Egypt: Visual strategy guide

[Askthepizzaguy]

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This thread is the Egypt visual strategy guide, as voted upon by forum members. The general strategy for Egypt is quick expansion. The difficulty level on a scale of 1-10 is about a 3. You need only basic skills to succeed here, but a decent strategy is called for.

Overview:
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Egypt begins with 3 provinces and some basic garrison forces. Nothing particularly threatening, except perhaps to Jerusalem. In order to turn Egypt into a mighty Sultanate, we must expand quickly. I understand that many players prefer the slow and steady approach, however this will backfire. Turkey will expand and take the rebel provinces nearby if you do not, and your Sultanate will not have enough forces to repel the Mongol and Timurid invasion if you halt your expansion there. In the long view, a slow expansion is suicidal. Therefore we must move quickly; the Jedi are relentless.
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Turn 1- Egypt begins with the lucky ability to declare a jihad through your Imam, Mahfouz. You should take advantage of this ability immediately. Because we will want to expand quickly, a short jihad would prove almost useless. I chose the most distant target for my assault; Novgorod, Russia. You could also choose Lisbon or Baghdad, but I prefer the long road. Let's begin the crusade by joining all of our existing forces together. Use all of your generals. We will use the spare florins from the lack of troop upkeep to recruit more generals. Since our faction leader is 60, don't even count him among the living. He will be dead shortly.

While we are on jihad, do not forget to expand your borders at home. Recruit and expand. Rebels are easy to conquer, therefore send your weakest generals after them. Do not forget to promote captains by engaging in battle with wandering troop stacks. Generals are the lifeblood of your Sultanate.

Turn 2- by now you should have laid seige to Jerusalem and to Acre, and amassed a total of two nearly full stacks of troops. Recruit maximum troops and mercenaries. I used a mercenary ship to travel from Alexandria to Acre. You are on your way to greatness.

Turn 3- Now you must prove your worth. You must take Jerusalem! It is easier to auto-resolve this battle, but you must learn how to fight, so I am asking you to fight it. My tactic was to feint towards the walls with my ladders and seige tower, while battering down the gate. Once the ladders were up and the seige tower was in place, I ordered my troops to stop and reform. By now the gate was almost down, and I moved my cavalry into position. The gate opened up, and I charged straight towards the city center, leaving the guards on the towers the option of either letting me take the town, or having to crawl down and fight like men. I soon overpowered the garrison at the city center, and the morale bonus from having a general and being atop a wall was nullified. I was fighting on two fronts, in the middle of a narrow road between the gate and the center of town, but my advantage was clear. Their general fell, and soon the troops at my rear were
routing. Then it was simply a march forward to hack the stragglers to pieces.

Victory, my Sultan! Losses: 300 brave Muslim fighters. May Allah smile upon their noble sacrifice. You may lose fewer troops if you auto-resolve this fight.
By the end of the turn I was beseiging Antioch and Damascus, moving towards my target, Novgorod.

Turn 4- Antioch should fall quite easily, as you are more than a match for them. However, Damascus is well prepared for you. The losses from your previous battle have made you too weak to take this city without devastating casualties. So your king rides to the rescue from Antioch, and the two armies overpower Damascus. I recommend auto-resolving these two battles, as they are too simple to learn much from.

Now you have Antioch and Damascus, so continue north before you lose too many troops to desertion. Meanwhile, build up your cities with military buildings and masjids, and recruit like crazy. Your pillaging florins should more than match your expenses, and you should be floating 20,000+ florins by now.

Turn 5- Consolidate what's left of your forces and take Aleppo. By now you should have only one useful stack. Have your prince command this stack and head east. Have your other general return south for some fresh troops, alone.

Your castles should be producing cavalry by now and there should be some fresh infantry as well. Now, you own Aleppo, Antioch, Damascus, Acre, Jerusalem, Gaza, Alexandria, and Cairo, tripling the
size of your Sultanate in just five short turns. You are well on your way to controlling the middle east.

Your status: By now you should have recruited as many troops as you can muster, and possibly an Imam or two. Move your spy north as quickly as possible so he can assist with opening gates, if possible. Your garrisons from Alexandria and Cairo could be used to march south into Dongola, securing that small province and moving you one step closer to world domination. However, we still have an active Jihad, and a general moving south to pick up some more recruits, so leave them where they are for now. They will join the Jihad when the general is in range, and then catch up with your prince via boat. You will want to expand quickly but maintain peace with your neighbors. This is a critical time for you, so you should avoid unnecessary conflict. Do not attack the Turks or Byzantium just yet. Wait until your forces are more powerful.

