Egypt

Egypt needs to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says

Code:

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campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
  england
  france
  hre
  spain
  venice
end
unlockable
  sicily
  milan
  scotland
  byzantium
  russia
  moors
  turks
  egypt
  denmark
  portugal
  poland
  hungary
end
nonplayable
  papal_states
  aztecs
  mongols
  timurids
  slave
end

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Change it so it reads

Code:

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campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
  england
  france
  hre
  spain
  venice
  sicily
  milan
  scotland
  byzantium
  russia
  moors
  turks
  egypt
  denmark
  portugal
  poland
  hungary
end
nonplayable
  papal_states
  aztecs
  mongols
  timurids
  slave
end

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(Just the opening moves so far.)

Blitz northwards, along the coast. Ask your Imans for a Crusade against Jerusalem, and sack it.

This massive infusion of cash gives you an enormous head start on other factions. The prestige and piety coming from a successful Jihad doesn't hurt, either.

You can leapfrog from one province to the next: Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch and Damascus will fall in quick order. I avoid conflicts with the Turks at first. They're keeping the Byzantines busy. Also, you don't have to worry much about Egypt. The Moors are far away and probably busy with either Spain or Portugal

Eventually, you'll have a Jihad into Baghdad. After that, you can backstab the Turks effectively.

Well im going to pick up from where doug left off because those are the best opening moves, but i will add a few more detials and such of couse! Anyway lets get to it.


Egyptian game winning units

Egypt plays very different from any euro faction and because it gest its best units very early on but lacks heavily armored units. It plays different from the turks also however because egypt uses more of a mixed army that is usually more infantry heavy and lacks a cheap horse archer. Egypt has three core units that need to be at the heart of ever army, this is the saracen infantry your base spear unit superior to your town militia and upgrade able to wear mail, Mameluke archers that are game winners in there own right,and kurdish javelin men who are bar none the BEST defensive unit you have available to you early on.

Basically saracens should be used as your core infantry unit against any faction, but what makes them so good is that after a certain point in your game when you go on the offensive, they will be very easy to build at any large city and dont require awhile lot of teching up and there armor can be upgraded very easily. Mamelukes are your dual purpose units, what makes them special is they are available early and can dominate throughout the game because as there melee skills start to dwindle, they can phase to the archer role. The only down side is there cost, so very early dont build to many, but dont forget to include at least 2 of these units in ever big stack you have. Also they can be built from the get go, making reinforcing and recruitment very easy. Lastly, the Kurdish Javlinmen are your **BEST** friends when the mongols finally arrive. Infact there so good im going to talk about them alot more later, but for now just know they are your primary defensive unit to be used on walls, but on the field, since they have a sword and shield can be used as heavy skirmishers or even used to take on town militia or other light infantry. They can also upgrade there armor.


2nd act,the holy land. what now?

So you've taken all the holy land up to around aleppo. a few things may or may not be going on. By this point you have lead 1-2 crusades, one to bagdad and one to any city you want in the holy land, most likely Jerusalem. This is ESSENTAL simply because the experience you gain for a jihad is going to give you the edge and you need to be training 1 or two professional army's to head west and get you silver striped units to fight the mongols later.Before you head west though, tech up Jerusalem and make it a money maker but also get it to a HUGE city ASAP, you need huge walls because your going to be fighting massive crusader army's soon and eventually the big bad mongols them self. Also, tech up your three starting provinces and make them money makers via trade besides gaza, make sure gaza can recruit javelin men if you havent already. Also, head to the big province SE of gaza, take it and make it a city, same goes for the one SW of alexandria, they are your fall back areas that are relatively safe from the mongols and crusaders and can, if things get very bad, send out units to the holyland or where ever need be.


Pre Mongol invasion prep

After takeing a good 10 turns or so to mess around in the middle east or rebuild/inforce army's and buildings after takeing every possible rebel province you will meet and border the turks. you might be at war with the turks since they need money and if your not, you will be now. Luckily you can take out the turks very fast. Create one or two full stacked army's with a *train* of 5 or so units behind them to garrison captured cites and head to there capital Iceniem, but take the two . One thats done and you've beaten back any main turkish army. Also, if you havent and its in turks control, consider takeing edessa. Also beat back any crusader army's, but its ok to let them make it to there targert because you need to pratice and prefect your city defence for when the mongols come. Your ideal defence againts crusaders and later mongols i find is about 6 archers, 4-6 javelinmen, 4 saracen milita, and whats left is up to you, but i reccomend more saracens or town milita. Use the javelinmen to defend the archers on the walls...you'll get used to it and see just how fantastic these guys are.

