Fighting the mongols?

[Loki]

Hi all,

I'm playing as the Danes started in Early on Hard. I own the Sandinavian countries as well as northern Europe from Finnland to Volga Bulgaria. It's about 1240 and the Mongols after making their sudden debut hesitated in khazar for quite a few years, (I think the AI was having a hard time trying to decide who to go after me or the turks&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Make a long story as short as possible... The large clot of mongol full stack units explode north into my heavily defended frontier. My extreme eastern flank (Volga) is anchored by my rock of a 9 star general. The mongols attack 3 or 4 provinces simultaneously last night (real world time). Massivly outnumbered but fighting defensive battles I was victorious in all but the last battle of the night which was the one with my 9 star of course.

In that battle we were outnumbered hugely and got the bulk of the mongol heavy cavalry. My 9 star was the only survivor of the battle. For once the Jedi Knight thing worked in my favor, as he and his knights carved their way thru 4 squads of mongol heavy cav to get off the field.

So now they are besieged and I have only two (2) years to break the siege. THis will be the first time I'll be fighting the Mongols on the offensive and am looking for suggestions

I own the sea lanes and have ports built in lithuania and livonia and finnland. most of my provinces are coastal so I have the logistic luxury of being able to get any of my units into theatre in time..... It's just, who do I bring to the dance? Do I try to out cav the mongols with chivilric knights and feudal knights? Or do I stick with what has been successful on the defense and go with masses of spear and missle troops?


Any help greatly appreciated

Thanks in Advance
Loki

[desdichado]

Loki,

my two cents worth - don't try to out cav the mongols - your heavy cav will tire real quick and then be easy pickings. Go for a spear wall and x-bows/arbs if you have them. Mongols will probably still attack you even if on the defensive. Their army is not really suited to a defensive battle like other factions.

If you can, include lots of cheap archers in your second & third waves as their high rate of fire will be good against the hordes of mongol horse archers and you won't need armour piercing bolts for them. If you can hire some merc light cav/horse archers then good - use them to chase the mongols away from your flanks and to kill routing units - they'll probably die but who cares - their all barbarians anyway

Target the mongol heavy cav every chance you get.

You can get your general out of the province without fighting - send an army in and when at battle screen options choose abandon province and I think your general will retreat with the main army - not very dignified but effective. Might want to confirm that before you try it though as I've been playing Shogun last few weeks so could be wrong.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Definitely bring foot archers and crossbows. Don't allow your self to get caught in the open. Fight them in the trees, lure them to you. Even if you are the attacker, the Mongols are very agressive and will attack. Use a cav unit to tease them into coming to you. Stay in the trees, preferably on a hillside close to your reenforcements, and do not overpursue them, especially early in the battle, let them rout and rally till you wear them down. The Mongol horsearchers are so fast that if you try to chase the routing units they will out run you, rally, and if you pursue them into open terrain, you will be surrounded and anihilated. Your only advantage is that horse units are poor fighters in the trees, use it, and you'll have a chance against their superior numbers and speed.

A balanced army works well, the key is to make the Mongols attack you. Try to kill the Mongol general early, they usually oblige because they are agressive. Try to keep track of how many waves you repel so as to gauge when you should pursue the routers after you have depleted the horde. It can be tricky, so I'd save the game before you start the battle in case you screw up.

[Ikken Hisatsu]

get the general and I find the mongols just fall apart. arbalesters+ your best spearmen make mince out of their heavy cav, and their foot archers dont seem to be all that good against anything in particular- they just have numbers on their side. you can also try hiring a few merc javelin units and putting them in your first wave, send them on a sucide mission to break down the generals squad and generally caouse some havoc. they'll probably die, but who cares, with only 5 javelins they werent going to last very long anyway. just make sure all the rest of your first wave are elite so they dont get scared by your javelin people getting routed.

[Brutal DLX]

You can have a somewhat balanced army, but the infantry should mainly consist of anti-cav and AP types, throw in 4 Pav arbs or xbows, and fill the rest with cavalry, more heavys, and one or two lights. Led by a good general, you don't have to be afraid, but definitely deal with the Mongol heavy cav first. Without them, the Mongols are dead.

[fruitfly]

I've steamrollered the Mongols with an entirely cavalry based army when going on the attack before. It's a good idea to take far more troops into the province than you need though, so you can pick the strongest lineup available to counter what the Mongols put in their first wave.

