Golden Horde!

**Banquo's Ghost** · 02-18-2006, 17:24

Just to add, I have the XL mod and Knight Templar is correct - though I believe the Horde invariably appears in 1230. They can also appear in Armenia as well as Georgia and Khazar, and just the once I saw them come in Volga-Bulgaria as well (province only in XL, I think).

As for troop types, as noted but you may also find Korean Spearmen and Korean Skirmishers.

I'm not sure what determines the size of the invasion force but it can be very, very big.

**Total War Merc** · 02-18-2006, 17:37

Thanks, ill guess ill put a huge army in Khazar in about 1225 just to be safe :)

**Ludens** · 02-18-2006, 18:53

Originally Posted by Total War Merc

Thanks, ill guess ill put a huge army in Khazar in about 1225 just to be safe :)

Actually, using a large garisson will just increase the size of rebellions (and the Mongol invasion is basically a preprogrammed faction emergence). The Mongols always invades Khazar in 1230, but sometimes stacks will also appear in other nearby provinces, and some rebel provinces may go over to the Horde. Prepare for some long battles, as the Mongol cavalry is both strong and fast.

**antisocialmunky** · 02-19-2006, 02:27

Big armies are fun to manipulate into fighting the enemy.

**Loucipher** · 02-19-2006, 22:01

Yes, the Horde invariably arrives in 1230, so that your first battles with them shall be fought in 1231.
Volga-Bulgaria is the original province from the vanilla MTW. Located north of Khazar, east of Ryazan and south of Muscovy.
Back in vanilla MTW times they were pitiful - just two stacks of units, and no more than 16 MHA units. Now, things have changed drastically - 10 stacks full of assorted troops (composition as noted by Knight Templar and Haruchai) is a minimum; if you see nothing more than this, consider yourself lucky.
Where they strike is actually a mystery for me. Sometimes they go south, wreaking havoc amongst the Asia Minor and Levant provinces. Other times they go straight west, painting half of the Europe with that damn mustard-brownish colour...
Have a mix of heavy cavalry, armour piercing troops (Halberdiers preferably), foot missiles, solid spears and fast cavalry. And have lots of it. Use them accordingly against each of the Horde units (refer to Frogbeastegg's TW Unit Guide for more info). Use bribery whenever possible - a lot of Horde lesser khans are loyal only to the highest bidder, and since you start on Early, money is not an issue in High anymore, unless you totally screwed up your economics - in which case you'd be dead already by then. Your armies should be massed at least some 2 provinces away, ideally in coastal provinces; with your fleet in place, you can then throw anything including the kitchen sink at the Mongols (except Volga-Bulgaria, all provinces usually invaded are coastal).
Good luck and have fun repelling the Horde

**tigger_on_vrb** · 02-20-2006, 09:29

I had an interesting experience with the Mongols playing the turks on high, expert. I has been kicking the Byzantines of the mainland and had taken Bulgaria, Constantinople and relieved the byzs of all their provinces except Khazar and the one to the south of it (Georgia?). Their back was broken, but they had a few decent troops left. As I was fighting off Italian, German and English crusades to Bulgaria and Constantinople I decided to leave the Byzs as a buffer between me an the Mongol invasion buying me a few turns extra to balance my troops defending east and west.
The turn in which the mongols arrived the byz emperor died whithout an heir and their provinces went straight over to the Mongols! I've seen "a number of rebel provinces have joined them", but never a faction dying out in the same turn going over. They gained a whole bunch of horse archers and byz cav, assorted infantry and even some VG.
I was looking forward to a good fight but, unfortunately, the golden horde made their usual mistake of spreading their forces too thin attcking the Russians, Poles and me and they were easily wiped out in about 15 years

**OliverWKim** · 03-01-2007, 14:31

Playing as the Brits, I have the Isles, France, Northern Germany, Denmark, Spain and North Italy, which adds up to 43 regions. The Pope commissioned a crusade for Jerusalem, and, recognizing my luck, quickly fielded a 20-unit army of crusader sergeants, armored swordsmen and Hospitaller knights, then set off for Jerusalem. I planned to conquer Antioch then head south and take Jerusalem, as Antioch was very lightly defended. I conquered Antioch with ease and prepared to move on to Jerusalem. Then, suddenly, 6 Golden Horde units invaded Antioch region and besieged the city. Even when my general turned on night mode, I was still outnumbered around 5 to 1. Obviously, my outmatched and outnumbered troops were completely massacred (though I did manage to inflict around 900 casualties). Just an account on how

annoying the GH is. TWO REGIONS AWAY FROM VICTORY!!!

