How to repel the Mongol invasion

Tips on repelling a Mongol/Timurid invasion:

Remember where and when they arrive, and be prepared

If you know that the Mongols arrive around turn 60-70 and the Timurids around turn 100 (Someone correct me, it’s been a while), and you know that they arrive in the Northeast and the Southeast (it varies) with stack after stack of troops, and you happen to be a faction on the Eastern half of the board, you had better be prepared for the invasion. Catholic factions have the crusade function to assist them, which is helpful, but the Orthodox and Muslim factions have it pretty rough. The Turks in particular cannot afford to dawdle, because they can get the brunt of both invasions, depending on their borders.

It’s a bad idea to wait until the Mongols arrive and then start to panic. Unless you can spawn about 10 stacks of troops at will, you will not be able to just repel the invasion as if it were a half-hearted crusade. This is the real deal. Or it would have been, had the AI been improved, but let’s pretend you get lucky and the computer accidentally poses a threat.

You will have a difficult time repelling the invasion if you like to “turtle” and build your empire slowly and relatively peacefully. Your war will take much longer, require better technology, better troops, and you are more likely to lose battles and the overall war. This has a better chance of succeeding if you are a Western European faction, and a much better chance if you are Catholic. To put this another way, you can’t possibly lose against the Mongols and the Timurids as England or France, even if you “turtle”. You will die a painful death at the hands of your new Mongol overlords if you foolishly attempt to “turtle” as the Turks, the Russians, or the Egyptians. Byzantine also has difficulty repelling the invasion if they “turtle”. So… think about expanding your empire to a comfortable size before the invasion starts, unless you are so far away that they will never reach you to begin with. But no matter WHO you play as, having a massive empire makes this whole process easier. Just make sure you have a great economy and good troop producing facilities.

You will need infantry. That’s a fact. Fielding enough heavy cavalry to match theirs gets ridiculously expensive, and horse archers just won’t cut it, because they are mostly cavalry and the Timurids have elephants that scare horses. Besides, they have a lot of archers too, and you will have to deal with the ranged attacks against your own cavalry as well as the heavy cavalry charging your troops, which cannot be spread out to avoid arrows because they will rout when charged by heavy cavalry.

Side note: Sure, you CAN rely on these units, but you will need more of them. Lots more of them. Because they will die like rats in an oven when faced with a maximum dread Mongol archer/cavalry army, or Timurid elephant/infantry army.

By infantry, I mean lots of infantry; the kind that can take a charge and survive. Good morale, good armor, and nice, long spiked weapons. The bulk of your army should be made up of anti-heavy infantry and anti-heavy cavalry forces, which good heavy infantry functions as. Don’t worry about going too expensive, though. You will need to field a massive force, so go with the best bang for your florins. I’d recommend a lot of good, low-upkeep, medium strength troops with the best armor you can find, and lots of them. If you were playing as an Italian faction, your basic Italian spear militia with maximum armor works just fine. Lots and lots of tough, defensive forces, but not so expensive that you cannot make several stacks worth of them. You will take losses, but the troops combine together after the battle, and you will easily have another completely solid line of infantry after each encounter. This is key to having an effective force while repeatedly engaging the horde.

I’ll get to tactical tips in a second. Right now, just focus on making sure you have a backbone to your mega-army, made up of thousands of capable, mid-level, heavy armored infantry.

Next, you will need some morale-crushing units; the kind that can outmaneuver the enemy or blast them from a distance. If you don’t have gunpowder, you can always go with a good core of long-distance archers with flaming arrows. This can impact the enemy morale while you have them surrounded by infantry, but beware! Having no cavalry in your army will leave you in an inferior morale and maneuvering position. You will need something to defend your archers/artillery units, which means good cavalry interceptors, which means cavalry of your own; the kind that can fight hand to hand and has a decent charge. Here’s where you spend your big bucks; lots of superior heavy cavalry. I’d say 4 or more units of truly gut-wrenching cavalry will do.

But don’t just go after their cavalry with cavalry, because they probably brought more to the fight than you did. You need some spearmen that can take a hit to intercept them and pin them down. Then charge the fools with your cavalry and make them rout. After this happens, you should circle around and pound their infantry, or go straight for their general. Any time you can eliminate their general, you should make it a priority. A general unit is worth half his own forces in terms of morale. You could be losing the battle by twice your own army size, kill their general, and turn the tide of the battle and force a close win with hammer and anvil cavalry charges. (I know, I did this one time against the Pope himself with his truly superior personal bodyguard army against a ragtag group of exhausted Russian troops and mercenaries at half-strength)

In case you don’t know, hammer and anvil is where you pin the enemy with one unit and charge repeatedly against the enemy unit with a unit of cavalry until they run like little girls.

