Do Camels have guts?

[R'as al Ghul]

This is about Beduin Camel Warriors.
I plan to use them to liberate North Africa from the Almos.
(They don't want to cooperate, so after the New World Order they are considered Enemys http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Since they use a lot Sahara Cavalry and Mamelucks, i assume that the bonus the Camels get in the Desert, will help me a lot against these horse-units.
I produce them in Syria and Egypt with Copper and Silver Armor.
But
Since the requirement to produce them is only a Fort, i have no idea how to boost up their honour.
I have a Citadel or even a Fortress there, but that adds nothing. Any Ideas? or don't they have such a thing as honour? (Does a Horsebreeder Update help?)

[NateEngle]

> This is about Beduin Camel Warriors.

Not exactly a powerhouse unit, but like most things they have times and places where they're useful. I noticed recently that they have the property that they can Dismount Before Battle (upon which they become Muslim peasants http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif)

> I plan to use them to liberate North Africa from the Almos.

That's the best place for them (actually the only place for them). While they don't match up well head-to-head with practically any other unit, in deserts they tire less quickly (and that translates into slight subtle advantages in combat and morale checks).

> (They don't want to cooperate, so after the New World Order they are considered Enemys
> Since they use a lot Sahara Cavalry and Mamelucks, i assume that the bonus the Camels get in the Desert, will help me a lot against these horse-units.

Marginally, yes. After the camel-vs-horse shifts your Bedouins will be roughly similar to Mamluks (bearing in mind that Mamluks are Egyptian rather than Almohad), and better than Saharan Cav. Still there are other factors to be considered that almost all work against camels (mainly speed, which can sometimes make the difference between being able to escape or being ridden down by an enemy with a fresh mount).

> I produce them in Syria and Egypt with Copper and Silver Armor.
But
Since the requirement to produce them is only a Fort, i have no idea how to boost up their honour.

As far as I know there aren't any provinces that give Camels a valor bonus. There are structures that can be used to help them - armorers give those armor bonuses you're seeing in Syria and Egypt, and mosques and ribats will help their morale slightly. I've also heard that it's possible to retrain some types of units to improve their valor rating, but I'm not sure the cost&time justify any improvement in the unit.

> I have a Citadel or even a Fortress there, but that adds nothing. Any Ideas? or don't they have such a thing as honour? (Does a Horsebreeder Update help?)

A horse breeder update helps mainly insofar as it allows you to eventually produce something better than Camels. I know that isn't really your question, but unfortunately the bottom line is that Camel Warriors are a very limited unit - not heavy enough to go head-to-head with actual heavy cavalry (or even some types of light cavalry), and geography and environment severely limit their usefulness when you eventually start looking northwards from Africa.

If I was in your position I would just build a modest number of camels, not counting on them to do much more than scout and maybe ride down a few peasants or desert archers, and not planning on them ever being any use north of the Med.

[Heraclius]

Short answer. Camels are terrible. mauled by all except archers in melee and very light cavalry. I would never and have never and will never use them except as cannon fodder, arrow fodder I should say. This may not answer your question but I'm trying to warn you Anyway just needed to get a little rage out against those useless camels.


Au revoir, mes amis

[Teutonic Knight]

All Hail Hellas

[R'as al Ghul]

Okay, f**k those camels.
I didn't know that they were just mounted peasants.
Since my Janissary Armies stand in Europe and hold the
Almos at bay i thought i might use those camels, since it is all sand up to Spain from Egypt.
And i also managed to rout a hole byzantine inf unit with one single unit of Camels.
That was on the beach of Cypress. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Anyway, thanks to you all

[Kraxis]

Camels beat up horses... but they don't beat up infantry.

[Portuguese Rebel]

Quote[/b] (Heraclius @ Feb. 20 2003,17:58)]Short answer. Camels are terrible. mauled by all except archers in melee and very light cavalry. I would never and have never and will never use them except as cannon fodder, arrow fodder I should say. This may not answer your question but I'm trying to warn you Anyway just needed to get a little rage out against those useless camels.


Au revoir, mes amis
What did you expect them to be? Battletanks?
What you have to consider here is that camels are not elite troops but are quite cheap to make and the bonus versus cavalry is great.

Regard this situation:
- Two faction meet in the field of battle, the armys are the same basic mix. The biggest diference is one side has this fancy Feudal knights (475 florins) unit and the other one has 2 smelly units of camel riding camels (2*125=250 florins)...

- The battle beguins and both front lines engage... the battle is equal and its up to the flanker reservs

- the feudal knights move and one of the camel units engage them

- The knight are wining (slightly)

- Second camel unit slams in the knights flank

- Horses get scared and run to get fresh air (those camels stink bad)

As you see i didn't even mention that to even beguin producing Feudals you have to have a Castle, a Royal Estate, a spearmaker, an armorer, an armorer WS, a farmland 1, a horse farmer AND a horse breeder. To get camels what do you need? The right province (Egypt, Sinai, Arabia, Syria) and a single little insignificant fort.

And in that batlle, lets say you lost a whole camel unit (wich you wont), thats 125 florins, when those feudals routed they you had some very quick running 475 florins.