The jihad strategy allows you to expand quickly while not going into debt. Remember, the Mongols are coming and you will need to have a very strong defensive army to repel them; something you are not likely to have if this is the extent of your expansion. Troops are expensive and they need provincial taxes in order to pay for them, therefore we need provinces.

Don't worry too much about domestic concerns just yet; all your provinces are experiencing high public order and are content to be left alone for now. I do recommend troop producing buildings and level one masjids, for both public order, religious conversion, and recruitment concerns, which are your priority.
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Visuals: Click to view

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Egypt's starting territory. I highly recommend that you move east and take as many provinces as possible. If you choose to do this without utilizing the Jihad strategy, I recommend you get a single, massive stack and systematically take one city after another, and don't neglect sending fresh troops as reinforcements.



Calling a jihad greatly enhances your ability to fight. I chose Novgorod because it has many ripe provinces in between it and my standing armies. This will allow you to pick up several provinces on the way. Remember, you don't have to use Jihads or Crusades as easy methods of expansion, but I would if I were you.

This strategy guide will not use exploits. It is possible to not lose troops to desertion for 10 turns by leaving/joining the jihad every turn, offering you total freedom of movement. However, this exploit is not fair unless you are doing a speed run, which adds to the challenge. Therefore, we will be losing troops to desertion in this guide. However, using jihads is fair game, as every Catholic faction could crusade their way into my territory at any time.



All western beginning troops join the Jihad.



The eastern troops join as well.



Your progress by the end of turn 2 should be similar to this. You are ready to take two settlements. Be sure to sack them; you need the florins.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Note the composition of these armies; quite pitiful indeed. Luckily, at this point in the game you do not need skill or powerful weapons, just massive numbers of troops following any brave general.



This is a great battle to cut your teeth on. It is quite winnable, but you cannot blunder too badly or you will pay for it. The garrison forces are rather large. Fight boldly, but fight intelligently.



Your troops are ready for deployment. But this formation is terrible; you are wide open to be shot to death by their archers. Minimize your losses! Every man you lose is another man who cannot fight for you! They may be peasants but they are the only warriors you have for the moment.



This formation allows a quick run for your ladders directly to the walls, positions the seige tower strategically such that archers will fire upon it, possibly allowing your battering ram to survive. You must batter down the gate for this seige to be successful, so avoid getting your ram burned at all costs.



The ladders were a ruse! I abandon them completely and march directly to the gate! Had the computer anticipated this tactic, and deployed all their men in front of the gate, I would have reversed this strategy and went ahead with scaling the walls. There is no downside to using this ruse. Once the gate is down, the rebels are doomed.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The gate is down! Commence the attack on the Death Star's main reactor!

Seriously, charge toward the center of town and ignore the archers and militia on the walls. The city center must be held for 3 minutes if you wish to win the battle, or all the enemy forces must die. Either way, your best place to fight is in the middle of town. So get there already!



Quickly overwhelm the central garrison, and then turn around and fight whatever might be left behind you.

In my case, I was lucky enough to slay their general, which causes all the defenders behind you to start routing, instantly killing them as they attempt to 'flee' through your mass of troops towards the city center.

See? There's a method to my madness.



Sacking Acre and Jerusalem allows you to have a serious starting treasury. Somehow, 8000 florins just doesn't cut it for me.



Leave one scrawnly little unit behind as a garrison and march forward. You don't have to worry about, nor can you afford, defending your cities properly at this point. You just have to risk it and keep conquering. Sitting and defending your cities makes you a sitting and defending duck. That means it is only a matter of time before the Turks put you out of your misery.



Antioch should fall easily, but Damascus will not, unless you send reinforcements to your seige army.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Damascus is a relatively simple battle when you have two strong stacks. March north and take Aleppo.



Auto-resolving this battle might be a good idea, but Aleppo is a good practice target. Focus on winning the battle quickly with minimal losses. That means killing archers quickly with your cavalry and melee troops, and then charging their horse archers with your generals. Try to avoid losing a general, but at this point your faction leader is disposable. He will die soon anyway. Use his unit as your shock troops and dont worry if he dies.

Were this not Egypt, Turkey, or Russia I could honestly recommend an alternative strategy, however you must expand to survive with these three factions. There is no slow, economic building game with these factions. You must prepare for the coming Mongol invasion.

Turns 1-5 are now complete. The next post will include turns 6-10.

[Yun Dog]

Pizza guy

Im enjoying your picture book guide. Good work.

I have to say personally I find the Jihad 'strategy' a bit cheezy, a bit like stuffed cheezy crust pizzas

Jihads only used to be able to be called to reclain a muslim city

and its not like the difficulty (evne on VH) makes it a necessary strat - u could still take the required lands without the Jihad and role play it a bit.

