Egyptians are NOT overpowered

[white_raven0]

I dont think Egyptians are overpowered. They need desert axeman to hang with the romans. The chariots are very strange. When I face the computer using chariots, they rush into my infantry lines at full speed and can keep moving causing major damage. However, when a human player uses chariots and order them to charge, they ALWAYS stop just before hitting the enemy line and slow down and get bogged down. In addition they are extremely hard to manuver. After several battles, I have decided that chariots are totally horrible and have stopped using them all together except for generals, and I keep them away from battle at all time because every time they get in a fight with anything, they die.

The axeman may feel overpowering if you face them with spear units. However, this is not because axeman are overpowered but because spear units suck. I think spear units are underpowered in this game because they are sooo slow and very hard to manuver. Axeman is suppose to be the same level infantry as Legions and they should maintain their current strength. Maybe we should just increase the manuverbility of spear units then everything would be ok.

[chemchok]

Unit quibbles aside, there must be some sort of imbalance towards the strength of Egypt or it wouldn't always dominate the map in the campaign game.

[Krusader]

ATK: Units base damage
CB: Charge Bonus
TD: Total Defense (combination of armor, defensive skill, shields etc.)
ARM. Armor strength

Desert Axemen ATK: 10 CB: 5 TD: 18 ARM: 11
Armoured Hoplite: ATK: 9 CB: 7 TD: 22 ARM: 11
Sacred Band: ATK: 12 CB: 8 TD: 23 ARM: 11

Check the armour value. Yes, both Sacred Bands & Armoured Hoplites have higher TD value, but that bare-chested not-armoured at all Desert Axemen have same armour value as Armoured Hoplites I call a tad overpowered.

And as chemchok said, Egypt gets strong each game, so there must be some imbalance.

If devs say that Egyptian units had to be "tuned up" to face the Romans, why didnt they tune up the Gauls and Britons at the same time? They were easy to take out!

[smoothiemaker]

there ski is there armour triky derert me bake there skin in the sun untell its rock hard

[Doug-Thompson]

Egypt only dominates the campaign game because they're rich.

I killed thousands and thousands of @#$% Egyptians and they just kept on coming.

After I sacked and burned Jerusalem and Damascus, which the @#$% Egyptians had captured, they weren't a problem anymore.

[Midnight]

You have to look at how the AI factions deal with each other - of course a human is almost always going to overrun them without too many problems. Egypt does very well, and it does it consistantly - I think that games like this are more exciting if you can't be certain what's going to happen.

Also, the idea of shirtless axemen with that much armour is just plain silly.

[Armchair Athlete]

Egypt is overpowered, because EVERY game it does well. A sign of good balancing among factions is by having different results fairly often. At the moment, we are just not getting it.

[Bhruic]

I don't think that a game like this should worry so much about having all the factions balanced. The same was true in MTW, certain factions never did well, others almost always did. That's not really a huge problem. It allows the player to choose different levels of difficulty simply by selecting different factions.

Bh

[Khorak]

The only faction in Medieval that I didn't see doing well was the Danes because of their stay at home mentality. Otherwise I've seen every single faction manage to do well, randomly. It was always a toss up weather I'd have to fight Almohads or Spaniards by the time I got down there. Or Byzantinians and Turks. Or Turks and Egyptians. Or Egypt and Byzantium...hell, Egypt in Spain once. I've seen the Holy Roman Empire slap France around like a red headed stepchild, I've seen Italy dominate the Mediterranean, and gratifyingly I've seen England flatten all of northern Europe.

I've yet to see a SINGLE game of Rome where Carthage held off the Romans and the Egyptians didn't take over Asia Minor, except when I was the one playing the appropriate faction. Even then it starts to border worryingly on the side of impossible to hold off the Egyptians as the Seleucid Empire.

[Ikken Hisatsu]

but why egypt? they were not any kind of superpower during the time of rome. basically, their units are too cheap and powerful. saying otherwise is like saying that bears dont shit in the woods.

[Bhruic]

The only faction in Medieval that I didn't see doing well was the Danes because of their stay at home mentality.

I only played on Early. I never saw Poland, Novogorod, Aragon or the HRE do well (as well as the Danes you mentioned). They always either caved (in the case of HRE), or just never expanded.

I've yet to see a SINGLE game of Rome where Carthage held off the Romans and the Egyptians didn't take over Asia Minor, except when I was the one playing the appropriate faction. Even then it starts to border worryingly on the side of impossible to hold off the Egyptians as the Seleucid Empire.

I've seen the Romans get stymied and had Carthage doing fairly well. It's hard to tell in some games, because I mainly play to the east these days.

