Taking on the Horde - any tips?

Its about 1207 in my early english campaign and I have subdued most nations. The Byzants are on their last legs and the only other nation of any size are the Novos, but 1 decisive battle would weaken them. I have the odd revolt to sort out, but I thought it would be interesting to build up to take on the Horde when they arrive. My ideas on strategy is to build up in Kiev - but I will have to take it first! - and fight them there, hopefully over a bridge. I also thought that I might put a light, fast spoiler force out in front to wear them down a bit.I have never faced the Horde before, so I thought that this would be fun, rather than mopping up what is left and winning at 60% - so, any tips??? ~:cheers:

Kiev is the best place to take them on. Use the best spear unit at the mouth of the bridge. The spears work better then polearms for me because you can put the spears on hold position and not worry about them. Polearms (like your billman) will start to fight across the bridge, but one or two units of them would be good incase your spears get into trouble. Then lots of Pavise arbalesters.

You have some ideal options for horde-crushing with your English troops. Billmen will chew up their formidable heavy cav and spit it back out and your longbowmen can assist with the heavies and also keep their horse archers from pincushioning you. As stated, the bridge from Khazar to Kiev is a great place to hold them, but on the open field you can't get any better than a good polearm/ap archer combination, and you've got an excellent one built-in. Have fun, and expect some big battles.

Try this recent thread

32+ Longbows and a few Chivalric Sargents and Billmen to hold the bridges. That's a really easy way to kill the Horde.

That's too easy, in ZXMOD I've had a lot of fun taking on the horde as the russians, who gets nothing better than Rus spears, Boyars and Pavise xbows on high...
Unless you got serious mercs you'd have to expect a very nasty battle ahead, your spears are quite good to keep the MHC at bay but you lack a real killer unless you are very good at horse archer tactics.

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Originally Posted by Zarax

That's too easy, in ZXMOD I've had a lot of fun taking on the horde as the russians, who gets nothing better than Rus spears, Boyars and Pavise xbows on high...
Unless you got serious mercs you'd have to expect a very nasty battle ahead, your spears are quite good to keep the MHC at bay but you lack a real killer unless you are very good at horse archer tactics.

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How about vanilla VI as Byz nothing better than spearmen...? ;)

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Originally Posted by bretwalda

How about vanilla VI as Byz nothing better than spearmen...? ;)

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That's a self-imposed restriction, Byz have Katanks to counter MHC plus in vanilla VI you can use pav harbalesters in high...

On Byz VS the Horde I usually bring around 2-3000 katanks supported by Pronoiai, Byz cav, Trebizond Archers and Byz inf, defending Kazhar of course ~;)

You should also be able to train SHC in the steppes IIRC, all in all the Byz can develop an army similar to GH without too many problems.

Thanks for the tips so far. It's 1208 and I have just raised a crusade to take Kiev. I plan to link up with my forces in Northern Europe, drive across to kiev with the Novos in front of me - then we see what happens. ~:cheers:

You probably know this but if you want a real challenge stack Khazar with loads of rubbish troops just before the horde arrives. Their numbers are related to the numbers of troops in the province when they come....

Trust me, you DO want to do this. You want to come back and tell us you killed a 40,000 superhorde, not 20 mangonels, don't you...?

Try piling up 8-10k troops in Khazar and you'll face the longest battle ever possible in MTW... beware that it can be a very tiring experience!

Wow, that sounds like that would be extremely fun 40,000 vs. 40 or so thousand troops... well since I'm moping up the Egyptians now in my English campaign and they're the last ones to stand against me I'm gonna load up Khazar for this uber-uber-fight. Shoot my biggest fight was 1,200 of my men defending against 3,100 Egyptians and that took about 1 1/2 hours so I can't imagine 40,000... oooh, just gives me goosebumps.

Uhm, also when should I expect the Horde year-wise, I'm in the High era now but I can't really develop up Khazar cause I'm fighting wars with Egypt and Hungary and spending much money supporting those efforts.

The Horde comes in 1230, it's better to leave khazar undeveloped as GH will get any improvement you built there, making the battle even more challenging...

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Originally Posted by DensterNY

Wow, that sounds like that would be extremely fun 40,000 vs. 40 or so thousand troops... well since I'm moping up the Egyptians now in my English campaign and they're the last ones to stand against me I'm gonna load up Khazar for this uber-uber-fight. Shoot my biggest fight was 1,200 of my men defending against 3,100 Egyptians and that took about 1 1/2 hours so I can't imagine 40,000... oooh, just gives me goosebumps.

Uhm, also when should I expect the Horde year-wise, I'm in the High era now but I can't really develop up Khazar cause I'm fighting wars with Egypt and Hungary and spending much money supporting those efforts.

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Lurking forward to your battle, please keep us posted ~D . Try if you can
to build up Khazar, it would be really interesting ~:cool: .

