Egypt

[King Clas]

As been said, go for crete. They are an excellent base for further expansion and the trade will be very good for your economy. Most of the time all roman factions end upp in war with the greek cities. Even thoue you may not be allied with Rome head forth into war with the greeks. Take Rhodes and then Sparta. Be prepared for war with Macedonia sooner or later since they will become rivals. As has been repeated over and over again here is, never ever trust the seleucid empire. They are rather easy to beat but they just keep coming and i do hope for a breakthrough to happen soon.

A fun thing that happend me. I landed a fairly large army on Crete led by a family member. The rebel army in the city decided to met me in the field . So cool! however since Rome cant reflect guerilla warfare so good the rebel army was crushed in the open field. After that taking the city was a piece of cake.

/Clas

[Garvanko]

Rebels left an open gate for me too. Have wiped out House of Scipii and Rome, but the Julii will take some leveling. Its odd though, at the moment any new family member I get is 50 years old or over? No young 'uns coming in at the moment.

[Craterus]

You might want to hope for a Man-of-the-Hour? At 50, they'll be out of the game soon. Or a young'un to adopt? Worst comes to worst, you'll have to bribe another faction's general to carry on your faction.

[Garvanko]

So what your saying is that my faction is dying out? I suppose, unless what you suggested happens, I can't really control it.

[pezhetairoi]

there's a thread on the colosseum about the sad Greek who hasn't gotten any children in 20-30 years, and no new factioners either. You're not too bad, at least you're getting new factioners, though admittedly old ones. Start sending out two-unit chariot armies to hunt rebels. You'll need MOTHS. Adoptions aren't reliable, they're too random.

[Craterus]

Yeah, if you have some young daughter's you could hope for some adoption/marriage but you would be better off trying for Man of the Hour.

Unfortunately, MOTH isn't of your faction's blood. Once upon a time, when I was playing the Egyptians I made a MOTH my faction leader and he died at 37. I wonder what happened there. My theory is that he was assassinated by his own troops.

If, however, one of your daughters was to marry, her son (not her husband) would be of noble blood.

Sorry, I like to add in a little role-play into my campaigns. Keeps it interesting.

[Garvanko]

I just got a MOTH (+3 stars) capturing Byzantium from the Brutii.

[Lanemerkel1]

after playing a campaign as them I would have to say one thing:


build Blacksmiths and spam Chariots and their sedecessors


that should do it

[McDoogle]

When u first begi your egyptain campgain, the lil intro movie for them shows spearmen and archers with black crowns on theirs heads like the pharoahs wear. Now is this a later development like the marius reforms? because i cant seem to find what unit they are.

[Watchman]

They're the "old" Pharaoh's Somehtingorother unit skins; if you search the descr_model_battle.txt, you can find them puttering about in there (with a programmer note along the lines "new realistic skins, the cone-heads are reserved for the generals" around the new skins the game uses by default ).

If you want to use them it's a simple matter of editing the EDU so the appropriate units refer to those and not the new ones.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Strategic Goal:

Domination of Asia Minor, the Middle East, and the Eastern Med.

Strategy:

Block West, expand North and East. Establish borders at the Gulf of Sidra, the Cuacas Mountains, and the Eastern edge of the Map. Build up forces for further conquest Westward.

Campaign Tactics:

Go West old man!

Send out your faction leader to quickly attack Siwa with most of the forces you can scrape away from the garrisons and purchase in the Nile valley. This fellow then leaves Siwa, building watch towers at good intervals while traveling to the Western border of the province. Establish 5 forts and a tower to guard this border -- Libyan Mercs are dirt cheap on upkeep for this -- and then use the balance of your forces to conquer Cyrene. A second general should be sent out to build up Cyrene as a minor military base (to supply the field army necessary to supporting the forts).

The faction leader can be sent via ship to Kydonia and/or Halicarnassus to buy or conquer an outpost for the empire. Remember to queue up a good build pattern wherever you alight, since the bloke will pass on shortly after.

Send a Dip to Carthago overland. He should get there before the Romans, though only just.

