Kush 2.0

[Surimi]

So, way way back when Imperator Rome first released I managed to cheese my way into defeating Egypt as Kush, but sadly the game was patched and I never bothered to revert and finish my old save to get the New Kingdom achievement. So now I:R is in a more enjoyable state, I'm trying to do it again. The problem is, I'm not actually very good at this game.

Attacking Egypt early on seems to be pretty much impossible now. Even if I attack while they're at war with the Antigonids, they simply peace out of that war and then crush me with their giant, better teched armies before I can make enough gains to even get a white peace.

So my next thought is, let's outtech them. Surprisingly doable. So now I'm a couple of military techs ahead of them and have way more discipline and buffed up heavy infantry. But even if I'm causing twice as many casualties as I'm taking, Egypt has so much manpower they still ultimately win.

So I'm thinking the only way is mercenaries. But I figured I'd ask around and see if anyone had any good 2.0 Kush strategies which might help me save time on this trial and error journey.

 

[Vlad3fr]

I did a nice Kuch playthrought, it was enjoyable !

FIrst , i expanded south and delete all the smaller contries, accepted 2 or 3 cultures (the ones who were above 100 pops)
Meanwile i raise the Egyptian frontier fort to lvl 4.

Secund, i waited that Egypt was deep in war with a guy on North, anybody was fine, and i took part by part of it.
I won my first war on the lvl 4fort with multiple counter attack and battles won. (Camels are really good)
I took one merc stack with heavy infantery to siege forts.

I started by taking all the Nile provinces where there was most of it pops.
The rest was pretty easy.

 

[commander_todd]

I defeated egypt without expanding to much southwards. Only annexing Alut, take military service for extra levies and then take some merchaniers to have a better general.
Egypt refused to take part in the war of the diadochi in my game, but i defeated them anyway.
AI refuses to secure their provincial capitals with forts. To use small stacks to secure large chunks from there territory by avoiding battles is relatively easy. And you can block the entrance to your terretory with a single fort.

 

[Surimi]

I got the achievement, the third restart did it.

Turns out the main obstacle was actually Aswan itself, which had two forts. By attacking when Egypt was at war and using mercenaries I was able to take those forts early on, and then just rushed to the Delta and peaced out for most of the Nile.

The thing that I think helped me out was also the thing that made the mid-game spectacularly annoying. Egypt conquered a huge chunk of Anatolia, which meant their armies were really scattered and probably played a huge role in my easy win, but also made actually annexing them to reform Egypt incredibly frustrating. I ended up having to make them a client state and integrating them, which was quite annoying and slowed everything down a lot.

All in all, I was actually pretty okay though. I think the early failures were just bad luck and bad strategies.

 

[Arthrodira]

Why not conquer the south and Arabia before going after Egypt? Use those extra pops to fill out your armies

 

[Vlad3fr]

I got the achievement, the third restart did it.

Turns out the main obstacle was actually Aswan itself, which had two forts. By attacking when Egypt was at war and using mercenaries I was able to take those forts early on, and then just rushed to the Delta and peaced out for most of the Nile.

The thing that I think helped me out was also the thing that made the mid-game spectacularly annoying. Egypt conquered a huge chunk of Anatolia, which meant their armies were really scattered and probably played a huge role in my easy win, but also made actually annexing them to reform Egypt incredibly frustrating. I ended up having to make them a client state and integrating them, which was quite annoying and slowed everything down a lot.

All in all, I was actually pretty okay though. I think the early failures were just bad luck and bad strategies.

On my run i got lucky, Egypt didn't expand too much.
Once you accept bohairan culture you got yourself a tons of pops