The mongols, how does one beat them?

[Rpkmann]

It's about 78 turns into the game and I hold antioch, acre, and jerusalem, however after recent bloody battles between myself and the egyptians and turks, my army is ill prepared to face a large force like theirs. Hordes have always been my weakest point, hence why it took me forever to complete B.I. I have no archers, a couple billmen, my general and some cavalry- yet the mongols will arrive in just a few turns...what should I do in order to whipe the desert floor with these guys? If there is anything that can be done at this point other than evacuate...

[Rpkmann]

How does one******* beat them...sorry it's late, lol

[Censor]

Hole up in yer castles.

[shifty157]

Hole up in yer castles.

Actually thats a good plan. Seeing as how the mogols are cavalry heavey and especially with horse archers itll be very tough for them to work effectively in the confines of city streets where itll be easy for you to trap them into corners and let your superior infantry tear them apart. Thats of course assuming they manage to get past your walls in the first place.

[Subedei]

Either get some decent bow men or x-bows and line them up on your city walls & pray.

Find a diplomatic way to solve the problem

....or just RUN!!!!!!!

[Orda Khan]

Are they honestly proving to be that tough? If they are it's good news, it was way too easy to beat them in MTW

........Orda

[Stolpmeister]

Billmen, general, cavalry? That's all you have? Sorry, but you're screwed. Those bastards come at you with about four full stacks of really experienced units - most of them having some sort of missile attack. Yeah, you could try to hold the walls, but your wall defenders (weakened by all that shooting) will probably be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Your best bet is to get your general out of there, trade the regions for money, peace or alliances with other catholic factions, let the mongols take them, and then take them back when the pope declares another crusade.

[GFX707]

Well, I am playing Russia in my "practice" campaign, and I just had my first battle against the Mongols. I saw them coming, and I thought "are they going for me? Oh no, I better reinforce" and built a large archer garrison at Ryazan, but then they looked like they were going for the Turks, then they came back again....I think they have 7-10 stacks. They assaulted Ryazan which is a castle and the battle lasted 1 hour and 25 minutes because the frame rate was probably about 4fps....anyway the main thing to remember is that in the field, you will get your ass handed to you, however against castles, the mongols don't have siege engines AFAIK and only half their army can actually get up onto the walls.

I beat them by massing arrows against the points where they were trying to climb and with my peasant archers and spearmen managed to inflict 2000 casualties versus 900 of my own, however retraining is going to be hard because you can only retrain 3 stacks at once in M2TW so it looks like I'm screwed, plus I can't deal with each assault taking more than an hour.

If my army had tried to go against even one of those stacks in the field, it would have been a complete slaughter. If the best army you could build went against one of those stacks, it would probably have been a slaughter. The Mongols are pretty tough.

[NihilisticCow]

I'm having an interesting time against the Mongols in my VH/VH Turks campaign (they're allied with all my neighbours against me )... The easiest way is as said to sit in your cities. Their infantry is really not much of a threat, so spear units should be able to deal with anything that tries to take the walls, so you can concentrate archers in trying to stop the battering ram. If it breaks through, a sufficient wall of spears and continual archer fire should be able to hold the massive cavalry charge back, numbers are key though and keeping a general nearby for morale is a good idea.

You can also take them out in the open if you're feeling a bit more adventurous; it's best to fight them one stack at a time, so make use of night attacks if necessary. As Turks, I find a decent sized group of Sipahi (a horse archer that is good at melee) is a good unit to chase around horse archers, and the ever important spears, heavy cavalry and archers. Also when in range, use your archers on any stationary horse archers, as they're a bit more annoying to kill otherwise. Be sure to only engage cavalry with spear support and you should be ok. Once their cavalry is out of the way, their archers are easy to mop up.

After battles, pull back and replace losses, and avoid fights in the open when you are badly outnumbered. I've also been trying to make sure I target the general as soon as possible with archers to try and create a chain rout if he dies in melee, or at least leave them without a high ranked general. Taking out high ranked generals seems a good idea even if you're going to lose the fight.

