Praylak and others,

My main concern is having the units make sense. Their stats should bear a resemblence to their training, gear, and historical use, plus they should resemble the 3d images... Egypt seems to be a bit powerful vs. other regions, and their stats don't make sense in some areas. Inconsistencies suggest Egypt wasn't really "finished" and polished before release.

Egyptian Unit Observations. Summary, there are severe inconsistencies in the way these units are shown in the game and their stats. Here are some examples:

1. Desert Axemen: Attack 10, Charge Bonus 5; Armour 11, Def. Skill 5, Shield 2. The 3D Units are shirtless with nothing more than a metal collar/throat protection and armbands, the unit description card shows shirtless, and it says lightly armoured. Therefore the armour rating makes no sense. Other Egyptian units like this have armour values no higher than 3 (most are zero.) The defensive skill could be increased a bit. These men should be very vulnerable to archers, but won't be so with an armour rating of 11.

2. Desert Cavalry: Attack 7, Charge Bonus 3; Armour 3, Def. Skill 4, Shield 4. The rider is the same unit as the axemen, and graphic looks like an axe, but the units stats file says "mace" and blunt. The stats look reasonable, except for the shield rating of 4, and the weapon rating of "light." That shield rating is used for the long shields, not these little square things. It should be a 2. This is inconsistent in many cav units! The rider graphic should be updated for appropriate weapon or the light rating should be heavy, I'm not sure.

3. Pharaoh's Guards: Attack 12, Charge Bonus 8; Armour 7; Def. Skill 7, Shield 5. This one is screwed up in one regard, the unit graphic has NO shield yet it gets a 5 for the shield? They are wearing some nice looking armour in the 3D images. So the armour could even be boosted a few notches to compensate for the lack of shield.

I've compared these three to Nubian Spearmen, Nile Spearmen, Nubian Cav, Nile cav and other units in other factions to reach the conclusions above.

Chariots are special cases, and I'm not sure how to evaluate all of their stats. The missile stat is VERY high: 13. Such high numbers have ridiculous kill rates in the game. The range looks fine for this one, but the missile value is high. All the very common but "elite" archery units need toned down. Missile units did not do well vs. heavy infantry in this period. The defensive stats showing in the game unit card are for the mounts/chariots rather than the men. My main problem with them is their mobility vs. cavalry (since they have three riders), and lack of severe terrain speed modifiers, rather than their base stats. They should be godawful slow turning. The archers get 2 hit points (since the 3rd man/driver can't fire), while the regular chariots get 3. This probably has some impact since the individual chariots won't die until their hit points are exhausted.

Pharaoh's Bowmen get very high range (170), plus a 14 missile stat compared to the standard Egyptian Bowmen's range of 120 and missile stat of 7. I can accept the range, but the missile stat is overdone (as are so many.) Elites should be a substantial bump up from basic, but these guys are over the top. On top of that they have good attack and defense. They are well armoured, and their no shield stats are consistent (zero.)

The standard archers have reasonable stats for shirtless guys without shields.