How do you fight the Mongols?

[RollingWave]

Well in my turk campign I was doing reasonablly well conquering most of the Russia area all of middle east and holds the balkans tightly under my control and threatens Venece....

All the while I am aware of the Mongol Invasion though I have never faced them befoer... I decided to do some contingency plan... basically...

1.buy time with space: I only have a minimum infrastructure in Georgia and Kazzar, and a tiny garrison, when the invasion come I just hide in the forts and stall them (they didn't do direct seige even with their insane army http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif )this way they get two crap province and can't build more units and will basically go bankrupt just by their own upkeep.

2.Religion and spys:I avoided building border watchtower in all the province I thought I might give to the Mongols.... this way my spys won't get cought.... and I made sure the whole area was muslim.

Anyway... it didn't go quiet a well as I had hoped... the mongols came and I stalled them a bit at Kazzar and georgia while having a big garrison in Kiev, Armenia, Trebizond and Lithuania... but to my dismay I got crushed in Kiev and lost also lost Lithuania after repelling them 3 to 4 time... however I was able to defeat them in Armenia and then Trebizond by shifting the majority of my army from the western front line (I am however in quiet a bit of financial trouble as I have a hard time not getting into a sea war with everyone thus losing most trade....

But the second part of my plan (my contingency) seem to be working really well... loyalist rebellion in my favor are breaking out all over the central stepps whereever the Mongols don't have a huge garrison... and some of those loyalist rebellion have full stacks of Kwar+jannisaries LOL... I can't even build Jannisaries yet in any province (due to financial stall) and can only build Kwar in Armenia... now if I could just hold the mongols off in Armenia and Trebizond a while longer and will be able to crush them and get a huge shiny new army (though my pocket will be gathering more dust DOH http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif )

[Knight_Yellow]

lots and lots of crossbows

[Mechstra]

The bigger the garrison you have in Khazar, the bigger the invasion will be. Simply evacuate your troops from Khazar and the surrounding steppe provinces, and once the Mongols invade, move in large armies. Since you're the Turks, horse-archer type units will work well, along with some spear units to hold off their cav while your own Ghulams (or equivalent) move round the flank.

The biggest weakness the Mongols have is that they don't produce new units for a long, long time. As such, simply chip away at their armies until they're weak enough to be finished off. Or eliminate their king and heirs.

[DemonArchangel]

Do this, garrison ALL your troops in khazar, then slug it out for 6 hours with the mongols, really fun thing to do.

[Red Harvest]

The strategy to use minimal structure improvement in Khazar and Georgia was a good one. This prevents them from arriving having boosted armour, morale, etc. However, you might want to have upgraded castles if you have time (just don't build other improvements to the provinces.) That way when they try to lift your siege against a small garrison they will suffer horrendous casualties.

I've fought off the horde a few times recently, although not as the Turks (so unit choice might be different.) Attrition, attrition, attrition.

First, plan to lose the first few fights so use moderately good generals, but ones that you can afford to replace if they are killed or become good runners or end up with doubtful courage. This will give your army staying power, without sacrificing the cream of your forces.

Second, the Horde is easy to beat once the Mongol Heavy Cavalry have been eliminated. I use spear based armies (saracens or seargeants with +2 morale and weapons or armour upgrades), backed by 4-6 units of arbalesters (perhaps not available to turks), with a few melee units to fight in the woods or take on the foot warriors. I might have a unit or two of light cav for pursuit of routed units, to flank, etc. I concentrate the arbalest fire on the mongol heavy cav as they approach. They normally pull back a time or two and several units are annihilated quickly.

Then the general engagement occurs. If I killed enough Heavy Cav from the first wave as contact is made, I will probably beat this entire first wave. Be careful not to pursue, redress your lines for the next wave. Arbalests again face Heavy Cav and can often kill off quite a few tired reinforcements as they trickle in. Depending on timing, unit mix and terrain this second wave might be repulsed. At some point in the ensuing waves, things look hopeless so I try to disengage, saving my now high valour arbalests for a later fight.

Sometimes the Khan gets killed in the first attack since he tends to charge into the thick of things. If that happens you will face rebels instead...a bit easier to handle long term.

In a castle defense I generally kill about 500-700 (the castle kills them) with only a handful of defenders. Keep some unit fragments tucked away and hard to reach in the outer courtyard for as long as you can, because it will keep the outer walls firing until they are all gone.

River defenses are best. If you happen to get to defend rivers with arbalests and spears and perhaps a catapult you can kill thousands.

Anyway, facing 20 stacks of invaders I typically lose about 5 or 6 provinces at the maximum extension of the horde. Major point is that giving up ground in a hard fought defense is actually good. It spreads the horde thin and the horde will soon lose its offensive punch. This will allow the Heavy cav to be eliminated piecemeal, and after that the Horde can be steam rolled.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Knight_Yellow @ Aug. 02 2003,12:39)]lots and lots of crossbows
Yea, verily, yea.