Master the Middle East

Your younger generals should mostly go towards Jerusalem picking up cavalry and camel mercs and building command stars against rebels in the time-honored "whack-a-mole" fashion. Keep the peace with Selkies for now, grabbing Petra and Bostra and Palmyra to build up your trade empire in the Red Sea and keep attacks off Jerusalem. Sidon's garrison must be grown. Either Parthia or the Selkies will eventually attack you and begin the war you'll need to dominate the Middle East, so just build your strength and experience while setting up for this. Get lots of spys out to supplement any towers you build.

Both of these opponents are difficult, but will succumb to heavy cavalry/camel forces coupled with chariots and bowmen. You'll need to develop at least one siege army to handle Damascus/Antioch/Tarsus/Hasta.

Send dips into Asia Minor and Russia. Build more to bribe defend your Nile and Jordan regions.

On the Main

You start with few ships and you don't have the money to build more for some time. Use them carefully to get a dip to Greece and later to sneak over your faction leader and perhaps one more general and/or dip for Asia Minor.

Build powerful fleets to crush the opposition after consolidating the Middle East.

--TBC

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A couple of add-on points:


Dealing with Rebels:

Always scope them out first. If they're peasants, skirmishers, or eastern infantry they are prime targets for your generals to rack up stars. If they are bowmen - 120's, then buy them! You can't get bowmen easily for a few years and the buy-overs come to you dirt cheap. Be careful attacking rebels with lots of camel archers or archer -80's; your generals will get murdered by enemy archers far too easily (something about the bulls-eye on their chariot).

Building Garrisons:

Don't build peasants unless you must. Bowmen-120's are great for numbers and for defense and you Nub-Spear boys are just as good as militia hoplites and just as cheap. I typically get 3 Nubs, 1 Nile, 1 Axe, 3 Bow, and 1 Des Cav for most cities. You can replace everything but the Nubians with bows if your city is nowhere near the front.

Fighting Pinkies:

Use an all-cav/chariot force, or cav and bowmen if you must. Parthian cavalry is a tough opponent, but you can handle them if you have enough of your own. Parthian infantry is just fodder for your troops. They can be tough in a siege as long as they have enough bows, but have no staying power once it gets to the hand to hand.

Fighting Num-'nads:

They'll come at you with a mix of spears, missile, and cavalry. Never engage quickly, but make them come after you (defense) or flank them. You'll end up fighting their cavalry first, which is good. Once you kill off their cav, the spearmen aren't mobile enough to tear you up. Remember, though, that their spearmen have good morale and will not fold up like Parthian infantry.

Fighting Selkies:

You'll need a mixed army here. Their infantry can break you, and they'll have elephants as soon as they can field them. They also have scythe chariots that they love to mow you down with. Their missile troops are pretty standard. Use mixed tactics on them where you can. Your goal here is to engage their cavalry with yours (your units are bigger and or using camels) or draw their cavarly onto a unit of your cheap slingers (who're lined up in front of the spear-boys) and then use your surviving cavalry to hunt their missile troops. Their infantry is slow but deadly, so let your numerous bowmen chew them up (then send in the axemen as they get close if you have axes). Stay mobile against his phalanxes and your bows should winnow them well. Draw elephants after a cavalry unit and run them until tired, then bow them into running amok. After that, camels and javelins do well at killed tired, amok hefalumps.

TBC (as I learn more on taking out the tough cavalry forces of Armenia and Pontus).

[GeneralHankerchief]

My strategy for the Romans is "strength in numbers."

During my 50 year war with them, we fought everywhere from Sardinia to West Africa to Byzantium and the main reason why they were finally destroyed is because I had the superior resources. Once the former Parthian and Seleucid territories are yours you are pretty much rolling in the cash, enough to keep up with the ridiculous amount of bribing that you will do.

The type of troops generally differs from region to region, but when invading Italy and Greece (which should be solidly Brutii by the time you invade) you're going to be doing a lot of siege work so I recommend skimping on the cavalry and instead loading up on the infantry and artillery/archers. The reason for this can be explained in my short story "1st Battle of Tarentum."

