Egypt (M2TW:K Faction)
| M2TW Kingdoms: |
|---|
Egypt is a faction in the crusades sub-campaign of the Kingdoms expansion pack.
Contents
Starting Position
Egypt starts in a relatively strong position at the start of the game. By being in the South west 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.You may come into problems though,as time goes on when the mongols arrive,they sweep across the map leaving a trail of rebel cities and all too often,they decide to settle down in the south west corner of the map cutting your victory dreams short.
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 of your units' morale to high for 30 seconds and after a while it can be used again. The other hero that Egypt gets is Beybays who arrives as part of the Mamluk Uprising with an army full of the various Mamluk units.
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 a 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
Alternate 'First turns' Strategy
by Яome kb8
Egypt is primarily based in a perfect position blocked off by the left and south and only has to look to the north. It has good resources for merchants close by, good access to the sea and only way to expand. As we can see it starts at war with the Kingdoms of Jerusalem and Principality of Antioch, the former will be our main target for the duration of the first part of the campaign plan, and whom I will address in this guide.
Our primary objective will be to destroy them and return the control of these lands to the Muslims. This will be done primarily with the strategy of enveloping them and pushing forward with human wave tactics while keeping up with momentum. Taking Jerusalem is the main short term goal and controlling the Mediterranean Sea as a long term objective to dominance.
This guide will deal with the first part; the preparation to the invasion of Jerusalem, the invasion itself, and it’s aftermath of rebuilding and bracing ourselves for the arrival of the Third Crusade. It is a plan based around a Blitzkrieg style doctrine, which if done right, and well, can be very effective and advantageous. It will all be very quick and rapid with the aim of taking Jerusalem in less than 6 turns. Good luck, and may god be with you.
(This guide is while playing on the difficulty of Normal/Normal and with the fog of war on)
1st turn
Operation Wrath of God: Preparations for holy war
The first turn will mostly be an organisational one, which will aim to get the main mechanics into play and set the game up, as it were. The first move will be to move our various agents we start off with.
- Firstly, move the merchant up to the gold east of Alia; controlling this gold brings a lot of income early on, up to 300 florins per gold resource and there are three.
- Next we need to prepare Palestine to our liking, which means making it Muslim. Send both imams (priests) to Jerusalem province in order to begin the conversions and keep Islamic presence there relatively high. It may be worth it to train a couple of new imams to send.
- Use the assassin in a sabotage attempt on Ascalon to train the assassin; alternatively you can use him to assassinate a rogue captain out for a walk around Jerusalem, once he is trained he will be a fantastic asset later on using him to kill family members, and maybe even Richard.
- Lastly, send the spy to scout enemy territory in Palestine and beyond so you know where the cities are, to better coordinate your troop movements.
Once you get them moving around, it’s time to get the Military logistics organised. Don’t worry if you think the thought of an early invasion is too much, as in the next turn [turn 2] a Jihad is called by Saladin and two full stacks appear near Jerusalem. So lets get these guys organised.
- Hazem Ibrahim; He is the general [check the name] just east of Cairo, add all the men from Al Suways city and start to move him towards the Sinai Peninsula, his main role in this plan is to take Alia, the city just east of Cairo beyond the fog. [Leave one or two units, unless you are prepared to reduce taxes to avoid unhappiness which is unlikely at this early point]
- Crown Prince Al Adil; He is the heir to the throne and is near to Dumyat castle, you need to take all the men from Dumyat [except for general Zein] and them to his force. As soon as you do that his first task will be to take Ascalon in the main attack.
- Saladin; This guy is the medieval hero and one of the best generals, who also comes with the special ability to stop all men routing in battle and raising their morale considerably. He is you best general therefore will lead the vanguard in the main attack formation towards Jerusalem; to set him up, all the men from Tanta [except 4 cavalry units] will join him and his entire army in Cairo. Move them all towards the Sinai desert.
