The Golden Horde invasion and impact on the AI Byzantines

[Loucipher]

I'd rather believe the Byzantines might get seriously weakened by the Horde's onslaught.
First, send your emissary (or better yet, a princess, if you have one to spare) to Khazar and start hanging around there. Once the Golden Horde Khan arrives, offer your princess to him. He has brought many of his sons along, all unmarried, so the chances she'll get married right away are quite massive.
Second, fortify your borders and make sure you have a large Reconquista army gathered up somewhere deep in your territory (not along the border). If you are in a good standing with the Pope, you can actually call a Crusade against Byzantines. Just watch out for their insanely skilled Generals.
Once you see Byzantine armies withdraw from your borders to deal with the newly emerging threat, have your forces launch an all-out assault. Throw in everything you have, including the kitchen sink. Crusade, your standing armies, excess garrisons, mercenaries - everything. Soon, you should be able to paint half of Europe bright red. You might even be able to reach Constantinople (a feasible objective for a Crusade), especially before the Horde gets it. With centralized economy and force production of the Byzantines, capturing the Big C means their backbone is broken. Strengthened by your gains from the Byzantine campaigns, you can then hold back and a easily defensible line and wait for the Horde and Byzantines to exhaust each other. Then grab the remains of what territories they fight for, and reinforce. By then, the Horde shall probably break their alliance with you, but by then, you should be able to have such massive armies that you can literally swarm them with your troops.
The end result: you now rule the Middle East. How do you like it?

[Asmodai]

As my brother said, ally with any bizantine enemy possible. That will be muslims(turks or Eggys) and golden horde. Sometimes, bizantines rushes to the steppes, and they fight with novogorodnians/russians also. So, when the horde arrives, just wait for inevitable war between them, and attack bizies from the back.

And few units are espetialy usefull when dealing with bizies armies.

Heavy cavalry(knights) is always my weapon of choice. They have katanks, but katanks are rare unit, and it is quite possible, that only one or two that units will be in each stack. Many units of heavy cavalry helps, cos they dont have good spearmen units, so, they infantry will be almost defenceless against massed cavalry charge.
Playing as english, you get longbows, but against katanks, i prefere mounted Xbows. Missiles piercing armour, and their speed keeps them out of trouble.
Try concentrated longbow fire against katanks(3-4units should be enough) and charge them with nice unit of billmens.
Biggest problem are their generals, usually "hundred star jedis". Concentrate any missile fire on commander (usually in katank unit). When he is out, biz are dead meat. Kill any prisoners, if their number is more than 300, or you capture one of their jedis. Slay them without mercy.

Strategicaly, head to the Constantinople. When you get there, level any building tho the ground, leave only castle. Now, you may withdraw form Constantinople, or try to hold with small, elite garrison(halberdier type unit with single knight unit). Siege takes ages, and direct assault on that elite garrison will be costly.
And, control the sea. Biz empire depends on naval supremacy. As i played as turks or Eggys they very often countered my offensives simply attacking my shore provinces from sea. So, keep strong fleet into mediterranean sea, and if you cannot defeat biz fleet completely, at least prevent them their naval attacks.
And Crusades is realy terrible weapon. I have simply tactics to bring to the knees any faction with crusades. Attack only border province with you crusading army, and support that attack with stack or two of your armies. Enemy will withdraw to the castle or even abandon the province. If they withdraw to castle, throw your men to the assault(use peasants or fanatics to break through gates) and you have succesful crusade, and enemy faces loyalty crash. Revolts and civil wars will be seen in their lands. Dont conquer this turmoiled lands, cos holding will last long and you must have huge stacks in every conquered province. Send your agents first(inquisitors, priests, spies) and convert peoples to catholics. And after few years, this lands will be ready for conquest.

If you play on GA rather conquest, in early you may already have jerusalem kingdom, so, attack from the other side with crusader forces is nice to.
One biz provinces greatly boosting your chances to hold the holy land. Cyprus is the province that you must have. (thanks for the Tip rvg, that one is realy usefull. Ive played several times many crusading catholics and conquering Cyprus always pays off)

[Alexios]

I started in Early, so I would imagine the GH will appear in Khazar (as always), in Armenia and possibly Georgia(?). Not sure where else they might appear. But I have 2 spies, 2 emissaries, and 1 princess enroute to the area to gather info. If possible, I plan to find out which provinces the GH pops up in, how many, and what the Byz reaction is to it - i.e., troop movements, initiated battles, etc., etc. Then I’m going to try and monitor the situation from year to year and keep a running log on what transpires. If anyone's interested, I'll post my findings on this thread. Maybe it will be of some use to have some analytical info on how an AI Golden Horde affects an AI Byz. (Hey, this wouldn't be considered cheating, would it? )

[Asmodai]

If you started in Early, expect huge mongol ivasion.
They appear in Khazar(this is they standard starting position) and probably in Wolga-Bulgharia. Also, Syria, Armenia and Georgia is very likely to be attacked, at least by 2 full stacks of mongol devils. So, when they appear, they will be problem not only to the Biz, but to the muslems also. So, their appearance is only a help to that distant catholic faction that you represent.
If you have VI installed, their numbers will be about 15k-25k, in all stacks, few factions can have a little problem.


On early, try to distract muslems simply conquering all Holy lands, and try to hold that lands on every cost. This move brings all muslim forces and attention to you, so their backs will be exposed to the mongols. Biz must be bottlenecked in the balkans, so they will go through the steppes, so they will be fighting with mongols sooner or later. Avoid extending your empire too much. Hold only British isles, domains in france and holy land. Build strong navy, and preferably, build some ship producer in the holy land, to cut biz from mediterranean sea, and establish communication link from holy land to your homeland. Seal alliance with hungarians, italians/sicilians, and polish preferably, cos future business of this factions criscross with the biz business. Poles fight for the steppes. Italians/Sicilians for naval supremacy, Hungarians for balkan lands. Russians are faction to deal with mongols and biz alike, so alliance with them must be considered. Keeping papacy on your side is also good thing, cos you will be fighting with infidels(muslim and orthodoxes). Alliance with mongols isnt a must, cos they always will be fighting with your enemies, at least if you not bordering with them. Keep them far away from you and wait for the damage that they cause. And alliance with infidels that lives in dirty tents isnt worth considering of tru catholic king....(climatic blabla...)

But if you have too much land, no alliance will be possible, so you must fight alone, and war with many fronts is always hard and difficult.