How to beat the Mongols on open ground -no seiges, assassins, bridges or weird armies

I just beat the Mongols in my H/VH campaign as Milan. The results were:

a. They didn't manage to take one city/castle or even seige one.
b. I had only three full stacks running around in the open (and another two cities worth of garrisons that were not used) and the three defeated all ten stacks in two waves. No excellent generals or troops used at all, rather run of the mill actually.
c. I attacked more than I defended. I attacked them immediately when they spawned at Baghdad and fought them all the way to Aleppo.
d. I oftened attacked two full stacks and one half stack with just 1 full stack of mine.
e. What the tin says - no seiges, assassins, bridges or weird armies. Balanced armies beat them.

Pic of the last Khan killed within 20 years of coming:

https://img107.imageshack.us/img107/...illkhanbx1.jpg


A)
Preparation to fight the Mongols as an European power:

1. To be a good Euro, you need to crusade. And to crusade, a no brainer would be to take Nicosia castle, since you could build in relative safety there. However, since the computer upgrades its castles far faster than you, only take the place around 60-90 turns or so when it has become a fortress. With 10 years effort, you could pumping out some good spearmen and hopefully, Templars there. Land some priests because I have seen multiple Orthodox priests there before. It is an excellent base to be the fastest crusader every time.

2. To be a game player who actually plays for fun and balance, you need to help the hapless Egypt and Turkey fight off the Mongols (Russia is too far off, and not in the area of crusades). So take Antioch (big money earner) and Aleppo, a second castle in that area. Try to do it via crusades so you have a bunch of crusader units fast that help keep Egypt and Turkey off your backs (to find an early ceasefire if at war, try to destroy any large stacks with utter presumptuous, a humiliated AI accepts faster it seems). Take both around turn 100 before the Mongols come as you don't really want to spend time squabbling with the original Muslims.

3. To fight the Mongols I used 3 stacks, each with: 6 Genoese crossbow militia, 6 spearmen (of any kind, not militia), one general, one catapult, one Standard of Milan, three heavy cavalry (Templars or men at arms) and two swordsmen (men at arms). Run of the mill, but I beat the Mongols in a 10-round slugout.

Units or thereabouts:

https://img440.imageshack.us/img440/...rmationgi3.jpg


B)
Conduct of campaign report

1. I heard stories about Mongols being complete destroyers, so I placed one stack on the ford right below Baghdad. Two others were near Aleppo and Antioch. However the first two stacks that appeared ignored me so I attacked them. The reason was that I did not want them to attack Egyptians and I wanted them to attack me on bridges etc, also I wanted to whittle down the horde.

2. To fight the Mongols, you could go all heavy cavalry or seige etc. But I wanted to go toe to toe. So I put all crossbows on the front row, backed by a single row of spearmen. On the left or right I would put all the heavy cavalry, to be anchored on any prominent hill for the reason that it is far faster to charge downhill changing direction than charge up. Anchoring the other end is a single catapult which I used to antagonise their horse archers also lob some speculative shots on their generals when possible or use as an arrow soak or force their formation to move. Two swordsmen nearby. General and Standard behind the general lines and that's it.

3. The Standard of Milan is useful, Great Cross also substitutable, but another general is also possible, for other factions. The enemy seems to have a great attraction for the Standard and it is excellent for blocking cavalry charges. I always wheel it past the crossbows before ordering the spearmen behind to charge.The most important is the crossbows of course, but mine is only militia to test my ideas and Pavise can probably do as well. Most euros have somethign like Pavise.

4. The crucial thing for a conventional army is to wheel and bound forward as a group. Group every single unit into one after placing them. Now, move forward running into limited advances, planning carefully which step to go next and watching the enemy carefully. Only ever move as a group because he will cut fragmetns off. If you fight one big or one half stack the half stack will slip behind you to cut off your escape route. Don't panic - no biggie. Once every crossbow is in position, click halt on each one to get them to fire immediately without waiting for the rest of the formation.

https://img47.imageshack.us/img47/3/lineuphf7.jpg


5. Get the Mongols to go into a shooting match with you and not have all his lancers charge into your ranks which will decimate you as a organised force. There is a right distance you must keep and never go beyond that, but its hard to explain here. Always shoot at their horse and heavy horse archers first, crossbows are better than bows at this I think. I have seen an entire unit wiped out in three volleys when they pretend charge at me. Once a horse archer goes into that circle firing thing ignore it for the moment since it is nowwhere firing at full effectiveness.