Anyway, your main goal is to make it to constinople BEFORE the mongols come. you MUST do this or else you have a very large chance of not really winning as much trying to do the recovering game. You dont need to actually wipe out any factions, but you need to render them combat ineffective long enough to finish up your plans and such. Also rember to take rhodes and cyprus and make them into cites because you are going to loose quite a few cites in the holyland before long.



Mongol invasion

Well this is it, the moment you've been waiting for! Well...at least dreading. Around turn 70 you will get a pop up indicating that the mongols are coming, so finish up your conquests, make cease fires, open trade agreemen ts and prepare to fight a very defensive battle. They usually come around bagdad but dont always attack it. Either way, make sure bagdad, edessa, aleppo, and ALL the cites north of gaza in the holyland and east of the old turkish capital have either full or 75% full garrisons. In my game the mongols ALLWAYS went for either aleppo or antioch and wont move west or south until they sack one or both of them. In my campagin i had to fight the mongols AND ****4**** crusader army's at the same time, so take it from me, DO NOT ALLOW YOUR CARIO PORT TO BE BLOCKADED! This IS your life line. Money will be very tight because you are going to have to fight TWO mongol hordes (if you beat one, it usually retreats back to bagdad and gets more men) and you will loose a few cites because you wont have money to reinforce your defenders.

Take as many men as you can from cites not in the danger zone (alexandra, ciro, those old rebels towns you should have built up around them, etc) and have 1-2 relief army's standing by ready to enter a city that beats back a mongol army but its garrison is spent. DO NOT use your FEILD army's (they use a different composition, mostly more horse archers) because they will get annihilated. Use them to fight off crusader army's and or to conquer and sack whats left of the turks and bez's (rember i said not to finish them off, thats why :P ). This will give you the oh so needed cash injections to refill your army's. Also, no matter what, i dont care what you think, unless you are an expert, have alot of time and a fast computer, dont fight the mongols on the field. Trust me, the way to win is to break them at your walls (and pray they dont bring seige engines) and thats where your javelin men will shine, they can beat back soldiers climbing the walls AND throw things at them! Plus they are cheap to build.

Anyway, expect to beat back the first stack of invaders, but when they go back and bring another wave this is where the real trouble starts. These guys are usually better then the first wave, much more experienced, sometimes 9 stared generals leading every army. B asically you want to kill about 1-2 stacks worth of men per city they attack. At somepoint they will start to split up, this is where you have to really be decisive. Take your main army (if you have it reinforced) and attack with 2-3x as many men. Then you'll want to rest and bring up any reserves, and swap generals etc. Th e best army's to use against the mongols are ones that use a mix of cav and spears and javelins (not really archers, they are for sieges) and always focus fire on there general with your missile units. When your at this point in the game, jerusalem might be your only holy city left, and nessia on your western front could be the same case. You have to fight a battle of atrittion, but every time the mongols attack, make sure they become so weak that they loose to many men making the next series of attacks very hard. If you win a seige defence, expect to be attacked again right after, and use your lurking army's to pick off the mongol army's that were just beaten.


End notes

The hardest part of the egyptin game is to beat the mongols and crusaders. Once this is done, rebuild and *blitz* to north italy to refill your coffers. At this point the world is yours. You will have the best army's from years of almost nonstop fighting, the best tatical knowledge and jump off points from Cairo (to italy) and constinople to eastern europe. At this point you might have a hard time fighting off armored units, but rember you have cheap durable units that are low teir and can be fielded in mass. good luck!

Good guide :o)

One thing I feel needs a mention is the Naptha throwers. These little fellas can cause absolute havoc in the opposition and are possibly the most lethal General killers I've come across.

Another point is that in my campaign, the Mongols came in above the Caspian sea. To counter this, I've had to take the Turkish cities to the North and am currently bracing myself for the onslaught at the bridges and mountain passes below the steppes.

In my own Egyptian campaign, currently at 1125 AD (using 2tpy) the only time Crusades was called was towards Antioch which at that time happened to be rebels.

Probably I did a bit cheating by sending about 5 imams to Rome :laugh4:

Anyway, using the 2tpy instead of the regular 2ypt when do I expect the Hordes to come ? Currently I'm having border wars with the Turks while having mostly naval engagements with the Venetians.

I conquered all of Arabia and up to Baghdad, Edessa, Antioch (the rebelled from the Polish crusaders and I took it) and Alana (?)

Since using the 2tpy but unable to mod the build times (until the unpacker arrives obviously) most of my starting cities and Jerusalem were already tech up by now.