That's how I'm dealing with them as the Turks, not played the Russian campaign yet so hope it is of help.

[Davidian]

One big tip

Make sure you have long bow men then place stakes infront of the gate and then just let them pour in.

Seeing as they always charge in head first anyway

[PseRamesses]

The only intimidating things with the mongols are their sheer mass and their missiles. In the open find coverage and stand your ground or try to engage at rivercrossings. In settlements I use about 6 x-men to take out their vital units and I don´t put my spears on the walls until they reach the walls, then I rush them up there. When one ore more units routs rush them and you´ll easilly creat a mass-rout.

[Barny Bangs]

I was quite intrigued with the mongols at their first arrival and let my spies watch them leave a wake of sacked rebel towns. At first I thought it funny, how the mighty Turks and Egyptians got their buttocks whooped.

During that time I was in control of Jerusalem and the citadel in Gaza, preparing for a strike against Antioch. Yet what I did not see: the two stacks I watched and mistook for the mongol invasion was just a two-stack-scouting army with the main body trailing behind.

I played out the "mongol situation" three times (à 30 turns) and got some of the best and bloodiest battles I ever experienced in TW:

A. Let 'em come
Bad Idea. At least for me. After sacking Antioch and its neighboring provinces, the Horde turned towards Jerusalem. A huge city at the time, I had a full stack of top-notch units there, mostly archers. I beat them back in three intense battles, but in the fourth battle, they took Jerusalem. To my surprise, they settled there and over the course of the next dozen turns they completely shook the blance of power in the Middle East, wiping out Egypt, the Turks and heading for Constantinople.

B. Give it to them
Worse idea. I called for a crusade to Bagdhad, built four huge crusader armies and tried to battle it out with their armies in the plains. They crushed me. I would call myself a hardened TW-vet, but open-field-battles against mongols was a humiliating experience. My spearmen were worthless, the Templer knights were doing better, still being crushed and my cannons fired two times before their cav was on me. During the next turns I watched as crusader armies from all over Europe bit the dust, only causing minor damage to the mongols. A few turns later they again stood near Jerusalem, now undefended and turned it into their homebase.

C. Guerilla tactics
Yep, good idea. I built three full-stack, top-notch armies with six-star-generals to lead them. I produced reinforcements on an epic scale in Gaza and Rhodos, constantly shipping them to Antioch. Now here's the deal: I lingered near Antioch, waiting for the Mongols to come near the river crossings. There, I positioned my best army plus half a stack reinforcments behind them. The mongols attacked with two full-stackers (and 8-point generals) and I beat them back (yet, a costly victory for me, my first army in shambles, but wiping out two mongol armies)). They lingered near Antioch for two turns, tried another river crossing and got beaten back by my second army. The rest of the Horde turned back east, trying to take another route.
This time I send six single light cav units to the mongols, which they attacked immediatly. I withdrew, luring one of their armies out in the open were I crushed them with brute force (2 armies). I continued this tactic, whitlling down the mongol numbers and finally, I killed off the last stack.
It cost me all of my treasury for a couple of dozen turns, weakened my position in Europe considerly and made me lose my favourite general plus some of my best units. Yet, I can proudly say: The English Empire single-handily repelled the Mongol Invasion and kept Jerusalem save for further generations

[Quillan]

Barny, a stack and a half at a river crossing is exactly how I stopped them in my Byzantium campaign. They came in through Russia in that game, and I was defending the crossings near Iasi. They hit both crossings on the same turn with two armies, exactly like you had, and I held both. Then they moved off northwest. I thought they'd decided the crossings were too tough to force, but a dozen or so turns later they came back. This time they hit one crossing with 3 armies, including 2 of their massive 8-star generals. It was a tough fight, and a close one, but I won. After that, they stayed away from the river and tried to sneak around by Budapest. I fought them in the open field twice, won both, but they were the toughest fights I've had.