If they bring out lots of warriors, then having a lot of heavy cavalry yourself (chivalric knights etc) can work wonders. The Mongols don't have any spear units, so you can simply charge them and decimate their warriors in moments. Mongol heavy cavalry are no match for chivalric knights when outnumbered 2-1 either (engage with one unit and flank with another and they'll die pretty quickly). It's easiest to group your cavalry into three or four packs before the battle starts to make them easier to control and switch between once the battle is underway. You want to avoid chasing any horse archers with heavy cavalry though as you'll never catch them and just tire your units out. Light cavalry such as mounted sergeants are good for that - just fire and forget and they'll eventually chase the horse archers off the map.

If they start with lots of Mongol heavy cavalry, then lots of pavise arbs with enough spears to protect them and a few units of knights to protect your flanks would work well. The pavise arbs will cut down the mongol cavalry in droves, especially if you have time to set your army up in a good defensive position at the start of the battle as the Mongol cavalry probably won't hang around long before deciding to attack you. Like desdichado said, it's a good idea to have several units of normal archers in your first wave of reinforcements as they'll cut through the annoying Mongol horse archer hordes in no time thanks to their high rate of fire and they're cheap so it doesn't matter if they die or not.

If you've got enough units available to attack with, then either of these approaches should be open to you. It'll allow you to be flexible depending on what troops the Mongols have in their first wave. If you're lucky they may even abandon the province without fighting.

Also, don't forget to sally your 9* general from the castle when you invade the province as he should end up commanding the battle. Good luck

[Kaboom]

Fighting the Mongol heavy cavalry with your Knight is costly even though you will want to have some for engage tired Mongols.

Before I can kill the Mongol when they appear at Khazar, but with Medmod I prefer to fall back to Kiev and Moscovy to fight bridge battles, it's easier

[Loki]

OK

Important safety tip campers....

Never, and I mean NEVER EVER,accidentaly hit CTRL-T instead of CTRL-R when fighting the mongols.

So I'm trying to go on the offense against the mongols. very steadily advancing across the field of battle, using my spear and billmen to heard them with my missle troops in skirmish out in front. Foot based archers having better range than horse based, I'm having ggod luck keeping the droves and droves of mongol horse archers at bay. All is going according to plan.

I issue an order to move a group of crossbowmen over a bit and then hit CTRL-R (or so I thought, but accidentally hit CTRL-T).

As the horrible seen unfolds in front of my eyes the following flashed thru my brain in about 2 seconds, but by then of course it was too late

Loki: Gee, ALL my units started running.....

Loki: Hey, ALL the mongol units are running too.....

Loki: Gee, seems kinda fast....WTF?

Loki: Dont seem to be able to give orders fast enough..

Loki: Gosh I got surrounded in a hurry....

Loki: Gulp

Loki:@#$@$%^%ing TIME COMPRESSION

Loki: *sigh*


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[Sun Tzui]

Heres my humble sugestion:

Try a wall of spears to pin down their cav, keep mowing them down with missile troops, and use some good troops (infantry or cav, really wont matter at that point), to come in around your flanks to get them in their rear, while they are engaging your spearmen.
The units you trap that way will crumble and run for their lifes.
Offcourse this is approaching the theme in a light manner, but its a good all round tactic for all attack/defence situations.

If you take a good balanced army, and make use of terrain, you'll get for sure.

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[Nelson]

I find halbardiers fine for grinding up Mongols. Especially when raised with armor and weapons upgrades along with morale improvements these guys are very tough. Slow but irresistible.

[BobTheTerrible]

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My 2 cents--

When fighting the Mongols, bring along some decent spearmen and a gfood general. Also take some knights and strong swordsmen. Use the spear units to get their heavy cav to where you want them, pin 'em down, and FLANK Even better, go for the rear. Knights and even swordsmen will make short work of even Mongol cavalry when charging full speed from behind. Use light cav in your second wave to get rid of the archers/horse archers.


Hope it helps

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[PseRamesses]

And last but not least if you do run out of troops and the Mongols has mainly cavs left please try out my chicken tactics and put a couple of footsoldiers (not spear) in a wood on hold position orders and put the time slider to max and let time roll by and you will emerge victorious. And remember it´s the winner who writes history as Napoleon once mentioned.