But in general, I think that's the point of the game. Roman is dominate (hence the name of the game). Rome is expected to expand. That makes it more of a challenge when facing of versus Rome. The same is true versus Egypt, when playing in the east, I know they are going to be powerful, so there is going to be a guarunteed challenge.

I will admit, however, that it would be nice to have a little more variety. But I'm not sure that's where they were going with this game.

Bh

[sunsmountain]

Usually the 3 Romans and the egyptians are in the top 5 positions, especially if you're playing as one of the Romans.

If you're the Romans and you don't want to play the same game again, offer an alliance to the Greeks/Gauls when they're being attacked by the Brutii/Julii (if you're Scipii, of course).
This forces a ceasefire and allows the other major factions to grow larger.

As for the egyptian chariots, i use them like i use dogs: high attack, low defense (i do not expect them to survive). you can keep them running if you do not target the enemy unit, but run through them instead.

[Suladan]

I think the only thing that is truly overpowered about Egypt is the Desert Axemen inflated armor value. Unfortunately, it happens to be their primary low tech infantry unit. Its almost like giving Carthage super cheap elephants with no tech tree requirements or something.

I understand there may have been a goal to prop up Egypt for some sort of balance purposes, but it could have been done in other ways that made more sense for the background of the units. The inflated armor just doesn't make sense.

[sapi]

Egyptians are overpowered as the are good every game.

With that said (again) you can look for reasons. One reason for egypt's seemingly overpowering strength is the fact that they do not have much of their empire represented on the map, so the game makes amends for this. Maybe!?

[Basileus]

Egypt is so very rich and well protected thats mostly why they do good in all the games, one thing CA could do is make them a little more passive and make their units alot more expensive.

[doc_bean]

I only played on Early. I never saw Poland, Novogorod, Aragon or the HRE do well (as well as the Danes you mentioned). They always either caved (in the case of HRE), or just never expanded.

Bh

In a game where I played the Almohads, Poland and Hungary were the last two countries left on the map, they each had about half of central europe.

[The_Emperor]

The Egyptians only do well on the campaign map because they have no real enemies apart from the Selucids, who as we know are surrounded by enemies.

Guarding their flank they have the Numidians in Lybya, but any invasion force travelling into Egypt that way is going to take a very long time to get there because Lybya is such a massive province... With its city closer to Egypt than it is to the other side.

On the other side we have numerous rebels, who are easy pickings for bribery and invasion... So no threat there.

The only real challenge to Egypt are the Selucids, but they are in a real tight spot having to contend with Armenia, Parthia, Pontus, and the Greeks, so they never really manage to get off the ground before they are assaulted from all sides and massively weakened.

Also once Egypt really builds up its core provinces around the middle east, it becomes very self-sufficient in trade and can make a lot of money just by trade between its cities in the Middle East... From what I can see no other faction can make as much money unless they control that area or more territory.

Egypt does well because it is rich and has no real tough enemies early on. The Selucids cannot contain them and the other factions around them are too busy fighting amongst themselves to worry about Egypt until it gets too big.

Oh and for those of you who are worried about Chariots, here's one way to deal with them: Bedouin Mercs!!

[Khorak]

I only played on Early. I never saw Poland, Novogorod, Aragon or the HRE do well (as well as the Danes you mentioned). They always either caved (in the case of HRE), or just never expanded.

And I only played on early, and I've seen Poland trash the Mongols as soon as they arrived, same with Novgorod claiming all that neutral land and laying into Byzantium, and I have most certainly seen the HRE do well. If you're controlling one of the major factions around them or one of them gets into a ruck with someone else powerful, the HRE proceeds to start up the steamroller.

[hotingzilla]

Balancing all the factions out will make the game detour from a strategy approach to a AOE/AOM type of game. I am sure you all don't want that, so we need to have weak and strong factions, even if it has to be expectancy and consistancy in a campaign game.

[Red Harvest]

Egypt gets waaaaaaayyyy too much positive in the way of "errors" in its units, plus it has money and position with weaker neighbors. Simply put, they are overpowered.

The axemen are ridiculous. They can take a lot of low level archer fire because of their silly armour stat.

The pharaoh's bowmen are very, very tough in melee and have extended range plus larger unit size if memory serves. Their killing power is tremendous.

Chariots are too strong because of the multi-hit point issues (part of the game engine that really doesn't work well for most units with multiple hit point) plus they are far too mobile and fast. They should have a LOT of trouble turning and rough terrain should be nearly impassible for them.

Many of the Egyptian light cav are oversized, and they get double the shield defense that they should receive.

