If camels come out early, mounted samurai won't have the raw power to fight them even with numbers.

The movement banner (Uma Bannerman) offsets the camel debuff, making mounted samurai neck and neck with camels, and they ignore the initial lance charge.

When facing potential camel archers, an outpost investment is usually worth it.

Even though horsemen get debuffed by camel riders, adding horsemen is a clean way to deal with crossbows and allows you to stick to cavalry, optimizing around a single Onna Banner Man.

Onna Bugeisha is great against camels and crossbows. Camels have no melee armor unless you get Camel Shielding, so they get shredded by Bugeisha.