[Byzantine Emperor]

In my English game the Mongols are nigh on unstoppable, they are the only reason I haven't won (need Jerusalem!). They own everything east of Constantinople, bar Russia. The Timurids would put an end to them I thought. But no. Timurids lose one battle and then run off and prance around Russia. I have lost around 5 armies trying to take Jerusalem now! Any help? (I only have around 30-40 turns left)

[Sheogorath]

Theres a fairly simple tactic, all it requires is a bit of money and a few cities/castles close to the area you want to drive the Mongols out of:

Step 1. Build as many cheap units as you can
Step 2. Find a Mongol stack, launch your own stack at it.
Step 3. Autoresolve and repeat until the Mongols have achieved a paste-like concistency
Step 4. ????
Step 5. PROFIT!

[NeoSpartan]

WOW!!! Those mongols really seem like the Vane of everyone. It makes me want to slug it out with them... 1st I need to get MTW2 and a new PC.

Has anybody beat them in the OPEN in Medium or higher battle difficulty??

[Napoleon Blownapart]

I haven't fought them myself, but my friend was playing his Russian campaign and beat them by using castles and assasins. The Mongols are defeated if you kill all their family members. Their armies go away and don't turn rebel. Of course, this is only from before the settled, and the next waves will still come.

You may not have any high-level assassins to deal with the family members, but you're apparently the English and your Longbows are perfect archers for siege battles. Try to get some ballista towers or cannon towers if you can. Get your archers on the walls and if they're Yeomen Archers, don't worry about ladders or siege towers, as they're pretty competent in close-combat to deal with the Mongolians.

I try to set up a killing field using archers and towers, where the enemy will try to throw themselves against. My idea is the longer their under my arrow's shadows, they're taking casualties, so I try to keep them there as long as I can. Sometimes a unit or two of militia sacrificing themselves to buy me more time works wonders.

Cannons and catapults screw with this plan of battle a lot, but the AI tends not to guard them very well, often advancing forward with all their forces and leaving the crews exposed. A good time to practice cavalry charges.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Wow, I'm starting to wonder if I should continue my conquering in the Middle East in my HRE campaign...



I know it sounds like a dumb idea, but has anyone thought about just bringing European strength head-to-head against the Mongols?

I'm talking about all-out massed heavy cavalry charges. Forget infantry, forget archers, forget artillery. Hell, forget maneuvering - just an enormous wave of Gothic Knights or Lancers or Hospitallers that tries to get into melee as soon as possible.

Now, I know that historically the classical European charge never found great success in the East, where they charged upon an enemy that simply stepped out of the way and shot their composite bow - but I also know that one of the biggest reasons for the lack of success was the fact that knights were vastly outnumbered. A charge on its own might be devastating, but it was just too little, too late...

...but in M2TW, this numbers problem might not exist. First off, we know they're coming. Secondly, we can get numbers of knights that medieval kings would never have even dreamed of. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we can replenish those numbers if we plan ahead.

Consider, for example, Crusader Knights. Enough Crusades and some babysitting, and you can rather quickly attain huge numbers of them.

I'm not saying that each battle would be anything better than a Pyrrhic victory, and more likely than not a loss, as you're basically trying to play the Mongols' own game by using cavalry. But - and here's the difference from history - what if the charges kept coming?

Gothic and Teutonic Knights against the Khans?

[andrewt]

I played Venice in M/M and am close to beating them back. They dilly-dallied for a while before settling down in Iconium and attacking Smyrna and Nicaea. They rampaged the Turkish and Egyptian lands for 60 turns or so before settling down. They had 10+ stacks by this time, however. I countered with mainly Stradiots, Hospitalliers, Venetian Heavy and Dismounted Feudal Knights. I had some culverins and ribaults as well on some battles with some mixed results

I attacked their flanks with cavalry and their middle with infantry. You can't skirmish that huge an army so they eventually get into melee with my cavalry and infantry and lose. Basically, the cavalry at the flanks cut off some of the escape routes of their main army. Some do skirmish off, but many don't. I position my troops just out of arrow range, then run in.

