Adapting to egyptian armies

[_Aetius_]

Im in the middle of a campaign as the greek city states, and its about 60 years into it, i control from sparta to bylazora in the north, from thermon to mazaka in the east. Macedon has been destroyed and my control over the aegean is total i have a large navy but at war with all of rome, egypt and an uneasy peace with thrace.

Im extremely rich and prosperous and as a whole have a good army that has overcome macedon and crushed them, held off romes armies, defeated pontic and thracian armies but is now stuggling badly against the egyptians.

Egypt is a massive power, economically weak but vast territory wise there army is also large, the war is being fought in the heart of asia minor where ive just taken mazaka from egypt but im now finding that greek armies just cant sustain campaigns against the egyptian armies without massive loses in men.

The Phalanxs just cant adapt to the quick mobile units of egypt, there army is far more diverse and with nile spearmen able to hold back even the more experienced of my phalanxs there numerous units of cavalry and archers and light troops swarm the lines. Im now recruiting Spartans but the problem remains, im finding in armies of 1500 im losing half of them in a battle against egypt (mostly to quick cavalry flanking movements), and since obviously you can only have so many men on campaign at once whilst still protecting your frontiers properly etc i cant sustain these kind of loses forever. Greek cavalry is useful but they are light cavalry and cant hold the flanks for long and the egyptian cavalry knows it. I have around 4500 men on this campaign in asia minor and at these level of loses ill be forced to withdraw within 5 years and there will be nothing stopping egypt from flowing over the frontier.

Im sure others have come across the greek armies awful weakness of zero adaptibility, my army is now starting to be filled with thracian barbarians and sarmatians to bolster the ranks how can this lack of adaptibility be remedied? or cant it?

[Attalus]

Mercs


Get 'em.

[_Aetius_]

Well ive drafted in thracians, rhodians, cretans, illyrians, salmatians and god knows who else, but there isnt a unit i can find that does what i need, sturdy and fast not dreadful defence/armour that can support armoured hoplites and hold there own.

Eastern infantry just arent upto the task unfortunately ~:) perhaps this is just a fatal flaw in greek armies.

[Somebody Else]

The phalanx/archer combo should work no? Prevent them getting to you with the phalanxes in a sort of crescent formation, and pepper them with arrows. Militia cav to draw them in - and bring some onagers too. Basically - set up a firebase and let them break on you. The Greek cav can chase down those that rout.

Course - the easy way would be to avoid field battles if possible - only fight sieges and bridge defences. At close quarters, their speed doesn't count for much. Outmanoeuvre them on the strategic map, and battles end up being much easier.

[mambaman]

use Onagers as much as possible and set them to use fire-they will devastate their chariots who tend to stand off

[RollingWave]

massive phalanx formation with a ****load of archers is probably ur best solution.... avoid offensive field battles...

Another solution.. the biggest egyptian weakness is probably that they have very few port and a extemely long coastal line... blockade them and also send a army from the back to take alexandria puts a knief into their back as u take one of their best province a wonder and is in close proximity to their capital... taking Memphis would screw them royally since the rest of their province loyalty goes to hell.

Or you just have to build a all calvary army (with tons of mercs) and hope u overrun them XD... not the safest idea though.

[Kraxis]

Yeah, hit them on the economy.

Blockade the ports and land a few Greek Cavalry units, alone in their lands. Then proceed to cut off inland trade. They will try to chase you off now and then, but will need more units to do so (you should be able to defeat eaqually sized armies). So in effect you not only drain the money you also drain their armies.

[_Aetius_]

Yeah all good suggestions thanks guys, i need to reorganise my army anyway, im going to pull back and perhaps give Mazaka to egypt in hope of a ceasefire, this should give me time to clear up the roman fleets annoying me in the aegean, and make sure my frontier is secure.

Later on im planning an invasion of cyprus to use it as a stepping stone to sidon then jerusalem using the formidable expedition force to draw egyptian armies away from the nile then send my main force from sparta with the newly recruited spartans to invade and sack alexandria, memphis and thebes destroying the egyptian infrastructure, then reinvade central asia minor and push the egyptians back to syria where they belong.

Hmm Ill use the ceasefire to capture apollonia first though those romans are annoying me.

[Sinner]

Send a ship & a spare family member up to the north-east coast of the Black Sea to recruit both sarmatians & horse archers; the latter will help deal with the pesky Egyptian light troops and are great for provoking enemy units into charging piecemeal, allowing them to be drawn into firesacks.

To help handle the Egyptian cavalry, send a spare family member into the deserts to recruit camel mercenaries, both melee and archers. The latter are also good for harassing infantry.

Strategic attacks with spy/assassin teams destroying the enemy troop production facilities is another good idea, plus you often get the chance to pick off new Egyptian family members before they gain enough experience and retinue to make them difficult to assassinate.