Well, I don't have any tactics in anyway but mostly follow the Council of Nobles instruction. If able I usually declare Jihad to take the cities which were ordered for extra income and experience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sharpy

Good guide :o)

One thing I feel needs a mention is the Naptha throwers. These little fellas can cause absolute havoc in the opposition and are possibly the most lethal General killers I've come across.

Another point is that in my campaign, the Mongols came in above the Caspian sea. To counter this, I've had to take the Turkish cities to the North and am currently bracing myself for the onslaught at the bridges and mountain passes below the steppes.

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Glad you found it helpfujl. Indeed naptha throwers are a good unit, but i had a h ard time geting them to work and they dont seem to be to effective against the mongols because the horse archers seem to allways targert them even when fighting INSIDE a breach.

Anyway i have a few updates to the guide i want to throw out to whom ever is keeping up or intrested in this faction.


EGYPT PLAYS EXACTLY LIKE MILAN!!!!!
BUT BETTER!


It took me awhile to relize this but after doing tests with units and looking at unit prereqs i learned that Egypt plays nearly identical to Milan in the sence that your best units are ALL in the citys. Infact your Halberders that are your rank and file unit right next to your scaracens,and become buiildable with the large city milita barracks. This is actualy a huge deal beacuse Halberders are one of the TWO only heavy infantry avalible to you, and they decimate spearmen and are a somewhat ever match for fudal foot knights and are good against anything really. Think of them as a wartered down janisarry inf unit that comes earler and is cheaper.

Ok, so thats all good and what not, but what takes the cake? the fact that Mamluke archers, arab cav, your 2handed axe men (dont rember name) and battle feild assisans(req guild first) are all avalible at the city level! This is such a big deal because you can not only keep up a very competent feild army, but you dont have to upgrade castles and your econemy will be MASSIVE! Also your 2hd axe units (avalible in a huge city) with there armor upgrade, are very very very good and can beat fudual footknights and even chiv knights a good ammount of times.Being able to have a very hard hitting army early on with just citys is something even Milan cant do untill LATE game, but you can feild a mix of troops that can be tayloerd to fight either other muslems, christans or whom ever it might be, because you can have both spears, heavy infantry and cav (archer and medium) all avalible to you easily and with out many upgrades.


So the bottom line is, play these guys like Milan. Keep one or two castles near where you want to produce the "bulk" of your cavalry, but other then that stick exclusivly to citys. The weakness of the egyptans is there lack of very heavy units, but more so there lack of archer units. However, with the citys you can easly out produce and win a ecnomic battle against anyone.

What does Egypt start with?

Egypt starts with 2 citys and one castle. The citys are Cairo and Alexandria, both fantastic trade citys and Gaza, a castle which you will probobly want to convert to a city after some expansion.

My tactics were a bit different. I took most of my forces into a large army at game start, then declared a Jihad on Antioch. This gave my starting army some experience, gave me a super rich town early on, and gave me a foothold near the Turks to stop any southward expansion they may try and seek.. I then swept east taking Aleppo and Edessa. If it is still not taken at this time I continue east to Baghdad. I now have the entire northern swath of land leading into the holy land area (Acre, Jerusalem and Damascus) sealed off from the turks and I can conquer the remaning citys at my leasure.

Since Egypt is so wealthy and even decent units are able to be obtained rapidly at low tier buildings, I am not scared the Turks will launch an early invasion by sealing them off. You will still have plenty of power to fend them off even without the holy land citys, and even if they do somehow manage to take all your possessions away at the turkish borders you still have Egypt proper seperated by the holy lands rebel citys for protection.

So far the Egyptians have been a blast to play, and a horde of Mamluk Archers can decimate just about anything in its path.

I've found egypt to be fairly easy, and i've managed to conquer byzantium, greece, turkey, italy and the holy lands fairly early on. The hardest part of the campaign was definitely the crusades that are inevitably called against you - i had one called against Constantinople barely 15 turns into the game :( After you've defeated all four or five armies, though, you will have blunted catholic power for years to come.

http://users.on.net/~purdsa/temp/m2s.jpg

I imagine the real challenge will come when the mongols finally emerge - at least that'll give me some opposition.

Isn't Cairo's port in the Red Sea? How can it trade then with its port disconnected from the main waterways? In my games, Alexandria was always the wealthier city.

Although the majority of Egypt's units come from cities, such as Saracen militia, Halberdiers, and even Mameluke archers, the castles are still valuable considering they can produce Mamelukes, Royal Mameluks, Naffatuns, and Desert Archers. In my game, I had full Crusade stacks from HRE, France, Poland, Sicily, Spain, Venice, and Hungary while under siege from Mongol stacks. Without the Acre and Gaza forts producing heavy cavalry and elite archers, I could not have possibly survived without losing a single city.