[IrishArmenian]

Fortify yourself in your castles, make ballista/cannon towers (These will kick their arses!) or, if one has money, pay them tribute and ally with them.

[Comrade Alexeo]

Well, I ran a test of my heavy-cavalry-all-out-charge and the results seem somewhat inconclusive.



My army consisted of

1 late Bodyguard with one armor upgrade, one weapon upgrade, one bronze chevron
6 Teutonic Knights with one armor upgrade
13 Gothic Knights

I don't remember the Mongols' composition exactly, but I remember 2 bodyguard units, and basically 4 each of their cavalry. All had one silver chevron and some had armor and/or weapon upgrades.

For this preliminary, all I did was line up my cavalry in a single massive line, put them all in one group, and as a group just ordered them all to attack the Mongol line as soon as the battle began. I'd occasionally reorder troops to attack (if, for example, they routed and then got back their morale), but for the most part I just let what happened happen.

A massive melee broke out in the center, where my cavalry happened to concentrate. They killed my general, but then I killed their general. Their center buckled, but the Mongols began winning on the flanks and, whether because of that or for some other reason I can't figure out, my knights began to rout. If I gained control of them again, I just sent them back into the fray. Eventually, however, the battle ended in a loss.

I'm not sure what to conclude yet. My nice big expensive army, made of the finest mounted troops the HRE has to offer, was devastated - but I took out over half the silver-chevroned Mongol army and killed their general. I also basically ignored tactics entirely during the battle, but the battle was fought in a nonexistent locale (the perfectly flat Grassy Plain map).

I'll see what happens with a more realistically attainable army of Crusader Knights and so forth later on. Stay tuned...

[ravinnder]

Guerrilla tactics work pretty well. When I was the Byzantines and defending the Balkan area, I consistently tried ambushes. Granted there are not that many forests on the map in certain areas.

However, usually there is a road area that leads to a town that you can count an army will pass through. I used mainly infantry armies for the ambushing - heavy infantry/spearmen and heavy cavalry. If the ambush is a success, you're pretty much guaranteed a victory. Try to engage their heavy cav. section first with their general if possible.

These tactics probably won't work if the Mongols are in full strength, but if most of their main field armies are gone, it could give you the surviving edge without resorting to long sieges.

[Barny Bangs]

As far as the idea of all-out Cav Charge is concerned, Cav vs. Cav. is the toughest problem with the Mongols: My English Knights and Armoured Swordsmen are doing quite well in hand-to-hand against the Mongols, the problem in my case is fighting the lightning-quick Heavy Archers out in the open. In the desert, with room to maneuver, I need two-three Cav units to pin down one unit of Heavy Archers, all the time being peppered by the other Mongol units. And as most Mongol generals are at least 6-star (yeah, encountered two 3-stars, but they were only reinforcements), their units don't even rout when there are only five Heavy Archers left.

An all-out charge (2 Bodyguard units, 5 units of Templars, 5 Crusader Knights, 7 Feudal Knights) I tried once ended in one of the most chaotic battles I ever witnessed. I won, but only by the slightest of margins.

Sheogorath's idea seems simple enough, yet you need a loooot of time and even more money (something I didn't have in my situation).

The idea of hitting them with swarms of spies and assassins sounds intriguing haven't tried it yet though I am in the possession of an Assassin's Guild HQ, as the nearest agent-turn-out facility lies in Rhodes. Yet, will load some old save-game and will give it a try, results posted later.

The idea of holing up in your castles, fortresses and citadels didn't work that good with me, but maybe I just suck in defending fortifications *And for an English King there lies no honor in hiding like a little girl inside the safety of walls* (turn off in-character mode :-)) (you remember that Welsh proverb about walls and bravery?)

My best advice, skirmish ahead with several Light Cav units, luring the Mongol army away from the main host. With lots of single units you effectively hinder the movement of their armies, the Mongols have to chase you around the desert (in my case) and you can chose when to strike and with what. It worked fine for me.... OR SO I THOUGHT:

After defeating eight or nine full stack Mongol armies, I was feeling proud as hell, and dissolved my armies to "pacify" the Middle East. My spies were just checking the damages to the East when suddenly four other mongols full-stackers turned up near Bagdhad. Aargh, I don't have that much money left, the HRE and Venice teamed up to launch attacks upon my Middle European possessions and resupply lines to the front get longer each year.

