My first go with the Turks

[caravel]

Well, I actually find the Mameluk HAs to be a very nice unit. And the Mameluk Cavalry is very useful against other heavy cavalry, such as order knights or katanks, as long as you can pin them down with saracen infantrymen.

They're not bad, though Fari are better (better charge) for the same money IMHO. Turcoman Horse are still better overall (cost, building dependency, support, availability, valour bonus in Tripoli, faster) than both though, because they're faster which is all important for HA's. If the Mamluk HAs had been faster than the Faris then they would have been worthwhile. The building dependencies are rather steep also, requiring you to tech up to castle level.

Mamluk Cavalry are another dead duck. Compared with Armenian Heavy cavalry and Ghulam, they fall well short of the mark. The armour piercing attack is not much of a bonus either, as you can employ cheaper Ghazis or Abysinnian Guards to do much the same thing, better. The only good thing is the low building dependency, the bad is the poor charge and higher support costs than AHC.

I personally do not think that the Egyptian units, even in early before the Mameluks, Abyssinian guardsmen and the arablaesters are weak, as long as they are used properly. Overall, if the Middle East is left alone to the AIs, it is in perhaps as much as 75% of all games that the Egyptians will become the superpower there, but this may be due to the nice income they get and the weak starting position of the Byzantines and the Turks. Once they get to Armenia and start churning out Jihads and Armenian Heavies, the Egyptians can be quite a foe.

The egyptians gain the upper hand due to them controlling some of the best provinces in the game. This enables them to pump out units like nobody's business and rush their neighbours. This is why the Egyptians always do the dirty on you, because they can. They tend to glut on low quality troops such as spearmen and peasants, then they invade, e.g. Syria. The Turks will then "decide that they cannot win the battle" and will pull out. In this way the Egyptians win through numbers alone and not quality.