Pharoah was pleased. The Italian invasion was going splendidly. In a four-pronged attack, Capua, Arretium, Croton, and Patavium had fallen to his mighty armies. Now he was personally leading the army of Croton to Tarentum, setting off the second wave of attacks.

Everything would go great. His army was designed to excel in the field of battle. Several units of his best Pharoah's Guards would pin the enemy down while his personal archers would rain death upon them. Finally, his chariots would chase down and cut apart those who survived. This had worked extraordinarily well in Sicily and in front of Croton. He saw no reason to believe it wouldn't at the gates of Tarentum.

During deployment, Captain Wah informed Mighty Pharoah that the Samnite Mercenaries would only take up one of the two siege towers. Pharoah, annoyed, replied:

"Of course I know that. And one of my Guard Units will occupy the other tower."

"Actually sir, they're phalanx units. They don't go up siege towers. Your Bowmen will occupy the other one."

This was a foresight that Pharoah had not seen. Making an executive decision, he decided that at least one unit of Bowmen would fight in hand-to-hand combat to open up the gates for the rest of his grand army to enter. As the siege towers neared, Pharoah felt elation. The Brutii would finally be kicked out of Italy. But when the towers hit and the men climbed out, something was wrong. They were... losing.

In desperation Pharoah sent his remaining Bowmen to fire at the Romans on the wall. However, their constant volleys were not enough. The Roman leader, displaying wisdom, loaded all his men up onto the walls, thus providing no rest for Pharoah's noble troops. Pharoah sent the Bowmen, now out of arrows, up the towers to desperately finish the job. His elite infantry and chariots could only watch as they saw their comrades get slaughtered on top of the walls of Tarentum. Pharoah wisely called the attack off before he lost all of his archers. The Romans jeered as the once-great Army of the Pharoah withdrew, the siege broken.

As you can see, there's no point in having great infantry if they won't fight. The Egyptian armies were not built for siege combat. This army was one of my favorites, seeing as how their makeup had annihilated several Scipii and Brutii full stacks. However, they didn't have enough siege infantry (ie Desert Axemen), and had zero Onagers. They were pretty much doomed the first heavily-defended city they hit.

In case you were wondering, I resumed the siege of Tarentum the next turn (this time with Desert Axemen) and sent them all to the walls at once. The gates were opened and my Chariots mopped up the Romans inside the city. The Second Battle of Tarentum was an Egyptian victory.

[Patriarch of Constantinople]

whenever i charge my chariots into seleucid battle lines most of them get killed. Am i doing something wrong?

[Craterus]

Charging chariots isn't great. Just get the Light (missile) chariots and you can take on the Seleucid lines without much trouble.

[Drusus Magnus]

whenever i charge my chariots into seleucid battle lines most of them get killed. Am i doing something wrong?

Charging cavalry, but especially chariots, head-on into a falanx will instantly kill alot of your troops. I assume you will be fighting a lot of militia hoplites or maybe levy pikemen in your Egyptian campaign. By charging chariots into their sides or backs you will easily rip them apart. Just don't go headon to a falanx unless you're doing it with a falanx yourself.

[Severous]

Chariots are mobile missile platforms. Move them to enemy flanks and rear for shots into unshielded infantry. Do not stop when fighting close. Keep moving. Those spikes on the wheels are deadly..but only if the chariot is moving.

Early Seleucid forces of militia hoplites should not be charged until their morale is low and you are out of arrows. Make the arrows count by only shooting when you have a back shot. I favour the archer and general chariots over the mellee chariots.

[Severous]

Deleted..double post Sorry.

[Severous]

Egypt Imperial Campaign -Vh/Vh-RTW V1.5-No Mods-Large unit scale



Egyptians beseige rebel held Bylazora. Over the end of turn another rebel army appears and rebels launch an attack on the Egyptians. Fools. Did they not take into account the 2nd Egyptian army that would act as reinforcements ? (thats a serious question by the way)
--

Brrrrrr. Its cold in the snow.