Still, I am absolutely loving the Mongols for three reasons:

Unique Battle tactics.
In the beginning it was quite a shock to notice that my routine tactics (shoot - nail - charge) did not work anymore (or at least not that well). I adapted my tactics (more Cav, less Inf, nearly no Missile Units as they tend to lose the shoot-outs in a big way).

Powerful enemy.
Yep, without question. Just as things got boring in Middle Europe, as no one seemed powerful enough to withstand me in the long run. The massive, brute force of the Mongols made strategic reconsiderations of my long-term plans inevitable. Loved it.

Balance of Power.
Up to the time of the Mongol Invasion, it seemed like the Middle Eastern factions were keeping checks and balances on each other. Though the Byzantine faction was a little more powerful, I still could exploit their animosities to divide and conquer. Attack Egypt, forge an alliance with the turks, sack some Turkish towns, make peace with Egypt. All the time they kept figthing each other, giving me free hand in laying waste to Middle Eastern cities. No more so with the Mongols. In scenario A. I descirbed above in my other post, they grew to be an worthy, threatening presence.

[Basileus]

Ive found it the easier to defend inside Fortress or Citadels against teh Mongols, in my current campaign i never had time to prepare and they popped up outside bagdad while Mosul only had a general inside. I quickly trained 3 Ottoman Inf and 3 Turkish Archers and never had time to send my JHI so the General was left with hes 3 archer units. I Was expecting a loss so i was building Edessa up to hold the Mongols but my small army in Mosul has so far defended bravely against 4 sieges so far killing all the Mongol inf and lucky enough to be able to retrain between sieges. I´ll play some more tonight and lets see how those brave men in Mosul do in the next siege.

The hard part with the Mongols is the stacks that move together, if you try to attack them you need some stacks your self and in the open its usually tough to beat them.

[chunkynut]

In my first campaign (english) I had taken antioch in a crusade from the eygptians and then adana. The eygptians sued for peace due to their wars with the turks.

Then the Mongols came south and took many eygptian cities, so I prepared an field army of some mercs and other rag tag individuals and got absolutely creamed - so I'm ashamed to admit I reloaded and tried again. Got creamed for a second time but I took many more with me so I felt that was ok. After that I held up in my city and castle and waited while building up some troops. There were some amazing city assualts after that but I eventually lost both the city and the castle due to only having one castle in the area producing troops.

During the 50 turns of fighting european neighbours before another successful crusade to antioch I had many priests/cardinals and about 6 spies and 2 assassins in the area from my previous foray. I caused jerusulam to revolt then moved onto damascus and they revolted, so the mongols had to spend a lot of time and troops suppressing these and thats the only thing that stopped the eygptians and the turks (and maybe the byzantians) from being destroyed.

This meant that when my next crusade arrived in antioch it was nearly undefended and the mongol troops overall capabilities was much reduced and found that they had developed a lot of trebuchets in their armies that threatened my cities but not my armies in the field. I took adana again then adecco (sp? to the right of antioch) another castle and upgraded my middle east regions with ballista and then cannon towers.

After they had obviousy spent themselves on the turks/eygptians/byzantians and then the rebels i formented they were much more easier to handle. I took the city to the south of antioch then jerusulam and that was 45 regions in total :D

[urbancohort]

Have just started fighting the mongols in my Byz campaign. I had reduced the Turks to 1 province and thought i was doing ok, but then 4 stacks of Mongols appeared and attacked my cities in and around Antioch. I fought 4 battles whilst holed up in my cities all lasted over 1 hr, the only city i lost was Antioch the largest one they attacked !! and then i had to stop playing for a while to spend a bit of quality time with my wife

Started playing again, thought i'd seen the last of em then 1 full stack appeared East of Antioch 8 star general, heading for Constantinople on a Jihad. I had to let them take the city as they beat up 3 of my best armies on the way in open country fighting with minimal losses to their own army I re attacked Constantinople with 3 full stacks of (almost) my best troops and took the city back.