Summary so far: Giant stack of mid-level spearmen, fully armored; decent sized division of bone-crushing cavalry; and your favorite morale buster units, such as flaming longbows, gunpowder units, or trebuchets firing diseased cattle and flaming rocks. Now top it off with your most fearless, chivalrous/dreadful, commanding general with chevrons coming out of his…

Now you have a stack of decent troops. But don’t foolishly think you are done. You need at least 4 more of these to even get started, unless you want to exploit the AI’s suicidal tendencies, which I will get to in a second.

Tactics and terrain

Now that you have assembled your mightiest and most fearsome gathering of troops ready to give their lives to stop the invasion, you need to plan out where to make your first stand. Should you wait for the enemy to attack you inside your stronghold? Block a strategic bridge or canyon access road? Cower atop a very high mountain and attempt to rain arrows down upon them? Or will you use the hills and the plains for your bloody battlefield?

This largely depends upon your taste. Obviously, some tactics work better than others. You can completely wimp out and cower behind your castle walls, but if I were personally controlling the horde, and not the AI, I can assure you that you would be toast, and your little garrison would crumble from only two of my stacks attacking it. Remember, these guys have a lot more than two stacks. Of course, the AI isn’t so good at sieges, and an intermediate player can repel several stacks using a single garrison, which is a very good enemy/ally casualty ratio.

The bridge defense isn’t normally as effective as it used to be in RTW, but it can be if it is slightly modified. Don’t attempt to prevent them from crossing the bridge by blocking it off; let them come. But when they do cross, surround them on all three sides and charge with infantry in the front and cavalry/infantry on the sides, with a hail of flaming arrows into the middle. Do this and you will cause mass routs, and you can butcher them as they flee. This tactic depends on the AI being stupid enough to try to beat you at river crossings, and you cannot block all access points on the map. Some will sneak through from the North or South, because they don’t always spawn from the same place. If you didn’t prepare for this, they will get behind your front line, which is the worst strategic blunder you can make. If I were the Mongols, the war would already be over at this point, because I would systematically capture and burn all your cities to the ground and exterminate your people. So, thank your lucky stars the AI doesn’t know how to truly take advantage of your weaknesses. But still, on principle, avoid letting them get past your forces and assault your cities. You have women and children at home, as well as your military recruiting buildings to think about. Don’t let them touch you. Your brave men are ready to die, but your citizens are not.

Sitting on top of a mountain is silly unless they are chasing your wounded troops. Find a hilltop and cower atop it, it is the only way you can even the odds. Charging downhill and pushing all your forces into the enemy general can cause you to win battles that might otherwise be lost; but you cannot force wins this way, only take advantage of blunders the AI might make.

So that leaves the winding roads in the mountains and valleys of Asia Minor, the Eastern steppes, and the Arabian Desert as your other choices. I personally prefer the Eastern steppes because I like room to maneuver. But you won’t likely be making this choice, as the Mongols and the Timurids can spawn from several different points on the map. You just have to take what you can get.

The stand

Now you have prepared for the Mongol invasion, and it has come. Take your brave troops into battle.

Get some generals with Night Fighter and attack the lead stack of invaders from 3 sides. See if you can’t pick him off completely with one fell swoop, using Night Fighter to fight this stack and only this stack. In any case, their arrows will be rendered fairly useless in the dark. So get Night Fighter.

Bring a couple units of good, light cavalry which can mass-eliminate routers. You don’t want to face these idiots a second time. Leave no one alive, and take no prisoners.

If you can manage to wipe out a good chunk of the enemy on the initial assault, do it. This assumes the Mongols haven’t taken a whole bunch of cities yet and are still bunched together. If you are an Eastern faction, you should do this.

If you are a Western faction, and you find the horde intimidating, then go ahead and wimp out for a while. Let the Mongols come. Let the Timurids come. Let them sack city after city, and carve themselves a nice little Khanate from the Turkish, Russian, and Egyptian territory. Even let them push into Byzantium and Poland. Let them get drunk with celebratory wine and fat with meat from their victory feasts. Let them get spread out over half of the map, and let them grow complacent in their conquest. Let them disperse into the lands and thin out their ranks. Let them garrison cities that they have taken, and watch as their assaulting forces dwindle. Let them think they have won, and watch as they drop their guard. Now they have become a foolish, bloated empire, completely unprepared for a massive counterstrike. NOW STRIKE THEM!

Charge full force through their lands, taking back each city one by one, demolishing what is left of their assault forces, and continue until every last one of these Mongrels are dead. Rinse and repeat for the Timurid scum.

As for the elephants, you should target them with flaming missiles, or whatever missiles you have. Spook the elephants, and they will become rampaging beasts that will inflict damage on the enemy. Then keep your distance and watch the fun.

Alternatively, you hide behind walls and pepper them with arrows until they finally die. I don’t recommend using cavalry on them, but if you have about a thousand troops to spare, infantry with spears and good morale can also take them down, slowly… with lots and lots of casualties.