[Darius]

Well one thing I have done is park my armies on a bridge and let them wear themselves out, but that can get complicated at times. What I prefer is to get in that really narrow valley that is surrounded by mountains in South-Eastern Asia Minor that leads to the Middle East and just take my stand there. Just set up on the steepest mountain side and let them come to you. They'll be worn out by the walk/run uphill and then have to fight at a disadvantage of having the lower ground. To top it off your archers will get some serious range and damage boosts from their height advantage meaning you can pick them off from a great distance and their archers have less range AND less damage from having to fire uphill.

Once they break, your cavalry can easily wipe them all out, as their charge down hill is massively powerful and they will be exhausted from the fighting and traveling and will barely be crawling away, allowing your fresh cav to cut them down like wheat to the harvest.

[Red Harvest]

Mod their stats to fix the more obvious errors:
1. 11 Armour skinned axemen
2. +5 Shield on Pharoah's guard (they have no shield)
3. Oversized desert cav unit with small shield that are getting +4 for shield
4. Oversized bowmen unit

[Slaists]

I saw archer height advantage mentioned here. I have observed, there is no such thing in RTW... At least, in the pre-patch version. It's especially noticeable on the walls... Your archers on the wealls start shooting exactly at the same time when opposing (same range) archers start to shoot at them from the ground. If you check the targeting cursor - it turns red right behind the enemy archers, indicating archers on the wall have no extra range :(

[enigma6584]

Yeah, hit them on the economy.

Blockade the ports and land a few Greek Cavalry units, alone in their lands. Then proceed to cut off inland trade. They will try to chase you off now and then, but will need more units to do so (you should be able to defeat eaqually sized armies). So in effect you not only drain the money you also drain their armies.

I would also suggest that you be very careful and selective in where you choose to fight the egyptian armies. I've been experimenting quite a bit in the battle map-campaign map in terms of picking the place and time of my battles. If my opponent has more mobile forces, I make sure I fight them on ground which supports my army and not theirs. This does seem to work well.

[Old Celt]

You could send a general out to hire a unit of merc war elephants. That would help. Your phalanxes are like beached whales against the nimble Egyptian troops. Missile units are the best way to solve your problem. Onagers are vital, but you only need a couple. Egyptians, especially chariots are quite vulnerable to slinger fire. You should be able to load up on merc Rhodian slingers. Get some Cretan archers. Skirmishers are very useful and an often overlooked weapon against Egypt. Numidian mercenaries and Bedouin archers can help you. I've found the Egyptians will almost always come to you in battle, so you can build your whole fight around the onagers.

Place 2 or 3 onagers in your center, with a good spartan unit directly in front of them to guard them. Place your other spears in a line even with the onager protectors (you only need 5 or 6 spear units). Deploy your archers behind the phalanxes. Put skirmishers in a long thin line at the extreme front of your deployment area. Center the skirmish line. Place your slingers on the flanks, just behind the skirmishers to start. Take care not to overlap the slinger units so they don't kill themselves. Place your general safely behind the onagers. Deploy Numidian cavalry, bedouin archers, or whatever cavalry you have to your far flanks. I like to have a reserve of heavy cavalry, sarmatians will do in your case, and a unit of Bastarnae back with my general, to react to any overruns.

Always set your onagers to use fire, but don't fire all of them at the same time. Stagger the firing to keep yourself in ammo and allow the ability to pick good targets later in the engagement. When the battle starts, rush your slingers past the skirmishers. Have them fire at anything elite in their front lines. Keep an eye on the slingers. It shouldn't take long to annoy the enemy enough that they will send somebody after them. Retreat them back behind the skirmish line and let the skirmishers take the beating. Direct the onager fire at the troops advancing on your skirmishers. If Egypt stands off, aim the onagers at chariot and/or archer units first.

Egypt will typically send scads of big cavalry units to worry your flanks. Let the Numidians and bedouins pepper them, but send heavy cavalry to the rescue if they start getting chased too much. Do not pursue their routing cavalry. By this time, Most of your skirmishers will be in bad shape, but they are expendable. Your archers should have range and be lighting up their infantry. Direct onager fire at their advancing infantry until good judgement says they are too close for onagers. Your phalanx should hold while your archers pound the enemy. When you secure a flank, send the Numidians or bedouins to missile the infantry without mercy. Have your general and/or sarmatians charge into the flanks of any overunning infantry and wheel them quickly to avoid axemen meleeing them. If things get really ugly, charge the Bastarnae at whatever needs killing the most.

This strategy wins against Egypt. You generally lose lots of skirmishers (cheap). some slingers (not so cheap), and a painful amount of cavalry, but that's the nature of the game. Phalanx infantry takes a back seat in desert warfare.