Barbarians with bare chests get bonus in the snow. Whilst the better clothed Egyptians get a bonus in the Desert. So will the egyptians be penalised in the snow ?
--

Rebel Peltasts will skirmish away from an approaching enemy.



So down hill, in the snow, against the skirmishers backs, the Babarian cavalry should do well. The Peltasts morale is going to be poor. Frightened by both chariots and fighting a cavalry unit, insecure flanks, and about to suffer losses. Will soon rout.



General was blowing his horn to steady the Barbarian Cavalry. They suffered a few casualties and are a unit with fragile morale. Egyptian chariot general will go after the rebel general who is unwisely in the peasant unit.
--
(Edit: image deleted as it was lost by Imageshack)
As the rebel hoplites in phalanx will slaughter chariots you have to be careful. To keep the chariots away from the hoplites I will turn on the 'keep your distance' icon. The chariots will run away from the phalanx.
--
Shaken and tired the three Rebel Peltast units are going to be mowed down by the Chariots.

But chariots must not stop. Peltasts might have a bonus against Chariots. Peltasts also have height advantage in this situation.

Giving the Chariots orders to run to a point on the other side of the Peltasts will keep the chariots moving. Keep repeating the order to force chariots to break off combat.




Its working...Just as well as the rebel general is charging. Chariots knock down more troops than they kill. Those knocked down troops will stand up and fight again so dont get suckered into thinking the Chariot charges are man killers. They are not that effective at killing during a charge.
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Egyptian bowmen are great. They can also use fire arrows like the Romans.
Edit:Image deleted - lost by imageshack
One Bowman unit uses regular arrows (greater killing power), whilst the other uses Fire arrows (less kills but big morale impact).

--

Massed missile fire, and the threat of so many enemy has routed the phalanx.


--

Bastarnae has a bonus in snow. Egyptians might be penalised in snow. So Egyptian commanders may be well advised to hire mercenaries with snow bonus when they go north. Not that it matters when all the enemy are routing.

--
Egyptians dont need to worry too much about fighting in the snow.


Hope those shots and comments provide a few pointers to prospective Egyptian commanders.

[Severous]

An Egyptian battle from the last turn of my vh/vh Imperial Campaign

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My forces are exactly outnumbered 2:1 yet the battle odds are nearer 3:1 against. The computer rates the Scipii as better troops than my Egyptians.


--

There is a rumble heard. The inhabitants of Messana look nervously at the volcano Etna. But no. It is the Egyptain army on the move.



Masses of mounted troops race uphill. They are claiming the high ground for their chariot archers use, plus going to attack the small Scipii reinforcement detachment entering from Messana.
--

No finesse here. Charge !


Kill these troops before the main Scipii army can come to their aid.

Equites routing


Starting to attack the principes rear


Principes routing


The General is routing...as are my Nubian cavalry. I dont rate them as much as the less advanced Desert cavalry. Come on kill that general..he must not escape to regarrison the city. Good. He is dead.

--
Resting. Letting the Scipii come to me now. Like to see them kicking up dust. Tires them out. Organised my forces and watched my poor Nubian cavalry rout away being persued by roman cavalry.
--
Nubian cavalry rally. Suffers more casualties from shots but has drawn away a part of the Scipii force.

Decide to lead the Roman missile cav down to my missile infantry.
--
Foolish AI. Its sending its overall general to attack chariot archers that had been annoying it. The chariots would lead the Romans into dense Egyptian forces and combat. And death.

Thats a reduction in Scipii combat and morale scores.
--

The Scipii are starting to hem the Egyptians into the side of the battlemap. So all forces being ordered to run out of the corner.


One cav unit ordered to kill routing Roman cav, it touches a Scipii infantry unit which also routs. Is this the start of a chain rout ?

No. I bide my time as the Romans are not yet exhausted.
--

Meanwhile the Nubian cavalry has lured the roman cavalry to missile troop who start to take a toll. But too late to save the Nubian cavalry who are routing again


Now the romans rout.

--

Main cavlary army is out of the corner and waiting for the Romans to continue their attack.

Chariot archers take a toll whilst the Scipii army reforms its battle line.

