Awesome mod :) My little story

[Karthago]

Names won't be exact, sorry...

Anyway here is the story, I started my very first game has Egypt. Also, no screenshots...I'm waiting to take screenshots after I play through two or three campaigns and get used to this mod.

I had Kingdom of Jerusalem to the north, Makuria to the south. My campaign was going pretty well, I had two large armies. One in my northern border for protection and one attacking the Rebels to the south and Makuria. I took one of Makuria's forts and two rebel town. I left KoJ alone, since their units are very strong.

Well, after capturing the three cities/castle, that is when my downfall began. In the same turn, Makuria's army (they had 4 or 5 stacks, most of them completely filled) attacked two of my bases as I'll call them. That same turn, KoJ attacked four of my bases at once. I tried attacking KoJs army with my main northern force, well suddenly I was surrounded by KoJ and my main force was defeated. My southern force was utterly destroyed by Makuria's huge army as well. and I lost all three bases I took. Same turn (I had negative cash at this point and couldn't do anything) KoJ took over three of my bases, but I still had a large castle to the far north. I had one small castle in my southern boarder, which I couldn't do anything still because I was in the negative. Next turn, Makuria took all his stacks and started moving up north, my southern castle was taken over. KoJ still hadn't managed to defeat my northern castle, so I rushed in with my left over army and took over the city of Jerusalem, not sure how I managed to win that one...but I did.

After capturing the city, my money started going up again and I started building troops...too late, KoJ had about 8 stacks attacking my bases. My castle was taken over, and my newly conquered city was taken over. All I had left was the bases near the river, which put up a fight but I was being attacked from two sides and I eventually lost.

Awesome mod I had a great time, even though I lost horribly.

I may try Eastern Roman Empire next, they might be a little easier

[Faris ad Din]

No offense or egging intended, those moments are when you learn the fastest!

If you learn by making mistakes, you learn quickly by making monumental ones.

You can rock as the Ayyubids, you have to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses as with any other faction. Your strength is pretty wealthy provinces, and you start with a fair number of them; and strong cavalry and melee infantry (with a lack of good spearmen). Their weakness is that they can get caught in a two-front war. Jerusalem and Makuria start with pretty good relations and they almost always ally within the first ten turns of a campaign.

Next time, focus on the biggest threats (and easiest to deal with) first, followed by the second biggest threats (and/or second easiest to deal with) second, and so on. Your biggest threat was the KoJ - your faction surrounds them and there is little rebel buffer in between, you're bound for war with them. Don't bother messing with Makuria, snatch as many easy rebel pickings as you can and leave your main army up north where the biggest kindling is.

Good luck with the ERE. This time there's no chance of a two-front war, just overextending yourself with too many enemies.

[Karthago]

Thanks for the advice

I'll probably have two campaigns going, the Roman campaign and I'll be trying the Egypt campaign again.

And yeah, you learn a lot when losing. I figured I should have attacked Jerusalem first, but it was too late by then. Still a lot of fun though.

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Sometimes I like losing campaign more. Everything feels more epic.. every character is remembered, every city is fought over bitterly, every street is a last stand... might play a campaign as the KoJ now.

[Faris ad Din]

Hey, which war movies are the most touching and memorable? Which war stories even? The ones about heroic defeats!

When you are winning, you are not using 100% of your capability or pushing your limits. When you are barely winning, perhaps, then you are, which would be the optimal situation - you're giving it your all and winning at the same time. When you're heroically losing (sounds awful, right?) you're accomplishing miracles. Then perhaps later on, you can still salvage a victory and turn the tide because you created more opportunities with your hard-fought losses.

Siege of Jerusalem (second one!!!) FTW.

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Yep.

In my current Abbasid campaign I'm hard-pressed pushing back Georgia. It's that delicate stage where you have to maintain the attack or else they'll move past your armies, but the armies are dangerously weakened! Khwarezm is eyeing my north border as well... if I can make it through these next 7 years, then the Mongols can sort them out.