Gunpowder is good, but if you’ve been in this fight long enough to have gunpowder, you don’t need it. You’re apparently safe from the hordes anyway, and you could simply use the “wait until they become spread thin by their own conquest” strategy. So gunpowder is not necessary.

Victory, thy name is Pizza Guy. Additions, corrections, questions, comments? Post them here.

I agree with you about the spears - as Venice I spammed armoured spearmen, hospitallers and pavise crossbowmen to defeat the Mongol horde

there was a great thread on this by someone who had done the job with Milan...if you move your guys forward in little steps you can tempt them into a shooting match, which you will win with pavises due to their superior defence (esp if you have them fully armoured)

the key is to watch for the tell-tale movements the lancers make as the creep closer looking for the charge - when you see them do that you can fall back quickly to dissuade them and try to trigger the shootout again

when you're all out of bolts, if they look weak enough you can let them charge into the spearwall then take out the general with hospitallers to the rear - OUCH

one thing is if you're playing on VH they all have nightfighter, but often the second stack will just hang back while you tidy up the first - then you can withdraw and live to shootemup another day

this doesn't work with timurids, but by the time they arrived I was bored so I relied on trapping them in forts and roasting them alive - mmm scorched horseflesh and charcoal tusks

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by phonicsmonkey

I agree with you about the spears - as Venice I spammed armoured spearmen, hospitallers and pavise crossbowmen to defeat the Mongol horde

there was a great thread on this by someone who had done the job with Milan...if you move your guys forward in little steps you can tempt them into a shooting match, which you will win with pavises due to their superior defence (esp if you have them fully armoured)

the key is to watch for the tell-tale movements the lancers make as the creep closer looking for the charge - when you see them do that you can fall back quickly to dissuade them and try to trigger the shootout again

when you're all out of bolts, if they look weak enough you can let them charge into the spearwall then take out the general with hospitallers to the rear - OUCH

one thing is if you're playing on VH they all have nightfighter, but often the second stack will just hang back while you tidy up the first - then you can withdraw and live to shootemup another day

this doesn't work with timurids, but by the time they arrived I was bored so I relied on trapping them in forts and roasting them alive - mmm scorched horseflesh and charcoal tusks

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I only ever play on VH/VH, and I could swear the night figher thing works. I think some of their minor generals don't have it. Maybe I ate too much pizza and my brain is encrusted with cheese and Mongolian entrails.

In any case, night battles do reduce the effectiveness of their horse archers and foot archers. So you can't lose by having it. You can always fight a day battle anyhow.

Good post.

For all readers, keep in mind, we have to include strategies for the factions that need it most; Turks, Egyptians, and Russia. So not everyone can spam crusader units. (This coming from the guy who is notorious for doing exactly that...)

The above strategies should work for the Eastern factions. I can't believe I forgot to post about creating forts to trap idiots in. Of course, if the AI were improved, that trick wouldn't work. It is too cheap. Frankly I think that forts should be decent defensive structures large enough to fit your entire army comfortably. Note to CA- fix forts and tweak the AI to avoid nearly empty forts.

I was terribly exploitative in my use of forts against the Timurids - I built a whole line of them all the way from Adana down to Gaza full of my depleted troops, fencing off the whole middle east, then had stacks of 12 cats / trebs plus general, some Venetian archers and VHIs waiting behind the wire for the lead Tim stack to stick its neck out and take a fort....then BAM

it was a very entertaining way to pass the time waiting for the world to become round

EDIT: man I wish I had a screenshot, maybe I have the savegame somewhere...watch this space

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Originally Posted by phonicsmonkey

I was terribly exploitative in my use of forts against the Timurids - I built a whole line of them all the way from Adana down to Gaza full of my depleted troops, fencing off the whole middle east, then had stacks of 12 cats / trebs plus general, some Venetian archers and VHIs waiting behind the wire for the lead Tim stack to stick its neck out and take a fort....then BAM

it was a very entertaining way to pass the time waiting for the world to become round

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A most unrealistic and blatant exploit; the very best kind of exploit. Kudos! I admire that kind of shrewdness.

:2thumbsup:

Fix it, CA! The Timurids should not be beaten by a line of Trebuchets. Better campaign AI would be deeeeeeeeeeeeeeelightful. I both approve of the use of all possible exploits, and disapprove of there being exploits to take advantage of.

So with Russa I should stop them with those mine puny litle spearmen? I somehow see them rather trupled than stopping an enemy charge.

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Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

So with Russa I should stop them with those mine puny litle spearmen? I somehow see them rather trupled than stopping an enemy charge.

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In the case of Russia you will probably have to deal with dismounted dvor units, or basically anything heavier than your initial crappy spears. But I wouldn't give up on infantry entirely. You will have trouble recruiting enough mounted units to take on the Hordes if you don't have infantry to back it up.

