Two questions this time

I've got two concerns at the moment, things that I definitely need advice on. I am currently playing an English Campaign on M/M.

1. Mongols - I think I'm pretty comfortable with dealing with them during sieges... it's a pain, but they're abundance of cavalry aren't really that much of an advantage if you can blunt their movement. I am however having a great deal of difficulty dealing with them in the field. It almost seems that without fail my forces get slaughtered.

I typically have the following forces.

3-5 longbows/yoemen archers
4 Levy spearmen
2-5 armoured swords/DEK
2-5 mortars/ribaults
the rest - GB, mailed knights, knights of St. John, English Knights

I usally try to take whatever high ground is available in the set up, deploy a solid line of stakes, and wait for the inevitable assault. I tend to run into problems as the Mongols set up within their own archers range, and coupled with tons of horse archers begin to pick me apart. Once my archers run out of ammo, I'm a sitting duck. If I stay put, I end up losing too many men, and am overrun by the horde of cavalry.

If I venture forth, I'm overrun by the horde of cavalry.

Thoughts? Is the issue my force composition? I don't seem to have any problems dealing with western forces, only the bloody Mongols.

2 - Bridges

I've had a few battles recently, where for strategic reasons I've had to take a bridge. What is the best way tactically to take a bridge, without having 3x or more numerical superiority? It's a long walk in the open across the bridge. Should I rush the defenders with cavalry, plow through, and simultaneously bring up my infantry? Then the cavalry can harass the defenders.

Thoughts? Advice? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Gdek

I'm not sure on your best bet against the Mongols, though if you pay for a bunch of merc horse archers you may be able to play their game against them.

For bridges, as the English I found either using archers or merc xbows to work. I move out on the bridge just far enough to hit the enemy with arrows and let fly. So far I've not run into any army with more bowmen then I've got so its generally works well to get them to do something dumb. So far the best has been me using repeated groups of archers to take out an army of spearmen holding the other side of the bridge. group after the other comes forward to hold their side and gets nailed by repeated volleys of longbows.

The best strategy I have for taking bridges involves artillery. If the enemy sets up to defend the far side, you punish them heavily with artillery. If they do not defend the far side of the bridge itself, you rush across with good infantry and set up a defensive line that will hold until you can bring the rest over. Both ideas have to be adjusted depending on exactly what troops you have at your disposal and the composition of the enemy army.

For an open field battle against the mongols as the english, I'd go for an army like this:

5 Retinue Longbowmen
7 Order knights
4 Armoured swordsmen
3 merc/crusader spearmen
1 generals bodyguard

Of course, this is the best quality, you'll probably have to dump it depending on the forces available. However, if you do not have any merc or crusader spearmen, use armoured swordsmen instead. Don't use the levy spearmen, they are an early unit, not suited for fighting the mongols.

Put the longbowmen in front, infantry behind and cavalry at the rear or flank. Advance, and fire at the forse archers they send at you. You outrange and outgun them, so they shouldn't be much of a problem. Then send the whole army to attack. Focus on killing their general.

ingrediants for defeating the mongols
#1
general bodyguard
the mongols superb cavalry means that you need to have some good cav of your own. the best avialable is the most famed general bodyguard. when you face the mongol hordes try to have at least two of these in the stack. they are usually available for free and make a great diffrence in the battle.
#2
the darkness is your friend
at night the enemy HA are actually less acurate than your bowmen giving you an advantage. as flaming missliles are more accurate at night. plus you may pick on individual mongol stacks and as the enemy tends to move in groups of many stacks. it is crucial if you dont want to face the whole lot of them alltogetor.
#3
[U]conserve your ammoU]
you mentioned earlier that tour bowmen run out of artows. that is most Misfortunate since your bowmen are the first stage to victory here.
it is more easy to hit a horse than it is to hit a man on foot. but that cursed canttabarian circle just makes your ammo run out. you must mind your archers target even disabling the fire at will in some times. in order to hit more potent targets such as stacks of unarmored yet multiple cavalry the mongol have in abundance.
#4
sieze Opportunities
use your general bodyguard (and other heavy cav) to hunt down and run down those pesky foot archers, or artillary pieces. dont be afraid to make a darring assult if you see the enemy slower units stranded away from the main stay of the horde. wide (and risky) flanking manuvers can also be very effective silencing those dreaded rocket launchers or Trebuchets they sometime have. wile micromanging daring cavalry tricks can be risky it is widely better than stay put and reiceive the punishment from slow missile units. the horse achers are much less likely to wear you down than the foor archers.
#5
attack their battle line
yes that is correct and probobly the best advice i can give you.
they have a battle line
not as apparant as the lines of european infantry but a battle line nevertheless. while the movement of the misslile cavalry is quite amorphic. the slow units such as foot archers and sieige engines are the mongolian weak spots. run them down and atack them forcing the heavily armoured cavalry to react and engage. an assoult like this must be made charging head on with cavalry of your own. and the infantry units follow. but this is not as risky as it sounds since you will not be facing a wall of speramen but lightely armored missile troops who cant melee veery well.
#6
be weary of your flanks
after you have puctured the lbattlr line and killed off some of the slow units rush your general bodyguards to protect the flanks. and engeage the enemy havy cav before it is too late. let your infantry finish off the rest of the slowpokes.
#7
use siege engines wisely
use your artillary to either destroy their own siege engines (if it is to risky yet for a cavalry atack). or try to blow up thier general. you will be suprized how much this actually works.
#8
economic warfare
untill now i talked about tactics. but this is about strategy. your strategy against the mongols is to wear them down. your great advantage over them is the economy of your empire. you can wear them down. always have in mind that it is much more difficult for them to rebuild lost stacks that it is to you. much like the way the romans defeated hannibal barca in italy. dont surrendur citeis or towns. and make them pay with blood for every turn they spend in your lands. even if you lose a battle try to take as many of them with you as possible.

