fast enough to make an ideal counter to horse archers. However, they will destroy bodyguard knights. Bedouin Camel Warriors also tend to be good generals and governors. Egypt gets a discount on camels, too.
Nubian spears are a good early unit, excellent for garrisons, but watch their loyalty.

3. Early building
Every province on the Middle Eastern coastline except the Sinai is a glorious achievement goal for someone's Crusade. Therefore, the first order of business is to get the facilities to make dhows, and then build two. One should cover the Nile Coast and the other the Eastern Mediterranean. This cuts off direct invasion by sea.
The second order of business is to get a spear-maker’s workshop somewhere to make Saracen Infantry. The combination of those and desert archers are extremely effective on the rabble in the first wave of Crusades.
Use Armenia to produce Armenian Heavy Cavalry with a bonus. Build up Syria for their assassins. The two-star bonus there makes these assassins extremely effective.

4. The Navy
Extend your navy northward, through the Black Sea. This prevents a back door Crusader landing in Georgia. Then go to the Ionian Sea and up into the Adriatic. This trade route is not dependent on the Byzantines. Antioch is a money tree once a trade network comes to life. Tripoli and Egypt are rich, too.
If you are not at war with the Byzantines by now, start one. Always keep the most important goal in mind: Constantinople. Constantinople’s developed fortress is the key to getting a Grand Mosque for Imans and Nizari. I always build the Grand Mosque there, even though the glorious achievement goals want it built in Egypt. Be sure to take Georgia and fortify it, of course.
Now you have a very nice empire, defended with three land chokepoints: Constantinople, Georgia and Egypt. Expand along the North African coast at the expense of the Almohads. You can push all the way to Cordoba and still end up at a single chokepoint.

5. Crusades
War with Crusades is constant. You should have enough trade wealth to afford plenty of troops, though. Most of the early Crusades will consist of rabble such as fanatics and other unarmored units. These are very vulnerable to desert archers.
The movement programming of the Crusades means that French, English and German ones must keep trying to march through Constantinople if you push other factions far enough back in North Africa. The option of a Crusade landing in Cyrencia, for instance, will not exist as long as you own Cyrencia and have fleets to defend it. The Spanish could Crusade through North Africa, so keep a sizable army there.
Your goal is not to beat Crusades in a fair fight, not unless the odds are extremely favorable. Your goal is to corner them and have them die slowly. The enemy faction cannot launch another Crusade while its first one is dying, not unless the Pope gives a special call.
If you own Constantinople, you simply block Crusades with a large army. If your are not in Constantinople yet, the goal is to keep your armies in front of the Crusaders and to block them, keeping the restrictive movement rules for Crusades in mind.

6. Jihads
Build a ribat, which provides a good morale boost, and a Jihad in every province. Jihads are very effective, particularly in rebellions and civil wars.
That gets us out of the Early Era. Keep fortifying Georgia during this time, for the Golden Horde is coming. Also, build with Faris and Mamelukes in mind.

EDITED: To include the summery compiled by Doug-Thompson

[Cheetah]

high

[Cheetah]

late

[Doug-Thompson]

EARLY ERA

You have to take Syria. That means war with the Turks.

Syria borders Antioch, Tripoli, Palestine and Arabia. You can garrison all those provinces or just garrison Antioch and Syria. The choice is obvious.

I don't even build towers first and see what's in Syria. I just invade.

The next step is less obvious. Many players go on and wipe out the Turks. I garrison Antioch and Syria and wait a turn or two. There's a good chance the Turks will offer a ceasefire and then get into a war with the Byzantines. Ideally, The Turks will take Lesser Armenia. Then you can attack again, wipe them out and take Armenia, Rum, Edessa and Lesser Armenia, too.

Taking Lesser Armenia means war with the Byzantines at some point, but that's fine.

As for which units to build, desert archers will help you defeat Turkish horse archers. Bedouin camels are not fast enough to make an ideal counter to HA. However, they will do a number on bodyguard units and also tend to produce good generals and governors. At least that's my experience. They are also dirt cheap for the Egyptian faction. Nubian spears are a good early unit, excellent for garrisons, but watch their loyalty.

Egypt is blessed with many rich provinces, but have little means to defend them. Just about all your coastline is a glorious achievement goal for somebody's Crusade. So, the first order of business is to get two dhows built, one to cover the Nile Coast and the other the Eastern Mediterranean. Now you're safe from direct invasion by sea.