Russia has got to be the worst faction in the game (hardest)

Blatant plug: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=1611446

anyone tried to defend city with balista towers on walls and full front of city walls nailed with stakes?

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Originally Posted by icek

anyone tried to defend city with balista towers on walls and full front of city walls nailed with stakes?

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I sure haven't. I barely bother defending cities at all. If my militia garrisons can't repel the invader, then the fool will probably take my city and sit inside it, where I can trap them. I also tend to destroy garrisons before the city is taken if I am sure that the city is toast. No retraining your armies in MY territory!

I joke, I joke. Sometimes I defend my cities. If the enemy bring artillery, I don't even bother defending the city. I wait for the walls to crumble (or not) and then I sally forth with my forces, to fight the enemy on even ground. Since the walls are toast when artillery joins the battle, I don't bother fighting inside the city where I can be peppered by artillery fire. I need open spaces to fight artillery armies. I go for the throat, their general, if possible.

If the battle is completely unwinnable I retreat to the city center and take down as many of those :elephant:s as I can before I draw my final breath.

Never surrender. They'd kill you anyway.
It's a nifty idea you propose, however.

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Blatant plug: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=87236

The Mongols have never proven to be much of a problem. In fact, they actually wanted to be my friends. The Timurids, however, would have none of that. No! It was Jerusalem or bust for them. Seeing it coming, I cranked taxes all the way up, destroyed everything I could (sans the church, to keep the Pope happy), and withdrew my garrison. I wasn't going to give up Jerusalem without a fight- I just wasn't going to let MY troops do the fighting!:laugh4:

The expected rebel stack spawned and lost the fight, but weakened them enough that they pretty much immediately backed off. I've been building up Gaza and throwing together a three stack force to launch a counteroffensive. I will not let those eastern dogs hold the holy land. Not this King of England!

I also like the "Maginot Line" ("Phonicsmonkey line" has a nice ring to it as well, though) strategy, too. We'll see how it works without enemy paratroops.

And goddamnit, if there's suddenly a Mongol Airborne Elephant Panzer Infantry unit, I quit this game.

I've tried the hammer and anvil technique but it doesn't work for me---whenever my cavalry attack (even generals), if I try to pull them back for another go, they rout and die. Playing England on M/M. I tried setting them to guard before they pull out but it doesn't seem to help.

I'm a combined builder/rusher. I rush a few provinces at the start to get a good economic foothold then start building up because I like to play with advanced units. The Mongols didn't really attack my Russia and even if they did, I can spam Dvor and late high tech units.

What's nice about Dvor is that their secondary attack has AP and they have better stats than the Mongol heavy horse archer. In other words, if your economy can support it, you can just spam these units and go toe to toe with them. Russia has a crappy early game unit roster but one of the best late game unit rosters.

Dismounted Dvor are also excellent. They have AP as well and can take out heavy cav.

But still the problem is charge. Russians don0t have anything that can apsorb the charge without taking enormous casulties. I mean I can easily vipe out numerous dismounted knight's units with a single general unit even tough they have high defence and good attack. Simply if Mongols do the charge right, half of my line of Dvor will be gone during the charge.

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Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

But still the problem is charge. Russians don0t have anything that can apsorb the charge without taking enormous casulties. I mean I can easily vipe out numerous dismounted knight's units with a single general unit even tough they have high defence and good attack. Simply if Mongols do the charge right, half of my line of Dvor will be gone during the charge.

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That's when you use charge disruptors. Sorry if that sounded like a star trek reference.

Use pathetic, cheap meat shields to disrupt the Mongol charge. spread them out for maximum effectiveness. Once they have slowed down the enemy, ride your general in there for morale purposes and toot his little horn, and charge your heavy infantry in there.

Cheaper than endless mounted dvor units, and you can field larger armies this way.

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:elephant: Now dance, moon man, for the sake of France.

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Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

But still the problem is charge. Russians don0t have anything that can apsorb the charge without taking enormous casulties. I mean I can easily vipe out numerous dismounted knight's units with a single general unit even tough they have high defence and good attack. Simply if Mongols do the charge right, half of my line of Dvor will be gone during the charge.

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I've found skirmishing a good way to disrupt charges. It's kinda cheesy though. Of course, the AI manages to get a charge in from time to time anyway.

You can always countercharge. They'll lose more than you do.

Extremely well written and entertaining, pizzaguy, nice work.

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Originally Posted by ReiseReise

Extremely well written and entertaining, pizzaguy, nice work.

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Wonderful!

Did you see anything new on this thread, though? I understand it has been done before. I wanted it to be helpful, but not so much a copy of previous works. But as long as it helped people.