Yep, Cairo opens into the Red Sea. To get some decent trade out of it, you need to capture the little place called Jeda in Arabia and also take Dongola (city below Cairo).

im currently playing Egypt now, on my first turn i called for a jihad against jerusalem using the army located on gaza and hired a few mercs for added manpower. then i sent the crown prince to Dongola (sudan) with an army of saracen militias and sudanese mercs. Dongola is a merchant friendly town with its supply of slaves (2) and ivory (2)! i found ivory to be one of the expensive resource in the game like amber. i save and reload the siege of jerusalem because i want to find a unique item:laugh4: (i took signet of solomon on my game). after taking it, i continued conquering the settelements on the meditteranean coast. by turn 15, i called another jihad, this time on edessa, and took footsteps of mohammad! im in turn 30 and on a jihad against nicaea and a war against the turks. mamluk archers are the best early units in the game and also the mercs in the holy land are very good. i also hire bedouin camels when available for use against the eventually battle against the mongols!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iyasu

... Dongola is a merchant friendly town with its supply of slaves (2) and ivory (2)! i found ivory to be one of the expensive resource in the game like amber.

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Dongola is a cash cow. I build a merchant very early and send him down there. Not only is ivory a precious resource, but Dongola is just far away enough to reward merchants with excellent experience. It's also very, very safe. The only practical way for competitors to get there is down the Levant coast and all the way south through Egypt. By the time that make such a walk, your merchants have very high experience and are no longer ripe takeover prospects. You're more of a threat to any new arrival.

Within the first few turns — while you're still flush with cash after your sacking blitz from Jerusalem through Acre, Antioch, Allepo, Damascus and Edessa — a couple of merchants in the ivory of Dongala are easily making 200 florins a turn. Your investment is repaid within five turns and you make nothing but pure profit from there. You can go into the slave trade there, then expand into the cotton and sugar of Alexandria and Cairo and the silks of Baghdad. Or you can take one of those very experienced merchants and go on a takeover cruise through the spices and cotton of the Antioch region or even the silks of Constantinople.


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I'd recommend moving your capital to Jerusalem as soon as you take it, for two reasons.

Jerusalem is largely Christian and rather rebellious.

Sometimes, you get naval units as a reward for mission success. You don't want them stuck in the Red Sea.

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Speaking of navies, watchtowers on coasts can cover the Eastern Mediterranean.

Two in northern Egypt plus two more in the Cyrenecian "bulge" if you take Tripoli, two on the coast between Antioch and Jerualem, one on the west end of Cyprus, one on the south coast of Asia Minor, and one more in Crete.

This will light up everything except one dark patch southwest of Cyprus -- and that's where you put your fleet. :egypt:

Good tip about the fleet reward thing. Now I know why the Eggy AI ends up with several boats in the Red Sea.

I also did Jihad cheese on Jerusalem Right away. You have just enough units in Gaza to pull it off and not have it rebel. The cheap jihad mercs lets you keep up the rampage in the Holy Lands nicely.

For comparison's sake: Heres what it looks like when things go horribly, horribly wrong.

I started playing Egypt last night, Vh/Vh.

I thought I'd be clever and leave the east to their fate of endless crusades etc and instead head west across north africa.

End turn one: Oops! I forgot to move that captain unit with 2 spears and 2 archers outside the Gaza. No big deal I'll just move him next....buh? Crikey! He went rebel?!?

:oops:

Well...that will slow things down a touch.

Menawhile, I'm sending the crown prince south to Dongola, the King I send west to build watch towers along the coast as he closes on Tripoli. In the mean time, I'm building a port which will furnish the ship(s) to send the troops I'm building in Cairo, Alexandrian and Gaza which will join him.

Being as he's 60 at campaign start, I knew the Sultan wouldn't last forever. He shuffled off this mortal coil on turn six. :skull:

Hmm..."I got a bad feeling about this"

The crown prince has arrived at Dongola and laid siege. Deciding to go ahead an assault I find the balance of power is pretty close to even and so, I actually fight the battle. It's a good one! Quite challenging! Victory is at hand as the prince's forces close around the remaining nubian archers and other rag tag remainders of the defenders forces in the fort's square when...disaster!

The prince buys the farm.

Oh...this is NOT good.

In north africa, the troops I built to join the now deceased sultan are at sea and, predictably, come under pirate attack. They survive and flee, thanfully running west, and I decide to risk having the ship move almost it's full range and disembark the troops at the end so thaty don't get sunk if pirates hit again.

The ship hits shore, troops disembark, I click end turn, the entire stack of troops rebels.

/sigh.....