The second order of business is to get a spearmakers workshop somewhere so you can make Saracen Infantry. The combination of those and desert archers will do a real number on the rabble you usually get with the first wave of Crusades. Also, bonused Armenian Cavalry are great. You can build them in any one of three provinces, but only those from Armenia are bonused, so I build them all there.

Build up Syria for their double-bonused assassins. Fully upgraded Syrian assassins start out at five valor, so keep developing Syria.

Extend your navy northward, through the Black Sea. This prevents a back door Crusader landing in Georgia. Then extend your naval control out through the Ionian Sea and up into the Adriatic. This will give you rich trade. Antioch is a money tree once you have a trade network. Tripoli and Egypt are rich, too.

If you aren't at war with the Byzantines by now, start one. Always keep the most important goal in mind: Constantinople. All decent Byz units come from there. It's developed fortress is the key to getting a Grand Mosque relatively early. I always build the Grand Mosque there, even though the GA goals want it built in Egypt and bonused Nazari, who require a Grand Mosque, are from Syria. I'd rather have Nazari earlier than bonused. Be sure and take Georgia, of course.

Now you have a very nice empire that can be defend with three land choke-points: Constantinople, Georgia and Egypt.

Expanding along the North African coast at the expense of the Almohads is the next step. You can push all the way to Cordoba and still end up at a single choke-point.

War with Crusading factions is pretty much constant. You should have enough trade wealth to afford plenty of troops, though. Also, the movement programming of the Crusades means that French, English and German ones they simply must keep trying to march through Constantinople if you push other factions far enough back in North Africa. The option of a Crusade landing in Tunisia, for instance, won't exist as long as you own Tunisia and have fleets to defend it.

All this means that you will get to watch Crusades whither and die a lot.

Build a ribat and Jihad in every province. Jihads are very effective against rebellions. Seek out Jihads. They increase the influence of your ruler immensely and just about can't fail, since you can launch many of them against the same province at once. Also, consider putting mercenaries in them. You don't pay upkeep costs for mercs until the Jihad's over.

Then comes ....

THE GOLDEN HORDE

Fortify Georgia. You should have a citadel with improvements and a garrison by the time the Horde arrives.

You should also have, literally, dozens of Syrian assassins.

Using assassins against the Horde is considered extremely cheesy. Some players consider it a mild form of cheating, or at least unseemly.

However, it is very effective.

Be sure to delete your observations towers during the turn when the horde is visible but not yet in play. This makes Georgia a free range for assassins.

The last game I played as an Egyptian, the horde avoided Georgia for years. I was getting ready to attack them when they finally launched a weak attack. Still, I withdrew my superior force inside the citadel, declared multiple Jihads and wiped out the Horde as a faction in about three or four years.

Conquer Russia. The rest should be easy.

[katank]

I would immediately finish off the Turks and Byz but that's only my playing style.

getting the Byz to entangle themselves in the steppes is a good idea as they then leave Const. virtually unguarded.

Nizaris are awesome with one of highest attack/charge combos in the game and can outduel just about any missile unit.

however, their defense is trash so armor them up or you'll regret it.

spamming imams is very effective and makes your jihads really good.

silver armored ghazis in Const. are also almost a must if you want to use those crazies.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 11 2004,16:44)]spamming imams is very effective and makes your jihads really good.

You bet. That's another reason I go for a mosque in Constantinople rather than waiting for building projects in Egypt or Syria. Agree with the other points about armor for Nazaris and Ghazi's, too.

[Ulair]

Quote[/b] (katank @ May 11 2004,22:44)]silver armored ghazis in Const. are also almost a must if you want to use those crazies.

Hey, why wouldn't you? They are so much fun - kinda like Saxon war dogs. Bring 'em forward, put 'em in a wedge and let 'em go . But yeah, give 'em some armour for goodness sake .

[katank]

yep, I like to get some armor for them so more than scraps remain and I can make more V3-4 ones which are really nice esp. retrained.

only problem is their impetuous status.

they are far more so than christian knights.

one moment not watching them and they shoot out the woods to charge a unit of fresh katanks head on another brave but destroyed unit.

[Ludens]

Doug-Thompson, how do you deal with high valour kataphraktoi? I have seen the Romans placing four of those on my border and each and every one of them is capable of destroying everything I trow at them.

[katank]

I don't know about doug but I would say mobile troops like HAs

get merc Mtd. X-bows and or jinettes.

merc druzhina which become FFK can also help you nicely once they are pinned.

