Playing Egypt

[squippy]

Another good case study for conversion is Naples. It starts in Byz posession in Early but is predominantly catholic rather than orthodox. This goes from bad to worse if the catholic factions - and this is right next to Rome - send bishops over. Not only is the territory remote, its unconnected by sea lanes, and converting the other way Its all set up for Naples to revolt.

[PseRamesses]

You can also check out the Guides-section for each faction through early, high and late eras.

[Chimpyang]

Or you can do a peasent blitz using your elader..swamp he turks with peasents and UM

[katank]

@ chimpyang.

alternative to peasants and UM is the equally cheap nubians and camels.

in contrast, this combo actually works pretty well considering these junk units don't rout when your fine leader camel general is leading them.

not only can you kill the Turks this way, but trash flooding the Byz this way works too.

4or 5 of these a turn certainly means you can out attrit the 1 decent unit they get from Const.

not to mention that they are sometimes dumb and prefer to mass ships even while owned on land.

[SirOsis]

Another update for ya. Everthing seems to be going well for me. I've been pushing the powerhouse Germany back and control Hungary, Serbia and Carpathia. I had my first bridge defense. Oh how they were hurting.

The year is 1162 and the Grand Mosque will be finally finished in 10 years in Egypt. Egyptian fleets control most of the Med and I'm bringing in lots of cash. I did run through 30000 florins real fast building up armies and infrastructure and am trying to slow my expansion somewhat to get some reserves. I've also noticed as my empire grows the generals get some ugly vices.

Thanks for all the tips. Helping my game out greatly.

How important is Iron and weapon upgrades?

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Ludens @ May 07 2004,06:22)]About Jihads, I only tried it one once and that one wouldn't move. I had no idea how to target it. I couldn't even add troops to it. What was I doing wrong?
I wanted to target it to Armenia which was formerly of the Turks but now occupied by the Byzantines (IIRC I had an alliance with them).

The problem is that -- despite what the manual says -- Jihads don't work against Muslim provinces that have been taken by the infidels.

They work against provinces of your faction that have been taken over by another faction, whether the invader is an infidel or not.

This is something of an annoyance. The Christians take over Palestine and the Almohads can't declare Jihad to take the Holy Land back from the non-believers because Palestine was not an Almohad province?

[katank]

weapons only good for attackers like heavy cav and swords.

armor is important for all.

ghazis with weapon upgrades are crazy at killing stuff. silver armour a must for them though as otherwise they die too easily.

ghulams can also benefit from weapons etc.

The problem is that the Eggy start too far from Iron.

Once you cut a path to an Iron province like Hungary and develop it to a metalsmith, the game is almost over.

This is a serious lacking in the game IMHO as the Iron provinces need redistribution.

Iberia is great for Iron and so is the central-east europe patches of 10 with tuscany and sweden the lone ones

taking out iron for Leon and Franconia and instead putting one into say Smolensk, Sinai, Lesser Armenia, Anjou, etc. would be good and gives all factions more equitable access at that resource.

I would like to give them to high conflict zones so that two or three factions get a crack at it.

[Ludens]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ May 13 2004,23:16)]The problem is that -- despite what the manual says -- Jihads don't work against Muslim provinces that have been taken by the infidels.
They work against provinces of your faction that have been taken over by another faction, whether the invader is an infidel or not.

This advice has saved me a lot of annoyance and frustration. Thank you very much Doug-Thompson.

[Doug-Thompson]

You're welcome.