In less than 10 turns Egypt is without a faction leader, down to the troops that start in Gaza - which at the time were heading to Jedda where, as my spy revelaed, they would be very outnumbered - and troop strength is whatever meager militia have been built in Cairo, Alexandria and Gaza.

Not an auspicious beginning to the least.

Yep, it's quite funny. Lesson #1 for Egypt: don't head West. If you expand in a logical direction, you'd win the long campaign before going west to hit Tripoli. It's just not worth it.

This is why I think that Egypt has the craziest short campaign victory conditions. Kill the Moors? They are just about on the other side of the map!

The Egyptian campaign is fairly easy whilst advancing North west through Turkey and the Balkans but once you hit North italy the going gets tough. Scicily and the Papal states will hit you from the South, the Milanese from the West, the HRE from the North and North east. It's an expensive slog of a crossroad to take and hold.

Also, due to the fact that there are no castles in Northern Italy you'll have to recruit your Mamluk horse archers from ragusa and ship them over.

If I was to play this portion of the Egyptian campaign again I would probably stop the advance around ragusa, sack Zagreb and let it rebel. Then I would land in Palermo with a decent size force of HA/Heavy cav to destroy enemy armies, and a force for wall busting and occupation.

Moving my HA/heavy cav army northward would attract trouble and any armies that stepped upto the challenge would easily be demolished.

In my campaign I've found it neccessary to watch the Russians from the North. In my campaign they have taken Tiblisi (fortress), twice, because I had left it weakly garrisoned.

Does anyone have any suggestions for citadel armies defending against mongols? Javelin men on the walls seems logical as they seem to have a high-ish melee stat and I presume they will rain down javelins on the cavalry queued up outside my gates..Which archer type is best, desert or nubian? Which spear unit is the best for anti-cav duty? Spear militia, saracen militia or dismounted arab cav?

Does Egypt get any gunpowder units at all (other than cannons)?

Cheers

Well, I'm doing a short campaign, VH/VH - fancied my hand as the Saracens, resisting those frankish crusaders!

Egypt starts in an advantageous position - Cairo is already a well advanced city, meaning you have access to lots of good units early on. To the west you have hundreds of miles of desert with nothing in it - there are no threats coming from that way, but also its best not to bother looking in that direction. Instead, you have a wealth of neutral provinces to the S, E and N.

Expansion
I took Dongola and Jedda quickly, then expanded up the Palestinian coast, up to Adana and finally started moving East - got Edessa, but the Turks beat me to Mosul and Baghdad. Try to get sea-supremacy in the east Med (up to Crete).

Trade
Merchants - some good resources south near Dongola - when you have more merchants, worth also shipping them over to the gold/ivory/slaves south of Timbuktu. Lots of coastal provinces for ports - means you can get a lot of income from Trade quite quickly.

Diplomacy
The Turks haven't really been a problem in my campaign - we're at war, but they haven't tried to expand south seriously. Although I initially got trade agreements with many factions, most don't last as they are with Catholic factions who will declare war once crusades are declared against you. Byzantium will inevitably be at war with you - although because you have a buffer in the Turks, this will probably be a war of attrition at sea. Therefore, in my experience you will have few diplomatic opportunities.

Units
Arab Cavalry - decent medium cavalry. Desert Cavalry are good in terms of their stamina and nice javelins. They're not as good as your excellent Mamluk horse archers though - these guys are really good. Mamluk cavarly are decent heavier cavalry (although not up to Frankish knight standards). Royal Mamluks are proper heavy cavalry, but are very expensive.

In terms of infantry, your archers (militia/desert/nubian) are all quite standard. Spear units - Saracen Infantry are the basis of my armies - they're decent and available from Cairo early on. Nubian spears, as for nubian archers, seem to have no particular place, as they aren't as good/or are as good and are even slightly more expensive than earlier, less tech-heavy units. Later militia units are useful - Halberds are probably your best infantry unit available - they carve up spearmen especially, and aren't bad vs. cavarly. Tabardariyya look good in the stats, but in my use of them i've been dissappointed, and they suffer from the two-handed weapon bug - they are slow to do much to infantry, and they'll just stand around and get massacred by cavalry - so not really worth using. Eventually, Sudanese gunners are a very effective gun unit, although again very vulnerable to cavarly charge or missiles themselves. Naffatun (sp?) can be spectacularly good, if they can throw downhill, or if they are used in safety against already engaged units - however, they'll die very quickly if charged by cav, or if they get in the way of infantry.

