As the title implies, I don’t believe the Ayyubid variant civ to really represent Saladin and the Ayyubid dynasty as it really should. First of all I want to say I love this game and it was playing Age of empires 2 as a kid that got me to take a history degree and history remains my number 1 passion/interest. That said with the dlc obviously there were a few concerns over the variant civs, but to me the most disappointing was the Ayyubid’s. My favorite topic in history is the Crusades and I really love Saladin as a historical figure, hence why the design for the Ayyubid’s really confused and disappointed me as they dont really seem to represent the Ayyubid’s at all, and just seem like the Abbasid’s with some different mechanics. So I’m going to propose some changes, mainly for ascetic purposes but also some affecting the army compositions of the civ.
First is the house of wisdom. The house of wisdom was located in Baghdad so makes perfect sense for the Abbasid’s to have it, however the Ayyubid’s power base was not in Baghdad, in fact its rather famous that Saladin was able to unite Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo under one banner, however he never controlled Baghdad and frequently appealed to and sought legitimacy from the Abbasid’s in Baghdad as the heads of Sunni Islam. My proposed change for this would be to change the house of wisdom to the Cairo citadel for the Ayyubid’s. This was built by Saladin as served as the seat of power for the Ayyubid government, therefore I think it would make perfect sense and thematically fit perfectly instead of the house of wisdom. It would function exactly the same as the house of wisdom did before. Pic below, im unsure how much was added later under the Mamluk sultunate
Second change is for the camel units, while I really think camels are cool, historically they just really weren’t that prominent in warfare due to being less domesticated as horses, making them harder to control in battle. I think its fine Abbasids have them, if anywhere it was the more Persian side of warfare that saw the use of camels like the Sassanids were known for. However Saladin was not known at all for uses camels in his armies for warfare, and it just seems rather random. Saladin was known for composing his armies of lots of various cultures and ethnicites, therefore the 2 camel units can easily be changed into something else. The desert raider can be changed to a Turkish raider, functioning exactly the same being able to swap between melee and ranged, Saladin was well known for employing light Turkish cavalry, particularly horse archers, so this makes perfect sense. The other unit the camel lancer if anything would be the one thing id change. Camels were never really known to be employed in a shock role like that, certainly not in Saladin’s armies, the only reference I could find to something like this is the Sassanid use of camel cataphracts, as to the prominence of such a unit I cant really comment, but either way that’d be more a unit for the Abbasids, but even that’s a stretch. It really surprised me this wasn’t a unit already, but the camel lancer can easily be replaced with a mamluk unit (riding a horse unlike aoe2) they can function exactly the same as the camel lancer, which I think would be perfect given I remember reading a particular segment on the 7th crusade where the mamluks repeatedly charged at the enemies going in and out of combat, which suits given the camel lancers ability to charge more often and longer. The mamluks were slave soldiers usually from the Caucasus and steppe regions and famously employed by Saladin as some of his best soldiers, therefore makes sense to be their lancer replacement. An example of horse archers and mamluks below
The last change is a general balance change for the civ, and this is just to make their military composition more representative of Saladin and separate to the Abbasids. Saladins armies were cavalry heavy, but he had plenty of supporting infantry as well, but they didn’t necessarily serve the same hard hitting role of his cav, therefore id propose a few changes to make them useful in conjunction with their cavalry. Id propose the phalanx technology and gulam units are removed. Instead a new upgrade for spearmen called rounded shields or something. It simply just gives them a shield, giving an extra 1 melee and 1 ranged armor, this would give them more surviveabilty but make them less effective at warding off cav like Abbasid ones. Given some other changes I dont believe their man at arms would need any unique upgrades, and gulams can remain a unique unit for Abbasids. The infantry support technology can remain, however it would apply to all cavalry, but only give plus 2 armor to Turkish cavalry and horsemen, therefore making the player lean towards some mix of infantry and cavalry. A new unit would be the Sudanese archer, replacing the standard archer. Saladin employed archers very effectively in harassing roles in various battles, and he employed Sudanese which were well known for being good at archery, therefore this archer would have an ability to fire a shot with an extra 2 damage, with a recharge like the samurai deflection. This archer would cost slightly more food than a standard one. A new tech as well at the blacksmith would further reflect Saladin’s use of archers for harassment, which would make both Sudanese archers and crossbowmen fire 15% faster, and this could add an extra 1 damage to the Sudanese archers ability. This would not be available till castle age. Overall these changes push the Ayyubids to make a diverse army that functions differently to Abbasids, where instead of camels being the support for their strong infantry, the infantry and archers serve as support to strong cavalry. I think this would work really well with the civ while keeping historically accurate.
i really hope a dev sees this or some of the other feedback and pushes towards making the Ayyubid’s a bit more historically representative of Saladin and the Ayyubid dynasty, as I think there is alot of room to show the differences to the Abbasid’s, as well as show off their diverse and really awesome army compositions with the various types of troops from different cultures and ethnicities.