Golden Horde

[Quokka]

Just had my first run in with the Horde and they were very unimpressive. They entered Khazar with only 3000 men and then only managed to take Crimea and Kiev with small forces. They allied with Novgorod, who owned all of the steppes and Poland so had nowhere to go.
I had a crusade on the way to Kiev that landed the turn after they appeared, easy squashing their garrison there. I attacked Crimea the turn after that, with the Crusade remnants, and took it. On the same turn I dumped 4000 troops into Khazar because of all the Heavy Cavalry there and they retreated, so I captured the Khan and it was all over.

What is their usual strength? Surely more than 3000. So much for being the feared horde. They only sent 200 troops to both Kiev and Crimea, the rest got into their Pajamas, got drunk and had a pillow fight. Why do they accept alliances?

[The_Emperor]

What difficulty level were you playing at? Because on the easier difficulty they enter with smaller armies.

Play on Expert and the sight of so many Full army stacks sturning up in Khazar and others in Volga-Bulgaria, will put the fear back into you

[Monk]

Emperor is right, on harder settings the Horde can be quite frieghtening. My last game with the Poles was on Expert, i witnessed over 11,000 mongols warriors arrive on my doorstep...needless to say i didnt survive 5 turns http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif

[Mega Dux Bob]

Playing the Byz at easy I never seen less that 15K of Golden Hord show up in Khazer and Georgia. On the hand they typicaly will attack with only 1K worth of troops out of there. Maybe the MIA Golden Hord are else were on the map?

[bighairyman]

now that we are talking baout the mongols, can someone tell me the artibutes of the mongol heavy cavalry and the mongol cavalry archer. thanks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Monk]

Quote[/b] (bighairyman @ Aug. 31 2003,18:26)]now that we are talking baout the mongols, can someone tell me the artibutes of the mongol heavy cavalry and the mongol cavalry archer. thanks http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Mongol H. Cavalry:

Charge 6
Attack 3
Defence 6
Armour 7
Morale 6

Elite, Diciplined

Mongol Horse Aarcher:

Charge 2
Attack 3
Defence 1
Armour 3
Morale 4

Diciplined


Im pretty sure these states are close to being right if not exact.

NOTE: The states shown by base value, i.e No valor, weapon, armour bonuses added

[mosborne]

The Horde's strength can also vary with its initial opposition. I have continually played the Rus High campaign with a strategy of conserving florins, developing Moscow and Novgorod, and buiding the resources to resist the imminent Horde attacks. recently, I decided to try stopping them at the fron door, rather than once they we allowed in the house. I set out to conquered all the steppe provinces immediately, but did bot invest money in building defences. I concentrated all available cash on building a single, large army to oppose the initial Horse invasion. Now to the point: When I had the army in Khazar upon the Horde's entry, the Horde forces numbered over 5,000 men. I purposefully saved the game in 1230, and tried it again with my army positioned in Volga-Bulgaria. This time the Horde numbered about 3,000. I invaded Khazar the next turn and fought the battle of my life, as my outnumbered steppe warriors beat back the invading Horde. Throughout the rest of the game, the Horde never re-appeared.... ever

[Quokka]

The game was as the Spanish on Normal, my first game.
The lack of initial opposition might explain it. Khazar was weakly held by the Byz, only a few hundred troops mostly peasants.
I have a new game as the Almohads on Hard started and if I make it to 1230 I'll see then. I may be finished before then, my AUM have just rolled through everything, or is that just n00bie wishful thinking http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif .
Its 1141 and I own all of Africa, Spain France and parts of the Middle East. The HRE is next, they can't put upanything to stop my AUM yet and I don't want to let them, especially don't want them to launch too many crusades.

[Portuguese Rebel]

What version of the game are you using? In 2.0 (vikings) it's no uncommon to see 20 000 barbaric mongols on your back yard on normal. I tell you, seeing ten stacks of mongols is demoralizing.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Portuguese Rebel @ Sep. 01 2003,12:54)]What version of the game are you using? In 2.0 (vikings) it's no uncommon to see 20 000 barbaric mongols on your back yard on normal. I tell you, seeing ten stacks of mongols is demoralizing.
Yep it is an awesome sight. However superior numbers is nothing if you have a good general and use good tactics against the Horde.

It is possible to repel the initial invasion and send them packing off the map with nowhere to retreat to.

[ChErNoByl]

i often automatically resolve conflicts if i dont feel like fighting a battle. With teh golden horde, i sent in an army of about 700 and they had an army of say, a couple thousand in that province. I won, with miniscule losses.

[ikki]

Its not an issue of difficulty, but of patch http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

without the patch it was 3000, with the patch its about 15000.

Still they an be beaten by russia, when you have 30 rounds to prepare... its tough, but doable. Especially when you go for a kill of the king http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Qilue]

Something else to keep in mind which I discovered just recently. When the horde is generated, their stats are modified by whatever buildings are in that province.

That is, if you have a master armourer plus church/monestary/reliquary the newly arrived horde will have +4 armour and +4 morale. If none of those buildings exist, but a master spearmaker/swordsmith/bowyer and horse breeder do, then the horde will have +1 valour and so on.

