Greaterkhaan's Great Guide to the Glorious Golden Horde

Right, enough of those G's now. On to the meat of this guide. The Golden Horde(abbreviated as GH) are only playable in the late period.

I'll start off with the Golden Horde Unique troops. There's a lot of unique troops, the most of any faction in the game, as nearly all of their troops are unique, with only a couple exceptions.

Mongol Horse Archers- These guys are a GH player's bread and butter. They require a bowyer's guild and horse breeder's guild to train. That may seem like a lot, but fortunately for you, VikingHorde left the GH the resources to attain mass production of these boys. You'll notice a lot of your Russian provinces do not have a a fort. However, they do have a bowyer's guild and horse breeder's guild, meaning that once you build the fort, you can start popping these guys out en masse very quickly. Utilized properly, they can dominate the open field. Armor piercing arrows meant that regardless of what you're shooting at, you'll cause significant casualties. And when arrow fire is concentrated on individual units, you can render those mighty chivalric knights a bleeding stump of a unit before you surround and destory them. They have good attack, a strong charge, and are VERY fast.

Mongol Warriors- Also armed with armor piercing bows, these guys are the best archer this side of longbows. They lack sufficent defense, so ideally keep them out of melee unless you can truly batter the opponent with arrows first. Once again, concentrated fire is the best way to utilize them, especially on the tougher, stouter units. They need a bowyer's guild to train.

Mongol Heavy Cavalry- Pretty much a standard XL royal cavalry. Very good, but very expensive, at least up front. Bear in mind, that for a long while, you will be on a budget, and the only MHC you'll have will be your Khan and princes. Additionally, they require a master spearmaker and master horse breeder to train, meaning they cannot be trained with +1 valor like some other royal cavalry. In all, these guys are really good, but you will not likely use them a lot.

Korean Skirmishers- These guys are a riot, for me. I love these guys on defence. On offense, they are slightly less useful, unless you need to assault a wide bridge. Korean Skirmishers are a truly oddball unit. They've got good defense and heavy armor, giving them potential use as the GH's only heavily armored infantry. However, they also are armed with javelins, a weapon commonly associated with quick, lightly armored troops. These javelins can be devastating. Although you don't get a lot of shots, the javelins can wreak havoc. I've seen chivalric men at arms route purely because of the damage they suffered trying to get hand to hand with the skirmishers. Furthering their use, they are incredibly cheap, only 200 florins to train, with very little upkeep, and only need an armorer and swordsmith to train. As stated earlier, you will likely need a few of these guys at least for bridge battles, as their armor can help bust through the bridge and hold the opposing bridge end open as your cavalry pours out from behind them.

Korean Spearmen- These guys are pretty much a throway unit. Basically, a unit of feudal seargeants, only instead of a large shield, they're vulnerable to arrows. They need a spearmaker's workshop to train. However, my advice is to skip these guys altogether, as the skirmishers will serve you better in an overall role.

Korean Guardsmen- This is the cream of the crop infantry for the GH. Think of swiss halberdiers, only faster. Very solid on attack and defense, can chop up horses quite well, and are quite usable in desert. The major problem with them is, however, the costs and requirements. They are extremely expensive, especially on upkeep. They cost more than any other unit to upkeep, by quite a bit, at 75 per turn. In comparison, Mongol Heavy Cavalry is only 50 to upkeep, and many of the others are much less than that. And cost is a very important factor as the GH, as none of your provinces, at least until you do some major conquering, produce a huge amount of florins. So generally, as much as I'd like to train these guys, you will have to make due without them for the most part, as you simply cannot stomache many of them economically. They require a swordsmith workshop and a spearmaker's guild to train.

My advice for battles? Study up on your history! Read up on what the Mongols did in warfare, and imitate it. Avoid head on confrontations as much as possible, relying on your superior arrow fire to decimate your enemies. To that end, do not consider it odd to send an army of almost entirely Mongol horse archers and Mongol warriors for attacking. Your arrows really are that devestating. For defense, I would advise the always popular semi-hexagon formation. Keep Korean skirmishers on the outside. Behind them, Mongol horse archers. Behind them, mongol warriors. This will keep you from being flanked, and will allow for maximum usage of your arrows and javelins. Keep your troops on 'hold formation'. By the time enemy troops reach your skirmishers, they will be arrow-ridden, and often can be quickly surrounded and destroyed. This can be especially effective agains knights, who have a propensity for charging a little too far ahead of the main army.

As for a proper campaign guide, well don't worry. It won't be completed quite yet, as I've got other things I need to do. However, I will hopefully get that up by the end of this weekend.

Although I haven't played a full GH campiagn, don't they also get Naptha Throwers? I use them a lot in defense (and sometimes in offense), and I always pair them up with Korean Spearmen. The spearmen are going to die anyway (and ridicoulsyly fast too!) so why not make use of them? Otherwise, thats the only thing I can really think of to use KS. Of course, someone imagitive could have come up with something better....

I was outlining the troops that are unique ONLY to the Golden Horde. Naptha throwers can be trained by other factions, too.

Mind if I discuss some GH tactics? I have a few that I have been working on for a couple of days that involve the GH's infantry to make them more "worthwhile".

Please, go ahead, feel free to contribute whatever you think will help.

This may sound completely daft, and I understand if anyont thinks it is; I've got an idea though, how about adding the GH at the beginning of the High Period to a single province: Volga-Bulgaria(give them not much money and few troops so they don't go anywhere quickly)?