Those three armies [along with two new armies from the next turn] will initiate the first wave assault against Alia, Asclaon and Kerak with the reserve led by Saladin to take Jerusalem upon the aforementioned cities capture. Remember to also use fleet you start off with to blockade the port of Acre, every little helps and they only have one port to start with.
A little more organisational aspects to save money from upkeep and lose useless men;
- Alexandria; Disband all the men except General Medhat Hossmen and 2 dismounted Ghulam and 2 archers. You will need the general in the next turn so move him out towards the east, the Sinai.
- Tanta; Remember me telling you to keep 4 cavalry units in Tanta? This is so you can move 2 cavalry units from Tanta to Cairo to keep public order, allowing taxes to be raised.
- Siwa; Disband all men.
In this first turn, economic activity should be kept to a minimum, but if you can spare the cash, building economic buildings does no harm.
2nd turn
On the second turn you will notice Saladin, the faction leader, will call a jihad. This makes two new almost full stacks appear in the eastern Sinai. It is now time to move up a little in the invasion plan and move to advanced organisation of armies.
This is the first step in the rapid pre emptive attack, move Al Adil to attack and siege Ascalon. Ascalons purpose is for it to be used as a defence, defending Saladin during the siege of Jerusalem in the next few turns.
Hazem Ibrahim will move to take Alia in the southern Sinai; this is normally a mission too, so we can kill two birds with one stone. Remember to exterminate all provinces taken as religious affiliation is a massive aspect of this mini-campaign and due to the fact we are going to rapidly conquer one city then move on to the next this is a necessity, unless you insist on having a good reputation.
Saladin should move into the middle of the Sinai Peninsula in preparation for his move on Jerusalem.
Two new stacks appear in the eastern Sinai, just south of Jerusalem. Remember two generals from before? Generals Medhat in Alexandria and Zein in Dumyat? Now is the time to move them to command the two new armies which have appeared as a result of the Jihad. Once they are commanded your aim will be to move them both to take Kerak, expect some normally heavy resistance, that’s why both are needed. This will come in the next couple of turns, as it takes time to get the generals there.
Also it may be time to start developing the economy a little by building cheap economic buildings, this will come in greater parts later, with spare cash build farming/irrigation and other economic buildings in Cairo and Alexandria don’t worry about walls and men, the enemy won’t be able to get deep into Egypt with the numerous armies in the Sinai.
Also don’t forget to keep scouting with the spy, and to keep killing captains and sabotaging buildings in order to build up the skill of the assassin to be used later. If you have extra funds, it may be a good idea to train some new merchants and priests to use up the rest of the gold and keep the conversion of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas going.
The Invasion; the initial first wave
It is now time, after getting all armies into position, to begin the first stage of the assault. After taking Alia with Hazem Ibrahim, exterminate them [meaning you don’t have to leave any units behind] and move him to his new role to patrol the Sinai [the area between Ascalon and Alia] looking for Crusaders who get past and try to slip through to Egypt, It may be a good idea to construct watchtowers.
Use the two newly got Jihad Armies to advance towards and take Kerak, one to siege, and the other to back him up against other field armies. At this point Ascalon from earlier must also have been taken by now. Once Kerak and Ascalon are taken [and exterminated] remove the armies from them and have them back Saladin’s flanks as you move him into position to siege Jerusalem; Al adil in Ascalon to back up his left, and the Jihad Army under Ibrahim or Zein [whichever you want] to back his Right flank, as he takes Jerusalem.
I may have written it in a few paragraphs, and it may seem quick turn wise, battle wise, it may not be. You must be ready to fight some battles, and expect heavy resistance. It really depends on the conditions and speed with which you get everything organised; when I did it, there was no garrison in Ascalon, and the enemy armies were stuck in Jerusalem and Kerak, allowing me to destroy them inside. I only had two big field battles and a couple of small ones.