**Adrian II** · 03-01-2007, 14:37

Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Big armies are fun to manipulate into fighting the enemy.

Totally off topic: I love the smileys in your sig, antisocialmunky.

**Heidrek** · 11-16-2009, 00:28

the Horde!

I love the Golden Horde. When I first encountered them I thought I had the game pretty well sewn up, then suddenly a butt load of stacks appear out of nowhere in my weakest areas! I nearly crapped myself!

Proceeded to lose a string of territories to their predations, then figured out the best ways to bleed them.

In a nutshell, Halbardiers + Forests > Golden Horde.

Even their toughest cavalry get shredded if they try and engane your Halb's while in a forest, it's pure suicide. If you have a few units of halb's so you can prevent yourself getting flanked the horde will eb forced to either charge into a mincer with their cav. or hold back and fire arrows at you all day. to very effective against halb's at the best times and nearly pointless if you're in a forest as well.

**gollum** · 11-16-2009, 18:05

The best units against the horde for me are actually spears of reliable morale and medium armour, backing up arbalasters, with the arbalasters doing all the killing and the spears doing the pinning and protection.

Halberdiers are terribly slow, have a lot of armor and they have very low morale; all these are big minuses against the Horde that usually makes up for very long battles with reinforcements having to march over to wherever you are camped that can make you take the Halbardiers right out as soon as they reach your main army due to fatigue. In addition Halbardiers fare not as good as spears against Heavy cavalry charges because despite their anti-cavalry bonus their polearms do not negate the charge bonus.

Ideally for me its a good number of feudal seargents or equivalent interspersed in waves of reinforcements with lots of arbalesters and if available Billmen or Varangians as back up to help out those times that the Mongol heavy horse waves are intense with a compliment of light horse (steppe cavalry, alans or equivalent) to chase Mongol Warriors everytime one of the attack waves brakes. A few bow units to fill in the reload times of the arbs and some heavy cavalry to deal with any MHC that managed to reach the arbs dont hurt either.

Its also optimal to let teh Horde have khazar and make a stand against it in Georgia and Kiev that they have to deal with the bridge and hilly terrain respectively rather than facing them in the open steppe. Even if you use forests the Horde can still achieve encirclements there, while in hilly terrain or bridges they are at a severe disadvantage. This helps to take the brunt of the attack before taking the fight to them and kick them back to wherever they came from.

**Vantek** · 11-16-2009, 20:51

Halberds are monsters and a little overpowered TBH. Any kind of spearmen are strictly worse in my experience. Spearmen might last a little longer, but there will be more of the enemy horsemen standing as well. Unless I'm missing something it's not so easy to do the killing with arbalesters once the enemy has already engaged. Arbalesters will be useful for killing HA/foot soldiers and the general, not engaged MHC per se.

**Don Esteban** · 03-01-2007, 19:59

Originally Posted by Total War Merc

Thanks, ill guess ill put a huge army in Khazar in about 1225 just to be safe :)

I'd suggest letting them take Khazar , let them spread out and then counterattack - unless you can field an immense army you'll lose anyway.

**seireikhaan** · 03-02-2007, 05:41

Depending on who you are, I would advise completely forfeiting Khazar and pulling back to Kiev. Invading Kiev from the east results in a bridge battle, essentially nullifying the Mongol's greatest strength, pure mobility.

To defend, use lots and lots of halberds and arbs. Halberds can hold the bridge(especially helps if you can get them extra morale) and the arbs waste the mongols as they're stuck on the bridge. If you don't have halberds, than a good spear like saracens or chiv. seargeants will do the job. If you don't have arbs, well that tough, regular archers just aren't nearly as good for this situation. If you are the bizz or someone who conquered the bizz(like Egypt or Turkey) then you're just going to whittle them down in attrition, or hopefully kill off the Khaan early in an early battle. Just make sure to have lots of anticav units handy and also some light cav of your own to deal w/ the mongol warriors.