6. The horse archers will pretend to charge at you or pretend to retreat to lure pieces out. DO NOT EVER ATTACK THEIR HORSE ARCHERS EXCEPT WITH BOLTS. Any wrong move on your part here, no matter how enticing it is to ride down their infantry with your heavy horses, and you will see the Khan crashing his mace into your general's face in a few minutes. Therefore, be bold, take crossbows off skirmish and stand their ground.

7. Crossbows will kill the most, they will outshoot the Mongols if you get your terrain right and do not take on all their shooters at once, but your spears at the most important. That's why if the enemy does charge, let your crossbows take the brunt then move forward and entangle them. Remember to use the Standard or another general etc.

8. Generally of course you prefer to fire downhill from on top a broad slope, but the Middle East to Antioch is full of that terrain. However, if the Khan's army is grouped right below a slope, do not appear merrily above the skyline and start shooting since their entire army will start firing. Let them have the wrongful notion they are trying to lure your army out when you're actually grimly killing their units by two or three. Always keep your distance.

https://img176.imageshack.us/img176/3692/killingkz0.jpg


9. Mongol lancers do not charge outright from a great distance away. The warning signs are when they sprint-stop, stroll-stop, moving nearer for the charge. Do not be afraid to move backwards if you need to and use the catapult to discourage him. If need to, sacrifice a horse.

10. Horses are absolutely needed to get their artillery, since you have none in my formation. Use one to lure adn the other to attack. Skirt their normal shooters every important.

11. Once all the archer horses and infantry are broken (less than 10 each) time to use the precious last of your bolts on the lancers. Pavise and Genoese are good at this, concentrate on the heavy lancers then light lancers and not the general. When it is time to strike, move the entire formation forward slowly, so as not to entangle any fleeing Mongol shooters, and pause when it is near for that great moment, when creaking and groaning the Standard is wheeled out in front of the formation. Immediately sound the charge hurling all your spears in a bow shape at the general, while your horses charge the broken lancers and your swordsmen flank all and take them from behind. Commit the General only when you see lancers breaking free and charging yoru crossbows, which happens with alarming regularity. KILL THE GENERAL, never let him escape. Never chase the remnants after they start to rout, immediately reorganise and look to get out. If you take a charge, beat them off and immediately retreat. The game plan is screwed.

https://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2205/screwedsw6.jpg


12. When you attack very large stacks like me, there will be another bastard waiting on his fat horse watching you with his army. Retreat after killing one general. Take the defeat instead of losing your entire army since you have no bolts left. You will lose often using this method but you will win the war. Sometimes the AI is excellent when it paces your entire army with horsemen looking to cut you off. If you press withdraw all of them will charge. Lose in this order - Cavalry, Standard/Catapult, Spears, General, Crossbows - if need be. If fighting half stacks with no generals and one full stack with general, never use bolts on the half stacks but you can beat them with a few good blasts and good use of your horsemen. Always know which Mongol unit belongs to which army.

https://img19.imageshack.us/img19/319/getthekhantw0.jpg



13. I used the first general who fought the Mongols to trail the great horde, looking to cut off stragglers and attackign when I could get two stacks defending only. I usually kill one and knock half a stack off the other. The other two stacks manned a bridge, not that to force him to attack but to bottle him up against Edessa so I can continue to use another stack to swing heavy punches at him. In the end he panicked and two half stacks attacked my full stack adn got wiped out.

14. Through this method, which is perfectly conventional and honorable, I beat the Mongol army without having to use existing unconentional methods or seiges or lose too many troops. I only lost 2.5 stacks out of the 3 field armies but I had garrisons as back up, and I only took less than 20 years. They never had a city.

It is possible, just takes some understanding taht the strength of the Mongols is not in their shooters, but generals, generals bodyguard and heavy lancers. Euro power!

The only thing now to do is wave goodbye at the nice mongol chaps and thank them for their visit

https://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3294/goodbyewc5.jpg

Moved into this thread by request of the poster

:bow:

Great job!

I like your detailed battle tactics descriptions! We get too little of this among all the "noticed another bug" posts! I always suspected the Mongols should be possible to beat with balanced armies and lots of missiles - this is how I went about it in M:TW.

Not to rain on your parade, but this is another bug, or at least poor AI.
When faced with ranged units, the AI freezes, and instead of charging
and taking the field without any effort, they prance around and get shot
to pieces.

