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.