High Era Egypt

[Rowan11088]

Errr....this is rated Easy??? I just started a High Era Egypt game, and got creamed. Admittedly, I didn't start busting out new units immediately, but I've never had to do that before. Within 5 years, the French sally out of their big-ass crusader castles and crush me in Edessa and Syria. Edessa was against a 5 star general, so that's excusable, but in Syria it was in the desert, our generals were equal, and I had camels and desert archers...Yet the OFS and Knights Templar still killed me. Definitely not "easy"...I'm gonna restart and try out some Mamluk cav., and get my arab inf. and abyssinian guard faster...but money's gonna be tight.

[katank]

it should be fairly easy. You are defending in each case, right? Did you do slug fest? try running around and not let them catch you but instead skirmish. berber camels and mamluk HA comes to mind. abyss are also good but a bit weak in defense. arab inf is not great.

if you run them ragged, it's amazing how fast they cave once you charge.

[ChaosShade]

alternatly using spear shields (sarcen infantry work great) and lots and lots of archers you can turn the enemy army into pincushions. Use your cavalry to swing around the back and flank. Setup on a far corner of the map heavily armoured french troops will be very tired after marching across the desert. If you still can't hold them use cav archers to draw away peices of thier army and harass them as they advance towards your position.

[RZST]

hmm, could you somehow turned fatigue off?
i dunno, every time i send my hospitaller knights in the desert they seem to always get toasted by either the sun or those bloody camels :(

[Nowake]

Indeed, fight them in Siria with camels and saracen infantry. You can't loose.

[Bob the Insane]

Interesting I am experiencing the other side of this, French, High Era.. I elected to build up my european possessions and left my crusader ones to lag behind a little... Dispite an alliance, it did take the egyptians long to build up one of their overwhelming forces to kick me out...

In your case I would be interested to know how the French faction is fairing in Europe...

[katank]

ky kiske, I would heavily recommend against turning off the fatigue as this is unrealistic. Also, the toasting requires you to do a fast rush to overwhelm them quickly or be forced to use desert troops which you don't have access to.

your best bet is usually UM backed up by gallows and clansman. genovese sailors, steppe cav or jinettes are more optional.

naturally, if you can bribe a desert army, that's also great.

almos appear to be prone to rebellions and you can take advantage of this to nab a desert force.

[Doug-Thompson]

Re: abyssinian guards

They seem awfully expensive for what you get, an unarmored unit. I suppse that they might be good as "banzai" troops. Then you don't have to pay that huge upkeep cost.

[Rowan11088]

Well maybe I didn't make this clear, but the attack came within about 6 years after I started, so I didn't have time to build up big armies of camels and saracanes and archers. I start with 4000 Florins (expert), so it's a bit hard to do that. But I think I'll just re-start and pump out a couple of Mamluk Cav. and Abyssinians (possibly Arab Inf instead) to beat them initially, then continue with my plans as before.

[katank]

you did play this out yourself and try to wear them out in the desert sun, right?
just making sure about the obvious. The longer you make the battle, the more likely you are to win as the tin cans would cook just sitting there.

[Rowan11088]

Yes I did. I camped on a big dune a ways away from where they started, so they should have been tired (there was also a mild sandstorm). Even downhill my camels lost out. but anyway my new game's going fine. I've realized, though, that Abyssinian Guard are not really worth the money as compared to Ghazi. THey have slightly better defense and more discipline, but lower attack and their support cost is more than twice as much. Obviously in MP games they are a fine deal, but in SP the developers are being silly. Same with Arab Infantry; their support cost is 1 and ahalf times higher than Ghazi, despite vastly inferior stats.

[katank]

what about running around the map and drag them around, provided you have some good fast units instead of even camping and waiting to slug it out.

muslim armies I like to use things like turc horse or berber camels to harass and run them around until the enemy completely tires and my units just about run out of arrows. In this case, I try to achieve local numerical superiority by pulling units away form their buddies and then surrounding and cutting them up.

even varangians were no match for my turc horse after chasing them all across the map and losing more than half their strength while doing so and then charged by 4 units from all sides. they were wiped out extremely quickly.

you should be able to do that and soon the glorious french crusader armies are going to be in shambles.

[Rowan11088]

Well it seems this wasn't quite as hard as I thought :) I did have to restart once, but I was fine after that. I just got a swordsmith up ASAP, and between Ghazi and Abyssinians I prevented the French from attacking through larger armies, then invaded Tripoli and won (though with relatively high casualties...I killed almost 4 times what I lost, but I still lost almost 500 men, with few reinforcements). Then they tried to break the siege with every unit from Antioch and I won once again, taking both provinces. Now I'm in an OK position. my allies the SPanish recently sent a crusade my way, but I've held them off and am now taking the offensive. I plan on getting all Iberia before settling down a bit. Valor 2 Mamluk Cav. and Saharan Cav (province bonus plus master horse breeder for each) are a great help. I got a valor 7 saharan cav. from that and my general and a virtue, which destroyed everything in its path. Only problem is that the Byz now have a reemergence on Rhodes only, and are otherwise wiped out, and the Turks are only a few turns away from doing the same, and my allies the Golden Horde might not be so trustworthy on the north.

[Aelwyn]

Do what you can to minimize your strong provinces. Make it so you have maybe 3 provinces to defend on one side, then attack to the other side. Soon, you'll have all the prov's in the arid and desert aread, and spreading up will be no problem. After that, spreading out a trade empire is easy. If they don't accept then you attack up until they do. then, build up, and attack up on one side until you can start attacking to the side with maybe 3-4 full armies. then, continue attacking in many directions and you'll take over more than you will know what to do with.

[Rowan11088]

it's just come to my attention that Faris are better than mamluk horse archers for the same price...What's the deal with that? They have identical cost and support costs...I guess in SP Mamluks are better because of provincial bonus, but this is kind of an oversight. Mamluk HA were supposed to be an Egyptian advantage (best HA in the game before VI), but now apparently the Almo's can get something slightly better too if they want it. Faris have 2 more charge than Mamluks.

[katank]

yeah, faris are slightly better than the mamluk HAs and the build reqs are even slightly lower. they are also one era earlier than your mamluks.

I think VI really tried to add more HAs with the faris and szekelys. well, you can always build your own faris so it's not much of a loss.