In the real world, or against a human, his infantry would be flanked,
softened by mounted archers, and then obliterated in a massive charge,
and his few cavalry units would not be enough to stop the massacre.

The main AI problem in Medieval 2 is that it doesn't like to charge missile units
and allows them to fire more than one or twice.

utterly brilliant ! mods sticky? i for one will have this firmly in my favs.

well done

T

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tuidjy

Not to rain on your parade, but this is another bug, or at least poor AI.
When faced with ranged units, the AI freezes, and instead of charging
and taking the field without any effort, they prance around and get shot
to pieces.

In the real world, or against a human, his infantry would be flanked,
softened by mounted archers, and then obliterated in a massive charge,
and his few cavalry units would not be enough to stop the massacre.

The main AI problem in Medieval 2 is that it doesn't like to charge missile units
and allows them to fire more than one or twice.

---

Quite true, if you have missile power the AI lets you use it

.......Orda

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tuidjy

When faced with ranged units, the AI freezes, and instead of charging and taking the field without any effort, they prance around and get shot to pieces.

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This was true pre-patch, but I have not observed it post-patch when the AI is on the attack. Post-patch, the AI on the attack typically shows no hesitation in charging my longbow heavy English army. They usually get only one or two shots off, before the enemy has closed.

It is true that when you are the attacker, as Guy was, the AI typically hunkers down, which is not a smart move against a missile heavy attacker. If I am right, this implies that when you have a lot of missiles you should attack AI armies and not adopt the more intuitive defensive posture on the campaign map.

man i wish i could crank up my settings to get the maximum settings like that.

well as econ said, i notice ai charging alot more. havnt noticed a change when the ai or i attack though...but i bet its just because i'm not paying attention :balloon2:

nice job with the post though, detailed

now get started on your timurid thread, i bet your screens will be more messy :smash:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

Quite true, if you have missile power the AI lets you use it

.......Orda

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Not much of a "bug" really. You can do the same thing in M1.

lol mtw1 was an ai joke, once u got arbs it was all over for the ai, but really it never stood a chance to begin with

i should hope we have moved on in 5 years

I successfully defended quite a few times too. Once I was hit by two full stacks and I still shot them to pieces. The lancers were certainly not passive but they seemed confused by subtle arrangements, which depends on the terrain. It is good to read their mood.

It's not all about the passive bug, since I did receive charges when I messed up, though they can be withstood by my 6-7 spearmen (since I sacrifice my crossbows, but not when I am retreating) and my horses and Standard. After that however, I always have the discipline to retreat after killign the general, my formation decimated.

I lose more battles but I win the war, by goign after what makes the Mongols really strong.

Its knowing what triggers the Mongols to charge and what triggers them to shoot it out with you, even when the game is patched. For many forget that the archery aspect of Mongols is one of its prime attacks, so even without the passive bug it will choose to shoot it out with you with the right motivation. That's when you grind them to the ground.

Make the right moves. Any attempt to outflank it even on the defensive will invite a mass movement and increases the chances of an all out attack. Any too big movements will invite harsh retaliation. Stand your ground even when the horse archers charge to within feet of you and do not move!

I also don't shoot the lancers counting on the passive bug, since the other Mongol archers are still firing at me. It's not as clear-cut as the passive bug. I also nearly always have very few bolts left to target them anyway, a few volleys concentrated on the lancers nearest the general and I hit the general with all my spears while the horses distract the lancers furtherest away from them. They also seem to go for my tempting Standard and that ties thigns up too. Timign and distraction are important when your troops are as mediocre as mine.

This is by no means a manual on how to do things, just a way I explored to play and seemed to work. I will add a post about usign gun artillery with the formation above next.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vladimir

Not much of a "bug" really. You can do the same thing in M1.

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I didn't mention bugs just poor tactical options

.......Orda

If 2 or 3 or more full Mongol stacks pop onto the battlefield at the same time, you'll probably need more archers than 6 units. I'd substitute the swordsmen for some more archers and sub in some missile cav for the heavy cav (throw in another trebuchet for the standard maybe too). Once you get to a good spot on the map their heavy cav assaults can still break into your formation, but they're usually damaged enough (physically and morale-wise) that your general can flank them off your front line by himself. Going specifically for their General will help out a lot in situations where they have 3 active full stacks on the battle map, but everytime I do this (along with all the above-mentioned "unconventional tactics") I feel like I'm cheating the Mongols :smash:

Pavise crossbowmen are great for the front line, they'll draw most of the fire being a missile unit; if you can perfect the timing between shooting and ducking under their shield they'll take phenomenal amounts of missile fire. They work great in tandem with a stake-deploying archer unit, just have them deploy stakes and switch places with the pavise guys when the battle starts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Orda Khan

I didn't mention bugs just poor tactical options

.......Orda

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Not to spam but you did quote another person's statement, calling it a bug, and stated that it was "quite true". I take it you were refering to the last two paragraphs?

