Countering Swords & Halberds

I find halberdiers difficult to counter. Archers run out of ammo and they clean up spearmenr ususally.
Swords can also be difficult for Moslem powers to conquer. Any suggestions apart from overwhelmong numbers, valour or missiles?

if fighting in the desert try to stretch battles out timewise. The longer armored troops just breathe the hot air the more fatigued they become. Low fatigue reduces their attack/defense/morale.

Halbs - abyssinian guards or ghazis are good tradeoffs. both units are cheaper to build (175 build vs 300 for halbs, ghazis have cheaper support than AGs). don't expect either unit to win most encounters, but they should put a large dent in the halbs numbers with their armor piercing attacks.

Swordsmen - don't face them with spears if at all possible, swords get +1 attack bonus vs spearmen. Use your cav to flank swords and squish them.

- if you're in the high/late period, do use arbs/xbows to tear up armored units (like halbs/swords/knights).

They have poor morale and are heavily armoured. So your best bet is use a unit head on to tie em up nand hit with a different unit on the flank. Or because of there poor morale ignore them throw a poor unit at them and worry about the rest of there army. A few of there routing buddies will do the job. Another tactic is to have fast units like urban milita draw them away and keep running from them, The halbrediers will wear out before the urbans do. Also they will route from taking a cavlry charge but, if they do'nt succumb to the charge will start chewing your cavalry up so that can be a bit risky.

Also another good way to find there weaknesses is to do a custom battle with them. That way tou know yourself of how they can handle

I'm no expert on the Egyptians, but I would say your best bet against swords is probably your strongest cavalry.

Halberdiers seem difficult to counter no matter what faction you play as; their thick armor is difficult to penetrate with normal bows, and they carve up most infantry and cavalry. Their only real weakness seems to be their morale, which probably means you have to attack from as many sides as possible. Arbalesters, with their armor-piercing bolts, would probably be quite effective as well. If I were the Turkish I'd try some armor-piercing infantry, like the Gazi axemen; I'm not sure if Egypt has an equivalent. You might also try luring them out of position with your skirmishing cavalry, to make it easier to isolate and surround them.

I happen to like the mobile Muslim armies a lot, particularly the Turkish armies. You can use your superior mobility to harass the slower, heavily armored Western infantry, making them chase you and tiring them out (this is particularly effective in the desert). Halberdiers are tough in melee, but they move slowly and their morale is not the greatest. These are the weaknesses you must exploit.

eggy do get ghazis so try to pin with saracens and flank with ghazis.

saracens can stay in hold formation long enough for the ghazis to flank and deliver their crazy high armor piercing attack and charge.

arbs are always good vs. armor.

have you considered HAs?

the HAs can run circles around the enemy inf and your faris or mamluk HAs are great.

take pure HA and a few camels.

bedouins are expendable and can easily knock out enemy knights and other cav who try to maul your HA and can still outrun inf with ease.

What strikes me is that tiring out AI units in the desert usually does not work... It seems that either they have some fatigue bonus on HARD/EXPERT or something else must be going on... Once, observed a HA unit dragging a unit of silver-armored chivalric knights around the desert until the archers were fatigued and could run no more... The chivalric knights CHARGED them and routed all... Both units started from status "fresh"... Hmmm...

Faris and Mam Horse, make the Halbs walk to meet you, then make them chase you. Use only one unit and you can sometimes separate them from their support.
Using slower HA to tire out knights is sometimes difficult, you have to move them behind a spearwall to rest them.
Not using missiles is more difficult, but ghazi and ab guards as flankers to saracen will make a dent in the halbs

mfberg

If valor is the same then your Saracen spears should be able to deal with CMAA and halberdiers. Their default formation is 4 ranks but put them in 5 ranks and you should win most of the fights.

It will be a long fight so you have time to outflank with units like ghazis to kill them quicker. Or use cavalry.



CBR

note: faris and mamluk HAs actually have a decent amount of armor.

the shooting they do also tires them out so it's possible to use 20/22 normal speed cav to catch 24/26 missile cav.

besides, your HAs probably had some penalties for constant retreat and skirmishing without ammo.

add to that the morale effects of fatigue adn they should rout almost as soon as the CKs charge them.

not a surprise at all.