Different tactics for the English

[gaijinalways]

Crusade success, Anitoch is mine. Now have another crusade coming to Tripoli, and maybe one last one for Palestine or Edessa depending on the amount of time left beofre 1205. Funny, Palestine left my radar screen (no longer appears in Red or as a crusadable province), maybe another faction beat me to it.

I reloaded to start building my chapter houses in Normandy and Trebizoid earlier, and of course the Byz came back (currently neutral, looking for their head with my emissary in Khazar right now).

One new (or old problem) the Italians are looking to break our alliance. One time they captured Milan and Greece, I reloaded and shifted some troops around (the merc rush and troops moving toward Anitoch thoinned me out a little, plus bracing for the BYz) and took a couple of autocalc battles, but will replay those when I get back from doing my 'Medieval history' travel lesson (the casualties were even, though the Italians do have some tough knights in Croatia and some footsoldiers in Tuscany).

[caravel]

Ahh yes the dreaded Egyptian tactic of Spamming Peasants and Camels. I always just love to lose against a bunch of Peasants and Mounted Peasants (they're the Camels).

The camels are pretty decent cav for the cost, and have the "causes fear to horses" effect. Turn out a few thousand of those and stick them under that good starting general in arabia's command with a backup force of nubian spears and desert archers and you have a surprisingly potent force. Their morale is pretty hopeless though, so if the general decides to go make a "tactical withdrawal" they will probably follow suit. At 0 valour they are absolutely hopeless.

[Sensei Warrior]

*looks around for Mithrandir* I will never argue the value of a bad Peasant on a good Camel. When I play the Egypts I spam Camels just as bad as the Comp, but when I'm playing any other Faction I despise fighting the Egypts with their ravaging Hordes of Peasants and Camels.

Typically when I move to attack Egypt I change my whole army composition. I'll adjust it to a General, 2 LtCav (to mop up routers or maybe none at all), 3-5 Spears (typically Fyrdmen), at least 6 Archers, and some Clansmen and Gallowglasses (if I got them) or MS. My first grouping is 3 archers and 3 Spears archers up front Spears on hold. The second grouping is archers, melee units, and cav (if present). If other spears are present I put them on the wings near a melee unit.

I move the whole pack together and shower the Egypt with arrows. I won't make a move to engage units at all until every last arrow is gone. You can't ransom back a peasant or a camel that's been turned into a pincushion, and I don't want to fight them again. If the Egypts move to engage the archers I switch the grouping to be Melee first. Flanking Camels that get too close get the Spear or charging MS. Once the missiles are gone I withdraw all the archers or maybe just 3 depending on how many bad guys are left. Then the Spears, and Melees go to work. By the end, I typically have very little prisioners (yea!) and a whole lot of kills. Since my archer units stay almost completely intact, by the end of the Egyptian Wars they tend to be very high valored.

Once out of Camel danger I'll switch back to using a more standard army. I switch my army config solely to kill camels, thus the small to no presence of Cavalry. That is exactly how much I respect a Camel unit especially if led by a high * General (who also typically is a Camel unit).

[Empirate]

In my experience, the Egyptians are more likely to spam Nubian Spearmen. I just hate to fight these whenever I play the Turks: Your basic Horse Archer attrition-and-disruption game doesn't work too well with them: shield, large numbers, not easily tired, disciplined. If I play a Catholic faction, on the other hand, Nubian Spearmen are fair game for all kinds of sword-wielding infantry...

The Archers-in-masses approach sits well with me against Bedouins. I always try to bring significant numbers of archers when I'm up against light cavalry of any type, as these are simply devastated by arrows. Still, against camels, this seems to work even better: They're slower, so less arrows fall far or short of them.
A problem I seem to be having with camels is simply their size: The unit takes up a lot of space, increasing their face, and that makes it easy for you to be flanked by them. But it also works to the Egyptians disadvantage, as they can't use tight formations this way, making them more vulnerable to massed point attacks in some cases.

[Sensei Warrior]

In my experience, the Egyptians are more likely to spam Nubian Spearmen.

In all fairness I have noted this if I attack the Egypts later, which rarely happens, or if I am playing one of the Mods like XL or MedMod.

If that's the case, my army's general composition in the above post works well for them, as well .