I may seem to be a weird question but I have noticed in my recent campaigns (always GA mode) that the AI-managed Egyptians (even though a citadel in Cairo is a GA) never seem to build anything in Egypt except a wooden fort

Checked a few old saved games and I have never seen a citadel in Egypt even when the Eggies sit quitly there for ages or conquer the entire steppes and balkans ...

Not that it is a big deal but it is rather strange to have a faction that is almots "scripted" no to build anything while it should just do that (the Elmo do all right with the same kind of GA in Granada) ...

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Hmm...I recall encountering a citadel or at least a castle in Egypt countless times.

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Have you ever noticed that not alot get's don in Constantinople in early either? What about Toulouse? Never developed much and the AI never seems to build a port there either.

There is a sort of bug. The bug is triggered by the valour bonus provinces. Egypt has a valour bonus for Mamluk cavalry so the AI develops the province for producing those, a Horse Breeder, and not alot else. If you observe other valour bonus provinces you will see much the same thing.

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In my experience Toulouse tends to get built up quite decently by the AI since it takes a lot of preparation to churn out Chivalric knights. I agree that apart from that the AI seems rather listless when it comes to upgrade provinces further.

Up to now I only saw that when I started in High or Late.

It seems somewhat strange, though, that the AI seems to do rather well building-wise in the MedMod where virtually every province has a valour bonus of some kind. But maybe that's just a deceived impression.

Oh and btw Caravel, congrats for being a senior!

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The Pocket Mod has a valour bonus for pikemen in flanders. The prerequisite for pikemen has been changed to requiring the Spearmaker's Guild as well as the County Militia, their stats have been rebalanced making them much more effective. As a result the French did this:

https://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?...pikemendq8.jpg

As you can see they have met the prerequisites exactly but have done nothing else in the province. You have to remember that some units can be teched up to quite quickly and cheaply, others can not. It appears that the AI has splashed out here in this case on building pikemen, which won't be available until late, and is probably now having cashflow problems. What I haven't worked out yet is if the AI continues developing normally after it has teched up to the valour bonus unit. I have seen provinces such as Tolouse 'portless' for much of a campaign, while the AI is constantly trying to tech up to Chivalric Knights that take a lot of teching up.

I suppose to test this fully we would have to start an experimental campaign with a fort and spearmen garrison in every province, and nothing else. This would show exactly what the AI builds as opposed to what is there already.

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While the valor bonus is the most likely culprit, keep in mind that Egypt also tends to be contended fairly often, first by the Almohads and Byzantines, and later by passing crusaders. Interruptions to major upgrades can slow infrastructure considerably.

Ajax

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While I have seen the Eggies build Citadels and whatnot, it does seem as if they're generally worse at developing their lands when compared to most other factions. There are times when I wonder if the Egyptian AI was deliberately handicapped, so as to help balance the fact that it often becomes the superpower on the eastern half of the map. (That's probably not the case, but it would explain much, wouldn't it? )

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I believe that for the less fortunate factions in the game there is a 'tipping point' beyond which they just hunker down and sit there waiting for some invader to crush them. I have observed this phenomenon in many 'loser' factions in Expert campaigns. Once a faction stops training and building (because the maintenance of their troops absorbs all of their limited income) it loses all strategic initiative and the AI apparently 'gives up' on it.

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I've observed this as well, and in other strategy games besides MTW. After a certain point, the AI-controlled factions tend to stop trying to expand (especially if they've had several invasions rebuffed). Instead, they just sit there and adopt the "please-don't-hurt-me" fetal position.

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If I were playing such a faction (and it sure felt that way when I played Aragon for the first time) I would simply re-invest my money. I would destroy some buildings, disband some troops (or replace them by cheaper ones) and invest the surplus in trade. Once I had a fleet up and running, I would use my ships to look for (and invade) any territories that were up for grabs.

This usually works, though only temporarily. In this game, once you have been reduced to one province you never fully recover and you will most likely be crushed because of your tech backlog.

You can always set yourself the alternative goal of surviving until 1453, which is no small feat under the circumstances.

And it is a nice change from having to macromanage some bloated, ridiculously unhistoric empire.

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Now that I understand your post ( ) I know what the problem was. You never directly engage these guys. I take it that you weren't able to separate them sufficiently from their army and that they were fairly rested. VGs are the first infantry unit I engage (after missiles and cav), and I never directly engage them in less it's to tire them out.

Story time!!!

Leading an Armenian army against them I tried to get my fat, bloated general a positive valor modifier (it was like -6 or something). To do this I charged him at the catapults the Byzies stranded. Well, he is the only one in his unit that dies, even before he reached the target. Basically I had to take a slightly experienced, recently general-less army against a fresh Byzantine one.

The key, as always, is mobility. I was able to bait the VGs and draw them away from their army, spread them out, and exhaust them. You don't touch those guys. You wear them down with missiles (I had mounted x-bows) and repeatedly charged them. Eventually they broke and ran but most of the battle was a feint while I focused on the 2 crazy Norsemen units. Just remember weapon/anti-weapon, don't let them touch anything other than the tip of your lances and missiles and you'll be fine. An army (one stack) without a general won against a larger force. Oh, yes, this was on expert.

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Agreed. If all else is equal, I generally prefer to shoot VG to death with crossbow units, Longbows, and/or javelin units (whichever ones I can train). As the Spanish, I love using Jinnettes for this task.

I think Caravel's problem, however is that I don't believe he was able to recruit any x-bows yet at the time of his battle against the Byz, and of course he doesn't have access to Longbows or javelin units (save for mercenaries, which I know he doesn't use). As someone who frequently plays as the Eggies, I sympathize with his plight. Going up against the Byz in the Early period isn't easy for them!

Nice battle, Vladimir.

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I've been playing this game a long time and never seen valour 6 and 7 VGs fielded by the AI before. I have flanked and destroyed VGs up to valour 3 and 4 but these were the limit. The reason I had engaged them was because I had no crossbows in that battle, only a very small unit of nubian spearmen (javelin throwers in the this mod). I had been shooting at them continuously with fari and mamluk horse archers but had not made much of an impression on them. I had of course been drawing them away which is easy enough with VG. Next I had lured them down a hill and brough my Ghulams up to the crest of the hill to flank them. The horse archers were moved off to harass the Kataphraktoi - and the Saracens that were now as the foot of the hill were there to serve as bait, and to pin. I knew they wouldn't have long at all which is why I had the Ghulams moving in quickly, then down they came on their rear. Any other non spear or pole arm infantry unit would not have survived 3, 40 man/horse units of Early Ghulam Bodyguards hitting them in the flank and rear from a downhill charge...

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