Enough i thought, no more Mongols on the map that i could see anywhere

Wrong again !! the "people in flight" message appeared and out of nowhere 8 full stacks appeared again to the East of Antioch. I left it at that and have yet to return, will have another go later on in the week, but it looks like its going to be a long fight.

[JFC]

I attacked a three stack Mongol Spearmen army outside Antioch with a 16 stack army.... The full stack Mongol Army inside Antioch wanted some...
I had:
1 English King
3 Kwazithingymebob Cav Mercs
4 Longbowmen
2 Horse Archers Mercs
2 English Feudal Knights
2 Spearmen
2 Dismounted English Knights

Now the thing was to get rid of the Mongol Spearmen sharpish, which a total cav charge accomplished (Left, right and behind)
As this was going on The Huge horde was starting to walk on the Map. EEEK! From the behind left! "MOVE!" The King bellowed and pegged his army to the other side of the map, BUT left the Kwazi horses in the forest to his right...
With the army running for england to the other side of the field, they started to reform. "CTRL+6!" Came the order. Now the Mongols love those horse archers. As they sent them forward, The King met them with his.
"Let them shoot it out." Came the murmer from the King to the Knight next to him.
The spearmen were placed into their respective shiltrons port and starboard side of the dis eng knights and anxiously waited.
Mongols love Archers. They moved them infront of their infrantry. Cue Kwazi Cav from their now behind...
Archers start to peg it... where?? Towards the longbowmen. "Lovely."
Next they go for broke and now seeing that their archers are getting pummelled they send their cav into the melee.
George Smith (from Putney) Second row in the Spearmen screams "hold... Hold... HOLD!" WHAM! Cav now stopped... "Go dis Eng Knights with your 24 Attack!" BAM! SMASH! ARRGH!

Now the King, during this time has been circling their left flank with the 2 mounted Feudal Knights goes full pelt into what remains of their archers and through to the now fighting spearmen and dis eng knights... Smoke, Dust and Blood is every where....
The Kwazi guys now pick off the rest of the horse archers on the right. Now... "ARCHERS ATTACK!" Pressing the ALT key, they smash into what now remains of the Mongol Cav who now are stood still and being introduce to English Steel and Vengeful Anger. Like a rabid bunch of England Football Supporters the archers go at it with their hammers, hitting anything that doesn't have red or yellow cloth in the total chaos that is man and beast.

White flags are now appearing from the Mongols... "Had Enough??!!" Battle horns for the charge are sounding louder as the Mongol General is taken prisoner and their whole army now screams "To the hills!"

The Second Lt, now dripping in blood and sweat trots up to the now exhausted King who is looking at the carnage of broken flags, lances and men, "A day to remember, Sire."
"Yes it is.... yes it is."

The rest as you can imagine.... is history.

[Kraxis]

You actually got English Dismounted Knights to use their weapons against cavalry?

[Darth Nihilus]

In my Denmark campaign the Mongols invaded near Sarkel (sp?), but I had castles all over the place. So they simply bypassed them and went to the closest city I had, and that was Kiev. They laid seige with about 4000 troops (not all of their troops mind you). I had about 1100 troops garrisoned in my city with large walls. I had been smart and I had stocked up on crossbows, so I hav like 8 units of crossbows. They attacked with a few seige towers and rams, wich were promptly set on fire before they could reach my city. Needless to say I shot up about 500 or so of their army before they retreated (and they had attacked with a 10 star, 10 dread general).

The next turn they attacked again, and succeeded......kind of. I should have set a battle timer. They knocked down my gate, we had a big melee, then they retreated to the field and waited for me. Knowing that I would get decimated with all of my archers, I just quit the battle and lost the settlement.

[Orda Khan]

Nice account JFC
An ambush like that is about the finest tactic to trap and destroy HA

......Orda