Mongols
Well, its the best bit really. You have some chance, as the invasion comes in waves. In my game, after meandering around in the desert, they finally decided that they wanted Antioch. You will lose a lot of men fighting them. As in other threads, best bet is to get single stacks - if you go against two or three you will lose. Bridge battles are a good way of whittling them down - and can be won with little loss - but all depends on your infantry pocket holding - once it starts to crumble, all is lost. Field battles against single stacks are winnable, although you will probably lose most of your men. Purely cavalry armies work very well, although I also won some very hard fought battles with a traditional mix.

Altogether - fun faction. I've now beaten off the Mongols, so the next move is to actually take out my objectives of Turks and Moors. Turks should be relatively straight forward - Moors will require some fleet invasions methinks.

I just started playing Egypt, one of the only factions I haven't played, and I actually disagree with those people who posted that the first jihad should be launched at Jerusalem. I think it makes more sense to launch the first jihad at Antioch, because the jihad can conquer Jerusalem, Acre, and Aleppo on it's way there, one settlement right after the other, because of its enhanced movement points. It didn't lose me any units through desertion, and you're allowed to leave jihad units behind for garrison purposes (if necessary) without worrying about desertion. It helps to keep the spy ahead of the Jihad; this allowed me to take Jerusalem and Acre in the same turn. It also allowed me to beat the Turks to Adana, which was my next target after a successful jihad in Antioch.

I'm with you, bbrass, except I bypass Jerusalem and take Antioch first. The latter is far more strategic and it ramps population and trade faster. Count the cities within two days march of both. Antioch is a much better hub. I usually take Acre on the way. The coastal cities are better than the inland ones. So I tend to sweep up Acre-Antioch then Adana if it's open, then back Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem. Then head out to Edessa and Baghdad if by chance Turkey hasn;t grabbed them. Dongola is worth getting, but it's a distraction that early. Jedda is another side trip, but worth little. Dongola and Jedda make Cairo a little better, but not all that much. Better to island grab.

But your jihad ends when you take Antioch...you can't sweep back with it. You still have the units, but not the extra movement points.

Starting from Gaza it only takes a few moves to take Jerusalem, Acre, Allepo and Antioch before the jihad is finished:

Move 1: Besiege Jerusalem with the Antioch Jihad & build rams and seige towers. Move a spy toward Acre.

Move 2: Take Jerusalem and move units from Gaza to Jerusalem to garrison. Move your spy into Acre; since he's a high-level spy and it's early in the game and Acre is just a rebel settlement without generals or spies of its own, your spy will most likely open the gates. Take Acre this same turn, garrison it (using jihad units or mercs if necessary) and move the Antioch Jihad toward Aleppo.

Move 3: Besiege Allepo with the Antioch jihad and build rams.

Move 4: Take Allepo and Besiege Antioch. Next turn you will take Antioch and the Jihad will be terminated.

You only save one or two moves by moving the jihad army straight toward Antioch, but then it takes you much longer to circle back and take the other settlements because you lose the double-rate movement points. So you'll get one or two moves worth of extra trade income but you'll be losing a lot of income from taxes (especially from overpopulated Jerusalem).

I've Done it that way before and i can't remember why i never did it like that again but yeah it makes the most money

OK, I'm about 100 moves into the game as Egypt now, and the Mongols appear to be scared to death of me. For forty turns they've been sitting in the region of Jedda, and they refuse to attack. Quite honestly, I can't blame them, because I've been preparing my defense against their invasion since the first move of the game.

By the time the Mongols arrived, I had citadels at Mosul and Aleppo, with ballista towers, and all of my other territories were huge cities with ballista towers. I had Swordsmiths Guilds at both citadels and also at the cities of Gaza, Acre, and Adana, which were used to feed units to Antioch, Jerusalem, Damascus, Edessa, and Baghdad, or to upgrade melee units that were built in these cities. All of my melee troops had been provided with a weapons upgrade. Each settlement with a Swordsmiths Guild also had an armor factory (which is necessary in order to obtain the Swordsmiths Guild), so they could produce any city or citadel unit with full weapons and armor upgrades.

I also had the Horsebreeders Guild Headquarters in Cairo, so that all of my cavalry recieved a +2 experience bonus. (In Alexandria I have the Merchants Guild Headquarters.)

Each huge city had a Sultans Racetrack and Armorer, so I could produce a massive army of +2 Mamluk Archers with armor upgrades anywhere at any time, assuming I had the money. I could also crank out Saracens and Tabardariyya with weapons and armor upgrades at a prolific rate.

Each huge city was garrisoned with six upkeep-free Saracens, which I figured would be useful against the Mongol Cavalry, and which were backed up by Tabardariyya, Desert Archers and Mamluk Archers. In some provinces they were also backed up by Afghan Javelenmen or high-ranking Sudanese Tribesmen with weapons upgrades. A few Naffatun were sprinkled around for good measure.