hope i helped
Raffi

A lot of people have mentioned good stuff already, I'll repeat the most valuable suggestions and add a few more.

To beat the Mongols in a field battle as the English, you can go a few ways. You can go for archer superiority- bring like 10 units of your best longbows, use stakes to keep the heavy cavalry at bay (if you can make them charge your stakes using any kind of army you'll win, by the way) and duel their archers with yours. England has the best non-gunpowder missile units, so you should be able to win this way. Also keep in mind that your missile units have 90 men and theirs have 60 and horses are easier to kill, but they can use the Cantabrian circle to dodge you a bit. In the end, if you bring enough archers, you should beat them. I would back them up with hevy cavalry and no infantry. The best longbowmen are quite capable in melee anyway. It sounds like you've reached gunpowder, so you could also mix that in. I'm unsure of the cannons that England receives, but if they get any good anti-infantry cannons (like a basilisk) you could mix those in, as the Mongols usually bring a mass of troops. Unfortunately England only gets arquebusiers, but it might still be worthwhile to mix a few of those in. Also, when you're building your defenses during set-up, put yourself in a corner and make your defenses as large as possible (which will be very large if you bring lots of longbows). You want a long, thin line of men, not a deep formation. Horse archers are less accurate than infantry, but if you give them a big square of men to shoot at, they'll get plenty of kills from wild shots, and obviously if they bring any artillery they can really pound you.

The Mongols will sometimes attack with more than one stack, but it sounds like you're having difficulty 1 v 1. This is kind of expensive, but it would also work with a decent general. Just build a huge army of heavy cavalry. Don't let the Mongols pepper you with arrows at all. Just charge everything forward, and I bet the AI will put the horse archers in melee, too. If they don't, ignore them, if they shoot into the massive pile of horses you've created they'll help you as much as hurt you. What I like to do is have my knights lance-charge the enemy, let them fight for a few seconds, and then give them a run order to the other side of the battle line, right through the enemy. They'll push through whatever is in front of them, and then when they get halfway I'll have double-click the enemy again. This seems to give them some momentum, which greatly increases their attack when I give them the attack order, and also breaks the enemy's formation. This will result in a few casualties for your unit as they try to push through, but it almost always results in massive casualties once I execute it. Obviously isolate and concentrate fire on the enemy general-if you kill him, the rest of the army will probably mass-rout.


For bridges, England has everything you need to successfully take the bridge. If they are close enough, have longbows shoot shore to shore. If not, move them partway across the bridge. If you find they're usually out of range, bring more muskets. Artillery is a must in any case. Once you've pounded them as much as possible, start sending troops across. I like to send 1-2 heavy cavalry units first (these will pretty much be massacred by the end). Lance-charging cavalry is much less effecting than against infantry, so you won't lose an entire unit when the enemy charges your first troops. Heavy cavalry are also extremely deadly, hold their position very well, and can push the enemy back very quickly. This is all you need to make a hole/hold a position on the enemy's side, and you should have plenty of strong infantry coming over right behind your first charge to fill the space they take. From there, it will basically become a mass melee at the base of the bridge. Superior sword infantry and continued missile assault will give you a win.

Thanks for all the great replies.

Due to the number of stacks I'm facing, I've had to use a burnt earth approach the last couple of battles. If I'm facing two stacks, I try to kill the first stack, and then withdraw to avoid facing the second stack.

However, this has lead to another problem, and my next question. Why do my troops regularly try to withdraw from the same side of the map as the foe enters from? If I back myself into the corner of the map, I would expect that they would try and retreat from that corner.

What dictates where your troops retreat to?

I think they should be running back to the direction from where you came ?

However I've noticed that this depends on who else is in the way. First thing I do in battles I will win for sure, is sent cavalry behind the enemy army. Then they usually rout to the sides and give me more time to mop up. Does'nt always happen though.