Depending on how well you do in the sieges and battles, you can advance with Al Adil and the Jihad Armies to take Arsuf and Acre, then stay put, although this is a gamble you are best taking Arsuf [a Castle] and using it to defend Jerusalem [once captured]. If you have been slowed by defeat or simple manoeuvring, do not worry, the plan is designed to be quick but can be done slowly just slow down a bit and take your time but following the same stages, instructions and steps.
If successful… by this point you should have Saladin and his army in Jerusalem, Zein in Kerak, Al Adil in Arsuf, and Medhat Hossman either in Acre, or in a fort just to the north East of Jerusalem [Or if you prefer to defend big cities instead of forts, put him in Ascalon]. Now you should bring up Hazem Ibrahim from the Sinai [remember him? the patroller] to the area between Jerusalem, Acre and Arsuf in anticipation for the 3rd Crusade and the arrival of Kind Richard.
Resolution, re arming, and the calm before the Storm
Now it’s time to look to our defences. If the rapid advance succeeded, then we should be in possession of Jerusalem, the all important capital and powerhouse of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Ascalon, and an important castle in Kerak. [And if you advanced further Acre] That is at least three important cities, crippling their finances and their military ability, and if you killed some family members there political ability. This will buy some time to calm down a bit and letting the victories settle giving you the opportunity to replace dead men, train new units, advance your cities and improve your economy and your finances in preparation for further invasions and the defence of the first crusade.
It may be time to get a peace deal with Jerusalem, a temporary peace don’t worry. It is normally difficult as they are hardcoded enemies, but if you dealt them a blow and maybe if you offer money it may buy you some valuable turns to reorganise and plan. The momentum is over, and things have slowed down to a halt, you need to reorganise, wait and repeal some sieges and assaults and get ready for a second wave and crippling counter attack.
You should at this point to maximise economic gain and defences, make all settlements cities except for Kerak, Dumyat and Arsuf which are all in tactical and strategic places. A few permanent frosts on bridges and narrow areas won’t go amiss either. Build all barracks and unit buildings up in the castles of Kerak, Arsuf and Dumyat, these will produce your best units and valuable reinforcements in addition to brand new stacks once finances improve. The defences in Jerusalem [and if you took it Acre] should also be improved, as they will be under siege. After doing that start retraining damaged units and training up new units in Jerusalem, Kerak, Arsuf [and Acre if you took it] in preparation for the inevitable sieges.
Disband all unneeded units back home in mainland Egypt, look at the percentage of happiness and try to get it with few units as possible and at least over 90%. In settlements which have free upkeep units, disband the non-free upkeep units to keep down costs.
Now it’s time to heavily invest in and build up economy back home by building ports, farms, irrigation, land clearing, roads, markets, etc. everything possible. Your aim is now to gain finances to support new armies and build up your countries economic position leaving you in an easy position to repel the third crusade and any attacks while building up your forces, all the while the Turks, your allies, should be advancing against the Principality of Antioch. It is vital that you build up defences in Acre, Arsuf, Ascalon, Dumyat, Jerusalem, Kerak for the next stage.
The next stage is the dreaded Third Crusade. Don't panic though, it's not a horde of enemy stacks it is just one or two with Richard the Lion heart an able general and some special Jerusalem units. If you captured the aforementioned cities, and crippled the economy of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well built up your defences and barracks, then trained some new men. You will be fine. Aim to kill Richard in Battle, and it's best to use Saladin as he is your best general and has a special ability too. After you crush Richard and finish off the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the world is your oyster. You can choose to double team the Principality of Antioch taking all the Levant, or you can advance against the Byzantine Empire, after your Christian enemies are dead, perhaps it's time to defeat the only Islamic rival in the region and your one time allies, the Turks.
Units
Infantry
- Peasants
- Spear Militia
- Nubian Spearmen
- al'Ashir Infantry
- Dismounted Arab Cavalry
- Khasseki
- Al Haqa Infantry
- Dismounted Ghulams
- Saracen Militia
- Tabardariyya
- Hashishim
