Praise to the camel!

**_Aetius_** · 12-13-2004, 19:53

The negatives to camels unfortunately outway the positives, everyone knows how weak they are against any kind of arrow or javelin fire, they are slower than cavalry, have poor morale and really advanced heavy cavalry have no problems with dealing with bedouins. They just cant hold there own, especially when flanked.

Id still rather have feudal knights or chivalric knights on my flanks than bedouins, just to weak.

**Mithrandir** · 12-13-2004, 20:00

hehehe....hehehehehehehehe....
Bwhahahaha.... I'll reinstall MTW,VI and the patches just to prove you wrong Aetius...
It's about high time I started playing again.
V2 camels can easily take on any melee cavalry unit and they cost less.

You bring your cavalry on your flanks and I'll bring my camels...but not on the flanks...
That's where my cav is...

**Sensei Warrior** · 12-13-2004, 20:47

Ahh yes camels as the Egypts I love him, nice to crush any mounted tin can in two seconds flat. Tired of those high powered knights crushing your army to bits? Play the Egyptians, and your army will say, "Where did those Knights go?", and you will respond, "I believe my camel is standing on him."

As anybody else grr those smelly

mounted peasants can be a pain. Luckily I come well prepared when I go to fight any faction that employs camels. I tote along contingents of archers and spears and mostly leave my mounted units home. And typically, the eggies and myself as well will produce them in hordes.

**CherryDanish** · 12-13-2004, 21:52

Going hardcore on camels isn't only gross, it gets really ugly on castle assaults.

How close does a cav unit have to be before it takes the morale hit against camels?

**Ludens** · 12-27-2004, 14:32

Originally Posted by CherryDanish

How close does a cav unit have to be before it takes the morale hit against camels?

The 'frightened by camels' penalty takes the form of a penalty to attack and defence when fighting camels. It's not the men that's afraid of the camel, it's the horses.

**macsen rufus** · 12-28-2004, 15:34

No-one's mentioned here the BIG factor for camels - terrain. They rock in the desert, but get seriously underpar once you go further afield. Not only do they scare horses (bye bye Sir Crusader the Broiled), but they get combat bonuses for the desert, and more (I believe) in sandstorms. Once you get to arid they lose the bonus, and lush gives them a penalty.

I just love the irony of these little Bedouin peasants routing those souped up, noble Chiv Knights and Hospitallers etc etc etc

**Red Harvest** · 12-29-2004, 06:29

I'm a camel lover too, but my play has been SP. Camels are very effective in the arid/desert climates. They thrash knights even and they are cheap. I don't use them much in temperate climates, because they take various penalties for wet environments.

The desert is all about light troops of course. When playing a non-muslim faction and preparing for desert conquest, I always keep a few provinces at minimal armour levels so that I can build all sorts of units that don't fatigue too quickly. Armour is mostly a detriment in the desert unless you can win with a quick strike. Light cav, camels, and horse archers are quite powerful in the desert. This is one of the things that MTW simulates very well compared to RTW.

**Sir Price** · 12-13-2004, 22:05

Yes, archers are a pain of course, as always, but the Saharan Cavalry take care of those. And I also try to bring a good amount of mounted missile troops, to bring chaos to spear units before i charge whatever I got handy into their backs. The turks brought a lot of archers, but they never really played a role, as they turned an ran when their heavy cavalry came running past them. And as for the speed of camels, well, the AHC actually rallied once or twice on the way out, but by then they were depleted and disorganised, and really no problem at all, and camels are still fast enough to chase down archers while trying to keep up with the horses.

All in all I must say I really enjoy the new tactics I have to employ as the Egyptians, as so far I have only played as catholics, with spears to soak up charges and arrows, and heavy infantry and cavalry to break the enemy. It works. But the skirmishing with a lot of mounted troops is just a lot of fun to me!

**_Aetius_** · 12-13-2004, 23:18

Lol well you can try and prove me wrong if you like but the amount of times ive routed units of camels far exceeds the amount of times camels have routed my feudal knights or chivalric knights, certainly royal knights. I havent even mentuoned gothic knights and the knights of the crusading orders lol all of which massacre camels, the impact of a frontal charge from these advanced knights causes massive damage to poorly armoured camels.

Poor morale bedouin camel warriors against excellent morale excellent attack heavily armoured knights mis match :P

**ah_dut** · 12-13-2004, 23:22

mate, look at the relative prices, 125 IIRC for a camel and 475 and 875 for a fuedal or chivalric...not a mismatch on price either, you can get far more upgrades and more money on the camel

**Sir Price** · 12-14-2004, 00:13

Yes, with the difference in cost and support, I would say the camels are much more cost-effective. Plus I have a tendency to loose a lot of knights if I don't keep an eye on them at all times. This is also true of camels, but it doesn't hurt as badly...