A tale about the Mongols

I have good experience with Pavese Crossbowmen (playing Hungary), who can really devastate those Horse Archers. Problem is, Hungary doesn't really have any troops that can stop those damn Mongol Heavy Lancers and Mongol Halberd Militia (much better than my own Halberd Militia). Another big problem is the high dread lowering my men's morale. I desperately need to up the chivalry of my generals to counter this, but I don't really want to let those Mongol prisoners go free...
The Timurids don't seem to want to settle down anywhere. They took Acre first, then Jerusalem, plundering and leaving both for rebels. WTF? Don't they want to stay? Well, whatever, those sieges have wittled them down some. I was lucky enough the Mongols settled down before I entered the east, so I only had to face single stacks. These I could beat in the field using lots of elite heavy cav and PavXBows.
But the Tims have just had their second wave appear near Baghdad, and their stacks stick together as if glued together. I have wittled them down some in the two sieges mentioned, and then I managed to have a field battle in which I only had to face one-and-a-half stacks. This I managed to win because of the mountainous terrain: The AI is really bad at managing missile troops effectively in steep hills, those guys just kept running back and forth. It turned into a huge slaughter by PavXBows and Basilisks, with only about 15% casualties on my side. But the idea of meeting them at river crossings simply didn't work. They simply wouldn't attack unless I moved my troops away from the fords, finding other ways towards my cities instead.

In 1.2 I'm finding the Mongols and Timurids appear and then just mill around on the same spot hardly moving. Very strange!!! They don't attack anything.....!

Any ideas why this is happening?

Nope.

Why don't you attack them ?

edit

I've been reading a lot of posts about tactics for dealing with the Mongols and here is my two cents worth on dealing with them on open ground.

I've tried the tactic of waiting for them in cities or at river crossings, but so far all that has achieved is burned towns and the Mongols outmaneuvering me and ending up on flat ground. I've played against them as the Venetians (and being mostly infantry based) it is best to wait them out in your cities. But in my current campaign as the Turks, I've decided to take a more aggressive approach. So here is the scenario.

The Mongols are in Horde form, happily romping through my lands. So far only the first wave of 5 stacks have pitched up and I am facing them with 3 full stacks and a couple of reserves. My stacks are spread out, blocking passes and crossings. My armies seem vulnerable, but I always choose my ground in such a way that no more than one Mongol stack can reach me. Then I just wait, because inevitably it happens that one Mongol stack gets separated from the rest.

My armies all consist of the following units:
For every Mongol Lancer I have a spear unit
For every Mongol Archer I deploy an Ottoman Infantry unit
For every Mongol HA I field a Sipahi unit.

On open ground the Mongols have two weaknesses. They are arrogant and they love to spread out. Their attack formation is usually the classic "bull head" one of the head engaging you and the HA sweeping along the sides as horns. To counter I just use a simple hammer and anvil method.

As soon as I attack a stack, their usual response is to engage me rather than wait for me to come to them. This suits me fine, since I can choose some hill or the other, giving my archers more range. Then I put all of my Sipahis on one flank, usually where the hill is flattest (don't want easy cavalry charges from them). The idea now is to concentrate fire. My HA outnumbers theirs two to 1 and if I'm lucky I can concentrate fire from 6 squads on theirs one at a time. Within a couple of volleys, their whole one flank will crumble. By now our archers are trading arrows and here I try to concentrate fire on the flank where my Sipahis are. I also put my general (and maybe an extra Ottoman unit) on the flank opposite the Sipahis. This keeps their HA on that side from getting ideas. Then I just wait for the charge from their cavalry. Which is up a hill and straight onto waiting spearmen.

Having weakened their one flank of HA, I use two or three Sipahi squads to keep the remaining Mongol HA away, and send the rest of my HA against the weakened Mongol Infantry. Now I switch my Ottoman fire onto the opposite flank as to where the Sipahis are attacking. If my spearmen are taking strain, I can easily send a Sipahi unit into the backs of the Mongol Cavalry, otherwise I just use them to spit Mongol infantry.

I've used this strategy in battle after battle and 9 out of 10 it works. The idea is to always concentrate fire or forces, attacking their one with your 2 or 3 and hope that your spearmen are going to hold long enough.

The drawback to this strategy is losses. I usually take a loss of about 20% of my men, simply because the Mongols can take huge losses before routing.

Hmmm i could rly go for a Selucid Phalanx against those mongols maybe a few elephants and catarphracts and those Mongols would be toast. Shame Byzantine spearmen seem to have the constitution of peasants when faced with the most modest mongol cavalry charge.

As Milan, I'm waiting for the Mongols to appear. I've got a plan that I want to try.

4 units of spears, 2 units of cav (Generals), 2 standards and 12 units of crossbows.

My goal is to have all of my spear troops just behind my crossbows. I'll let the crossbows dual with their archers (ha, let they TRY and hurt my shooting turtles!) until they decide to do the cav charge. Then my spears will charge through my crossbows to intercept.

Goal is to allow the crossbows to do what they do best, kill off LOTS of enemy at range.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mithradates

Hmmm i could rly go for a Selucid Phalanx against those mongols maybe a few elephants and catarphracts and those Mongols would be toast. Shame Byzantine spearmen seem to have the constitution of peasants when faced with the most modest mongol cavalry charge.

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Great idea :idea2:

Why not armored hoplites. They laugh at arrows, spit on horses and chew on elephants. :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

The Mongols have spies? Never knew that! But anyways, when I was playing as Milan I had crusaded to Jerusalem early and had taken the coast, controlling Acre, Jerusalem, Gaza, Damascus, and Antioch. Mongols arrive, walk right past the Egyptians and the Turks, and lay siege to Jerusalem.

Now this was 1.0 mind, and the Siege AI wasn't the best. Basically they'd siege with 4 stacks, but only *one* of the stacks would attack the wall. And when they attacked my fortress at Acre, if I placed my units in the inner wall they'd never try to break it down. As such, I never lost a single city for the Mongols.

So they set up camp. For about two hundred years they did nothing but sit outside my walls and occasionally attack. Seriously, the Mongols just sat outside Jerusalem for most the game, I never destroyed them. It also meant I couldn't expand in that part of the world because I knew leaving any of those cities empty would mean a mongol attack would be inevitable.