It's the first level of the Saladin campaign. Initially you're an ally with Egypt and the crusader Franks are the enemy. However as you get close to Cairo, the Egyptians start voicing concerns like "Saladin, where are you going with that great army?" Eventually they openly become an enemy and join the Franks. You have to invade Cairo and place troops near the main mosque, after which the Egyptians repent and become allies again.
I know AoE is obviously going to embellish events, but what actual historical events gave the developers inspiration for this level?
Hi,
just yesterday I read Thomas Asbridge's "The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land", so here is a breakdown of what happened.
First, you must keep in mind that during the crusades Muslim states very often fought against each other. Egypt was ruled by the Shi'ite Fatimid dynasty. While the Latin kingdoms (aka "the Crusaders", aka “the Franks”) at times tried to capture the odd Egyptian border town, the late Fatimid's real opponent was Nur al-Din, the Sunni ruler of Syria and one of the most powerful Muslim lords. He sent an expedition to Egypt in 1164, capitalizing on an internal crisis over the rulership of Egypt. Yussuf al-Ayyub (aka Saladin) was possibly part of that army, but not its overall leader, which would have been his uncle, a man called Shirkuh. Their objective was to restore the old Egyptian vizier (think of it as a prime minister), called Shawar in order to extract financial benefits from Egypt. Once Shawar was in office, he promptly made an alliance with the Kingdom of Jerusalem to get rid of the Syrians (he might have been afraid of them, as AoE2 hints). Together they paused Nur al-Din’s army until other events made it return to Syria. Another Syrian army attacked in 1167, but was again unsuccessful, due to Frankish forces.
After that, Egypt and Jerusalem continued a close alliance (again, the diplomacy of the crusades is much more complex than “Christians vs Muslims”), even going so far as to keep Latin troops permanently in Cairo.
In 1168, the Latins became greedy and wanted to invade Egypt themselves, essentially backstabbing their own semi-ally. They even built an alliance with the Byzantine Empire for a joint offensive. Unfortunately, the Franks rushed their offensive, thereby alienated their ally, the Byzantine Empire, and were not able to overcome Egypt as fast as they had hoped. The vizier now made an alliance with Nur al-Din instead, who sent another Syrian army (again, Saladin was part of that army, but Shirkuh was in charge). The Franks, seeing that they were heavily outnumbered, retreated. The Egyptian vizier was then executed by Saladin (yeah, people back then liked their backstabbing) and Shirkuh took his place.
I originally intended to finish with a concise contrast of AoE2 with reality, but I honestly don’t know where to start. This shouldn't even be part of a Saladin campaign.