--

Scipii infantry get a bit too close. Run the cavalry/chariots back a bit ..quick.


--

Roman Cavalry auxillia chase the chariot archers...who have desert cavalry nearby which is ordered to assist.





--

Three more scipii units rout.


Going to hold back on the all out charge a bit longer. Let missiles continue to kill.

--

Missiles now causing routs. Time, at last, to make one big attack.


Charge!


Come on break them. We want those distant units to break as well.



Thats it ...now kill them all.

--

[ATE]

Egypt is easy, even on vh/vh. Those bowmen slaughter evertyhing...

I started by sending any availble troops to greece. The Selucids didn't bother me for at couple of years, so i was able to build an army before they started attacking me. Right now, they are annoying as they have small stacks besieging my cities, but not really a problem, and i just took Antioch and Damascus.

My Greek invasion is going splended. The Greeks have been driven from greece, the Macedonians are now protectorates, and the Romans have been tought a lesson and is being pounded back into Italy.

My main problem have been getting bowmen reinforcements to greece, but now both Sparta and Corrinth are producing.

The moneyflow is about 12000 - 15000 per turn. All cities are buildning, and most producing armies. The only real problem i see, is if Numidia attacks.

Back to the thread. Go straight for Greece. Not only is there a lot of money, it's also a strong base of operations. And who can, early in the game, match a phalanx/bowmen defensive stand? No one, not even the almighty Romans! 8 x 240 men firing arrows.... DOA! :D



// ATE

[WarMachine420]

An Egyptian battle from the last turn of my vh/vh Imperial Campaign

--
My forces are exactly outnumbered 2:1 yet the battle odds are nearer 3:1 against. The computer rates the Scipii as better troops than my Egyptians.


--

There is a rumble heard. The inhabitants of Messana look nervously at the volcano Etna. But no. It is the Egyptain army on the move.



Masses of mounted troops race uphill. They are claiming the high ground for their chariot archers use, plus going to attack the small Scipii reinforcement detachment entering from Messana.
--

No finesse here. Charge !


Kill these troops before the main Scipii army can come to their aid.

Equites routing


Starting to attack the principes rear


Principes routing


The General is routing...as are my Nubian cavalry. I dont rate them as much as the less advanced Desert cavalry. Come on kill that general..he must not escape to regarrison the city.


Good. Hes dead.

--

Resting. Letting the Scipii come to me now. Like to see them kicking up dust. Tires them out. Organise my forces and watch my poor Nubian cavalry rout away being persued by roman cavalry.

--

Nubian cavalry rally. Suffers more casualties from shots but has drawn away a part of the Scipii force.

Decide to lead the Roman missile cav down to my missile infantry.
--
Foolish AI. Its sending its overall general to attack chariot archers that had been annoying it.


Combat


Death

Thats a reduction in Scipii combat and morale scores.
--

The Scipii are starting to hem the Egyptians into the side of the battlemap. So all forces being ordered to run out of the corner.


One cav unit ordered to kill routing Roman cav, it touches a Scipii infantry unit which also routs. Is this the start of a chain rout ?

No. I bide my time as the Romans are not yet exhausted.
--

Meanwhile the Nubian cavalry has lured the roman cavalry to missile troop who start to take a toll. But too late to save the Nubian cavalry who are routing again


Now the romans rout.

--

Main cavlary army is out of the corner and waiting for the Romans to continue their attack.

Chariot archers take a toll whilst the Scipii army reforms its battle line.

--

Scipii infantry get a bit too close. Run the cavalry/chariots back a bit ..quick.


--

Roman Cavalry auxillia chase the chariot archers...who have desert cavalry nearby which is ordered to assist.





--

Three more scipii units rout.


Going to hold back on the all out charge a bit longer. Let missiles continue to kill.

--

Missiles now causing routs. Time, at last, to make one big attack.


Charge!


Come on break them. We want those distant units to break as well.



Thats it ...now kill them all.

--

Again...how on EARTH could that be done in a matter of what, 30 turns? I just don't see that as physically possible without a mod or cheat of some kind. And to have almost 30,000 denarii SAVED ? Was the army free?