:2thumbsup:

I just started fighting the timurids as portugal and jinettes vs. elephants is no contest, the jinettes wipe them out quick. Too quick, it's pretty disappointing compared to fighting them as england ( w/o stakes for longbows as they've always seemed a bit silly ). Generally 1 unit of jinettes wipes out 1 unit of elephants taking 50% casualties in the process, unless the timurids get a chance to train enough arrows on the jinette.

Excellent observation. The timurids would not be so threatening if most factions have jinettes. I think only the Polish/Hungarian and Spanish/Portugese have javelin throwing cavalry. Someone correct me if I am mistaken.

Turks are my favorite faction since MTW1, and I practically live to fight the Mongols. I wrote extensively on fighting Mongols with Turks somewhere in this forum, unfortunately I forgot which post it was :wall:

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Originally Posted by Marquis of Roland

Turks are my favorite faction since MTW1, and I practically live to fight the Mongols. I wrote extensively on fighting Mongols with Turks somewhere in this forum, unfortunately I forgot which post it was :wall:

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EDIT: You can easily locate any of your own threads by clicking on your own name. Click on "find all posts by YOUR NAME" to find all of your own thread postings. Since you have only 300 posts, and you don't remember when you posted it, chances are it is somewhere in the back of the list.

You should find it very easily.

I just ran into the Mongols as Spainish so I'll give you my version of the OMG I have no armored spear units.

If you hit them about the time I hit them as Spainish you get Gunpowder and decent miltia by time they hit you. Problem is Jersualem is a city, Antioch falls very very quickly, and so you are forced to move yourself as nescarry. Wiping Egypt out never seems to help me as I need them to become a second target for Mongols, same with Turks. Antioch I used as expendable basically I just let the Mongols take it and then I crusade there. It is KEY as a catholic faction you have enough favor with the pope to launch crusades against Mongol targets.

Right now the town just North of Jersualem which escape my mind is the current bloodbath center. Basically we capture antioch, lose it, fall back, hold them at (city north of Jersualem), then repeat. I am down to the last two Mongol Commanders with any decent stars, the others i have killed by surrounding. Also of note if you can put a army on ship so when they besiege a castle you can surround them and wipe out there commanders. While there horse archers and heavy infantry are neglible, there commanders have TONS of command stars.

When the siege and they do quite often my usual tactic is out number and out spear as another has stated. Get some heavy calvary, wait until they pull up the battering ram far enough from thier own calvary and launch. You will lose any calvary you send but if you take down there battering ram you should be able to run every single spearman you have to one area of the wall and hold it through a long, bloody, struggle. After which you've won, restock, prepare, and launch a army.

These are just my own thoughts and tactics as Spain, also note at this stage I have conquered half of Western Europe as that is only way to really fund all this. Catholic Factions watch out for fact that while crusade units are cheap once it ends they will cost alot, so forgo crusader knights (unless you have a order) and stick with Unhorsed Knights or Crusader Sergants. Also note Merc Spearmen are far better then Spearmen Militia so get what you can, when you can.

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Originally Posted by Polemists

Also note Merc Spearmen are far better then Spearmen Militia so get what you can, when you can.

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Indeed, Mercenary Spearmen are equivalent to Armored Sergeants, so with Russia, Denmark, England, Spain, Portugal and Hungary (until I get Pavise Spears from a Fortress) I tend to hire all the Merc Spears I can, going even as far as sending a general or 2 on a tour of other factions' lands, just to hire their Merc Spears! :2thumbsup:

I haven't had much of a problem handling Mongols with Egypt and Turkey, since both can spam boatloads of Saracen Militia (Equivalent to Armoured Sergeants) from City Watches, which every Settlement tends to have by the time Mongols arrive.

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Originally Posted by ramela

Indeed, Mercenary Spearmen are equivalent to Armored Sergeants, so with Russia, Denmark, England, Spain, Portugal and Hungary (until I get Pavise Spears from a Fortress) I tend to hire all the Merc Spears I can, going even as far as sending a general or 2 on a tour of other factions' lands, just to hire their Merc Spears! :2thumbsup:

I haven't had much of a problem handling Mongols with Egypt and Turkey, since both can spam boatloads of Saracen Militia (Equivalent to Armoured Sergeants) from City Watches, which every Settlement tends to have by the time Mongols arrive.

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I should caution some of you; they are more expensive than the regular spearmen, even the armored ones. You should go into battle with regular recruits, as they are cheaper to maintain and recruit.


Mercenaries are good meat shields, and good early heavy infantry, but unless you are off crusading somewhere, you can do better.

You could fill an entire stack with regular spearmen by the time you could locate and recruit half a stack of mercenary spearmen for a more expensive initial (and upkeep) cost.

PS- Finally installed Lands to Conquer.