Pin with saracen inf and flanking with ghazis.

shoot a bit with DAs and you might take out a few.

my favorite though would be using naptha.

those grenades don't give a damn how much armor or how brave the men are, they just get blown away.

if you get off two good volleys, they should be dead.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ May 17 2004,11:51)]Doug-Thompson, how do you deal with high valour kataphraktoi? I have seen the Romans placing four of those on my border and each and every one of them is capable of destroying everything I trow at them.

Sorry for the tardy reply, Ludens. I've been out of town for several days.

Jedi katanks is exactly why I like to wait until the Byz have either had a war with the Turks or have expanded into Russia, spreading themselves thin.

[arghy]

heh hello i have been visiting this web site for months now never botherd to register hehe im more of single player person but i have started an egytian camp and as my sig says heh im getting slaughtered normal dificulty i had 4 groups of ghazis 2 sar infs. 4 pavise arbs 1 ghulam cav 2 sharan cav 1 ghulam body guard and some abyssian guard, as the battle started the enemy abandoned the high ground which i gladly took hopeing to thin there ranks with my arbs instead the retreated into the sparse woods in the valley and wouldent respond to my skirmishing saharans hehe this was the first time the AI was showing great strategies and frankly scared me to death haha i would never win battles if they all fought like that do i decided to flank them then smash in from 2 sides my sar inf. and abyssian guards and my ghulam cav took minor archery fire couple deaths smashed into byz inf 54 which perceded to slaughter all those units even with ghulam cavarly charging in from behind while this happened my ghazis charged there katanks in the woods- i expected a simple fight and a quick route 160 golden armored ghazis tend to do that... not a chance before my second unit of sar inf could get there 2 ghazis WERE TOTALLY GONE this is only 24 katanks no armor no weapon wasent a heir i send my prince in to reinforce my ghazis with arbs attempting to put them down in the end i lost all my ghazis which routed once enemy spear men charged down from the trees plz tell me how i can counter these god like katanks? the end result was 800 dead 124 killed the katanks killed 500 even

[ah_dut]

I am reliably informed (by myself being a byz player) that the byz have INCREDIBLE generals. Sorry mate but they can be valour 4 Staring. so at Val 4 they will kick you hard. Princes, please don't remind me of my VALOUR 30 katank Jedi who took on thousands and killed them all. so wait for the byz to spread out a bit. They have a lot of armour so mamluk horse archers work well, so do mamluk cav when they're exaughsted

[katank]

ok, intentionally rout your troops to lure them past your arbs.

I still say pin with saracens and use naptha or siege.

naptha or siege ignores armor entirely so a single it from a good grenade throw will kill the enemy katanks without much ado.

a single well thrown nade kills about a dozen and you really only need to kill the unit leader to make the enemy less jedi as that is the man who kills by far the most due to multiple lives.

BTW, Byz princes can easily start from v7 up. best I had was v10 out of the box.

[arghy]

heh route hasent yielded good results one time i attempted it with my english campaign.... it was pretty funny first the 2 closest units routed then whole army routed like an inversed pryimid was laughing so hard


ill try that next time i face them i have a lovely build up of 8 heirs and king on crete hehe i keep a strong fleet blocking ocean squares so they dont escape or attack me hehe if i cant deal with 24 katanks i dont even want to think of a full unit much less royal blood


and after i posted i made the mistake of sending my glorious army against the golden horde in georgeia once again the AI amazes me 6000 golden armored units GH has 2031 units in there instead of running they fight i was unprepared for an extended battle so i auto resolved 1050 dead 600 captured and 300 lost rest retreated into the castle sure enough 3 armys come to break the siege still barely numbers more then 2000 against my 5700 so i went with pavise arbs and ghazis and arab inf wanted speed to counter the CAs- NEVER DO THIS ghazis were not ment to fight cav and never ment to hold the line i had a insanly good postion very steep hill with 4 pavis arbs stretched out in 2 man ranks with some nizaris and desert archers behind them to add volume fire with ghazis behind them to lead the charge, sure enough i under estimate the speed of the GH cant get ghazis out in time 2 arbs get slammed head on by the CA soon relieved when ghazis come in numbers then i realize something.... ghazis suck donkey balls there great down hill advantage they kill about 3 CA and manage to all get slaughtered the battle gos on with me summoning half my reinenforcements before i simply get to angry and ESC out of the battle in disgust feeling let down by my inf

i am currently in 1361 and because my glorious army turned out to be cowards will take me 20 years to rebuild my army outta my selection for bread and butter units: sarc. inf muhadib spearmen abyssian guard nubian spear men, should i focus on cavarly? or merely switch tatics and build more mamuluk archers? heh in my experience with all the units the spear men seem to hold there own but only in down hill charges