The games easy enough without using cheesey moves.... as if it needed to be made any easier or quicker

nice work on the guide anyway

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pizza guy

Im enjoying your picture book guide. Good work.

I have to say personally I find the Jihad 'strategy' a bit cheezy, a bit like stuffed cheezy crust pizzas

Jihads only used to be able to be called to reclain a muslim city

and its not like the difficulty (evne on VH) makes it a necessary strat - u could still take the required lands without the Jihad and role play it a bit.

The games easy enough without using cheesey moves.... as if it needed to be made any easier or quicker

nice work on the guide anyway

Interesting...

So far, all the cities I have taken were Muslim or had Muslim populations.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Jihads were not used only for reclaiming Muslim cities. Jihads have been called on the enemies of Islam throughout history. Arab Muslims sacked Caesarea and Constantinople whilst on Jihad. Jihads, like Crusades, were sometimes misused to capture cities that were never part of the nations undertaking the 'holy' war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_jihad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad#Jihad_as_warfare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad#S...bian_peninsula
The Quran is quoted and used as the basis for these offensive types of Jihad.

Indeed, Jihad was used historically to claim territory and establish supremacy in the Arab world. The methods used are well-founded in the reality of Jihad as an instrument of warfare.

As for necessary, no, I do not feel it is necessary to go after Novgorod. However, if the goal is expansion, Novgorod makes a logical target. After all, a strategy guide would be silly if it chose to take the least active route to victory. This leaves margin for error for novice players.

Logically speaking, the strongest tactical move is the one that results in the greatest reward for the least amount of effort. This guide will be taking the strongest tactical route to victory.

I assure you, if the expansion continues at this rate, I will indeed be encountering resistance, and the difficulty level will be rising. Stay tuned, because it is about to get interesting.

Thank you for the feedback! I look forward to seeing more posts on here.

[Privateerkev]

I would balk at calling jihads "cheesy" since your simply using a provided game mechanic. Its just not my style. For those of us who would prefer to sit and build, do you think a viable strategy would be to sit back and let someone else take the middle east? Let the giants get tired battering each other and swoop in to pick up the pieces? When I get around to playing Egypt, I think that is what I would try.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I would balk at calling jihads "cheesy" since your simply using a provided game mechanic. Its just not my style. For those of us who would prefer to sit and build, do you think a viable strategy would be to sit back and let someone else take the middle east? Let the giants get tired battering each other and swoop in to pick up the pieces? When I get around to playing Egypt, I think that is what I would try.

I would avoid this strategy, as it leaves you quite vulnerable. As mentioned previously, any faction that potentially shares a border with the Mongol hordes cannot afford to be lax. Russia, Turkey, and Egypt will all be wiped out if the do not expand either into each other's territory or to the west, as their starting position is too close to the eastern edge of the map and their starting positions are not large enough to provide enough troops to repel the hordes.

I am willing to listen to anyone who has made such a strategy work and defeated the Mongol and Timurid hordes.

My reasoning for using the expansionist strategy:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Think of it this way: has the AI ever defeated the hordes? Unless for some freak reason one AI faction takes half the map and by luck happens to have several large stacks just hanging around the eastern steppes, they are going to be toast when the first few waves of Mongols arrive and begin thier slaughter and conquest. Perhaps the western states can afford to sit and wait, using Russia, Asia Minor, and the Middle East as a buffer zone, and perhaps utilizing crusades to repel the invaders, but the factions sitting on the border cannot; especially if they refuse to expand.

If anyone has proof of a "wait and see" build strategy working for Egypt or Turkey, please post it on this board. I'm open to the possibility that I am wrong on this... it just seems like bad strategy to me.

One more thing; if we were facing human opponents, a slow expansion or "perfectionist" strategy would prove fatal. You would have to use large standing armies purely for defense, and an expansionist would gain enough AI territories to wipe you out.

Simply put, staying small and vulnerable never seems like a good idea, unless the goal of the game is to roleplay and have fun. If the object is victory, and you border the Mongols, you need to be more expansionist.

That's the theory I am operating on, anyway.

I invite all those who subscribe to perfectionist theory (for Turkey, Russia, or Egypt) to post proof of their accomplishments on this thread. The turn number must be around turn 80 or later, and the Mongols and the Timurids must both have been vanquished from the map. According to perfectionist theory, you cannot have expanded too far into anyone else's territory, merely taken rebel settlements.

It is interesting to note; the expansionist strategy I am using is providing me enough pillaging florins to build up not only my original cities, but also the new conquests. Essentially, I am a perfectionist with more cities at this point. I do believe it is a superior strategy.

