Economics of the Golden Horde: How can I get those?

Every Horde can be beaten with a full stack of Varangian Guards (or Ghazi or your fav axe troops) with a 9* general if retreated to the fortress you carefully pre-built. The horde will siege without any siege equipment and you will easily roll over. Just don't leave the fort.

I did that in one campaign (VI) and the beggars assaulted the very next turn. Was very very long.

Originally Posted by Grey_Fox

I did that in one campaign (VI) and the beggars assaulted the very next turn. Was very very long.

I see, I wasn't clear enough. That's the point: Since the Horde does not have an own province it will assault the fortress the next turn no matter what. A nice stack of VG with an awesome general can withstand any attack - and you have unlimited firepower from the fortress.

Being more on topic: although the GH troops have very low upkeep (GH warriors are iirc in par with peasants) they have zillions of troops so if they don't conquer, ransom and pilage soon they will be running debt.

GH are also dumb: if the human player is in reach they will attack no matter what odds. (I was sitting in Georgia with a kick-*** army of Byz: 6k composed of silver plate VG, ArmoredSP, v2 Treb, v2 PornoCav, etc - xl mod) and yet they attacked me instead of killing the Kievians that were stretched wide on the plains, spread much more thin on the steppe and on more favorable terrain.

I said that because I was suggesting to sweep the steppes before to clear the resistence but not take the forts. But it seems that you wont get the desired result (GH carving out an empire) because they will attack you anyway.

GH are also dumb: if the human player is in reach they will attack no matter what odds.

Yep, everytime. In my current Danish campaign the English took most of the plains using a couple crusades. They had nothing but a bunch of small 100-200 man, beat up armies everywhere. What do the Horde do? Drive straight through two provinces to attack my 3k-4k sized army, 3 years in a row. They took massive loses everytime before taking a couple year break, before then attacking 2 more years in a row!

When I play a Byzantine game in high, I cede the eastern-most former Turkish provinces and use the horde to bash the Eggies. Just have a few princesses handy and keep on their good side. It's pretty fun to watch Golden Horde HA cut through Africa and Europe.

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

When I play a Byzantine game in high, I cede the eastern-most former Turkish provinces and use the horde to bash the Eggies. Just have a few princesses handy and keep on their good side. It's pretty fun to watch Golden Horde HA cut through Africa and Europe.

I'm playing the Byz now, and this seems like a strategy I might like .
What provinces do you give up- Georgia, Edessa, Syria and what else? Do they ever NOT take the bait and hit Rum, Treb and
Lesser Armenia or do you guard them and give away princesses? Do you
build up much in those eastern-most provinces, or do you keep the buildings
to a minimum? I've always played HRE, Danes, French, Spanish or Egypt,
and have little experience with the Byz.

Originally Posted by dgfred

What provinces do you give up- Georgia, Edessa, Syria and what else?

And Khazaar. You should keep the buildings to a minimum as they get destroyed in the war and you don't want to give them a province where they can train troops, so it might be wise to even destroy all the buildings in there.

I don't give up Syria!!! I want those 5* assassins!!!

:D

Well they appear in smaller numbers in Georgia, Edessa, Syria so you can fight them off easily.

Yeah, but if you want them to take on the Egyptians or to go west vs the
Poles/Russians/Hungarians you will need to avoid battle with them .

Exactly. If you want them to kill the other you shoud get out of the way and be allies with them. OTOH Syria is a must. So die Horde, die!

I like those assassins too . So I guess you better decide pretty early
whether to build up those provinces to get the things you want, or leave them be to 'bait' the Horde .

5 star assassins are pretty easy to get IMHO, just let them sit in a port. The Pope usually sends enough guys to get them to 5-7 star pretty quick.

A port with or without border forst?

Originally Posted by NodachiSam

A port with or without border forst?

Without borderforts if it isn't your province and if it's your province the bf don't matter.

Originally Posted by miho

Without borderforts if it isn't your province and if it's your province the bf don't matter.

If you lurk your assassin/spy in a port province (of your own) with a Border Fort, the BF will always go first against enemy agents - your agent will build up extremely slowly, if at all. Limit yourself to no more than a Watch Tower, on the other hand, and quick promotions will occur.

Also helps to lurk multiple guys - if the first one fails, there are others to take up the slack. One of them should always get to the incoming rival agents.

[quote=lugh]Yeah, I remember that thread, can't find it though.
Long story short, the player spammed as many untis as he could and managed to place them in KHazar just before the Mongols arrived.[quote]
I found the thread if anyone's interested.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=54233

Looks like the cap is rather low. If anyone has any screenis vs the horde that have a higher number of Mongols than this, I'd be interested in them. Logs or saved battles too.

A master armourer always helps.

To improve their numbers? I thought the upgrades just gave them better armour etc etc?
Damnit, I'll have to go play a new campaign just to find out now...

Originally Posted by lugh

To improve their numbers? I thought the upgrades just gave them better armour etc etc?

It won't increase their numbers, but if you think normal Mongol Heavies are though, try gold armed/armoured Mongol Heavies.

I don't think Khazar supports weaponsmiths though. I'm sure you could mod them to have 100 strong cavalry units.

I've always had more trouble with their HAs, at least the Heavies will give you a fight! Then again, I've never really found an effective way to fight against HAs of any stripe. I can fight with 'em fine. In my Spanish campaign, my undefeated 9* super army got itself trounced last night 'cause I didn't have enough cavalry to chase all the damn Boyars down.

I found if you just sit tight the Horde's HA's will come to you. They will just sit there out of their range and let your Arbs shoot them to pieces. Unless your under a time restriction why would you chase them down? Even vanilla foot archers out range HA's.

Of course if it's one of those 4-hour mega-battles against the horde it's really easy to run out of ammo on all your archer units long before the waves of horse archers stop coming. Then you get to try chasing them down, hiding in the trees and hoping they disappear, or standing your ground and getting whittled down without being able to retaliate.

Ajax

I can see how that might happen. I always try and have plenty-o-missle troops around when facing the horde.

4 stacks of reserve Longbows can usually rip the mongols to shreds and make them run.