Tips on playing Egypt?

[[TUUONCUOGB]BothChicken]

So I've been trying to play Egypt, but it seems they're the hardest faction to play. No matter what the Pope always declares a Crusade on you regardless if you take Jerusalem or not or even if you're in an alliance with them (strange right?) which leads most of the Catholic factions to declare war on you. If that's not bad enough the Mongols come after you and Egypt seems to be 2nd on their hitlist. Since most of the Catholic factions hate you no one wants to make an alliance with you.

I've been told to expand Westward and Southwar first but that seems to get me into conflict with Sicily, and then I end up embroiled in Italy when the Mongols arrive.

[[TUUONCUOGB]BothChicken]

Um that's Total War Rome II Egypt. This is about Total War Medieval 2 Egypt. It's the right faction, but wrong game.

[Woody]

The Cathlic factions are hard to keep good relations with as a Muslim faction. Even with good relations once a crusade is called there is a good chance any christian allies you had will turn against you. You can try to not hold on to Jerusalem or Antioch and it may lessen the chance of a crusade to be called against you. Doing that you give up two cities with very good income.
So it is up to you. Your biggest threat is the Mongols so I would not worry too much about the Catholic factions.

I like to try to weaken the Mongols at the river crossings east of Antioch and south of the mountain range near by. Very good defensive terrain either they have to attack up very steep terrain or a choke point. Sometimes you can win other times you just get overwhelmed, but you can cause some heavy casualties.

Hopefully by the time the Mongols can reach Antioch you have been able to upgrade the city's defenses. Then it becomes a matter of not letting their cavarly through your gates. Fight the infantry on the walls with sword infantry and fight the cavarly with spears at the gate while your missle troops continue firing at the Mongols outside your walls trying to push through the gate.

I do the above because it allows me to continue to expand towards the west while at least slowing the Mongols. You may lose some of your land to the east of Antioch but the loses are easily taken back once your defensive war with the Mongols is over.

Expanding west of Egypt across North Africa is probally the easiest and I suggest transporting troops with your navy. One advantage is the Mongols may descide to bypass Antioch and go for Constantiople and you can leave the Turks and Byzatines to fight them or you can help them fight the horde. The disadvantage it tends to be slower to gain territory. The reasons being the distance between cities and castles and the terrain you have to travel across. There is also the fact you will have to eventually fight one of the only two Muslim factions besides yourself. The other it is harder to police the territories and keep the rebels that pop up under control. They will cause devastation and the size of the territories require larger garrisons one for the city and the other for fighting rebels. You can of course ignore them and take the economic hit.

You can fight the Turks and Byzantines and eventually the Mongols. You can gain territory faster and get a stronger economy faster than expanding across North Africa.

I have also decided to keep allied with the Turks and Moors and attacked the sicilians or French. This can lead to all out war with the Catholic factions depending on how things play out with diplomacy between the AI.

I leave it at that.

[Ü = Épïç FáìL]

For Egypt u need to control the middle eastern coast up to Antioch and then hunker down and start building up for Naffatun. I have broken many armies with naffatun and spearmen at the gates. Once they break finish off with cavalry. A good strat for beginners is to build up 7 or 8 missle cavalry a few arab for armored targets rest a few mamluks etc. Attack an attacking army with hit and run you can hew down an army in 2-3 turns if you do it right with minimal casualties. Dont charge with missle cavalry unless they are routed. Ez army though saracens/naffatun.

[Jimboblordofeskimos]

I seem to do it differntly to you guys, I go hard as possible to snaffle up all the rebel cities I can to the east and then north, go fast, spread yourself thin and take it all. You are probably going to get crusades for jerusalem but stock it with those great long range archers and ballista towers and you should be fine. Ally and trade with everybody on the map early, its extra money, so why not, if the turks are fighting the byzys by the time you bump up against them, roll them as well, all the way to constantinople if you can. If you are willing to play cheap then 9 or so units in a city castle can take almost any army (2 spears, 1 general/cav, rest long range archers) wait for them to siege, move your guys out, spears front, archers behind, first their archers will attack, shoot them down or wipe them out with your cav, then slowly move your cav up till 1 unit starts to move forward, slowly move your cav back to bait the unit into your archer fire, rinse and repeat. If you dont want to do that then the mongols can be whittled down fairly easily if they assault castles, half dozen archers units used smart will rip the guts out of an army even if they loose during a castle assault.

