Praise to the camel!

[ichi]

When MTW came out I played a lot of campaigns before going online, and had decided that camels were cheap (therefore poorer in quality than expensive knights) slow (I like speed) big (vulnerable to missiles) and low morale (easy to rout).

I hadn't been using them to their best advantage when I campaigned as Muslims, and to top it off I had failed to realize that the AI isn't really very good (compared to some humans) at using Camels either.

So, when I went online and faced some camels I got my horses ass handed to me (prolly more than once by Mith lol) and online the routing of your cav can lead to a chain rout of your entire army. Well I'm a fast relatively fast learner (ignore howls of laughter from the balcony please) and soon came to respect these ugly awful stinky spitty humpy beasts and their peasant riders.

To this day I really only dread facing JHI, CFKs, and Camels. Sure there are other units like LBs, VG, Swiss Pikes, Gothic Knights that I pay close attention to, but when I see JHI or CFKs I immediately try to focus my missiles on them because they can hold their own against infantry and really rip up horsies.

Of course Camels are vulnerable to missiles (and, like equestrians, to polearms like JHI).

But, even today, Camels make up an important anti-cav portion of some elite armies online. The fact that after after a few years some of the best online players still rely on Camels is a testiment indeed.



ichi

[Saracen_Warrior]

I love all Egyptian Units. Expecially Hashishan. Camels also make good general soften dont forget that. I guess when your a peasant you have lots of time to study warfare.

[Saracen_Warrior]

As egypt you should take constantinopel and georgia as soon as possilble, then youll have the msot defessnsible empire ever, just make sure to get ships to protect against back door invasions. And put like 2 armies in georgia to protect against horde. Then build up and tech up. After this youu can build up your army and take over europe without ever having to resupply your units if you build enough. Also build lots of jihads, you can launch multiple jihads at provinces. Then invade any easy provinces even if thyell get taken right back, so you can send jihads there way and get free nizaries and kwarzmian which seem to show up a lot in jihads in early game.

[Mithrandir]

Ichi :
JHI are no problem at all, they tire fast and beefed up Militia sergs (about the same price) take them down without too much problems...CFK same story. Camels, well you have to keep your cav away from them at all cost or your battle will be lost.

important!
I perceive camels as being the best units in the game, not per se cause they are so strong,fast or whatever, but because they are the deciding factor in my 'perfect' army (nearly never lost with it in dozens&dozens of online games). Because I have camels, the enemy's cav is nearly useless unless very well employed. Hence I don't need to rely on my own cav to take his out.

My cav&camels 'therefore don't need as much upgrading and I save money for the main punch of my army, my inf.

I'm only talking about online play btw.

Poor morale bedouin camel warriors against excellent morale excellent attack heavily armoured knights mis match :P
Armor doesn't matter, that's just to counter arrows.
Try this : take a V2 camel (I believe the price is around 600) and a v0 Chiv knight (675). The camels will win. And I'm not even talking about desert :D.

[_Aetius_]

I dont know, maybe im just a cavalry general at heart lol, when i go egypt i dont train camels after say 30 or 40 years, i stick to mamluks and ghulams cant have hurt since i won the game :P i know camels are strong against cavalry but heres an example of the flaws of most muslim armies.

Ive never seen chivalric knights be routed by BCW in my experience the charge of the cavalry kills enough camles that they are worn down and routed quicker than the cavalry are, the difference is the charge.

The armour isnt just about arrows defence, some cavalry just wont die whereas the camels lack of defence means sometimes even feudal men at arms can defeat them, ive just been playing as the sicilians against the egyptians then and my feudal men at arms caused mayhem, whereas if the enemy had charged with ghulams my infantry would have been surely routed.

Guess its down to preference in the end but i feel more secure with feudal or chivalric knights on my flanks than BCW in most situations anyway. :)

[Mithrandir]

I guess the misunderstanding comes from the fact you play singleplayer an I play online.

I can imagine in offline games camels aren't as effective because you can't chose to upgrade their valour and you don't have the same budget as your enemy.

Armour is only to counter arrows, defence is used for melee calculations.

[_Aetius_]

Id play online again if it wasnt full of annoying n00bies or laggers *sigh* many a wasted hour.

[Mithrandir]

We can arrange a match, I'm not sure how my connection is these days, but it used to be decent enough...

My online name is Glorfindel, should you chose to come online...