[katank]

ok.

don't try and take the horde with gold armor.

gold armor doesn't make the units jedi. gold armor vanilla spears will still suck, except slightly less.

try focusing on buffed saracens to pin.

ghazis are never meant to be head to head sword inf.

pin with saracens and flank iwth ghazis.

ghazis have 6 charge, 5 attack with AP, -4 defense with 1 shield.

with gold armor, they still only have only 1 defense from armor and they'll die like flies.

they are fast so they can maneuver fast and flank/rear attack really easily.

don't ever try and counter their cav heavy armies with your own cav armies.

that is quite dumb as outhording and outcavin the mongols is impossible and will break your bank.

simply have mounds of saracens for an iron solid spear wall and use the ghazis on the flanks and piles and piles of arbs to take out the mongols using missiles.

also, if MHC are really a problem, once they get pinned, blow them up using naptha.

easiest way to take out very armored jedi cav is using naptha.

[ah_dut]

like I said in my elmo summary, naptha on knights amusing

[arghy]

haha gonna make napthas a staple in my anti-horde army

wow i never knew ghazis werent anti sword inf


i fought the horde again with a great victory useing 2 arbs on a big slopeing hill with 4 cav units on the flanks worked like a charm with sarc inf pinning in place while ghulams charged in from the sides and rear heh my generals unit 19 ghulam cav killed 106 taken 236 lost 1 i was very happy with my turn around:) i also did a cutom battle with assorted jav units and spear men against katanks heh almost got it down

[katank]

ghazis have armor piercing attack and super charge but among the worst defense ever.

therefore, their speed and shock power basically means flankers/rear attackers r us.

charge em head on and they die like flies.

they are fire and forget missiles. expect them to take out most units you charge them at forntally but don't expect any to come back alive, at least not more than single digits however.

charge them head on against heavy cav and expect to take out maybe 20 heavy cav but to lose the whole unit.

ghazis aren't really counters for any thing and can be used with devastating effect if you can rear attack against armored units.

however, they are impetuous and can make knights look cautious.

they will sometimes rip out of a forest far before the ambush time and end up slamming head first into the enemy heavy cav in which case it's time to say bye bye to that unit and just be happy that you took out some.

[RollingWave]

katank you ever find the abyssian guard of any real use??? I can't seem to find much of a use for them... they seem to be a slower version of ghazi with worse moral and marginally better defense and controlable... but it just seems that ghazi general do the job better in most cases and abyssian routing more often is a huge pain....

[ah_dut]

abyssinian guards are useless buy Ghazi. they have SWISHER SWEETS defense and are more expensive than Ghazi save the cash
SOrry i'm not Katank

[katank]

not really.

never found abyssinians to be as much use as ghazis.

4 charge and 4 attack with AP isn't as good as 6, 5 with AP

I use swords as almost exclusively flankers etc so ghazis do a better job

for slugfest, abys would actually do better with total of 0 defense compared to -3 which is ghazis counting shields.

they are also disciplined vs. uncontrolled and are easier to manage than ghazis I suppose and I don't know about routing.

they have 6 morale vs. 8 for ghazis and aren't that suceptible to routing although less so than ghazis.

they do have uses but I use ghazis and rarely use abys.

However, I'll occasionally use abys for the egyptian flavor.

at least they are better than arab inf

[arghy]

heh i was wondering same thing when i first saw the abys's i thought they would be unarmored vargians ha guess the huge axe makes em look neat cause even with down hill charge against vanilla spearmen they lost

my real problem is im running outta strike units sure spearmen are pretty nice but can count on them to break the enemy line ghazis are great for flanking but when the enemy has you flanked they cant be used properly

also about the camel warriors how much of a bonus do they have against horses? i thought the enemy would route when they charged in i know the turks HA had some trouble when they were being chased by them but so far katanks and knights rip my mounted peasants a new hole i've tryed flanking and rear charges it normaly overruns about 2-3 units then just stops dead i've seen enemy spear men pined between sarc inf and camel warriors the camels lost 22 and routed before the enemy did

[katank]

ok, the camels get 2 attack, and 4 defense against horsies.

they get +1 in sandstorms and -1 temperate zones.

take them out of the desert and they lose much of their power.

however, they are capable of eating horsies alive in the desert, particularly tired armored knights in a sandstorm.

due to more defense bonus than attack, the camels actually don't shine all htat much when rear attacking knights as much as you would expect.

however, they can still be devastating though archer chasing isn't that great and against spears, camels are dead meat.

the idea is that you take out the enemy more cost-effectively.

the bedouin camels cost 125 a pop and sure are cheaper than those fancy knights.

also, they need castle level at least to produce knights while you can field your camels from a fort.

your mounted peasants can easily win a war of attrition so bring it on

let the mustard horde overrun everything.