[Bhruic]

The pharaoh's bowmen are very, very tough in melee and have extended range plus larger unit size if memory serves. Their killing power is tremendous.

Only normal size, but yes, long range + high stats means lots of deaths on the other side.

Chariots are too strong because of the multi-hit point issues (part of the game engine that really doesn't work well for most units with multiple hit point) plus they are far too mobile and fast. They should have a LOT of trouble turning and rough terrain should be nearly impassible for them.

The multi-HPs just seem to reflect the fact that there are multiple people in the chariots. I mean, when you see "54" chariots (on large), there are actually only 18 chariots with 3 people in them.

Bh

[white_raven0]

I dont know what you guys are talking about

1. Egyptian cav units are horrible. They are extremeley weak and die to Roman ones like nothing. The nile cavs even take 2 turns to build! and they suck just as much as the others.

2. Desert axeman is not LOW tech. It's one step below pharoah's guard! they should be the same level as Legions or Armored phalanx and they should be able to hold up to them. If you guys are really unhappy about their graphic inconsistencies, then maybe we can decrease their total armor to by 10 but increase their attack by 10 so they can still fight with the other high tech units.

3. Pharoah's archer is not oversized. The regular bowman is. I do think this unbalances the beginning of the campaign, especially against the Seluceds because mass archers really wipe out low level spear units.

[Magraev]

There are a couple of errors in the unit stats (armor for the axemen and too large shield modifier for the desert cav (i think)).

I'm not too sure the desert archers are overpowered though. They take two turns to make, and cost 800-900 + over 300 in upkeep. I'm not so scared of chariots anymore either, even though they are annoying. They also cost a fortune.

The main problem is the very rich provinces they control, where the women also have 3 children pr year... That advantage alone would enable even the gauls or the spaniards to rule the world...

[Suladan]

2. Desert axeman is not LOW tech. It's one step below pharoah's guard! they should be the same level as Legions or Armored phalanx and they should be able to hold up to them. If you guys are really unhappy about their graphic inconsistencies, then maybe we can decrease their total armor to by 10 but increase their attack by 10 so they can still fight with the other high tech units.

I could understand giving the Desert Axemen an extra hit point to compensate for taking their armor away. That way they would still be tough, but not arrow-proof anymore.

[Red Harvest]

Egypt has large well developed cities, meaning it can build some good units fairly early compared to others. High tech units are not high tech when you can get them without teching up over a long period of time. The pharoah's bowmen upkeep is quite reasonable at 300 since they are a super unit. I was thinking about the other Egyptian archer unit with respect to size. So the vanilla Egyptian archers are also odd in Egypt's favor.

Numbers make up for quality in the cav, I'm afraid. I would rather have 80 men with slightly worse stats (and an extra +2 for a shield type they don't have) than smaller units with 54.

While the multiple hit points are supposed to simulate multiple men in the chariots (for SOME chariots) it has unintended consequences of making the chariot tougher than it should be. Consider a few things about chariots: how effective is a chariot with one dead horse? What happens when a horse is killed while on the run? The multiple hit points issue effects elephants. Ever see a mahout get killed on base elephants?

[Khorak]

I don't know why everyone else, especially Egypt, should have a high tech unit able to 'hold up' to the Romans in an out and out brawl post-Marius. They shouldn't. Everyone who ever fought the Romans on the Romans terms, which is to say a straight up fair infantry fight, got completely and utterly pasted. Except phalanxes, which the Romans dealt with like everybody else, by turning up behind them and laughing a bit.
Heavy infantry is what the Romans do. What kind of loon thinks that Egypt should have a unit that can go toe to toe against Roman Cohorts, when they already have more bows than the Mongol Horde and chariots charging about the place?

[Raxxman]

In MTW Egypt always became a superpower for me... I wonder if the team are being bribed by the Egyptian govenment or something....

[lismore]

"Everyone who ever fought the Romans on the Romans terms, which is to say a straight up fair infantry fight, got completely and utterly paste"


I thought it was the other way round. The Romans got pasted in the fair fight but could always seem to find another army and wear their better enemies down, like Pyrrus, Spartacus etc.

[henoch]

the stories telling "how" the romans conquered the east-mediterrian is worth a couple of reading (similar as khan`s traveller report: from china to syria in a hurry )

[Warlock]

Egypt's strengths as I see them:
- Secure position distant from most powers
- Only one close neighbor, which is both weaker and surrounded by a host of enemies and therefore won't be able to concentrate on you
- Excellent army list, able to match the strengths of any opponent without their weaknesses

Egypt's weakness as I see them:
- Trivially easy to win with, entering the "all I have to do now is mop up" stage on the first turn
- Historically inaccurate army list