Dealing with mid-late game Egypt

[Cheme]

I have encountered several threads reffering to Egypt as a problem. As I am currently battling a four fronted war envolving Egypt I figured I would create an overall defeating the Egyptians thread. I am battling the Juli into spain ,the gauls and the britons back toward briton, the dacians into russia and the egyptians just wont leave me alone after I () sacked one of their citys over by Rhodes. As many of you may know I really poked the bee's nest by attacking Egypt when much of my might was devoted elsewhere. As a result Egypt has sent a steady stream of armies my way, while I only had 2 moderately strong stacks and loads of townswatchmen to counter them.

I quickly got tired of cycling armys back for retraining and the rushing them back to break sieges.

Alas I had a stroke of genius on how to deal with Egypt. I'd make one army on the greek pennisula and send it to cause havoc behind the enemy lines. I had no intentions of holding the cities I sacked or this army having too much longevity. That being said I built a massive fleet to transport it and sent along my best assasin as an after thought.

Specificall I sent one stack of 2 artillary, 5 archers, 1 general, 6 legionarys and 6 mounted legionarys. A full stack of warships was assmbled as a transport. My 55 year old assasin who had offed nearly every member of every other roman faction borded the ships as well.

With avengance I set sail for the area of the Nile and Alexandria. Arriving a few years later I dumped my army ashore and immediately sacked Alexandria, I destroyed every building and moved on to the next city. In the meantime I split my stack of ships and blockaded nearly every Egyptian port. My assasin moved ahead of me slitting the throat of every egyptian family member on the way.

My sacking, blockade and murdering spree went on for several turns before the egyptian armys began to decline in quality. I lost most towns I took within 2 turns, maybe holding it for one to retrain what I could and moving on. Without the financial support of this region egypts armys would soon be ground to dust. And that is how I defeated Egypts endless stream of armies with 3 stacks of armies.

[fourganger]

Alas I had a stroke of genius on how to deal with Egypt.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is actually a very common strategy. In fact, there are many (myself included) that believe this to be the only way to combat the Egypt/Seleucid superpower in the East. The AI spams armies to their borders, but often neglects to properly garrison their inner territory. A slash and burn/scorched earth campaign is really the only sensible option.

Egypt is especially vulnerable in this sense, due to its cluster or cities on the Nile Delta which can be taken quickly in succession and then easily defended (if you were so inclined to keep them that is).

[Cheme]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is actually a very common strategy. In fact, there are many (myself included) that believe this to be the only way to combat the Egypt/Seleucid superpower in the East. The AI spams armies to their borders, but often neglects to properly garrison their inner territory. A slash and burn/scorched earth campaign is really the only sensible option.

Egypt is especially vulnerable in this sense, due to its cluster or cities on the Nile Delta which can be taken quickly in succession and then easily defended (if you were so inclined to keep them that is).

No bubble burst but I noticed a lot of threads concerning the Egyptians and thought it wouldnt be a bad idea to get everyones thoughts/stratagies in one thread...

As you may have noticed I am new to these forums and am not familiar with everything that has ever been discussed here. The case would be the same with any new members so it is not a bad thing for a forum to re-visit new old topics. It keeps a forum alive and avoids stagnation.

It certainly isnt the only way to deal with them. It is not all that hard to defend the key passes with only a few armies and hold the Egyptians off while you take on the Scipi (or Carthage) depending on who controls that part of the map. Once thats taken care of you can fight a two front war against the Egyptians which usually by that time they have all their might committed to the oppisite side of the map. Takes longer and fighting so many battles to hold the Egyptians of in the mean time is annoying.

[fourganger]

It certainly isnt the only way to deal with them. It is not all that hard to defend the key passes with only a few armies and hold the Egyptians off while you take on the Scipi (or Carthage) depending on who controls that part of the map. Once thats taken care of you can fight a two front war against the Egyptians which usually by that time they have all their might committed to the oppisite side of the map. Takes longer and fighting so many battles to hold the Egyptians of in the mean time is annoying.

I suppose it depends what kind of stage the faction is at. In my current RTR Roman campaign, the superpower in the East is the Seleucid Empire. They currently have about 20 full stacks sitting in Anatolia, waiting till we share a land border so they can attack. Without the crazy AI cash bonuses, there's no way that a human player can stop such an onslaught. RTR is of course much harder strategy wise, as you can't simply retrain in a settlement without some serious development there first.

The only way to deal with such a situation is to hit them in the underbelly. This is the situation I had in mind when I posted the above comment, and in this case, it's pretty much true. Unless you're playing a Horse Archer faction, they can build troops faster than you can kill them, therefore taking them head on is not the intelligent or logical option.

Of course, historically a single battle could be enough to gain you an empire. If only that worked here too...

[Cheme]

Never played RTR.

It clearly isnt possible to beat Egypt in a head on assault late game if they have come to dominate the East. What I meant was you can generally at least hold Egypt to their current boundries there are some good mountains/passes in the area that are easily defensible. If you take these locations and hold and press an attack from the other of the map, through Carthage, you can beat Egypt as they arent smart enough to fight two fronts.

[aznflea]

it is easily possible with macedons or seleucids. the key to victory is phalanx and outmanovring enemy cavalry

[fourganger]

it is easily possible with macedons or seleucids. the key to victory is phalanx and outmanovring enemy cavalry

I think we were talking strategically, rather than tactically.

