First Serious Encounter with the Horde

[TinCow]

I'm about to have my first serious encounter with the Golden Horde. I've fought them before after they've invaded other nations and have been somewhat weakened, but I have never before played a nation that was directly in their emergence path.

I am currently playing Poland/Early/Expert and it is 1220. I've only got 10 years (if I remember correctly) and as such my defense planning is moving into its final stages. I hold everthing from Hungary/Croatia/Pomerania east and north to Finland and Khazar. I also hold all the Balkans and am currently holding at Constantinople until after I deal with the Mongols. I have recently been at war with the HRE and the Papacy, but I have made peace with them both and expect it to last for a while (since they have trouble elsewhere). Currently only at war with Byzantium and they have been devastated militarily. They are no threat and I have only refrained from conquering them because I am preparing for the Horde.

My military situation is as follows:
Border armies in Europe and Constantinople are composed are large numbers of feudal aged troops but are of high quality and have decent (3-5 star) generals. The enemy is numerous and I have NO chivalric units on those borders, but neither do my opponents, so I consider the borders secure. I have been stockpiling ALL of my chivalric units for use against the Horde. I expect to have in the range of 15-20 each of chivalric sergents, CMAA, arbelasters (not pavise), and feudal knights (haven't been able to get to chivalric quickly enough) ready by the time the horde arrives. I also have two 5 star generals and many 4 stars available to command the armies. I have citadel + barbican in Khazar, Kiev and the territory directly north of Khazar along the border.

My question is: Where is it best for me to defend against these guys and how? Do I meet them right at the border? Do I hold back and try to funnel them into Kiev? (If so, how?) Should I prepare an army to defend the north in the Muscovy region as well?

All advice is welcome. Recommendations to increase the fun factor of the invasion in addition to my victory chances are welcome as well.

[Mysterium]

Hold them at the bridges That's the best advice I can give. With halbardiers/arbalesters and a 6+ star general, you can hold off well over 5 times the number of Mongols, if you've got a bridge. I forget all of the combinations of provinces in that area that give you bridge battles, but there are plenty.

Also, once they're down from the original 12,000+, try fighting them away from bridges. That's much more challenging, can be more fun, and will certainly force more strategy out of you than a typical bridge batlle will.

[VikingHorde]

I usually find a good hill with lots of halbardiers arbalesters. The monguls die in huge numbers. If you can kill the enemy general, do it. Some of my best battles were against the monguls as the byz.

[VikingHorde]

Oh, I forgot. You need to place the abs higher than the front units or you will kill your own menn http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Tribesman]

I'm playing the same campaign at the moment ,I stopped them in Kiev or was it Moldova , 2 problems I had were lack of morale in the Chivalric sergants I found the Armoured spears seemed to stand better (probably the valour they had gained plus rotating them back for upgrades ), the 2nd was not installing the patch so all my first reinforcements were cavalry , I had to pull back from the bridge a little to have enough room to manouveur my horses .

[PseRamesses]

Quote[/b] (TinCow @ Mar. 23 2004,10:18)]My question is: Where is it best for me to defend against these guys and how? Do I meet them right at the border? Do I hold back and try to funnel them into Kiev? (If so, how?) Should I prepare an army to defend the north in the Muscovy region as well?
All advice is welcome. Recommendations to increase the fun factor of the invasion in addition to my victory chances are welcome as well.
The Horde enters in Khazar and sometimes also in Volga-Bulgaria (happened once to me), Georgia (happened on several occasions) and I´ve read that some people have gotten them in Armenia too.

Preparations:
1. Withdraw all troops except one unit from Khazar the year before the invasion. This seems to attract fever mongols.
2. Have all your best HAL and SPE ready in all your neighbouring provinces and sallie Khazar after you retreat your only unit to your stronghold there. Since you are now attacking from all provinces except from Kiev all of the horde will remain in Khazar.

The easy way out:
Khazar is a steppe-province so you will have no chance of chasing after their cavalry so this is what you do (it´s funny): place your entire army in the forrests and put them on hold formation and hold position orders. The hordes cavalry won´t dare to venture into the woods and will run away after a while which leaves you with the rest of their units. I actually fought off over 18.000 mongols with only 600 HAL´s this way.

The strategic way:
1. The Horde is set on Kiev 9 out of 10 times so greet them there with HAl and ARCH plus more archer-reinforcements since it´s a bridgebattle, he he
2. Counter-attack Khazar with smaller armies from the other neighbouring provinces. Then cancel the attacks. The Horde will now, hopefully, only attack Kiev again with a portion of their total armies and you will have a nice strategic nutriton-game for a while.

