Egypt (M2TW:K Faction)
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Egypt is a faction in the crusades sub-campaign of the Kingdoms expansion pack.
Starting Position
Egypt starts in a relatively strong position at the start of the game. By been in the South East corner of the map the south and the east are protected and due to the lack of seaborne invasions the north is fairly well protected by the sea. The only significant enemy to begin with are the two crusader kingdoms who will be your main enemy throughout the campaign.
Campaign Goal
Short campaign goals: hold 15 regions, eliminate faction: Kingdom of Jerusalem. Long campaign goals: hold 25 regions, including Cairo (30 turns), Constantinople (10 turns), Jerusalem (10 turns), Krak de Chavaliers (10 turns), Acre (10 turns). Eliminate faction: Kingdom of Jerusalem
Events
| Turn | Event | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Saladin’s Jihad | |
| 7-9 | 3rd Crusade Launched | |
| 9-11 | King’s Crusade | |
| 8 | Barbarossa Launches Crusade | |
| 10 | Emperor Barbarossa Drowns | |
| 12 | 4th Crusade Called | |
| 14 | Crusade Sacks Zara | |
| 15-18 | 4th Crusade Arrives at Constantinople | |
| 21 | Children’s Crusade | |
| 36 | Rebellion in Egypt! | |
| 38-40 | Mamluk Uprising | |
| 40-42 | A New Threat! | |
| 42-46 | Alamut Surrenders | |
| 44-60 | The Mongols Invade! | |
| 54 | A New Warrior Emerges | |
| 56-58 | A New Turkish Hero | |
| 60-65 | A deadly new weapon | |
| 66 | Earthquake in Alexandria! | |
| 68 | Friday 13th | |
| 71 | Alexandria Suffers Again! | |
| 88 | Plague (Alexandria) | |
| 90 | Plague (Ascalon, Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus, Homs, Aleppo) | |
| 92 | Plague (Antioch, Mosul, Baghdad) |
Heroes
Egypt has two heroes unlike other factions you start off with Saladin. He has a special ability that is called Righteousness of Faith and it is fairly straightforward. It locks all your morale to high for 30 seconds and after a while it can be used again. The other hero that Egypt gets is Beybays who arives as part of the Mamluk Uprising with an amry full of the various Mamluk units like.
Strategy
Taken from frogbeasteggs guide
Egypt’s campaign direction can, unfortunately, be summed up in one sentence which sounds like an excerpt from a guide to an adventure game. Head east, then head north, then head west. The actual journey is more interesting than that sounds, fortunately, but it’s a sad fact that after taking out Jerusalem and some rebel territories (east) your only option is to take on the eastern Turks, Antioch and more rebels (north), followed by the western Turks and Byzantium (west).
The usual notes about starting money, the need to build an economy, and the cost of the historical general apply to Egypt as well.
That’s the dull bit. Egypt’s real fun comes from its army. As in the main medieval campaign Egypt can do all sorts of things. All-cavalry mobile force? Yup. Heavy infantry supported by cavalry and archers? Yup. Mixed army? Yup. Cheap but intimidating army filled with large numbers of junky plebs? Yup. Experiment, try a little of everything. It will help the campaign pass more enjoyably than sticking with one type of army build the entire time.
I find I love to have small 6-10 unit stacks comprised of Mamluks for patrolling and cleaning up rebel stack spawns. Speed and deadliness, what more could I ask for? Mamluks do not fare so well in auto-resolved battles though, so I usually have to command these forces every time. The practice at commanding horse archers is good for me. In a pinch these patrol forces can be bundled together to form field armies capable of hurting my enemies badly.
For field battles a full stack comprising of ¾ missile cavalry and ¼ melee cavalry brings good results while retaining my mobility advantage. I used to sprinkle a couple of javelin cavalry into this mix, however Kingdoms changed them so they will not skirmish unless you mod your game, so I no longer use javelin units. Fingers crossed the patch will change this back to how it used to be. Alternately I use a force that is half quality infantry and half cavalry, with the cavalry made up of nothing but Mamluks. I do love that unit: it’s a jack of all trades and doesn’t serve badly in any of its possible roles. It’s a reliable cavalry archer, decent in a melee, reasonably armoured, reasonably fast, and has solid morale.
When faced with a city I field Egypt’s full range of better quality infantry with minimal cavalry support. Siege engines are a must, a minimum of two catapults, so I can attack and occupy on the same turn I arrive.
Variety. Only with Egypt do I field such a range of army types. With most factions I have one type, the balanced force with emphasis on heavy infantry and missiles.
When fighting against the heavy armies of Jerusalem and Antioch your best strategy is mobility and range. Use horse archers to surround the enemy, shoot into them from all directions to cause damage and havoc, and pull back if they try to engage you. Mob any isolated units immediately. Remember that shield only give their bonus against missiles coming from the front, and that the bonus is reduced against missiles coming from the right. Your cavalry archers will cause more casualties if they shoot into the back or right flank of a unit. Moving units also suffer from slightly decreased shield protection. When dealing with all that armour you should use every edge you can to bypass it. Egypt has some good armour piercing melee units too. Use spearmen or similar replaceable units to hold your infantry line, and send in the axemen from the flanks to cause maximum pain. Knights are best dealt with via the old ‘lure, tire, mob’ tactic. Lure them into chasing some fast missile cavalry, stop and shoot at them whenever its safe to make sure they remain interested, and then when they are tired and isolated mob them with several of your own cavalry units. They won’t last long.
Egypt has one final tool at its disposal: the jihad. I’m sure you are all familiar with how it works from the main game, so all I need to do is point out the shape of the map is ideally suited to jihad abuse. Declare one on a settlement at a sensible point (i.e. one you can get to via a straightish line of conquests) and you can reap the benefits like increased movement all the way along. As an added bonus you gain good traits for your generals by doing this
