Fatimids overpowered?

[Magni]

Is it just me or is the campaign AI of the Fatimids an absolutely crazy steamroller? Every campaign I played so far, they became the biggest deathblob on the map if not taken care of by the player, were throwing aorund huge stacks very shortl into the game and things normally culminated into them getting into a meatgrinder against the Golden Horde and winning after an extended war of attrittion.

[KingFoey]

Look at their unit upkeep and costs......same for Mongols

[Marcvs Antonivs]

In my campaigns this happens as well, at least you have a challenge on the campaign later on. They always win against the Golden Horde sooner or later because they have millions of negative income, and cannot build, retrain or recruit new units, so when all of their armies are defeated it's easy to beat the golden horde, it's just a matter of grinding. That's why the fatimids almost always win against them. But on general Fatimids are pretty strong and unmatched, yes.

[certoipus]

In my minimod thing is more balanced.
Fatemids can be stopped when sending them crusade one after another. And Jerusalem Kingdom is saved.
But if you take care of them, Biznatium may become very powerful.

[sevisenturk]

speaking of their military i dont think they are overpowered but once they finish crusaders they get a very high income and become unstoppable. so what makes them overpowered is their economy not military.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

The Mongols put a halt to them at least for some time, so they are ok with what their current situation is.

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

The Mongols put a halt to them at least for some time, so they are ok with what their current situation is.

Agree .

[MWY]

What actually makes them overpowered is the lack of enemies/rivals in the region as well as crusaders lacking power. While in reality, Fatimids were close to being defeated by the crusaders, they win in SS all the time. Also later on Zengids and other Ex-Seljuk rulers were big enemies in the region. In SS you obviously lack those factions, so here they become too big too easy.

[Larkin]

What actually makes them overpowered is the lack of enemies/rivals in the region as well as crusaders lacking power. While in reality, Fatimids were close to being defeated by the crusaders, they win in SS all the time. Also later on Zengids and other Ex-Seljuk rulers were big enemies in the region. In SS you obviously lack those factions, so here they become too big too easy.

In reality they weren't the only faction in the middle east, there were dozens, many of them independent of each other apart from when someone like Saladin or Baibars could unify them.

I feel the Turks (who are supposed to represent Rum and Seljuks, right?) don't get involved enough. They usually die to the Mongols, and the Fatimids take over everything. The Crusaders certainly didn't bring them close to defeat, they were almost permenantly stretched... had the Fourth Crusade not gone astray it could have crushed them, but really after the success of the First Crusade there wasn't much going for the Crusader States.

Anyway, I think the CS could do with a few more family members because they tend to get destroyed while still having several provinces due to their family tree dying off, which seems a bit silly.

[MWY]

The Crusaders certainly didn't bring them close to defeat, they were almost permenantly stretched... had the Fourth Crusade not gone astray it could have crushed them, but really after the success of the First Crusade there wasn't much going for the Crusader States.

Fatimids lost so many cities and battles (acre, tripoli, later on even ascalon, battle at ramla). They were certainly not very powerful anymore (also due to internal and leadership issues). Otherwise saladin couldn't just have taken them over so quickly. You're probably talking about the Ayyubids.

[RollingWave]

Fatimids lost so many cities and battles (acre, tripoli, later on even ascalon, battle at ramla). They were certainly not very powerful anymore (also due to internal and leadership issues). Otherwise saladin couldn't just have taken them over so quickly. You're probably talking about the Ayyubids.

Well another issue is that Fatimids probably have too many settlements to start the game relatively speaking, they didn't actually lose a lot of cities to the Crusaders, mostly it was the cities around Jerusalem region that saw a lot of back and forth, but they did commit a ton of resource into that and eventually still didn't come out on top which hurt them alot. (for example before Acre fell they keep sending fleet to resupply it.)

And later on internal dispute (partly due to their lack of success against Jerusalem.) broke them, a main problem was that by that time the Caliph were really figure heads and the vizer held power (happend around 1070s, ) but the Caliph later on try to rangle power back, complicated the matter greatly.

The nature of states in the middle east at that time was also complex and difficult to properly represent in game, the Fatimid's had a pretty big population advantage on the Crusaders but that didn't translate into military power for a variety of complex reason. This was true for most of the middle ages anyway. population's correlation with war machine was limited at best. because the source of warriors are distributed very unevenly and almost always away from population centers anyway. This was why Andalusia despite being much more populated than Leon / Castilla / Aragon / Portugal still ended up losing and had to rely on the even more sparsely populated Desert Moroccans for most of their (effective) military.

[Larkin]

Fatimids lost so many cities and battles (acre, tripoli, later on even ascalon, battle at ramla). They were certainly not very powerful anymore (also due to internal and leadership issues). Otherwise saladin couldn't just have taken them over so quickly. You're probably talking about the Ayyubids.

Yes, but the Fatimids in SS are a representation of both.

[Ichon]

Yes, but the Fatimids in SS are a representation of both.

SS representation sort of skips Zengids and Ayyubids and goes from Fatimids to Mameluks.

Fatimids have 3 secure borders basically and a numerous roster. Most of their armies are not particularly strong as human players can easily beat them but in auto calc they have advantage of simply wearing down other faction rosters and production capabilities similar to ERE (who also have stronger roster than Fatimids until Fatimids get the Mameluk units).

[MannybeingManny]

Fatimids lost so many cities and battles (acre, tripoli, later on even ascalon, battle at ramla). They were certainly not very powerful anymore (also due to internal and leadership issues). Otherwise saladin couldn't just have taken them over so quickly. You're probably talking about the Ayyubids.