The die-hard way:
Be passive and don´t make any offensive moves. The Horde has beaten me mercilessly in 75% of all games I´ve played like this.

The unrealistic way:
Use the .ian command and switch to playing the Horde and RP your Khan to crush your own former empire... muahahahaaa

Good luck and have loads of fun http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ht_charge.gif

[katank]

try stopping them in khazar by hiding CMAA in trees and if you win by timer, they all disappear if they didn't appear in volga bulg/georgia too.

also, try holding your citadel by using a few units to guard it and tempt them into storming it.

you will get massive number of kills from the citadel. just hold on as long as you can and let the citadel shoot endless tstreams of bolts and bulders into the invaders.

unless you have a fortress and lots of good defense troops, you wouldn't hold out but would have slaughtered several thousand of them.

I suggest you use chiv seargents and dismount FK into FFKs for this and merc italian inf/billmen for the fort holding.

then, hold your defense line in kiev using 6+ arbs and as many archers and missiles as possibel except for 2-3 defender units preferably italian inf/halbs/billmen as even chiv seargents are a bit on the weak side for the bridgehead pulg.

some catapults can also help to rain death on them.

the horde will senselessly pit themselves against kiev time and again with 6k or so troops and your arbs can make easy pincushions out of them.

tip: also hire some gunpowder weapons if possible as they appear way before gunpowder and are available throughout high that can do AP and also inspire fear.

javelins can also help with MHC by placing them flush behind the pulg unit.

rotate plug unit so that they aren't tired.

naptha bribed or hired would be great as greanades destroy so much on the bridge.

[TinCow]

I finally completed my main engagements with the Horde, so I figured I post the results here as a nice way to complete the thread. The setup I chose was two CS and one Feudal Knights each in Khazar and Volga with 2* generals. About 2400 men in Kiev, mainly CS and Arbelasters with a decent amount of CMAA and a few units of Feudal Knights. This group was commanded by a 6* expert defender (Former prince, royal knight unit). The other territories were covered by two obsolete spearmen units each. (Not expecting them to be attacked. I had another 4000 or so troops in reserve in Moldovia (sp?) with my King (4*) for deployment after the situation developed.

Mongols invaded only Khazar with 14,000. Their assaulted the Citadel + Barbican there and moved on Kiev on the same turn. This was exactly what I was hoping for, however my Khazar citadel didn't perform as well as I had hoped. I chose the 2 CS and 1 Feudal Knights as what I thought would be a good balance between lasting power and small unit size (so as to force an assault). While they did oblige with the assault, my forces were no where near sufficient to hold out long enough. I think (no exact figures due to castle kills not being counted) that I killed about 1500 for my 240 lost. A decent showing, but barely denting the 14,000 they brought.

The main battle took place in Kiev, where my ~2400 was attacked by over 7000. I pulled a two bridge map which, while less comfortable than a single brige, was perfectly fine for me. Every time I had fought a defensive bridge battle before this, the AI had picked the closest bridge and exclusively attacked there the entire time. I started with 6 arbelasters, 2 feudal knights, 1 royal knights (general), 2 CMAA, 5 CS. Setup was all at the west bridge with the exception of 1 CS on the east bridge just in case the AI got smart. I figured 1 CS could hold there long enough to shift my forces. Basic setup was 1 CS blocking the bridge with 2 arbelaster units on each side at an angle to fire at the bridge and opposite bank (narrow river). CMAA were behind them in a long charge line. The remaining two arbelasters, CS and the cavalry were held in reserve close behind these lines.

The first Mongol wave was composed of masses of Mongol foot warriors with heavy cavalry led by the Khan. As expected, they came on towards the bridge I had prepared and assaulted it as per usual. Seeing this, I pulled my 1 CS from the other bridge, thinking it was not needed there. Since there were so many unmounted men, I moved my two Feudal Knight units to that other bridge and crossed it to flank them. The CS unit holding the bridge did well and, with the help of a CMAA unit, inflicted a lot of damage. The arbelasters absolutely tore into everything on the bridge, dropping about 10 men each per volley per unit. After the first two Mongol Warriors routed on the bridge, I charged with my Feudal Knights and caused a mass rout. I killed and captured over half of the first wave before I pulled back to the bridge again. I returned my Feudal Knights (one unit at half strenth, one at 2/3) to my side of the undefended bridge to rest and prepare for another flank. The second wave (and about the next 10 waves) were entirely cavalry, about half horse archers with the rest evenly divided between Heavy Steppe and Heavy Mongol.