[Mega Dux Bob]

Quote[/b] (RollingWave @ Aug. 02 2003,11:43)]1.buy time with space: I only have a minimum infrastructure in Georgia and Kazzar, and a tiny garrison, when the invasion come I just hide in the forts and stall them (they didn't do direct seige even with their insane army
Huh? The GH will storm castles.

[RollingWave]

Yes unfortunately turks don't have arbs... which i really wish I had because in my many fights my turcomen infantry and fuwwtas and desert archers run out of arrows (though they did kill quiet a lot and I still think archers are probably better than arbs in short engagements)

I'm having a bit more trouble with mongol horse archers as well.... as I lost the stepps pretty fast and didn't have access to saharan cav.... the only thing left in my army that can catch them speed wise is my own cav archers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mecry.gif I tried to use heavy once but they got murdered by combined effort of 2-3 group of MHA ..

Also in my disastorous stepp wars the biggest problem was terrain... it's completely flat for crying out loud http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif my saracen and muhawid can't fight those heavy cavs on flat ground... (consider that they'll be shoot to death by the archer before the fighting even starts.... so I tried to resort to fighting in the woods... sure teh calvareis get a penalty for fighting in woods... but so does the spearmens arrrgh this is when I wish I had things like AUM http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

Bedoians do really well against the mongols since they have no spearmen what so ever (and consider that 2 of them is cheaper than 1 group of saracen...)... but they can't catch up with the mongols if they decide to run for it:/ ....

[Prince Lom]

I managed to whup a ful 10 stacks of Mongols when the Faction appeared in a game the other day

This isn't some idle boast about my might as a General though. The Khan decided on some very, VERY bad tactics.

You see, amoung the masses of stacks that turned up in Khazar were about 7 or 8 big Trebuchets (maybe Mangonels - I forget exactly). Dumb old Ogadai thought it would be a good idea to have them ALL in his starting line up This meant that I only had to deal with 8 units of troops at a time, hehehe.

So my army was a Byzantine one, with some Italian Light Infantry mercenaries and Spearmen protecting 6 units of Arbalesters. I had a 9 Star general, and another 7 units of Arbalesters as reinforcements along with a few more spear units.

The Mongols were roundly whipped. The Khan died in the first wave - he opted to attack with himself and 7 units of Mongol Warriors which were also slain to a man. His reinforcements trickled on, only to be sent packing in turn. The only reinforcements I needed were when the Arbalesters ran out of ammunition, LOL.


This was a rather extreme case of AI stupidity letting me win the day, but in general the tactics are sound:

- Lots of Arbalesters.
- Some spear or pike-armed units to protect them.
- Some Cavalry as counter-charge and/or pursuit units.
- A good general to boost those Arbalesters' valour


The Mongols seem especially fond of flanking manouvres, so having a position that can be defended from all sides if neccessary is a good idea. Usually a hill at the back of the map is the best place, make sure that there aren't higher slopes close to the sides or Mongol Horse Archers will run up there and rain arrows down on you.

[someone]

I only met the first wave from the GH as byz and turcs.
they use to be 16-25 000 men.

when im byz i get as many katas and pronois as possible. plus i build lots of stepcavs. and 12 units of trebizond archers. all together its 4500-5000. last but not least a 8 star gen or at least a star gen

this is my start up line: 6 trebz 5 katas and 5 pronois, most often the gen is a katas. first the mongols use to send heavy cavs and infantry against me, they are easy crush with my heavy cav, so i dont need to use any arrows till they start sending in those cav archers. then i use my trebz to kill them.

the kill stats use to be 10.000 kills for me and around 1500 dead. all the times the khan and his heirs are dead.

As the turcs i get kazaar and 30 to 50 years before they comes i start build lots of jihads around 100. and a couple of years before the GH comes i move back to georiga letting someone else take kazaar and the first hit, then next year i start launch jihads. i get lots of JHI and kwars.

[thindigital]

hi all,
i had some success with the mongols by using my elite catapult corps (trained up on stoning rebels) - once the khan turned up with his huge army i just shot him
then its just a case of buying his now rebel army

thindigital

[Vacuity]

I've never tried letting the province go, killing the Khan and then buying up the rebel troops...
Sounds like it could be a great plan though.

I normally try to assemble a good 8,000 good quality troops (normally as the Turks, they're my favourite), lots and lots of spearmen and janissary heavies, make sure you have hired every unit of mercenary arbalesters that have come through your territory since the beginning of the High age (as you can't produce them yourself as the Turks) and *good* quality cavalry. This is one fight where you know it doesn't matter about taking prisoners; you can't ransom them back to a dead faction, so I don't see much point in taking light cavalry, you can pincer his horse archers with heavy cavalry almost as efficiently and the heavy cavalry will do a lot more damage to the horse archers when you actually crunch them than light cavalry will. (though if other people find them better then that's cool too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif )
Only real problem with this is the reinforcements bug so make sure you have plenty of horse archer units to come on along with all your other cavalry.

I think I'll have to have a go at the assassination thing now, bribing a cool 20,000 ex-Golden-Horde warriors could be fun and would make a worthy addition to the glorious Turkish empire. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif