How to beat
Ayyubidas Byzantine
Matchup tips
Javelin Throwers do great against Desert Raiders, and Camel Riders in the castle age work wonders against enemy camels.
Longbowmen will be able to deal with basically half of your composition. They are very good against archers, extremely good against Desert Raiders, and they obliterate Spearmen.
Desert Raiders historically don't fare too well up against either Lombos or javelin throwers. As the Desert Raiders do have that range tag, you're going to be able to do a good amount of bonus damage to them.
Varangians have an additional +1 melee armor, so they aren't going to be taking nearly as much damage from the Ghulam as other arms would be. And the Ghulam's double hit comes off twice, so the Varangian Guard is a pretty clever response.
When facing aggression as Byzantine, consider stopping at Cistern level three instead of five. Pull villagers off stone to get units out sooner, because going for level five can delay your military and berry access.
Against Ghulam rushes, Byzantine needs multiple towers with arrow slits to shoot down the heavily armored Ghulams.
Limitanei are a safe answer to many things, but if the Ayyubid goes for Ghulams, suddenly the Limitanei can't do much damage because of the Ghulams' heavy armor.
To deal with a couple of horsemen and dervishes, you're going to want three or four spearmen and your first wave of longbows, and even then you probably don't want to come out on the map too quickly.
Cataphracts are such ridiculous castle age tanks. They kind of don't care about camel lancers, and they stop the opponent from rushing up a mangonel to deal with your longbows.
Camel lancers seem to be stopped by cataphracts every single time.
Longbows make sense because you're dealing with camels, archers, and desert raiders.
With only five longbows, a dervish can absorb a lot of those shots. You don't really want to be in a position where you have to use your longbow shots onto the dervish.
The idea going desert raiders is very awkward because if your opponent just builds javelins, desert raiders actually get melted.
Camel Lancers, you think they'd be great against Cataphracts because the debuff, but Cataphracts are just neverending tanks that don't die. And even if you get close, they always have the reposition tool that Camel Lancers can't mirror.
Limitan plus Javelins is really nice because it stops your opponent from going into desert Raiders in age2.
You need to not lose any Longbowmen so that you can block the Ayyubid's second step in the combat, which is Camel Lancers followed by archers.
Ayyubid Unique Units
Ayyubid Landmarks
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