So, if you want the horde battle to be a little easier, don't build any troop enhancing buildings in Khazar, Georgia, Armenia or Volga-Bulgaria. Or, if you want a harder fight, then build any and all of them.

[TheViking]

MTW v1 i never saw the horde comming with more then 3-4000 men, V1.1 i never seen them come with less then 14.000 mostthey are around 20.000. i havnt played a sp MTW campain in VI version yet

[Quokka]

I am playing with the v1.1 patch and they appeared with 4 stacks totalling just over 3000 men.
I'll see when I get there this time whether it was an aberration or not.

[lancer63]

Defeating the GH is not,even near, impossible but the battles are looooong. A coule of nights ago my biz province of Armenia got a call of 5k+ mongols. It took me 3 hours to defeat the critters, killed 2,600+ and only had 250+ casualties. Plus I got a pretty fat purse of florins (22,000) as ransom for the other 2,500+ men who had nowhere to run. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

But last night the GH invaded Kiev and the battle was even longer, in part by the fact that it was a bridge battle. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/dizzy.gif
I mean, you know you got them beat when the plie of bodies makes going tru the bridge a slow business. But still have to endure endless futile cav. charges, whe there's a perfectly good bridge to your south that no one is using.
My advise is never fight long, long battles on a week day. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/redface.gif

[twjunkie]

Well, having just recently purchased MTW, after enjoying STW for a long stretch, I embarked on my first campaign as the Byz Emp. Doing great, trade is flourishing and have defeated all the step rebel provinces. Then BAM out of the blue there is a 15,000 stong horde on my back door. Now, I read the manual and no where did I see anything about this. I know historically this happened I just wasn't expecting it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/shock.gif
I eventually beat them back but I had two rulers die. One the first year they attacked. IMHO prolly due to heart attack when he got the report. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Nowake]

at least he didn't run and made a last stand http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Alexander the Great]

The Mongol Invasion in MTW is a gift from God if you know how to deal with it.When I finally manage to have screenshots in my posts I'll show you what I did and you'll be stunned

Sure thing.Not joking.Soon you'll find out

Await my post with trepidation http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[dessa14]

Hey When I Was Playing On Normal Difficulty with the patch i once defeated the 15000 troop army with 2000 mostly boyars. It is a well known fact that mongols are weak against cavalry and boyars are one of the best cav units in the game
thanks dessa

[Gregoshi]

Welcome to the Org twjunkie. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Some of my favourite things are when the game surprises me. The shame is, now you know about the GH and will be ready for them. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[gaelic cowboy]

how about just changing where they enter the game or when
1000 mongols arriving in norway might not be historically accurate but a least you cant plan to stip your homeland of troops to be reay for the invasion of kahzar.

[Quokka]

I just had my second run in with the Horde, and they must have heard that I had Twister, because a lot more came to this sleepover. This time nearly 13,000 turned up in 15 stacks comprised of 311 units.
Ugh I am dreading that battle. How many waves is that? I am playing as the English and don't have anything to catch the Steppe Cavalry or Horse Archers. Every Longbowman I have couldn't launch enough arrows either. Luckily there are ~7000 dirty Egyptian troops between them and me.

[twjunkie]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ Sep. 06 2003,00:02)]Welcome to the Org twjunkie. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Some of my favourite things are when the game surprises me. The shame is, now you know about the GH and will be ready for them. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
Thanks Gregoshi http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif So far am very much enjoying the topics here. Lots of knowledge people here wot

[bhutavarna]

in times like that, it's always good to have a high valor emissary available. just send that poor bastard to the khan, and hope that he comes back in with nose and ears still attached. i don't see any reason why i should take the brunt of horde. let the egyptian, or russian deal them first before i wipe them out, later. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[magnatz]

The Khan does not object to marrying princesses either.

[Sulla]

Played a high game to check them out in viking. Impressive numbers. The AI gets beaten but they arent to hard to beat. I used the byz (byz inf, katak) to beat an army of mongol (espec. horsearchers, some heavy cav and warriors) think 3 : 1 (me being outnumbered) Now I remember why i only play MP. The AI sucks. It shoots arrows then withdraws the mongol horsearchers when they were out. easily slaughtered them warriors when they use skirmish. just run cav over them......

If you want to see the horde in action come to MP lobby (Viking lobby) and ill show you how the AI should use them...

regards Kenchi_Sulla

[Hamburglar]

One time I played as Novgorod and when the Horde came it numbered 28,000.


I had an army in Khazar of 7,000 men.


I lost the battle.

Casualties:
Me: 4,500 men
Them: 13,700 men

But the thing is, I killed their Khan. So, after the battle they turned into rebels. Then the amazing thing happened....

The next turn, they all just JOINED my army. 14,000 Mongol troops just decided to join me at the drop of a hat. The support cost was enormous and it destroyed my economy but I just sent them on a rampage down through the Mid-East, Africa, Spain, France, and Italy before their numbers dwindled.