I find myself surprised by this tactics, as it is long ago that a skilled Isis or Ra really planned on fighting me in classical age, and it appears that I have unlearnt how to deal with it.
Up to now I expected this to be a weak tactics, as spearmen are the weakest of all mainline infantry, and slingers are not that amazing either. 1 RC even defeats 1 spearman np (although spearmen do better when numbers are higher on both sides). On top of that, the classical Eggy units are quite pop-inefficient, so I thought defeating them with a standard RC assault, possibly backed up with a pack of TA against the spears and axes, should not be a problem.
However, I found myself quite wrong with that. The reason seems to be that the Eggy classical units may be pop inefficient, but they train quickly and are cheap, which enables the Eggy to quickly bring a formidable mass of them onto the map. Both RC and TA train slowly, which makes little difference in the later ages, when I have plenty of longhouses to compensate for slow training speed, but in early classical this seems to make a real difference. In classical age pop efficiency does not matter much, because both sides have not hit pop limit yet, but Eggy can reach it faster and then attack or claim the map. Losses are easily replaced due to Isis' and Ra's economic boni and the low barracks units price. So the new Eggy tactics appears to be to quickly make a barracks unit army, mainly based on spearmen but with a slinger support both to have ranged units that do not require melee contact to hit and in order to counter TA. Then the Eggy claims the map, makes a TC or two and chases my hunters which form the main classical source of income for Thor on a high hunting map.
The Norse is forced into defensive and even has a hard time finding an unthreatened expansion mine. The Eggy can then try to seal the situation by making walls at strategical places on the map, minimizing Norse RC raids which rely on speed and surprise. From such a situation, the Eggy goes heroic and finds himself in a better position than any FH could give him.
I do, however, admit that the above may just work that well because I am not (no longer) used to Eggy reasonably making classical age troops and fighting with them. But from my current point of view, this appears far from being weak, and I have already encountered several ppl that played this new style vs me (well, perhaps it was one guy using several accounts, but I doubt that).
Darkness is a state of mind
Valor is the contempt of Death and Pain. (Tacitus)
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back. (Piet Hein)