desert kingdom tips?

[Sweet_Kitten_Gaming]

so i like nabatea but their troops have low armor.. has anyone successfully taken down strong factions like the greeks or romans with their troops?

[Alwyn]

Yes, some of their early, cheap units have low armour. As your research and city buildings develop, you can recruit units which have decent armour: https://www.honga.net/totalwar/rome2/unit.php?l=en&v=rome2&f=rom_nabatea

Defeating Rome or Greek factions as Nabatea can be challenging, but it can be done. As Heir of Carthage says in his excellent Rome II videos, we need the right tools. If I was going to fight a Greek faction as Nabatea, I'd bring Nabatean Axe Warriors to take on their hoplites (axemen, with their good armour-piercing score, do well against heavy spearmen), heavy spearmen to counter their cavalry (Nabatea has a good selection of spearmen), a mix of camel spearmen and horsemen (camel spearmen hurt the morale of enemy horsemen) to defeat their cavalry and of course some skirmishers.

If I was fighting Rome as Nabatea, I'd probably use swordsmen, pikemen or heavy spearmen to hold their heavy infantry in place while I struck their infantry from the flanks and rear with melee cavalry and shock cavalry or skirmish fire.

Maybe you're used to playing a more powerful faction like Rome or the Greek states, which can attack other strong factions in the early game. You can try that as a desert kingdom, but it would be risky. As I see it, playing a desert kingdom successfully involved remembering that you're not a big power like Rome or Egypt, you're a small nation trying to survive. One way to survive is to stay out the way of the big players, if you can. I haven't played as Nabatea, but I played a campaign as the Saba. My initial goal was to stay out of the war between Egypt and the Seleucids, and to take over the Arabian Peninsula while the big powers were distracted by their war. That worked well. Maybe, as Nabatea, you're too close to the war between Egypt and the Seleucids to stay out of it? In that case, you could pick a side, take over as much enemy territory as possible and stay loyal to your ally (at least until the war was over) In fact, if you could maintain a military alliance with one of the big powers, you don't have to betray your ally in Rome II since regions held by your military allies count as yours for the victory conditions. Maybe part of the secret of defeating Rome or a Greek faction as Nabatea is to have Egypt, or another major power, on your side?