This forum is open for debate, so make your voice heard! I've never tried bribing the Mongols and suing for peace with them, because you are putting the safety of your own nation in jeopardy. You are banking your future on the bet that the AI is stupid. If they had any sense they would crush you. It is a war game, after all. If such a strategy succeeded it would be merely because the AI for the hordes is sub-par. If a human were in control of the hordes, you would be surely defeated.

And of course, any fellow expansionists feel free to back me up on this.

[BattleN00b]

Expansionism is both fun and useful! Too bad that the Orthodox factions don't have Crusades/Jihads. Wonder what you'd do with them...

Excellent guide, askthepizzaguy, I'm gonna try to apply it what's the difficulty setting here, btw?

[Privateerkev]

I would avoid this strategy, as it leaves you quite vulnerable. As mentioned previously, any faction that potentially shares a border with the Mongol hordes cannot afford to be lax. Russia, Turkey, and Egypt will all be wiped out if the do not expand either into each other's territory or to the west, as their starting position is too close to the eastern edge of the map and their starting positions are not large enough to provide enough troops to repel the hordes.

I am willing to listen to anyone who has made such a strategy work and defeated the Mongol and Timurid hordes.

My reasoning for using the expansionist strategy:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Think of it this way: has the AI ever defeated the hordes? Unless for some freak reason one AI faction takes half the map and by luck happens to have several large stacks just hanging around the eastern steppes, they are going to be toast when the first few waves of Mongols arrive and begin thier slaughter and conquest. Perhaps the western states can afford to sit and wait, using Russia, Asia Minor, and the Middle East as a buffer zone, and perhaps utilizing crusades to repel the invaders, but the factions sitting on the border cannot; especially if they refuse to expand.

If anyone has proof of a "wait and see" build strategy working for Egypt or Turkey, please post it on this board. I'm open to the possibility that I am wrong on this... it just seems like bad strategy to me.

One more thing; if we were facing human opponents, a slow expansion or "perfectionist" strategy would prove fatal. You would have to use large standing armies purely for defense, and an expansionist would gain enough AI territories to wipe you out.

Simply put, staying small and vulnerable never seems like a good idea, unless the goal of the game is to roleplay and have fun. If the object is victory, and you border the Mongols, you need to be more expansionist.

That's the theory I am operating on, anyway.

I invite all those who subscribe to perfectionist theory (for Turkey, Russia, or Egypt) to post proof of their accomplishments on this thread. The turn number must be around turn 80 or later, and the Mongols and the Timurids must both have been vanquished from the map. According to perfectionist theory, you cannot have expanded too far into anyone else's territory, merely taken rebel settlements.

It is interesting to note; the expansionist strategy I am using is providing me enough pillaging florins to build up not only my original cities, but also the new conquests. Essentially, I am a perfectionist with more cities at this point. I do believe it is a superior strategy.

This forum is open for debate, so make your voice heard! I've never tried bribing the Mongols and suing for peace with them, because you are putting the safety of your own nation in jeopardy. You are banking your future on the bet that the AI is stupid. If they had any sense they would crush you. It is a war game, after all. If such a strategy succeeded it would be merely because the AI for the hordes is sub-par. If a human were in control of the hordes, you would be surely defeated.

And of course, any fellow expansionists feel free to back me up on this.

Anytime I have played as England, I crusade to the holy lands early on and I am always able to hold off both hordes. Of course I play on E/E and I have the United Kingdom providing me enough funds to maintain two good stacks that simply hold whatever river crossings are near the invaders. And of course alot of strategies would fail against human players. Humans can and do exploit the mechanics of the game to the fullest while the AI is bound by the parameters written into it.

[andrewt]

I would balk at calling jihads "cheesy" since your simply using a provided game mechanic. Its just not my style. For those of us who would prefer to sit and build, do you think a viable strategy would be to sit back and let someone else take the middle east? Let the giants get tired battering each other and swoop in to pick up the pieces? When I get around to playing Egypt, I think that is what I would try.

That's not going to work simply because half the units or so of the Mongols and Timurids have 0 upkeep. Even though the AI is stupid and still builds the other units, it builds enough of the 0 upkeep units that its armies just get larger and larger. Once either the Mongols and Timurids settle, they will start cranking out more and more of these 0 upkeep units and get really large armies.

When I played the Moors, I decided to go to the Americas. I ignored the Mongols and Timurids because I'm so far away from them. The Mongols conquered most of Russia, Nicaea and everything east of it. The Timurids have Egypt's lands up to Acre. At the end of the game, the Mongols have around 18 stacks near Nicaea.