I find it a little strange that people comment that this formation will never withstand the plotting of a human player. Of course! Very few tactics meant for single player will survive the fluidity of a human-human slugfest. Not once did I say this is a dream plan!

However, this tactic was to present a way that a human player could take the field with the AI Mongols, even post-patch, using a conventional army and common troops, with only a few stacks and survive and even win in style, especially when many people complain that they come on too far strongly and have to be resisted in seiges if you do intend to fight them, no assassinate their leaders which personally I think is meaningless.

In any case, fighting the AI like a human player is extremely counterproductive and takes too much time. You could lay down forest ambushes, archer traps etc etc only for the AI to show up grinning with 20 ballistas, who leg it as soon as your horses charge.

My method would be extremely useful for example if you do not have time to prepare for their comign. Or if you wish to attack since the Mongols shuffle away from yoru stacks on the bridge or ford and wander about and it is getting boring and expensive.

It is not meant as a surefire way to win SP or MP battles, what a strange comment to make!

It was merely to illustrate some limited gaming principles for M2TW, one of which is to seize the battlefield initiative and dictate the moves as the aggressor, up to sometimes being the one to attack the huge horde with only one stack in the first place.

In any case, I play much more like a human than mechanically. If the terrain is immensely unfavourable, such as in the desert sometimes, I withdraw and take the loss. If overwhelming forces hit me, which doesn't happen because the placement of the unit on the strategic map is just as important (I trail and shepard), I withdraw as well, because my units are few. Yet if a decisive win is possible, and that is the crucial factor, I am willing to sacrifice many line units to deal a severe blow.

There are other things on the battlefield that are intuitive and comes in very useful fighting the Mongols, such as placing your horses diagonally to the direction of any possible charge, using the AI penchant to treat its light horse archers as normal horse archers spawning away from the main body, etc.

I put a link to this in the "countermeasures" section of the Horse Archers guide.

The tactics here are sound. I especially like the idea of a standard as bait. While it can be argued that these tactics are more successful against the AI than they should be — what isn't?

You must have better luck withdrawing than I do. Even if I'm right at the edge of the map and the AI is a long distance off, my "withdrawing" army always flies right into their waiting arms and is annihilated totally.

Hmm.... I wonder is it possible to face a Mongol stack with an all cav army playing as the Hungarians/Byzantines/Turks using just Hungarian nobles/Vandotiori/Siphais since you will have more HA than the mongols aloowing you greater missle power and mobility. The tough part I guess would be taking out all of the enemy archers but after that, the battle would be pretty easy since you can just flank units easily

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Xdeathfire

Hmm.... I wonder is it possible to face a Mongol stack with an all cav army playing as the Hungarians/Byzantines/Turks using just Hungarian nobles/Vandotiori/Siphais since you will have more HA than the mongols aloowing you greater missle power and mobility. The tough part I guess would be taking out all of the enemy archers but after that, the battle would be pretty easy since you can just flank units easily

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Quite possible. I've taken on full Timirud stacks with Mameluks and Desert Cavalry. You can win, but the Mongols are very experienced.

There's an interesting approach suggested by Hun Sárkány in the HA guide thread:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hun Sárkány

What I did was to have all HA units in one general place, let them run in circles and have all of them fire at the very same enemy unit. After 300-400 arrows, there is nothing left of that unit, so I picked an other one. Then an other one... and so on.

This way, the enemy's mobile archers were killed off in the 1st minute of the battle, while I were suffering 10%-20%-30% casualties. (note that I usually deploy half as many units as the enemy) The enemy infantry and melee cavalry was the usual walk at the market after this "process".

It is very chaotic, very inefficient, but your army is far more easier to mobilize on the battlefield and battles are won quicker too. I like it.

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Pardon my stupidity but...how did you get so many men per unit? 111 spearmen? Also, how did you get your screen to be like that? Everything is on the right side and bottom for me?

Thanks for the tip about fighting the Mongols, but I'm too scared (and too inexperience) to fight them right now. :(

That is on huge unit size settings, you're probably using smaller settings depending on how good your comp is

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rookie7

Pardon my stupidity but...how did you get so many men per unit? 111 spearmen? Also, how did you get your screen to be like that? Everything is on the right side and bottom for me?