The real military (and as a 'state' builder) genius was not Saladin, but Baybars (on the Muslim side).

[Duck of Death]

You have to hit the fatamids early and quickly.

This is easier if you are the crusader states (you can take them out in 6-10 turns sometimes) or even an Italian state or France, but Ive taken them out within 20 turns as England.

Just immediatly launched a crusade to Gaza and sent a 2nd army (this is on 1100 campaign) to Alexandria. By the time my ships had sailed there, 4 other christian armies were in the area.

So, I let them deal with Gaza (along with my weak 8 unit crusade army... just so the Pope knows I care , while my big army lead by Prince Edward took Alexandria and (by turn 20 or 22) Cairo and the fatamids were done!

I think they had that 2 little cities left at this point (east of alexandria and the tiny one far to the west) but their power was broken. They had no more army.

At that point you can mop them up easily.

All this massive build up from turn 1 left the british isles extremely undefended. I moved every remaining unit to York (save 1 per territory) to protect against Scottish aggression and had my diplomat ally with them just in case. Scotland wasnt going anywhere afterall

[MannybeingManny]

You have to hit the fatamids early and quickly.

This is easier if you are the crusader states (you can take them out in 6-10 turns sometimes) or even an Italian state or France, but Ive taken them out within 20 turns as England.

Just immediatly launched a crusade to Gaza and sent a 2nd army (this is on 1100 campaign) to Alexandria. By the time my ships had sailed there, 4 other christian armies were in the area.

So, I let them deal with Gaza (along with my weak 8 unit crusade army... just so the Pope knows I care , while my big army lead by Prince Edward took Alexandria and (by turn 20 or 22) Cairo and the fatamids were done!

I think they had that 2 little cities left at this point (east of alexandria and the tiny one far to the west) but their power was broken. They had no more army.

At that point you can mop them up easily.

All this massive build up from turn 1 left the british isles extremely undefended. I moved every remaining unit to York (save 1 per territory) to protect against Scottish aggression and had my diplomat ally with them just in case. Scotland wasnt going anywhere afterall

I like how this fits in with my own study on Crusade planning, in the latter parts of the Crusade era, thinking was towards capturing Alex, Damietta, the Nile Delta and cutting the head off the serpent - and it works very well in SS too. Doesn't matter what else they have cut off the head and the rests dies quickly.

Fatty's have woin my latest campaign with Eng but I am playing on, they're as far north as Venice, as Eng I am taking out the Moorrs in Iberia, before tackling the Fatti monster to try and save Christian Europe from extinction.

Despite 'losing' the campaign, that campaign is not wasted if you can set yourself new goals.

It's probably far easier to win as England the way you did it, by killing the fattis off first, but I prefer the challenge later as planning later crusades and managing the logistical nightmare of Crusading in the Levant, I like to pick up Corsica and Sardinia, as well as Siciliy, there's Athens and Corinth always seemingly with a rebel in command and there's also Cyprus which was a vital Crusader stronghold esp. in the latter era.

All good fun!!!

[RollingWave]

I like how this fits in with my own study on Crusade planning, in the latter parts of the Crusade era, thinking was towards capturing Alex, Damietta, the Nile Delta and cutting the head off the serpent - and it works very well in SS too. Doesn't matter what else they have cut off the head and the rests dies quickly.

Fatty's have woin my latest campaign with Eng but I am playing on, they're as far north as Venice, as Eng I am taking out the Moorrs in Iberia, before tackling the Fatti monster to try and save Christian Europe from extinction.

Despite 'losing' the campaign, that campaign is not wasted if you can set yourself new goals.

It's probably far easier to win as England the way you did it, by killing the fattis off first, but I prefer the challenge later as planning later crusades and managing the logistical nightmare of Crusading in the Levant, I like to pick up Corsica and Sardinia, as well as Siciliy, there's Athens and Corinth always seemingly with a rebel in command and there's also Cyprus which was a vital Crusader stronghold esp. in the latter era.

All good fun!!!

It's also because more or less historically speaking states that can hold the Levant for a long time almost always either held Egypt or all of Persia, seeing that holding all of Persia was rather unlikely, the target became obvious, and it helps that Egypt at this time was still 40-50% Christian (Copt / Armenian / Greek Orthodox)

Egypt would offer a much firmer base of operation then the very exposed Levant or even worse Syria. that was well known to almost everyone at that time, it was also why Manuel Komennos had serious plans on invading Egypt at well, seeing that would be a real stepping stone for permanent reconquest.

[k/t]

Late Professionals replenish too quickly, and most Fatimid units are Late Professionals. This will be dealt with in the next update.

This is also why the Byzantines do so well. They can crank out unending armies.

[Radkill]

Fatimid units have stats that are completely out of proportions to the stats of their European counterparts. Whatever you might think of their campaign advantages, no matter how much their upkeep is, I continue to see Fatimid units with around 1.5x my units stats

[Byg]

Fatimid units have stats that are completely out of proportions to the stats of their European counterparts. Whatever you might think of their campaign advantages, no matter how much their upkeep is, I continue to see Fatimid units with around 1.5x my units stats

This is of no use to you if you don't play it, but I addressed these issues in the BGRV submod: unit costs and upkeep are proportionate to ability for all factions. Moors are toned down, such that the Christian factions can remove them from Spain. This increases the potential of difficulties for Islamic factions in general, due to religious crusades (because the Spanish factions are less likely to be extinguished early on and are therefore able to join crusades and because the moors are less likely to be helpful to the fatimids in jihads).