Thanks for the heads up... now I have about 20 years of preparation for the Horde invasion and to mop up the Egyptians and Hungarians so that's plenty of time. By then I should have Khazar built up to a Citadel but I really don't have enough time to build other improvements so should I leave it at castle and build a swordsmith and spearguild so that the Horde will have better troops?

Most of my armies are hardcore veterans so this upcoming fight should be real interesting and especially so as I send my 8 star general to lead the defense. I figure without having to keep defensive armies around Hungary and after my war with Egypt I should have at least 5000 high quality fighting troops to send to Khazar... perhaps spam out another 3000 peasants and then see what happens. Wow, with these numbers I'm definitely gonna save this battle and leave it for those rainy boring Sunday afternoons when I have nothing to do.

Oh, one thing that I've noticed though is that everyone who has fought the Horde pretty much have it as a given that you will lose Khazar... very interesting. I guess after I meet them I will understand why. I'll try and get some screen shots too.

The only improvements that will affect the horde are master horse breeder and armourer, though i warmly suggest you to avoid those as the horde in an open field is much more dangerous than in a bridge battle: MHA will rain death from above, while MHC is well able to wipeout anything below chiv knights, so it's better to be careful...

Just to be clear:

MHC: Charge 6, Att 3, Def 6, Armour 7, Morale 6

Chiv Knight: Charge 8, Att 5, Def 5, Armour 7, Morale 8

Feudal Knight: Charge 8, Att 4, Def 3, Armour 4, Morale 8

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Originally Posted by King Kurt

Its about 1207 in my early english campaign and I have subdued most nations. The Byzants are on their last legs and the only other nation of any size are the Novos, but 1 decisive battle would weaken them. I have the odd revolt to sort out, but I thought it would be interesting to build up to take on the Horde when they arrive. My ideas on strategy is to build up in Kiev - but I will have to take it first! - and fight them there, hopefully over a bridge. I also thought that I might put a light, fast spoiler force out in front to wear them down a bit.I have never faced the Horde before, so I thought that this would be fun, rather than mopping up what is left and winning at 60% - so, any tips??? ~:cheers:

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Chances are you have already fought the horde but let me add this.

I would say fight them head on and don't autocalc. If you have Limited Ammo checked off. A BIG PLUS, Just rout their front line and arrow the rest to death.

All you really have to realise is that if you slaughter the first 16 units, the match is really yours. Just make sure you have some Reinforcements and withdraw smaller units that have suffered great losses.

ALSO, THIS IS GOSPIL SO PAY ATTENTION. Big battles like this, NEVER EVER EVER use your general to fight. If you lose your general early, good bye. Sure, he may be an Uber Badass but even heros die when outnumbered 100 to 1. Its too important stat and moral wise to have him stay and not run off like a little sissy redheaded step child. Just make sure you don't do this often or else he might get a bad vice, maybe let him fight after the first wave - FOR A MINUTE. But never the first wave.

gulp.... uhm, point taken Zarax. I don't think I'll be handing them any advantages then and now that I see the kind of troops they have I realize I'm gonna get my butt kicked in Khazar... I'll probably whittle them down as I have an empire geared for war production but its not gonna be pretty.

Take them out in Kiev, it's the most effective solution...
Horde fighting is fun but you have to be prepared, best challenge in vanilla VI is to face them as the russians: little time to gear up and almost no heavy troops...

oops. It's 1207 and I'm playing Turks. My first game in more than a year for sure. I forgot all about the horde. LOL ! this is going to be fun.

:balloon2:

Ouch... Good luck!

23 years. I could churn out about 4-5 stacks of Saracen Infantry plus Crossbows. I have 7-8 full stacks of 100% cavalry armies but that's useless against the Horde. I do have at least 8 generals, probably 12, ranked 5 to 7 stars.

Well, kwarziam cav is pretty much on par with MHC, also high valour AHC can hold up their own as long as you keep them out from arrows...

Try stacking 40K peasants in each and every one of the Horde Emergence provences along with master horse breeders and gold level armourers. Then you'll have a fight on your hands. See if you can make the Horde make it to Spain on those troops. ~D

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Originally Posted by Budwise

ALSO, THIS IS GOSPIL SO PAY ATTENTION. Big battles like this, NEVER EVER EVER use your general to fight. If you lose your general early, good bye. Sure, he may be an Uber Badass but even heros die when outnumbered 100 to 1. Its too important stat and moral wise to have him stay and not run off like a little sissy redheaded step child. Just make sure you don't do this often or else he might get a bad vice, maybe let him fight after the first wave - FOR A MINUTE. But never the first wave.

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I dunno I've had some big battles where I had to commit my general or lose. Sometimes the melee is that close. Experience has taught me to always hold off committing him, though.