I suggest you use AHC if you want actual cav.

v2 AHC from Armenia is quite doable and stronger than kwarzies or anything else.

slap on some armor and they can easily rival knights.

else, you can try my buffed saharan idea which works wonders too especially in the router count.

[RollingWave]

I find bedoiuns problem is usually more in moral than their actural effectiveness.... build up some mosque and other moral raising buildings in places where u want to buidl those camels and then lead them with better generals preferrably with vitrues that add to moral...

For their price... they still are quiet effective money wise vs almost all mounted units outside of the desert... they can be used to chase weaker types of archers (desrt.. vanilla archers ... maybe arbies..) but DO NOT try to use them against things like longbow and turcoman foot etc... 3 units of camel will still easily maul a fedual knigth as long as their moral doesn't break outside of the desert... and 3 of them cost less :P (125x3

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: Abyssinian Guards

The biggest problem with this unit is that their upkeep cost is outrageous. I don't remember how much it is, probably because it's too painful to remember.

The only time I ever get Abyssinian Guards is when I declare Jihad. I disband all of them as soon as the Jihad is over, before I have to pay the upkeep costs. I don't even keep good governor candidates. It's strictly a matter of price.

Re: Camels

They tend to produce a lot of good generals. Four and five stars come pretty regularly.

Egyptians get them at a discount, too.

[Blodrast]

well, ok, then what _do_ you use as a main head-on sword infantry when playing egyptians ?
i mean, saracens are excellent spears, and the fanatics are really only good (ok, very good) for flanking, but you obviously need some head-on killers (i.e. swords), not just spears and units that hold the line...

[katank]

ok, blodrast.

the idea is that you don't have headon killers for eggy.

Muslims are maneuverability based armies.

so get away from the idea of total slugfest.

the idea is finesse.

pin iwth saracens and flank with ghazis.

even when playing catholics, I almost never charge my maa head on.

I almost always flank.

saracens are identical to chiv sarges and are able to hold the line against most units long enough for others to flank.

if you want to win by charging your units head on, try playing catholic factions who can usually get huscarles in early if you take scandanavia and then CMAA later.

sword rush is quick but not cost effective.

[Doug-Thompson]

In addition to what katank said:

Faris and mameluke horse archers are made for killing fanatics and other such trash. A lot of people don't like horse archers, though, and for some good reasons. They don't suit everybody's taste or style. Still, they're the main type of new unit the Egyptians get in the high era.

Nizaris are difficult to get, but not too difficult if you take over Constantinople. That gets you close to your main building requirements.

[Blodrast]

@Doug-Thompson: i am not yet sure if HA suit my style or not, haven't used them enough to figure that out yet, but it does certainly seem interesting, and I've watched some of Sinan's replays, and was quite impressed. Of course I'll get slaughtered the first x times, and by that time I'll know whether I like to use them or not. I reckon you either love them or hate them and never use them.

@Katank: ok, I'm not _that_ WINSTIN FULL FLAVOR a tactician, to just throw units head-on, although I believe that meatshields are very useful now and then. If they can also do some damage, even better. So I wasn't really thinking in terms of a slugfest, but I guess you do have a point. Fighting with a Muslim faction then must involve a significantly higher degree of micromanagement, right ?
What are your choices if you decide NOT to go with HAs ?
(well, do you have a choice ? ;) )
(besides what you already mentioned, i.e. hold w/ saracens and flank with ghazi/abyssinian etc).
And what do you do vs infantry-based catholic armies ?
assume they have a decent number of archers, so you don't simply rule the field with your HAs, neither you or them have significant heavy cav, and they have lots of (pretty good) swords, probably some spears/pikes/polearms. I'm asking because one on one your troops are not as good as say, CMAA, and even if you field some half a dozen HAs, they won't do that much damage if the opponent does not stupidly break formation and starts following them around with infantry (which I find kinda feeble).

thanks