The two citadels were garrisoned a little differently, with Royal Mamluks, Mamluk Archers, Afghan Javelinmen, Desert Archers, Desert Cavalry, and Naffatun -- units which could easily be replenished at the citadel if they took losses. Mosul had a few Saracens as well, and was reliant on Baghdad to replenish them. Aleppo relied on Antioch to supply Saracens.

This is the position I was in when the Mongols arrived. I had to fiddle around a few times with load games and save games to make sure they arrived in the area of Baghdad, rather than somewhere up north where they would end up fighting the Turks or the Russians rather than me.

I had heard that the first wave of Mongols tends to wander around for a bit and scope out the situation, so I continued to develop my cities while they poked around. After gunpowder became available, I attracted the Alchemists Guild Headquarters in Jerusalem for a +2 experience bonus for all firearms and cannons, and replaced the Desert Archers in my huge cities with +2 Sudanese Gunners, which I figured would be more useful against the heavily armored Mongols despite the fact that their range is not quite as good, and which are much better at melee as well. I also built Alchemists Labs in Jerusalem, Damascus, Antioch, Edessa and Baghdad to give weapons upgrades to the +2 Sudanese Gunners. The Desert Archers were moved from the cities to various forts blocking choke points that had previously been occupied by archer militia. I kept the highest ranking Desert Archers at my two citadels, where they could easily be replenished if they took any losses.

I also replaced the ballista towers at all settlements with cannon towers.

It's now turn 107. I've finished developing all of the military structures and now I'm focusing on structures for more trade, growth and happiness -- so my already massive income is growing even larger. All three waves of Mongols have arrived, and for the last 40 turns the Mongols have been wandering around in Jedda -- the only territory in this part of the world that I neglected to occupy, on the grounds that I thought it was too distant from the other cities to be able to defend very easily, so I left it as a rebel city that I could take toward the end of the game to satisfy victory conditions.

The Mongols seem to have no interest in attacking me. And I'm sure not going to send an army in the field against them, because then they can start devastating my farms and roads. I've started taking over the Turkish empire, which is fairly easy, but I really wanted to fight the more challenging Mongols.

They seem to be just plain chicken. Is it possible that they have concluded that they are no match for my forces?

I had the same experience playing the Turks. My defenses were not as good as yours sound, but comparable. The Mongols never did besiege a since city of mine. Or any city, for that matter, since all the ones in the area were mine. I took to hunting them down, which you are in a better position to do. But I didn't wait for three waves. I had the first wave mostly dead when the second arrived. And both those gone before the third did (at which point I took my 45th province before more than one battle with that third wave).

Your Mamluk Archers with their upgrades can handle a full Mongol stack, IMO. My Turkish Turcomen and Sipahi could with favorable terrain once they got some experience (heh, had them to mostly gold by the end just from fighting Mongols). Ideally make two stacks, mix in a general or two each for some timely charges. But make the rest all HA. You'll have more than they do. If the stack has foot archers, head straight at them and skirmish back. That will force them to skirmish in turn and they can't shoot. I use all loose formation and no circle. Circle is tiring, and my HA are always moving with the order to move past the enemy which makes them skirmish back and try again, thus always moving.

If you have high ground, though, try to hold it. That's an effective counter to their foot archers too. With loose formation and high ground you can concentrate fire and wipe them out fast. Face them. Don't give them the broad side of a horse to shoot at if you're standing still on a hill. Otherwise, don't stand still.

My general looks for chances to charge the foot troops, but be careful, generals draw Mongol pure cav like horses draw horseflies. You can use that sometimes. Attract the Mongol general to chase yours, then run him along in front of your horse archers. ~;) Then when he's shot to bits, turn yours and charge him. He has high enough morale that he will often fight to the quick death. At which point things get a whole lot easier.

And if you can sucker them into wooded areas on the strategic map, ambushes are simply great fun. Wooded hurts their pure cav more than your HA, but keep in mind it powers up their foot archers a little in melee comparatively. But if you're just shooting, and keep the archers skirmishing, that's moot.

I'd try for 2 or 3 stacks and have one lead/chase their bulk and another try to ambush. When you get beat up, pull out for replacements. You can keep a flow to your cities and recombine there, and send the experienced cadre back to the recruitment center for replacements. It's nice to have one center close to the area of operations. Don't need the HB HQ or SM guild for replacements to hardened cadre.