DA

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Originally Posted by Zarax

Try piling up 8-10k troops in Khazar and you'll face the longest battle ever possible in MTW... beware that it can be a very tiring experience!

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Agree completely. My longest battle was as the Poles defending the bridge to Kiev against the Horde. It was about midnight and I compulsively decided to hit the end turn button one more time before going to bed. About four and a half hours later it was finally over and I was completely spent. Classes the next morning were not as fun as usual!

Very tiring and also very repetitive. It didn't really get dull because I was always on the edge. I hadn't really prepared for a horde assault though I did have a very large army. I soon ran out of arrows and good infantry and was left with mostly medium cavalry. After awhile I started wondering if the new waves of enemy troops on the horizon would ever stop coming! :charge: :help:

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Originally Posted by Del Arroyo

I dunno I've had some big battles where I had to commit my general or lose. Sometimes the melee is that close. Experience has taught me to always hold off committing him, though.

DA

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It's also been my experience that if you never commit your general, he might get a coward trait in rare instances. It doesn't matter much with a 9 star except against another 9 star, but it's really annoying to see a coward trait on him.

He's usually good for hunting down routers to smashing into the rear or tthe engaged enemy general Maximus-like(Gladiator's Germania battle).

If you like to be risky, once your general is reduced to one man, you could try and see how much valour you can pile on the bastard.

well youe couls use your general and if he gets reduced to a small number of men withdraw him from the field then your troops still retain the bonus' from his stars.

if he dies they lose this and would probably result in an instant rout. 8* would give them +4 marale which they would lose the instant he dies

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Originally Posted by crpcarrot

well youe couls use your general and if he gets reduced to a small number of men withdraw him from the field then your troops still retain the bonus' from his stars.

if he dies they lose this and would probably result in an instant rout. 8* would give them +4 marale which they would lose the instant he dies

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Are you sure about this? I don't think this is very good this way... You just withdraw your general not losing anything that his unit and putting him into the safe tresor.

That would explain why enemy general sometimes charges home the instant the battle starts... Especialy small, vulnerable general units like horse archers, UM, etc. Crap.

Uhm... aside from Khazar which are the other provinces that the Golden Horde will appear in?

In my game its 1218 and I have about 6000 men stacked in Khazar and perhaps 3000 in Kiev. I threw a Hail Mary against the Hungarians, decimating them, and using the advantage of the sea hit the Egyptians in their weaker regions and caused a civil war. Now everything is devoted to producing Arbalesters, Halbardiers, Chivalric Sergeants & Men at Arms and also Chivalric & Feudal Knights to force the Horde. I've also been collecting extra Peasants to load the province and I figure by 1230 I should have 10k of them to load the region as well.

Damn, I hope I get a ridiculous turnout from the Golden Horde... this should be fun.

:2thumbsup: Can't hardly wait! ~:cool: . About how many turns do you
usually play a night?

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Originally Posted by crpcarrot

well youe couls use your general and if he gets reduced to a small number of men withdraw him from the field then your troops still retain the bonus' from his stars.

if he dies they lose this and would probably result in an instant rout. 8* would give them +4 marale which they would lose the instant he dies

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No, that's 16 morale points, 2 for every star.

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Originally Posted by DensterNY

Uhm... aside from Khazar which are the other provinces that the Golden Horde will appear in?

In my game its 1218 and I have about 6000 men stacked in Khazar and perhaps 3000 in Kiev. I threw a Hail Mary against the Hungarians, decimating them, and using the advantage of the sea hit the Egyptians in their weaker regions and caused a civil war. Now everything is devoted to producing Arbalesters, Halbardiers, Chivalric Sergeants & Men at Arms and also Chivalric & Feudal Knights to force the Horde. I've also been collecting extra Peasants to load the province and I figure by 1230 I should have 10k of them to load the region as well.

Damn, I hope I get a ridiculous turnout from the Golden Horde... this should be fun.

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Thrash peasants, use at least vanilla spears as junk units... They can still help if the battle turns bad for you and makes decent arrow fodder ~;)

If I play as the Hungarians there are usually around 6-8k spears ready to support the heavies, they saved my butt more than once...

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

No, that's 16 morale points, 2 for every star.

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I'm pretty sure it doesn't work quite that way - there was an earlier thread here that strongly indicated that the valor increases gained by command stars don't give your men any extra morale. The only morale increases a General gives to his men are those due to proximity - see the Numerology thread here: http://p223.ezboard.com/fshoguntotal...tart=1&stop=20

In other words, +1 for every command star if within 50 meters, +1 for every 2 command stars if further than 50 meters. So for example, your FMAA has an unmodified valor of zero, so his base morale is 2, with attack 3 and defense 2. With an 8-star General, his valor will climb to 4, raising his attack to 7 and defense to 6, but his morale will only go to 10 (8+2) if he's w/in 50 meters of the General. If outside the 50 meter radius, morale would be 6 (4+2), and if the General were to withdraw from the battle (not routed or killed) the morale would be back to base 2.