[ChaosLord]

Hmm, I haven't had experience fighting Egypt with Phalanx armies, just Roman ones. So this might not be a good strategy(only a theory, based on what I experienced using Thrace's Phalanxes). For your army composition get 6 good Phalanx units (Armored Hoplites or Spartans I guess), 8 other Phalanx units, 5 units of Cavalry, and the general.

Your formation will look like this.
P=Phalanx -=blank ground C=Cavalry G=General

---PPPPPP---
PPPP-C-PPPP
CC---G---CC

Now, for a few particulars. The first line of Phalanxes will be about a units width ahead of the other Phalanxes, and in either default formation or something similarly deep. The second row of Phalanxes behind them will be stretched into thin lines to extend far to either side of first row. Your cav will just be waiting incase they still try to flank your second line.

Now the object is to get the enemy to charge your first row, so even if flanked or hit from behind, your second row can come up and cover them. So on any engagement your first 6 will hold the center, while your second 8 will encircle/flank the enemy, with your cav swining around to hit them in the rear. Given the AIs tendency to do flank attacks when it can I think those first six would be enough temptation to ensure this strategy would work.

But like I said, it is all just theory I haven't been able to test. If you do find time to put my strategy to use tell me how it goes.

[Dooz]

I'm poopin my pants just thinking about the impending war between my Macedonian empire and the now very powerful Egyptian empire.


You could send a general out to hire a unit of merc war elephants. That would help. Your phalanxes are like beached whales against the nimble Egyptian troops. Missile units are the best way to solve your problem. Onagers are vital, but you only need a couple. Egyptians, especially chariots are quite vulnerable to slinger fire. You should be able to load up on merc Rhodian slingers. Get some Cretan archers. Skirmishers are very useful and an often overlooked weapon against Egypt. Numidian mercenaries and Bedouin archers can help you. I've found the Egyptians will almost always come to you in battle, so you can build your whole fight around the onagers.

Place 2 or 3 onagers in your center, with a good spartan unit directly in front of them to guard them. Place your other spears in a line even with the onager protectors (you only need 5 or 6 spear units). Deploy your archers behind the phalanxes. Put skirmishers in a long thin line at the extreme front of your deployment area. Center the skirmish line. Place your slingers on the flanks, just behind the skirmishers to start. Take care not to overlap the slinger units so they don't kill themselves. Place your general safely behind the onagers. Deploy Numidian cavalry, bedouin archers, or whatever cavalry you have to your far flanks. I like to have a reserve of heavy cavalry, sarmatians will do in your case, and a unit of Bastarnae back with my general, to react to any overruns.

Always set your onagers to use fire, but don't fire all of them at the same time. Stagger the firing to keep yourself in ammo and allow the ability to pick good targets later in the engagement. When the battle starts, rush your slingers past the skirmishers. Have them fire at anything elite in their front lines. Keep an eye on the slingers. It shouldn't take long to annoy the enemy enough that they will send somebody after them. Retreat them back behind the skirmish line and let the skirmishers take the beating. Direct the onager fire at the troops advancing on your skirmishers. If Egypt stands off, aim the onagers at chariot and/or archer units first.

Egypt will typically send scads of big cavalry units to worry your flanks. Let the Numidians and bedouins pepper them, but send heavy cavalry to the rescue if they start getting chased too much. Do not pursue their routing cavalry. By this time, Most of your skirmishers will be in bad shape, but they are expendable. Your archers should have range and be lighting up their infantry. Direct onager fire at their advancing infantry until good judgement says they are too close for onagers. Your phalanx should hold while your archers pound the enemy. When you secure a flank, send the Numidians or bedouins to missile the infantry without mercy. Have your general and/or sarmatians charge into the flanks of any overunning infantry and wheel them quickly to avoid axemen meleeing them. If things get really ugly, charge the Bastarnae at whatever needs killing the most.

This strategy wins against Egypt. You generally lose lots of skirmishers (cheap). some slingers (not so cheap), and a painful amount of cavalry, but that's the nature of the game. Phalanx infantry takes a back seat in desert warfare.

This and everything else everyone said has gotten me very worried. I've never fought the Egyptians before in any of my other campaigns, or even in a custom battle. This ought to make for some interesting battles...

[The Stranger]

egypt is not economicly weak

[hundurinn]

Be happy that you are having problems ~D Much more fun.

Usually I try to stay clear of the Egyptians because I hate chariots. The damned Egyptian chariots can slaughter a whole unit of experianced armored hoplites and will never run out of arrows :furious3: Hopefully the patch will slow down their speed since light cavalry can't even catch them. Or are we sure the patch will slow them down? ~:confused:

[RollingWave]

Egypt is not economically weak but their economy have key weakness ~:cool: as in they have very few ports realtive to coastlines. ( u have a almost twice as many ports on the small balkans than on the whole egypt/middle east) making them very prone to blockades ... and if u can beat them on the water ... u dont' need to beat them on land :P just keep seiging their coastal cities left and right etc.

