Shall the Egyptians ever develop Egypt ?

[caravel]

And that *still* wasn't enough?? Good gravy! I know the Varangians are tough, of course (especially when commanded by a 6-star Jedi), but it's still incredible they were able to rout your army like that.

I wonder what the VG's morale was like during the battle. You didn't happen to save the replay, did you?

Unfortunately not. I have a replay of my Ghazis routing a HRE crusade though. That was the first replay I've saved in years, in fact I'm not sure if I've ever saved a replay before.

The VGs morale must have been phenomenally high. You need to picture the outline of a ragged circle, around that circumference are the individual VG's, outside that circle dropping like flies was my army. Usually a surrounded unit becomes mingled with your own forces before being destroyed and trying to rout. In this case none of my units were inside the circle, they were all outside it. I can only think these units must have somehow had some serious "training" somewhere. When I had looked before, the Byz had two units of VG on a 60 man unit and the other 120 man unit which appeared earlier as part of a loyalist uprising in Nicaea. I think these two units had been involved in some skirmishes with the rebels and hungarians but can't say for sure. They must have won quite a lot and the survivors merged at some point.

Anyway you win some and you lose some.