Never played RTR.

It clearly isnt possible to beat Egypt in a head on assault late game if they have come to dominate the East. What I meant was you can generally at least hold Egypt to their current boundries there are some good mountains/passes in the area that are easily defensible. If you take these locations and hold and press an attack from the other of the map, through Carthage, you can beat Egypt as they arent smart enough to fight two fronts.

For more of a challenge, I'd certainly recomment RTR or one of the sub-Mods.

Tbh, it's been a while since I played standard RTW, and I have no doubts that taking them head on is possible in that game, as it was what I did when I first played. What you describe in the above quote though is exactly the method I would use- holding them off whilst attacking their vulnerable areas. In this we are in agreement; my only point was that this is the most effective way to deal with any superpower in the game. It's not impossible to do it in other ways, but why would you want to when more effective options are available?

[Draugdur]

it is easily possible with macedons or seleucids. the key to victory is phalanx and outmanovring enemy cavalry

I wouldn't exactly call it easy, but I agree with this; any faction can be strategically taken out head-on in one-on-one fight, i.e. if you're not fighting any other factions (or fighting a winning war). AI rarely retrains, rarely recruits better units, and is overall not as competent in economical matters as a good player. It just takes too damn long and gets extremely boring. And I agree with fourganger that it's not really an intelligent option.

Of course, the best strategy to deal with them by far is scorched earth; I used this too when I played Numidia (RTR 6, VH/VH), and it worked excellent. Especially after I've taken Cyprus and Rhodes - after that, I could attack, besiege, AND withdraw (if I'm lucky) most of the Egyptian cities within one or two turns.

[Cheme]

Its actually been a while since I played TW at all. I just re-installed it and am finishing up my first campaign. When I was playing the game previously I never stumbled accross an online community related to TW. Mainly I played LAN battles with friends.

I was thinking I would try RTR, RS or SPQR when I am done with this campaign. I liked the sounds of SPQR because of the 0 turn recruit times.

[aznflea]

strategically?

attack alexandria memphis and thebes.

[Lord Thesaurian]

First of all, maybe I'm just a goof but I don't see which Roman Faction u are. Second, I wanna know how and why u got into a four-front war. Third, I am by no means trying to be a kill-joy, but this whole invasion of the enemy's heartland thing is common practice. When faced with a powerful enemy it is common to undertake a raid into his heartland, cutting his communications, damaging his economy and public support, and forcing him to withdraw frontier armies to deal with the interior threat. Besides, despite what people say, Egypt isn't that hard to beat no matter the difficulty level. Don't get me wrong; if I was in your place, seeing all these people having problems with Egypt, I'd have done the same thing, but Egypt's bark is far worse than her bite.

[Cheme]

First of all, maybe I'm just a goof but I don't see which Roman Faction u are. Second, I wanna know how and why u got into a four-front war. Third, I am by no means trying to be a kill-joy, but this whole invasion of the enemy's heartland thing is common practice. When faced with a powerful enemy it is common to undertake a raid into his heartland, cutting his communications, damaging his economy and public support, and forcing him to withdraw frontier armies to deal with the interior threat. Besides, despite what people say, Egypt isn't that hard to beat no matter the difficulty level. Don't get me wrong; if I was in your place, seeing all these people having problems with Egypt, I'd have done the same thing, but Egypt's bark is far worse than her bite.

Well like I said the first time I played this game I never did any research online so while this might not be new to all of you it was new to me. My tactics of old was basically to spam troops and fight massive head on battles. I got annoyed with auto-resolve never resolving the way it should half the time and or fighting 6-10 battles every turn.

I am playing as Juli. I got into a 4 front war by doing the following. I was teetering back and forth between accelerating the start of the civil war or just letting it come on its own time. I decided I'd hold out a little bit longer and did a senate mission to blockade an Egyptian port. At this point I had taken control of the greek pennsula and now shared a large border with Dacia and controlled most of the provinces by Rhodes. Within the next few turn I decided I didnt feel like waiting for the civil war and the war in the east was basically done. Greece and Macadonia were soundly defeated so I chose my next conquest as italy. Unfortunetly I had high popularity with the senate and the people. However I did not have enough popularity witht he people to attack Rome. So I started taking some Gaulic towns that were isolated from the main Gaulic holdings. After taking these I assualted rome. I took all the settlements in sicily and on the greek pennisula in 3 turns, I had been waiting for this war and was well prepared. I began to push the Juli back into spain when my pals the gauls decided to get me back. I sent an army raiding deep into gaul. Well the british allies of the gauls didnt like that and started attackign me also. Around the same time the germans and dacians decided I was weak and vulnerable and seiged some of my towns. Luckily I had heavily defended borders and didnt lose settlements but the onslaught was endless. Eventually during all this stacks of Egyptian armies started showing up on the Eastern front and layed seige to one of my cities. I broke the seige and retailliated by seizing one of their cities. From there things pretty well spiralled out of controll.

Eventually I got tired of fighting a war along my entire boarder and in a to hell with it strategy sent my armies in the west pillaging whatever they could. I had to end the war there or I'd be stuck in a endless grind to victory. To my surpise the tides of war turned my way so I figured I could deal with Egypt the same way.