[_Aetius_]

egypt is not economicly weak

They are economically weak in my current game because theyve overspent and nearly bankrupted themselves.

Yeah it is more fun that im having problems lol but its annoying that impressive phalanxs can be routed by usually useless cavalry doing flanking movement.

Unfortunately since ive downloaded the realism mod i cant use imperial campaign again so cant carry on my greek game :laugh4: doh!

[Sam Adams]

use your archers or other long range fire to kill their chariot archers, and use cavalry to kill unprotected foot archers if the opportunity arrises.

[Suraknar]

If I may share a Tactic that I use rather successfully against the Egyptians or any highly mobile army with Greeks, is the Echellon Formation.

I made a small diagram here to illustrate.

http://home.primus.ca/~horadrim/rtw/battle.jpg

As such, P1-P4 are Hoplite Phalanxes aranged as an Echellon.

A is Archers and C is Cavalry.

The Green Line Rectangle is Mercenaries with Spears (I like Barbarian Hordes) and the Cyan Lined Units is some mercenary with a heavy melee attribute (Usually Thracians - Bastarnae etc.)

I used this while playing with Roman faction aswell using Hoplite Mercenaries and replacing the Thracians with Roman Troops, their Pila do extra damage.

The P1 is the First contact point and P2 protects the flanks of P1 while advancing, P3 protects P2 etc etc.

The merc Spears protect the Left Flanks from Enemy Cavalry.

The Echellon protects itself from cavalry on the right flank. The inverse if you do a Right Contact point Echelon.

At contact the enemy line breaks and moves to intercept the two P1 Phalanxes showing now its flanks to the advancing P2-P4 Units.

The Thracian melle enters combat when the pressure starts to become high for the P1 Phalanxes and as you waiting for P2-P4 to advance and start engaging the enemy from their flanks.

In the mean time enemy is disrupted by our archers who are well protected inside.

And finally depending on how the battle goes any right wing cavalry can also swing around and hit the enemy from behind or take care of any archers the enemy may have behind their lines.

This usually will cause the intire enemy line to rout at one point, insuring victory.

Worked with me and I enjoyed it on top of it :)

[AntiochusIII]

Egypt economically weak ?!?

That's very rare. My first and only time is on my current Julii campaign and that's only because somehow they lost *everything* beyond Thebes and Memphis to the rebels for like... most of the game.

Back to topic... Other people have already posted that echelon formation so I think you'll get a few more victories easier. Use it to punch your way towards the Tarsus mountain pass. There, those damned Egyptians can hardly beat you. I would then build up a naval power - Greece is damned rich after all - with your countless ports and such to clean the Egyptians out of Eastern Mediterranean sea to land a full stack next to Alexandria and take it (may be with a few spies to help..) Be sure to add a few Sarmatians or whatever heavy cavalry you can get (they're around Mazaka and Ancyra... and in Dacia - these Sarmatians) to enhance your flanking ability.

Then you're just a short hop to Memphis and the rest of Egypt will crumble. Their chariots are not that deadly (still, troublesome) in cities - and on bridges... Egypt has a few bridges for you to land your stack and let the Egyptians attack you there. It's even easier than in the Tarsus.

[The Stranger]

They are economically weak in my current game because theyve overspent and nearly bankrupted themselves.

Yeah it is more fun that im having problems lol but its annoying that impressive phalanxs can be routed by usually useless cavalry doing flanking movement.

Unfortunately since ive downloaded the realism mod i cant use imperial campaign again so cant carry on my greek game :laugh4: doh!

o allright

[The Stranger]

Egypt economically weak ?!?

That's very rare. My first and only time is on my current Julii campaign and that's only because somehow they lost *everything* beyond Thebes and Memphis to the rebels for like... most of the game.

Back to topic... Other people have already posted that echelon formation so I think you'll get a few more victories easier. Use it to punch your way towards the Tarsus mountain pass. There, those damned Egyptians can hardly beat you. I would then build up a naval power - Greece is damned rich after all - with your countless ports and such to clean the Egyptians out of Eastern Mediterranean sea to land a full stack next to Alexandria and take it (may be with a few spies to help..) Be sure to add a few Sarmatians or whatever heavy cavalry you can get (they're around Mazaka and Ancyra... and in Dacia - these Sarmatians) to enhance your flanking ability.

Then you're just a short hop to Memphis and the rest of Egypt will crumble. Their chariots are not that deadly (still, troublesome) in cities - and on bridges... Egypt has a few bridges for you to land your stack and let the Egyptians attack you there. It's even easier than in the Tarsus.

thats true with 16 greek cities i made as much money as with 60 julii cities(other campaign)