Forget expanding into africa, the land is garbage and costs more to defend than it is worth early/midgame.

[[TUUONCUOGB]BothChicken]

Originally posted by Jimboblordofeskimos:

Forget expanding into africa, the land is garbage and costs more to defend than it is worth early/midgame.

I don't know, the Turks don't often go to war with the Byzantines and if the AI detects you expanding towards its borders it's going to think of you as a bigger threat than the Byzantines, so expanding to the North can bring you into conflict with the Turks, and if you emerge victorious, instead of the Turks getting the brunt of the Mongol invasion, you will. Although if you deploy forts I hear you can trap them in the mountains (I saw that Crusader armies in the Mountains of Palestine went around my forts instead of attacking the one unit in them).

The land in Africa isn't the best yes, but the southernmost regions, especially Dongola, are very isolated and contain very good trade resources (slaves, ivory and gold). You can easily grow Dongola into a formidable city over the course of the game and it won't be attacked by anyone because of its isolation. It's just a good economic investment. Tripoli is more or so true in that it's harder to defend, but once you kill Sicily it doesn't come under threat. Tunis is a good settlement though and it's often on the frontlines since its Sicilies entrenchment in Africa and on the border with the Moors. Timbuktu is like Dongola and it has alot of gold resources which net alot of money and again it's very isolated from the rest of the factions, but you can't capture it early on to grow the city into a formidable economic powerhouse since it takes too long to reach it.

[Jimboblordofeskimos]

While some of the settlements at the bottom of the map can roll up into strong cities, the problem is the amount of time/men you need to take them, miles of road that need to be kept clear of rebels to keep trade flowing, if you are playing on hard or v/hard, if you take the coastal african provinces, every jerkoff with 3 spare units and a raft will come and drop seiges out of nowhere (ive had scotland, who I had had no contact with, do this to me multiple times), If you dont, said jerkoffs will take the coastal provinces then magically know where you cities to the south are, either way, you can need at least the core of an army and a general or 2 doing nothing but hanging around there, just incase. It might be worth it economically, but from just a fun standpoint, I find it more of a hassle. Province directly to the south of cairo (name escapes me) is an obvious exception, its nice and close and is easy to make bank off.
If you are getting close to the turks and they arent fighting the bzys, call a jihad on constantinople (need a rank 4 iman I think?) either they man up and manage to take it, then you have a full stack jihad army in their provinces ready to rumble, or they dont and you have most of a full stack jihad army as well as constantinople that is the perfect base for being ready to rumble. I try and go after the turks ealier rather than later as they get great units later game, they have much softer armies earlier on. Id also rather be the one controlling and defending the turkish provinces rather than the turks, human player should be able to outfight the AI without too much trouble.

Yeah, crusader/jihad armies only every attack their targets, they cant be baited at all, but it is a viable tactic against the mongols who I regard as a bigger threat then crusader armies who are basically just tourists till they get to jerusalem which by that time you should have well garrisoned and decked out with ballista towers.

[[TUUONCUOGB]BothChicken]

Yah Dongola in particular is the one I was talking about (it's the one to the south of Cairo). I'd give you Tripoli, it's hard to defend and it's a crappy settlement as well as hard to reach by land, but Tunis is a good settlement on its own. I'm not as sure about the other two directly to the south of the Moors, Timbuktu and the coastal African village, because they're also secluded but are like the America's in the sense that they revolt easily. But after I kicked Sicily out of North Africa Tripoli hasn't been threatened by anyone. The Moors blockaded the port but that's about it. Tunis and Marrakesh keep threatening to rebel so that's more annoying.

I guess it makes little sense not to attack Jerusalem and the Holy Land because either way the Pope calls a Crusade on Cairo if you don't, so you're just cheating yourself out of good provinces (and it doesn't make much sense to declare a crusade on Cairo anyway theologically speaking, since Cairo was founded by Muslims and always was an Islamic city, whereas Alexandria is a Holy See of the Catholic Church like Rome or Constantinople).

Interesntingly enough in my playthrough the Mongols and the Timrurids deployed in Eastern Europe rather than Iraq so they haven't been a major problem.