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Excellent observation. The timurids would not be so threatening if most factions have jinettes. I think only the Polish/Hungarian and Spanish/Portugese have javelin throwing cavalry. Someone correct me if I am mistaken.

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Russians have it too.
They have Boyar's sons. Well armoured (they are somewhere between heavy and light cav. Fast as light more armoured than light, but lack a bit of armour.) and armed javlin throwing calivary who when out of javlins can whoop out their axes and start choping anything with armour with their AP axes.

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Originally Posted by 4th Dimension

Russians have it too.
They have Boyar's sons. Well armoured (they are somewhere between heavy and light cav. Fast as light more armoured than light, but lack a bit of armour.) and armed javlin throwing calivary who when out of javlins can whoop out their axes and start choping anything with armour with their AP axes.

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Oops forgot the Russians. But come on, they are such a forgettable faction anyway! :beam:

Well, they have good horsemen and some good dismounted dvor units. Too bad they are so poor and isolated and weak weak weak. :grin2:

Give me some of england's longbows, infantry, and armored cavalry and I will wipe the floor with Russia's best.
:knight:

EDIT: 300th post!

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

I should caution some of you; they are more expensive than the regular spearmen, even the armored ones. You should go into battle with regular recruits, as they are cheaper to maintain and recruit.


Mercenaries are good meat shields, and good early heavy infantry, but unless you are off crusading somewhere, you can do better.

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Mercenary Spears are truly expensive, but for the factions I mentioned, they are worth it. They can't do better for plain spears. In general, I mean. In terms of handling Mongols and Timurids, it is better to spam them with any spears you can mass produce yourself.

hmm, this topic doesnt belongs here anymore...

because it should be in the guide forum!:laugh4:

this is a very well written topic, i really enjoyed it. i will try out some new tactic - since i confessed that i was too scared or too lazy(mainly) that i usually finish sacking and burning by the time mongols start sacking and burning. 1/2 the time i just got bored by my bloated empire and decided to restart.

i am going with sorched earth policy as suggested and guerilla tactic(by seizing and sacking cities). but keeping the bulk of cities away from the hordes.Let the mongols grow grills and and do polar-bear-swims, if they do i'll ram them down with ships like any civilised men. i hope that their elephants can swim well.

i just had a vision of all eastern fractions mass-migrated to the west :laugh4: (yalla, my sultan wants to leave!), or perhaps it was just me.

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Originally Posted by imnothere

hmm, this topic doesnt belongs here anymore...

because it should be in the guide forum!:laugh4: .

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Agree. I.mo. this thread and the other threat (with the Italian tactic) should be combined and made 'sticky'.

Can someone say when exactly the Mongols start there invasion?

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Originally Posted by Eng

Can someone say when exactly the Mongols start there invasion?

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I am fairly sure they arrive by turn 70.

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Originally Posted by phonicsmonkey

there was a great thread on this by someone who had done the job with Milan...

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and here it is:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=79195

All hail GuyofJerusalem

I normally play the Byzantines

I can see how it might help to be a Catholic country because you get the ability to launch a Crusade and get the various associated units but since the Byzantines ( In their opinion) maintained the true faith rather than falling prey to the Papist heresy I don't have that option so; I beat them at their own game. I use archers, lots of archers.


The object.

To keep the Mongols from being able to obtain any revenue or troop generating ability for as long as possible. I want to bankrupt them quickly so that they cannot replace their looses and so that their generals become easier to bribe. Your fighting a war of attrition. You must have the ability to replace your men faster than they can replace theirs.

First things first.
1. Above posters are correct, you cannot turtle as the Byzantine player. To beat these guys you probably need about 20 provinces (See my walk through for Byzantium to find out how to do this) because you need to have space to retreat if necessary.

2. You need to make sure that the Cities that will be the first to be attacked are always cities and that if possible cannot build any unit higher than a Archer Militia. (Third upgrade - urban militia, spear militia, archer militia) This keeps the invaders from using your captured cities to resupply and rebuild their armies.

3. You MUST have eliminated the Venetians and the Turks. There are people who will try to use the Turks as a foil to absorb the initial invasion but I've never found that to be very useful. It just means that the Mongols get possession of better quality cities to fight you with and that you have less money to fight them with. If the Venetians are still around they WILL start a war at the other end of your empire regardless of how good you're relations are with them and I swear the AI lets the Venetians cheat they will launch 4 full stacks at me and they only own Venice, Zagreb and Milan. There is no way they can pay for those armies

4. You should be willing and ready and able to to use asymmetric warfare against them. In game terms that means assassinate a general. Marry a general to a princess (making him your general), plant spies in their stack and so forth.

5. You have to use the terrain. Make them fight your battle. If you try and meet them man for man on a level grassland they will hand you your head. You've got to use bridges, mountain passes and rivers to your advantage. There are some players who seem to think that it isn't honorable or is border line cheating to use the terrain to your favor; I don't understand this but that probably why I play the Byzantines. Their low level infantry troops are so bad that you have to be sneaky

6. Realize you am going to loose a lot of men. This is OK as long as after each battle they loose more than you do especially since it is just a game.


Specific things.
1. Defend every city the Mongols siege to the last man. You want Baghdad and Yeveran and Tbilisi to have Batista towers. Each city will be filled with 10 Militia archers and 10 militia Spearmen with the maximum 2 armor upgrades. If you have a 1 or 2 star family member especially a guy who is old and going to die anyway drop him in there as well

2. You should try to have two or three roving armies. I like something like: 1 X General, 4 Vardartoi, 5 heavy Infantry, 5 Militia Spearmen & 5 Trebizond archers. (This is another reason why you need a large empire. These are expensive armies to field.) These should have the best armor and weapons you can provide but numbers are important as well.

When the Mongols besiege a city use these armies to come up and relieve the siege. Use your city like an anvil and your army like a hammer. If the Moguls attack your mobile army then sally the garrison and let your cheap spearmen stab a few guys in the back. The cheap archers can kill mountains of expensive troops if they get within range, especially if they are shooting them in the back!. Make it a point to completely wipe out a unit if possible. You want the Mongols to have to replace not rebuild units.

Even doing all this you may very well still loose the city. But, the silver lining is that you will have killed piles of the seasoned, experienced troops the Mongols start the game with and they can not replace experience.

3. Also have two or three very small mobile armies with a general and three or four Skythikons. I use these to spread the enemy out. Here is how: Move one of the stacks up next to a Mongol stack making sure you have LOTS of movement left and attack it. When you see the abysmal odds call off the attack but don't move away. Instead set a rally point in the direction that you want the Mongols to go and don't set it to far away, about 1/2 a move. During its turn the computer will attack you. Fine, if you do the auto resolve then refuse combat and retreat, but it is better to enter combat because the Moguls have just done what you want them to do. In the battle let the Mongol see you and then retreat. Try to stay just out of archery range. (Hint: If he is chasing you then you can loose a volley of arrows at him just as he comes into range and then by quickly running away the return volley fall behind you but he will be running into your arrows.) Your object isn't to win or even to inflict many casualties. It is simply to get the Mongols to chase you with one or more of their of their stacks. You want to get their armies far enough apart that they cannot help each other. This is really useful in relieving sieges and in being able to gain a significant enough advantage in sheer numbers to start defeating them.


Remember that once you start beating them they get easier to beat because their experience level falls. Then because you have greater monetary resources and a faster rate of buildup you can beat them.

3A. The small armies can also, if you are good and if you are lucky. get the Mongols to chase them a long way. I've gotten them as far as Kiev once and then I just ran away and let the Hungarians and Polish deal with them. (Yeah I know it's the cowards way out.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I can see how it might help to be a Catholic country by since the Byzantines maintained the true faith rather than falling prey to the Papist heresy I don't have that option

While I am sure this forum is the perfect place to define which is the one true faith, I think it best to focus on anti-Mongol strategy.
(I am a member of the Jedi Order, myself. Klaatu barada nikto, live long and prosper, and may the Force be with you)
:angel:
That having been said, let's not overlook the ability of the defender to destroy the infrastructure of a settlement and pocket the cash, thus denying the Mongols access to simple resupply and recruitment. I am not sure this has been mentioned yet as an effective addition to any anti-Mongol strategy, but it works.
:knight:

great post graybeard and welcome to the anti-mongol league

I too used that strategy map tactic of getting the stacks to pursue me..but I found that the dodgy pathfinding messed me up a little

in one instance I had a venetian stack of mine retreat forwards, through the mongol horde (all eight stacks of it bunched together) and continue on about 800 km into russian-held tbilisi

this was odd - did you have that issue?

(I ended up using the move_character cheat to put them somewhere more reasonable behind the front line, but it was unsatisfactory to me)

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Originally Posted by phonicsmonkey

in one instance I had a venetian stack of mine retreat forwards, through the mongol horde (all eight stacks of it bunched together) and continue on about 800 km into russian-held tbilisi

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I have had that happen. You have to use the "Rally point feature and tell your army where you want it to retreat to.


Edited post

Sorry wrong game. The wife is out of town the youngest rug rat is at a sports camp and I don't go back to work until next week so I've been living on scotch and beef steak for the last two days and I had a little too large a lunch!

The rally point only works in the naval warfare in this game. I have an old US Civil War game that allows you to set a location for routing troops to flee to. Not this game

What I meant was that that when you engage the the Mongols it shows them how puny you are as well as showing you how big they are. Then you manually back your army away to almost the limit of your movement but just barely where the Mongols can move. You have to guess but that isn't hard to do. If you move too far they stop chasing you. I can't prove this but I think that routing units have movement like a Crusading unit. So if you have a lot left at the end of the turn they can run farther.