The second wave moved a bit unusually for a while and I watched it curiously until suddenly the entire formation broke into a charge and went for the undefended bridge (you saw this coming, didn't you). I quickly ordered two CS units, one CMAA and the two reserve arbelasters to that side of the bridge, but it would take them a while to get there. To hold the bridge in the meantime, I charge my feudal knight into the first Heavy Mongol unit that crossed. At the same time, I ran one of the CS units to get there faster (despite the fatigue factor) and arrived in time to hold. I pulled back my knights who were both at 19 survivors (out of 40) and the rest of my reinforcements arrived in good order. The Khan moved himself onto the middle of the bridge which was packed to capacity and very politely allowed himself to take an arbelast arrow in the face. Killing the Khan did not have an immediate rout effect, but eventually the wave broke and ran.

From this point on I had to split my forces between both bridges, giving reinforcements alternatively to whichever side was more depleted. For the next couple of waves the Horde alternated bridges each time, even switching in the middle of a wave one. The two waves after that each attacked both bridges simultaneously (the first time I've ever seen the AI do this). Eventually I ran out of arbelaster reinforcements (went through 14 full units worth of ammunition) and had to simply let the horses die on my spears. Thank god for 200% speed.

The last three waves were all mongol foot warriors and naptha. I was worried that these would cut through my CS, so I went on the offensive. As with the first wave, I held the bridge and flanked with my feudal knights. Once the warriors were routing, I moved all my CMAA (4 units at that time, 3 near full 1 under half) across the bridge, and assaulted them along with my knights and my general's royal unit. I charged and absolutely squashed three waves of this before they fled the field. Executed about 1000 captives (most from the last 3 waves). Total kills were about 4800, total losses were just under 700. My two feudal knight units killed (with executions) over 800 between them. Total play time was about 2 hours.

Death of the Khan turned the Horde rebel with about 7000 left sitting in Khazar. In the few turns since then they have launched attacks against a few neighboring provinces with variating success. I have held back from a big battle due to a desire to keep my new forces intact for a strike into the middle east. I have adopted a policy of destroying them from within. Every year I bribe 1 - 3 stacks (depending on emissary success) and have them auto-resolve against the rest. They always lose and I refuse to ransom them. As of now they are down to 3000 men and after another year or two I may finally finish them off. All in all, I am pleased, though certain things could have gone better.

[Lord Ovaat]

For what it's worth, my personal experience with the Mongols is as follows:

The always come in Khazar. Usually come in Volga, and often come in Armenia.

Two important notes after studying and testing are they will have whatever attack and defense improvements the province has that they arrive in, and the more troops one has in that province, the more troops they come in with.
By stacking troops in Khazar and Armenia while playing Turks, I have faced over 40,000 Mongols at half-past-noon.
Really, really neat if you like big battles that last most of the evening. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif (Large setting)

Point being, if you just want to get the Horde over with, make it a point to take Khazar & Armenia before their arrival and strip the provinces of armour improvements. Just hold with the absolute minimum of troops by pulling out in 1229. Probably not necessary to worry about Volga, since it seldom has many improvements at that stage. Actually, I kinda enjoy their arrival. It is the best group of troops you'll usually face during a campaign. It's sad I don't have short-term memory loss. Maybe I wouldn't remember they're coming. It was more fun before I figured it out. After all, the most fun I've had with any game has been the surprise and learning curve. Once one has most of the answers, it get tedious. Great game Always something new. I just found out through a thread last week that one can give TWO titles to a general, so long as only one title is a governorship. Now I, also, can have an occasional 8 star general. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif

[katank]

@ tincow nice job. although I believe you went a bit heavy on the CS and CMAA also isn't all that necessary.

I would say that 2 units of CS with 2 halbs would have been enough and you could have had far more arbs slaughtering them.

the mongols will assault your citadel with more troops. If you used exclusively foot kngihts and halbs and rotated them, you might have even held.

I have managed to hold off a 22k horde with 3 units of gold-gold varangians in the khazar fortress. It was great.

@ lord ovaat, I also enjoy the horde and would pack these provinces with thousands of trash peasants to boost horde size and disband the peasants later.

I also like to build improvements to make the horde tougher.

if you want an easier horde, raze the province to the ground and keep loyalty up using spies alone.

when the horde arrives, seek an alliance with them the first turn and the khan always accepts. peppering him with 20 assasins is also almost guranteed to kill him and bribing the rest make for no more horde.

however, it's not as fun as epic battles.