Oh, and don't underrate naffs. They need support, but they can kill more of the enemy at the gate than any other unit. They just can't hold walls as they are not bulky enough to do that without significant losses. Great at killing generals too. One hit, dead. I put one right over the gatehouse, and have a second as reserve. If I can run it to near a wall battle, I do, but that's risky as until they have a lot of experience their accuracy is a bit... not. Friendly fire losses can get high fast. Bad idea to have them throwing into a gate melee if they aren't really experienced. But they do terrific damage to troops trying to get to the gate, or ram it open. I've seen opponents have to replace the ram crew three times. They also wiped out a couple of units waiting there in line while killing off those ram crews. The invaders morale was so shot after all that that when they peeked in the gate and saw a couple units of Saracens waiting with spears braced, they just routed. These were not Mongols though... never got the Mongols to besiege.

Until the patch, at least, I think archers are better on the walls. I hear the gun bugs affect them on the walls significantly. Haven't had a chance to test myself so far though. Archer can also use fire arrows, which are important to help kill off rams and towers, and to cripple morale further. Cannon towers are great though.

Egypt is a great faction to play to get TO the Mongols though. Easy, lots of money, and good units to fight them with. And you can train on the crusades. ~;)

I've used Turkish musketeers on walls before, alongside Turkish Archers, and they averaged 4 to 5 times as many kills each battle than the archers, using only their ranged abilities.

Egypt only has arquebuses though, so I doubt they'll do as well as the muskets...

I only had one crusade army attack me, which was launched by Venice. Like you said, it was mostly target practice for my troops, but after killing the general an announcement told me the crusade had failed. The next crusade was launched at Toulouse. I'm still at war with Venice but they seem content to blockade my ports now and then.

It'd be kinda foolish to fight the Mongols in the field. All three waves are clumped together in a box formation, so I'd have to fight more than one stack at a time. I can probably beat them anyway, but the problem is that once I'm at war with them, they can start devastating my lands. Other than the clump of stacks in Jedda, there are two stacks in the Baghdad/Mosul area that keep threatening those cities but never attack. The just move back and forth between Mosul and Baghdad, and they inhibit movement between those two settlements somewhat but otherwise don't cause any problems.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I don't ever need archers to destroy rams and other siege weapons; I always sally forth from the castle so that construction, unit training, and income are unaffected by the siege. So no faction has ever had a chance to use those types of siege engines against me.

I wish it was possible to edit these posts. I made a mistake; I wasn't playing the Turkish when I put the musketeers on the walls, I was playing the Russians. So the walls had Cossack Musketeers and the most elite archers Russians can build. Still, the Cossack Musketeers averaged 4 to 5 times as many kills as the archers each battle. I think I was mostly fighting the Hungarians at that point.

Does anyone know how to get an accurate unit ID list so I can add units to my army stacks??

I am at about turn 50, Vh/Vh. The only thing i can really say is that Egypt has a great position to begin. Asia minor is rich, Extremely rich. I sack every city i take, Throw the money into infrastructure and my army. Moved my capital to jerusalem for a number of reasons, 1. it is closer to the center of my Empire( which stretches up to trebizond, and to iconium), 2. it sends a clear message to everyone that i control the holy land and i wont give it up. 3. it helps keep the peace in jerusalem which has constant uprisings.

Now in the campaign i am faced with Crusaders, lots of em. and on the Ground im pretty easily out classed by western Knights, my only real strength is Mamluk HA and Naptha. I have zero allies, everyone distrust me , which i dont blame them, i lost patience with the turks around turn 25, and they were exterminated by turn 27.

So my advice.... 1. Use jihads, send out as many jihads as possible, check every turn to see if you can send one out. It is useful because of the zero army upkeep for the jihadist, and the extremely cheap mercs, and the experience gained from completing the jihad. It also makes your generals gather more characteristics and more people for retinue. 2. a high city to castle ratio. I have about a 13/3 ratio, You should have near a 4 times as many cities as castles. 3. Merchants....no explanation needed. 4. Sack every city you take, you need the money and then some more.

I have not seen the mongols yet but hopeful it will be fun. :egypt:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bbrass10

... I actually disagree with those people who posted that the first jihad should be launched at Jerusalem. I think it makes more sense to launch the first jihad at Antioch, because the jihad can conquer Jerusalem, Acre, and Aleppo on it's way there, one settlement right after the other, because of its enhanced movement points. It didn't lose me any units through desertion, and you're allowed to leave jihad units behind for garrison purposes (if necessary) without worrying about desertion. It helps to keep the spy ahead of the Jihad; this allowed me to take Jerusalem and Acre in the same turn. It also allowed me to beat the Turks to Adana, which was my next target after a successful jihad in Antioch.

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:applause:

Wish I'd thought of that.