Thanks for the tip about fighting the Mongols, but I'm too scared (and too inexperience) to fight them right now. :(

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To increase your unit size go to game options and select huge for unit size.

As for the menu, press esc during a battle and go to UI options. Select minimal HUD.

sorry to go off topic, but what's the Standard of Milan?

He means Carrico Standereds.

Random point, but you need Pavise units if this is to work, other missile units are too vulnrable to return missile fire, especially the archers. So this is only really viabile with milan, Venice, Papal States and i think HRE. No one else gets Pavise Crossbows.

So Nice strategy, but it won't work for everyone, or even most people.

OK, so what are Carrico Standards?

EDIT. Engage search function. People don't seem terribly impressed with them, but I must remember to try and hire one when I next crusade.

On the contrary, Hungary as Pavise militia, Sicily has Pavise, and Spain has Pavise as well. A number of high tech archers also have shields, but I have not tested them yet.

I've had some success with Retinue Longbows and stakes. Deployed in open formation with armored swordsmen/billmen as bait, they will defeat the miserable AI HA tactics (ie the AI doesn't circle properly).

I've had not much luck with the Mongols on open ground playing as England, except when I outnumbered them 3:1 and I was able to get my archers onto a cliff where they could shoot down on the horde.

But I haven't tried putting down stakes; I need to give that a shot.

Factions that don't get xbows at all (like England) aren't going to do well with the strategy, seems to me.

Very nice post. I never used infantry in a field battle against the Mongols. I defeated the Mongols and the Timiruds in a few campaign on Vh/Vh and my strategy was:

1. I had all the towns and castles garrisoned 100% by the best crossbow units I can produce. If a town is sieged then I sally out and fight a grand range battle, where the Mongols have 2 or 3 stacks against 1 mine. The loses ratio was 1 mine per 2 Mongols.

2. I tested successfully two types of field army, both 100 cavalry.
2.1. The first type was 100% mounted crossbows without a general, upgraded to the max. In a loose two rows formation the front 5 or 6 units fix the Mongols, when with the rest try to surround them. The real damage is delivered by the units which are behind and on the right side of the Mongols, where the shields doesn’t count.
2.2. The second was 100% knights, preferably the Guild ones (hospitalier and templar). The tactic was to flank the Mongol formation then all out charge targeting the furthest unit on the other flank. When my mass knights army reaches the middle of the Mongol formation and kills the general, then the mass rout and slaughter starts.

The loses ratio in all the above scenarios was about 1 mine per 2 Mongols.

quick question, are elephants affected by stakes?

If you have a 2 to 1 loss ratio the 3 mongol stacks should win:inquisitive:

That would be true if you had to fight the Mongols to the death but all you have to do is make them rout. 3000 Mongols vs 1000 Good Guys, if the Mongols rout after losing 1000 troops, Good Guys only lost 500.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tuidjy

In the real world, or against a human, his infantry would be flanked,
softened by mounted archers, and then obliterated in a massive charge,
and his few cavalry units would not be enough to stop the massacre.

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I've fought many mongol battles using army composition very similar to GuyofJerusalem. Against me, the AI attempts all the things you say. They try to outflank, soften via mounted archers, then finish things off with a charge.

So I prefer to deploy my spearmen in shiltroms out in front of the shooting line. The mongols can either shoot up my spearmen (they are welcome to it, I bring extra just for that purpose), or they can waste their heavy cav in suicide charges.

Meanwhile, the Mongol horse archers suffer badly against mass ranks of foot archers/crossbows. The result: I take a few casualties while the Mongols lose most of their horse archers. A trade I will gladly take.

The AI seems programmed to skirmish and lure the opponent to be counter-charged by heavy calvary. A good tactic against unprepared opponents, but against disciplined enemies with a good unit mix, it sacrifices bait units for no gain.

Another way to beat Mongols:
The Mongols are susceptible to an well-supported infantry spear push. Push a heavy wall of spears right through the mongol foot shooters, and engage the heavy cavalry before it is ready to charge. This disrupts the mongol infantry shooters. Support the spear push using a second row comprised of archers, and/or cavalry to counter the mongol horse archers. The spearmen must be supported or they will lose their morale and run. If your spear line successfully engages the mongol heavy cav reserve, you should win the battle. This approach probably wouldn't work against human opponents :laugh4: