Timurid strategy if your playing England.

[Yesugey]

Uhm.. They kicked my butt, as i expected. But i didnt overwhelmed by elephants, because i was have nothing but cannons anyway.

Soon i will try to fight with Arqebusiers & cannons. Since my ShogunTW days i like to train modern musketeers, against savages with bows and arrows.

[Old Geezer]

Unless you use autoresolve fighting the Timurids with musketeers is about as hopeless as using peasants. They have poor range, accuracy, armor, and morale. You'd be much better using hobilars that have been upgraded.

As England you should have Hospitallers. Just use them and some fast light cavalry such as Alan or even Hobilars to attack Timuird huge cannons (and trebuchets of the Mongols) with just rockets and elephant artillery they will be hard pressed to breach your walls. Use archers which can shoot flaming arrows to burn the towers and to get elephants to run amok. The cannon towers are wicked. I don't see how even 4 Timurid armies could take a citadel with cannon towers and some decent defenders.

The Timurids always seem to go for Antioch (usually) or Kiev (about one third of the time in my experience). If you just let them take one for their home and destroy or damage any buildings that would be helpful for them, they will spread out and you can recapture the cities. If they just have the one then they will go into horde status and try and retake the city that they just lost. They will wear out rather quickly.

The easiest way I have found to beat the Mongols and the Timurids is to play as Spain (or Portugal just as well) and have several stacks composed entirely of Jinetes with mediocre generals. It is much easier if the Jinetes all have gold chevrons and some upgraded armor, but just level 0 will work - you will just need to fight a few more losing battles.

Jinetes will take out elephants so fast that if you are not watching the action constantly you will miss them being wiped out. The only faster way to kill elephants is to have them charge into a wall of Scots Noble Pikemen. The Jinetes won't cause the elephants to run amok so you do lose some fun in that respect. I am very unskilled at using Jinetes or horse archers, but had no trouble just by setting them to immediately sweep around to attack the elephants. Now even though it will look like you killed all four units of elephants, if you lose the battle, some will come back, but not many. Jinetes are fast and chase down routers also that you can entirely destroy Timurid armies in a single battle at times. You can use some Knights of Santiago or other advanced cavalry in the center to occupy the Timurids attention but they will be obliterated often because they refuse to retreat fast enough (for me) and get caught in melee. It is fun to watch them charge into the archers and halbadiers though.

For the last year and a half I mostly just play the game so that I can fight the Mongols and Timurids in various ways. You will notice that the Timurids men are all only level 6 chevroned and I believe the Mongols are all level 9 so without the elephants they really do not put up quite as good a fight.

One very strange thing that I have noticed is that the elephant artillery never seems to breach a gate or wall. I have used mercenary elephant artillery to breach gates so I know that it is possible, but I have had them just sit close to my gate and never breach anything! Has anyone had a different experience?

[Old Geezer]

Unless you use auto resolve fighting the Timurids with musketeers is about as hopeless as using peasants. They have poor range, accuracy, armor, and morale. You'd be much better using Hobilars that have been upgraded.

As England you should have Hospitallers. Just use them and some fast light cavalry such as Alan or even Hobilars to attack Timuird huge cannons (and trebuchets of the Mongols) with just rockets and elephant artillery they will be hard pressed to breach your walls. Use archers which can shoot flaming arrows to burn the towers and to get elephants to run amok. The cannon towers are wicked. I don't see how even 4 Timurid armies could take a citadel with cannon towers and some decent defenders.

The Timurids always seem to go for Antioch (usually) or Kiev (about one third of the time in my experience). If you just let them take one for their home and destroy or damage any buildings that would be helpful for them, they will spread out and you can recapture the cities. If they just have the one then they will go into horde status and try and retake the city that they just lost. They will wear out rather quickly.

The easiest way I have found to beat the Mongols and the Timurids is to play as Spain (or Portugal just as well) and have several stacks composed entirely of Jinetes with mediocre generals. It is much easier if the Jinetes all have gold chevrons and some upgraded armor, but just level 0 will work - you will just need to fight a few more losing battles.

Jinetes will take out elephants so fast that if you are not watching the action constantly you will miss them being wiped out. The only faster way to kill elephants is to have them charge into a wall of Scots Noble Pikemen. The Jinetes won't cause the elephants to run amok so you do lose some fun in that respect. I am very unskilled at using Jinetes or horse archers, but had no trouble just by setting them to immediately sweep around to attack the elephants. Now even though it will look like you killed all four units of elephants, if you lose the battle, some will come back, but not many. Jinetes are fast and chase down routers also that you can entirely destroy Timurid armies in a single battle at times. You can use some Knights of Santiago or other advanced cavalry in the center to occupy the Timurids attention but they will be obliterated often because they refuse to retreat fast enough (for me) and get caught in melee. It is fun to watch them charge into the archers and halbadiers though.

For the last year and a half I mostly just play the game so that I can fight the Mongols and Timurids in various ways. You will notice that the Timurids men are all only level 6 chevroned and I believe the Mongols are all level 9 so without the elephants they really do not put up quite as good a fight.

One very strange thing that I have noticed is that the elephant artillery never seems to breach a gate or wall. I have used mercenary elephant artillery to breach gates so I know that it is possible, but I have had them just sit close to my gate and never breach anything! Has anyone had a different experience?

I apologize for getting off subject, but at my age my mind wanders. Actually, it always has.

[_Tristan_]

It makes you drivel as well (hence the double post)

[Vlad1]

Yes I would agree,typical siege tactics for the timurids is that now and again they turn up to a siege with no siege equipment.They just hang back waiting for you to come outside your walls.But I don't ,so they blast sections of the walls to breach them.The elephants charge at the breach but a few units of English heavy infantry supported by Cavalry will literally destroy them, but only at the breach.My observations are that Timurid elephants perform optimally in open field but they do not perform well in breaches or the streets of a settlement.Breaches are actually a great tactic in defeating Timurid armies.My attitude is that if Timurids show up to a siege with no siege equipment and they want my settlement,then they'll have to work for it ,lack of siege equipment forces Timurids to engage first,this draws them in, they're history after that.

[Old Geezer]

One other thing of note is that sometimes the horde factions will attack with 3 or even 4 armies! If you are the English and in a city, I would put your odds of winning at zero. I have successfully defended such but only as the Scots with very many high grade pikemen whose secondary weapon had been removed so that they could not drop their pikes. The only way to have a chance would for you to have eliminated their field artillery, except for the elephant cannons and the rockets, which cause few if any breaches in huge walls. And, of course you must have cannon towers. I never have had success using flaming Trebuchets but have had some with archers setting towers on fire and frightening the elephants.

[Don Esteban]

I've just got to 45 provinces as England (with a big chunk of the middle east) so it's a perfect situation to try a few strategies agains the Timurids.

If I get any interesting new results I'll let you all know

[Fadly]

i found flaming round from the trebuchet work wonders. it cause the elephant to run amok.