Im not saying that camels are the supreme unit or something (they sure aren't) but sometimes this low end units tend to get overlooked specially by those who play MP a lot. Many MP games are set to 99k florins (wich i find rather anoying since its utterlly unreal and you end up having a battle only envolving high elite units...), and i would not advise any1 to bring lots of camels on a such scenario. But for SP you got to consider lots of factors and economy and building speed is one of them (this seems to not please some people but its the truth). Anyawy, back to my battle scenario, i could have said that instead of 2 camel units i could have bring more...3, almost 4 camel units (475/125=3.8) but i did not because this is not a main core unit, unless you know your opponent is bringuing lots of horsies...
To finish i must say that another reason to not to have all that many camels around (its tempting sometimes though) is their upkeep cost that it isn't all that low (for a bunch of camel riding peasants anyway), 40 florins if my memory doesn't fail me...

Ok, Ok, i know what you're thinking... this guy is a scrooge like greedy dude... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

Hey That's total war...

A good general win a battle before the battle takes place
Sun Tzu

[Kraxis]

Well considering the camels get +1 to attack and defense in a desert and then +2 to attack and +4 to defense when fighting cavalry.

So those Beduins will almost be equals of Templars in a fight and more powerful than Feudals. The main problem is their lack of Morale, but in MP that is easily compensated by the cheap upgrades...

[Alrowan]

well i use camels quite a bit... some tips though.. if you want better moral, get the bildings that boost all units morale.. that way at least the cemls dont run at the sniff of blood

[A.Saturnus]

You can`t get a valour bonus for Beduins. All units that require only a fort don`t get any. Another advantage of camels: if they run away, your Jannies will only laugh, if the Knights run away, they can cause a chain rout.

[SmokWawelski]

Good details with those bonuses to camels I sure did not know about themn, exept the general idea that camels are better suited to fight in places where there is hot, sandy and generally uncomfortably.

I share your grief that camels seem to be underpowered units, but as somebody said, there are more factors than the attack/defence stats. I like to use them, but am not ready to play a campaign with Muslim units yet (too hard). But it is always nice to see these babies in the field http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Baron von Beer]

*- Two faction meet in the field of battle, the armys are the same basic mix. The biggest diference is one side has this fancy Feudal knights (475 florins) unit and the other one has 2 smelly units of camel riding camels (2*125=250 florins)...*

If I were a knight, and saw a camel, riding another camel, coming to kill me, I would run too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[HopAlongBunny]

Quote[/b] (Baron von Beer @ Mar. 07 2003,11:18)]If I were a knight, and saw a camel, riding another camel, coming to kill me, I would run too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
hehehehe http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

Camels are great In desert fights, they often enter with 2 more fatigue bars than any other unit (reinforcements) very valuable http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I used to think their bonus vs cavalry was highly over-rated, but my receent experience using them has changed my mind. You can use them head-to-head against knights...but I still think its better to double team.

You get them early, easy and cheap. imho, its worth making large numbers of them; using them often; combining remenants to cobble together high-valour units. Besides, they look kinda goofy on the battlefield and that HAS to be worth something http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Michael the Great]

I really wonder if camels do really cause fear to horses in reality,well,truth is I never saw a camel near a horse....maybe someone can confirm this?

[DemonArchangel]

camels do have guts, the guts are usually spilled onto the hot desert sands, but they do have guts.

[hoom]

Well in my Egyptian campaign, camels were plenty useful in early and the start of high.

I've had a single unit of camels destroy a standing spearmen unit.
And as already mentioned, they can take on knights much better than eg saharan cav or mamlukes.

Out of the desert they ain't that hot though.

[Asmodeus]

Yeah HopAlong is right.

The Catholic armies all seem to suffer from the heat terribly in desert warfare. The first time i noticed this was resting troops after a fairly long march across the sandy wastes of Syria (in summer&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. The troops were down to 2 bars already - so I let them rest - but they continued to go down to 1 or even 0 bars http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif They were dying of heat exhaustion. I had a fairly mixed army though fortunately, my camels were absolutely fine as were my Nubian spearmen and those Egytian phycho guards with the massive axes were too.

Anyway if your army is suffering the heat so bad it can hardly move then it is terribly vulnerable to desert archers let alone mounted archers/crossbowmen.

Plus I agree it's funny to seem them running through the sand leaving a great cloud of dust, or when the bushwhack the enemy out of a raging sand storm.

Does anyone know if the Oasis in the desert maps gives any respite to your troops from heat exhaustion?

[Portuguese Rebel]

Quote[/b] (Baron von Beer @ Mar. 07 2003,11:18)]If I were a knight, and saw a camel, riding another camel, coming to kill me, I would run too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Errr... what i wanted to say was peasants riding camels http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
Although camels riding camels would be a nice idea, perhaps +2 attack in the desert and +4 against horsies http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[SmokWawelski]

I think that the difficulty level of your game is a factor. I played hard most of the time, and recently tried to play the game on medium (? - the one before hard). The camels did run like chickens, but then again, on moderate (?) all is easy....

I still like those stinkers though....

[Aelwyn]

I love camels. I never play single player, so morale isn't really a problem as I never get them any less than v4. They take on any cavs, including Lancers, as long as they have enough morale. In single player, just make sure you keep them away from infantry and archers. Use them in armies with good generals to get a valour bonus....thats the only thing I can really think to do.

[Gregoshi]

Greetings Aelwyn. Don't sell your self short - you also thought of registering here and joining in the fun. And we certainly do thank you for doing so http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/pat.gif

[Aelwyn]

Thanks Gregoshi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Been around for a while, just decided recently to register a name that people would actually recognize me under. Was just in game with the Bears. Too bad I didn't save the replay, it would show that Camels aren't weak at all.

RTK Aelwyn

[Heraclius]

damn. just noticed your location. if wenches means what i think it means then you got yourself made for life youngin'. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Aelwyn]

Nah....SERVING wenches http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif They bring food to the table and such...