This really has only been a problem when I do this auto resolve so far.

so that's what rally points are useful for - i've never used them, will do now

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

Give me some of england's longbows, infantry, and armored cavalry and I will wipe the floor with Russia's best.

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Personally i find the russians one of the most interesting factions to play as. You get a really unusual roster that can be very effective if you learn to use it properly.

I love the limitations of their early unit roster. Use cossack cav and boyar sons to thin the enemy ranks, then a devastating charge using hordes of (cheapest unit in the game bar none) woodsmen to break the enemy, and then run down the routers using the cossacks and boyars again. Smashing a full 'superior' enemy stack to pieces using such 'inferior' units is incredibly satisfying.

Later on you get some of the best units in the game (i.e. dvor cav are one of the best HA's in the game and they can hold their own in melee, and dismounted dvor are IMO the most effective all round infantry units in the game full stop). Basically i think theyre one of the best factions to take on the mongols, you can use their own tactics against them and beat them at their own game.

Also, re: spain vs mongols, just posted this in another thread:

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Originally Posted by Daveybaby

I've been using schiltroms with great success against the mongols. As spain i've been using cheap and easily replacable stacks of militia spearmen and militia crossbows (3:2 ratio of spears to crossbows), with a couple of units of cav for disruption purposes.

Line the crossbows up in an easily defensible position, ideally somewhere rugged to break up mongol cav charges. Place the spears (already in schiltrom) along in front of the xbows, plus one at each end of the line.

Initially the mongol horse archers will close to duel with you. Your xbows should make mincemeat out of them. At the same time use your cav to disrupt the enemy footsoldiers as much as possible, while keeping themselves out of contact with the mongol heavy cav as much as possible.

Soon the mongol heavy cav will be attacking your spearmen. It will take them a while to wear them down, and they will take heavy losses to do so, both from your spears and from the xbows raining pointy death down on them.

Eventually your spears will rout, and you will lose the battle. This is pretty much inevitable since there will probably be at least 2 full stacks of elite units attacking your one stack of milita. This is perfectly fine, since the point of this battle is not to win, but to reduce the size of the mongol stacks in a battle of attrition. You are losing a lot of men, but they are expendable militia which can be built cheaply and quickly en-masse in pretty much any city. The mongols are losing irreplacable (as long as you havent allowed them to take a lot of cities) elite units.

A good thing to do is to try to withdraw your crossbows before the spears rout, while still leaving them in combat for long enough to inflict severe casualties. If your crossbows escape unscathed, you only have to replace 8 or so units of spears, which 3 cities can easily manage to accomplish every turn. By doing this successfully i find i can take out half a mongol stack, while losing about half a stack of cheap militia.

Once most of the mongol stacks are half depleted, send in full stacks of your own elite troops and you will make quick work of them.

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I agree that the Russians are awesome!

My primary offensive weapon is Kazaks. When it is time to melee, my Kazaks charge the rear and both flanks and a chain rout ensues. I don't micro enough to keep all my Kazaks safe from enemy HC but I don't care. They are cheap to replace. Once the main body of enemy troops routs, enemy HC are easy to deal with. I pull units away to stop enemies fighting to the death and go into mopup mode.

As a Russian you must embrace the principle of attrition. I expect this is hard for most players to do. Militia are so darn cheap you must toss them like grains upon the millstone. I like to put my crap archers in the front line in loose formation with skirmish off, woodsmen behind them to dash through and help with melee and spears on the flanks. Also a general nearby to blow his horn. This combo is effective enough for a fair attrition rate, but cav are the key to victory. I find it cost effective to sacrifice archers in this way on the field. I do not find it cost effective to maintain large garrisons.

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Originally Posted by askthepizzaguy

Excellent observation. The timurids would not be so threatening if most factions have jinettes. I think only the Polish/Hungarian and Spanish/Portugese have javelin throwing cavalry. Someone correct me if I am mistaken.

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sons of boyars are javelin throwers for russia too.

I played as the Turks and repelled them in 2 moves!! surprised?? Its a bit simple and needs some luck maybe..but heres the deal..

Let them take a town...then before they take another...get it back...

a message comes "last stronghold in the west is gone for the mongols" and the rest of the forces just vanish!!

They attacked me at turn 75 at antiloch with 4 stacks and over 2500 men. I tried to fight them with about 1000 but lost badly. They then dispersed their forces too much.One went up and laid seige on the northern toen..forgot its name..

One part went south towards acre..and the remnants of my army were at damascus..

When they were gone..they had only 200+ people left to defend the city of antiloch and I set my remaining 400+ troops on them and won the battle(leave no prisoners) and took the city..immediately, the invasion as over!! maybe a flaw in the game?? :-)