There are no "double bonuses" for morale from a General - you can't get morale boosts both from valor increases due to command stars and more morale boosts from proximity.

Bleh, you're right.

I was thinking about command stars instead of valour points. This means that from a 8 star general all the units in the army with have a 4 valour bonus, meaning +8 morale points from the general's valour or +4 depending on where.

At any rate the penalties involved are still mean for dead generals:

-8 Morale immediately following General's death (temporary)
-2 Morale permanently following General's death (does not impact Elite or Disciplined units)

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Originally Posted by Geezer57

and if the General were to withdraw from the battle (not routed or killed) the morale would be back to base 2.

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just making sure I understand it correctly: if you voluntarily withdraw your general you LOSE any advantage gained by the presence of the general (e.g.: extra valor)

Do you also lose vices as well this way?

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Originally Posted by dgfred

:2thumbsup: Can't hardly wait! ~:cool: . About how many turns do you
usually play a night?

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Unfortunately, dgfred since I own most of the map and have production of key troops all over the place, garrison armies to move out of conquered but now secured provinces and some sieges left to mop up a few remaining Egyptian provinces I can play maybe 2 or 3 turns at max. And that's at least 2 hours... its gonna be slow going but in 2 more years there will be no one left on the map to pose a threat so I can be free to fully concentrate on resisiting the Horde.

At a pretty rough estimate I have perhaps 13,000 good troops to place in Khazar and up to 6,000 junk guys like outdated fyrdmen and urban militia. Damn, I was organizing each category of fighting unit into their own stacks and I had over 4 full stacks of Arbalesters, crossbowmen and longbowmen. The rest are knights, chiv. MAA, billmen, Halbardiers and some FMAA.

Oh, thanks to you guys regarding the discussion on generals... I have a good 8 star that's gonna lead the resistance so I'll make sure to keep him right behind my line.

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Originally Posted by Geezer57

I'm pretty sure it doesn't work quite that way - there was an earlier thread here that strongly indicated that the valor increases gained by command stars don't give your men any extra morale. The only morale increases a General gives to his men are those due to proximity.

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Hmm, I'll have to dig out that thread, as it is contrary to my experience. I remember fighting a monster Byzantine general - 8 stars - who had no bodyguard. The AI always retreated him off the battlefield as soon as hostilities commenced. (Good AI programming there, as I was really gunning for him. ~:cheers: ) But his armies still seemed to fight like tigers without him. Maybe they were just benefiting from the higher attack due to his command stars? But my observation was that his presence (in the stack, if not the battlefield) made his lowly slav warriors rip through my experienced AUM.

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Originally Posted by bretwalda

just making sure I understand it correctly: if you voluntarily withdraw your general you LOSE any advantage gained by the presence of the general (e.g.: extra valor)

Do you also lose vices as well this way?

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No, you'll still keep the extra attack and defense factors from the General's command stars after he withraws, but (since command star valor bonuses don't give morale increases) you won't keep the morale gained due to proximity to the General.

I don't really know about the vices & virtues - hopefully one of the "experts" will address that issue.

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Hmm, I'll have to dig out that thread, as it is contrary to my experience. I remember fighting a monster Byzantine general - 8 stars - who had no bodyguard. The AI always retreated him off the battlefield as soon as hostilities commenced. (Good AI programming there, as I was really gunning for him. ~:cheers: ) But his armies still seemed to fight like tigers without him. Maybe they were just benefiting from the higher attack due to his command stars? But my observation was that his presence (in the stack, if not the battlefield) made his lowly slav warriors rip through my experienced AUM.

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Probably due to the extra attack and defense factors: a Slav Warior with +4 attack and +4 defense can be pretty impressive, and remember there's a morale boost just from winning, outnumbering, etc.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

No, that's 16 morale points, 2 for every star.

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my mistake thanks :bow:

er edit: eeerr am i right or wrong?? ~:confused:

Partially, I was wrong because my brain confused stars with valour. Read the otehr stuff for more info.

that is also the way I know it: troops retain the +attack/defense bonuses, but not morale bonuses. AFAIK, they do not retain bonuses from VnV's after the general withdraws.

Quick update - the Crusade for Kiev has been launched - looks tasty with a couple of Knights Templars, about 5 Feudal Knights, some halbards. I threw in a young 5 star ambitious prince as well. In about 2 years it should, accompanied by all my "Eastern Front" armies, start sweeping over to Kiev. To top it all, regular little Byzant revolts are giving me the opportunity to bribe a few Varangians - a Varangian, bill, longbow combo backed by a few knights looks like fun - roll on 1230. ~:cheers: