Turks are much harder than Scots

**Didz** · 06-13-2007, 16:44

Picking up on the Scots are weak thread posted earlier, I have to say that playing both a Scottish campaign and a Turkish Campaign in parallel I'm having much more problems with the Turks.

Quite apart from the occassional crusade that comes stomping through your lands, I am currently having to deal with the Timurid invasion from the East and an overspill from the Mongol horde from the north.

So, far I've lost two cities to the Mongols (didn't even bother fighting those seiges as they were totally no hopers due to minimal garrisons) and Mosul to the Timurids.

The assault on Mosul was amazing to play. Mosul was a fortress and fully garrissoned with Ottoman infantry, Saphi's, a few Turkish archers and two General's body guards. The Timurid's attacked with two whole stacks.

The shear volume of arrows flying in all directions was incredible, as was the way the elephants just seemed to shrug everything off (I think I killed one in the entire seige). I killed over half the Timurids including one general but lost my own when the gate to the inner keep refused to close and I had to drive off two charges by Mongol Lancers. Eventually it did close and there was another massive archer fight below the inner gate, until they brought up a spare ram and smashed the gate down. If I'd noticed the ram earlier I might have managed to destroy it and that might have made a difference, though I was almost out of arrows.

After that it was all over as my men went into panic mode.

The problem is, even if I defend every city just as fiercely by the time the Timurid's run out of stacks my empire will be wiped off the map.

The Scots certainly don't have to cope with that.

**Husar** · 06-13-2007, 16:57

Originally Posted by Didz

The problem is, even if I defend every city just as fiercely by the time the Timurid's run out of stacks my empire will be wiped off the map.

Don't forget that they can build new stacks in Mossul now.

But, why don't you have janissary troops by the time the Timurids come? Field some janissary archers and JHI and that army should cope with at least one timurid stack. I also tend to wait until the hordes have finally found a place to live, then their stacks spread out and it's easier to fight them one after another, you'll still lose some armies and maybe some settlements, but after a while you should be able to enter reconquista mode.

**andrewt** · 06-13-2007, 16:58

I never had to deal with them as I finished my Turk game before the Timurids showed up. That and the Mongols attacked Russia and haven't declared war on me yet. Their huge initial stacks and ability to build 0 upkeep units make them a huge pain, though.

I'm just curious why your army composition is the way it is so late in the game.

**magnum** · 06-13-2007, 17:30

First time I faced the Tims it suprised me. I had been handling the Mongols fairly easy using a defensive strategy (the mongol AI is terrible at attacking, but does a decent job at defending.) Figured the Tims would be about the same.

Best battle I've had though was an almost full Janissary army facing two full stacks of Tims, all 3 silver chevron monsters. I destroyed the first wave (stack) by luring them to attack me. The second stack though wouldn't budge off their hill emplacement so I had to attack them. About half way through my assault up the hill their damn elephants (2 units of normal elepahnts, 2 units of the artillery elephants) came charging down. Talk about fun. They followed the elephants up with heavy Lancers and did enough damage that the battle ended in a loss. My best army against two stacks of their best.

Close, but a losing battle. Fortunately with 10 cities I could replace my loses while they couldn't. In the end that is the Turks strength when facing the Mongols and Tims. You can replace your loses more easily then they can. Press your advantage while you still have one or you face extinction.

**rvg** · 06-13-2007, 17:38

Turks, imho, have a fantastic unit roster which more than makes up for their precarious geographic position. Horse Archer armies early on, then gradually phased out by infantry-based armies. Stakes, musketeers, tough spearmen, Turks have it all plus a decaying Byzantine Empire for a neighbor.

**Betito** · 06-13-2007, 19:10

The trick i used to deal with mongols and timurids was to use the map to my advantage:

First of all, i gave Tsibili and Yerevan to Egypt, so they would face them first. I think i don't need to mention they were absolutely no match for the mongols, but they did last some handy 5 or 6 turns.

I used these turns to create 2 main defending stacks, each with reserves. The stacks consisted of my general, 5 to 7 spear units (saracens preferred, dismounted sipahi and spear militia as second choices). 5 to 8 foot missiles, i used Turkish archers minimum, sporadic ottomans... no janissaries as i couldn't build them, 4 to 6 HAs, at least half of them were sipahis. Some merc kwarazm(sp?) cavalry and, if i could, one artillery. Reinforcements were loads of spear militia to replace the spearmen who dies, and more missiles

I prefered spears over JHI because my plan was not to kill them on melee, but to hold them with my spears and let the missiles to their stuff. This is a task that, believe it or not, JHI are not quite capable of doing

Well, with these stacks i went straight to the bridges and river crossings. I kept one at the river crossing that gives access to Mosul and Eddessa, right between the mountains , and moved the other none to a middle ground between the said river crossing and the bridge that is north of Mosul. The idea was that i could have that general to defend either the bridge or the river crossing when needed.

The mogols at first were ALL for the bridge at first. That bridge proved to be holy, even without janissary archers. It has nice high grond the the missiles, and a nice low ground exactly where the bridge is, missiles behaved just as expected. After the second wave, my infantry lines were too fragile to hold the entire attack, but managed to hol long enough to let the missiles kill the heavy cav. Then, i relied on the sipahis and heavy cav the duty of killing the rest of them, which they managed to do... not without dying a lot themselves.

Then, they went north and tried to reach through the river crossings. I proceeded to reinforce the decimated general, and go aid the other stack, which was untouched at the moment. Those river crossings were even better than the bridge: Even higher hills, even harder to reach my inf lines... easy.

Then the timurids come and i thought it would be mor eof the same.... i gave Tsibili and Yerevan to the russians this time, and placed my stacks.
Then i got caught by surprise, because these guys, instead of concentrating their forces in the same useless way as the mongold did, spreaded out: trebizond, the river crossings AND the bridge at once. Not only that, but the elephant factor is one to be respected, a lot.

I lost the bridge and the crossing, and almost lost trebizond too: that was an aaaaaamazing siege, in which i lost 3 valour 7 sipahis, and some valour 4 JHI. Luckily for me, i already had muskets by then, and it was them the heroes of the story, shooting and shooting from the city's central plaza, and finally routing the sabbadars and heavy lancers. I ended with 50 surviving muskets.

Still, i was in an inconvenient position with these new horde... My last resource was to call a Jihad to the 'far west'... i think it was Thessalonica, Byz's capital. That got two timurid stacks out of the eastern fight, and then i managed to re-organize myself.

I loved that campaign!! Turks soooo rock!

**Didz** · 06-13-2007, 20:00

Originally Posted by Husar

Don't forget that they can build new stacks in Mossul now.

Not yet they can't. All they did was trash Mosul and it went Rebel. So I'm hoping to take it back once they move on to Edessa.

Originally Posted by andrewt

I'm just curious why your army composition is the way it is so late in the game.

Possibly a playing style difference. I tend to concentrate on economic development and limit my expansion to mission targets so my castles only get the benefit of any left over cash.

In theory this ought to be a good strategy as it ought to generate a lot more income over time and thus lead to faster military development too. However, empirical evidence suggests that it doesn't work as well as the 'slash and burn' approach used by other players.

Witness the fact that my best troops are only Ottoman Infantry and Sipha's

I think if I play Turks again I might change the time line to 1 year per turn as 155 turns is just not long enough for my style of play.

**andrewt** · 06-13-2007, 21:04

I concentrate on economic development early, too. I build mines first, then farms, ports, then merchants and all that stuff before building anything for troops. I expand early and create some good trading provinces early on to create a good economic base.

However, in my Turk game, I took a look at their 4 starting provinces and decided immediately that 3 of the 4 would suck bad economically. So I went for Antioch ASAP and captured the cities on the coast. The difference is that I did expand quite a bit but I like building up my conquered cities as well. I didn't conquer Baghdad at all and in retrospect, I probably would only convert Edessa and not Mosul to a castle. I probably shouldn't have bothered with Mosul.

In my game, I think I can create Janissary musketeers from 8 or so provinces before the Timurid invasion. That would make things easier. That and the Qapakulu. If you can get Janissary archers, they're better than Ottoman in longer fights. Ottoman has better stats but has comparatively low morale and no hardy trait. They get tired easily.

**Husar** · 06-13-2007, 22:10

Ottoman archers don't have stakes to deploy, that's a big difference against Mongols and Timurids.
Onl drawback is on huge units, in order for the stakes to cover the whole front of the archers, they need to deploy in squares, not in lines. What unit size are you using Didz? On huge units it should also be easier to pin enemies on roads, that's why I find it hard to imagine a whole stack is unable to defeat against a Timurid attack, though I'd have used some spearmen against all those horses.

**Kobal2fr** · 06-14-2007, 03:41

I have to say I hate Turkey itself. Not in a cultural way, mind you - but the road networks are incredibly weird and annoying (Aaaah, Caesarea...wide open spaces, with only a useless little stump of road to cover it all...), and it takes ages to cross those mountains to link two cities... Tbilisi is about as far from Iconium as Caen is to Marseilles, but it takes like thrice the time to make the trip :/
Plus all those mountains make it hell to deal with brigands - one stack pops up 4 turns away from a city, and when you finally get there they're camping a mountaintop even sherpas wouldn't want to consider climbing...

Which is usually why my Turkish campaigns don't last long. Love their roster, love their stratmap specificities... Hate hate hate hate their lands.

**andrewt** · 06-14-2007, 04:41

After finishing a Turks campaign, my advice is not to bother conquering Edessa or anything east of it. Come to think of it, might as well abandon Yerevan and Mosul or gift it to somebody else.

**Didz** · 06-14-2007, 10:39

I'm seriously considering cutting my losses and abandoning this campaign as I'm not sure I can pull it round.

The current situation is as shown below.

The Mongols appeared somewhere to the north and it sounds as though they have trashed most of Russia. I heard that they have captured Kiev anyway. Then about 10 turns ago they appeared on my Northern border and captured Tbilisi and soon after that Yerevan, I only had small garrisons in those cities as they were in theory not under threat.

I was gearing up an army to deal with this threat when the Timurid's arrived near Baghdad. They ignored Baghdad but beseiged, captured and abandoned Mosul. They then marched south past Baghdad and I hoped they were going to bother the Eygptians.

I used the army I was planning to send agains the Mongols to recapture Mosul from the Rebels, but now the Timurids are back and this time they have captured and abandoned Baghdad.

At the same time I now have Mongol Armies besieging Mosul and Edessa, and I have lost Constantinople to the Hungarians. All I need is the Pope to declare a Crusade to Antioch to make it a full house.

The main problem I have now is that every florin I get is being spent of troops and because I have so many troops I don't get much money anyway. So, I get the impression I'm on a spiral to oblivion in this campiagn.

Perhaps my only hope is that the Mongols and Timurids clash and mutually destroy each other but thats a faint hope, and a lot less likely than a Crusade to Antioch. I might try starting a Jihad to Tbilisi just to see if I can get the Egyptians to send an army or two against he Mongols, but again its a faint hope.

Basically, I think I needed more time to develop my economy and begin to build up a decent level of military technology.

**Shahed** · 06-14-2007, 10:49

Didz could you please post that savegame on www.sendspace.com ? I'd absolutely love to have a look at it. Looks like a real challenge. I could also perhaps help you with some advice after having that closer look. It's definetly not going to be easy though, and some creativity might have to be applied.

EDIT: Also I've never had this kind of challenge so it would be awesome for me to play it.

**Kobal2fr** · 06-14-2007, 10:55

Wow, are you in deep Bantha poodoo :/
It's going to be hard for you to win against that in the long run, not because they have so many stacks per se, but because you haven't expanded West enough I'd say. Meaning the brunt of your income comes from the first cities the Timurids are going to blitz, and after they've fallen you'll only have your little kingdom of Timbuktu+Arguin to fuel your whole faction... Sounds like you're going to live in interesting times

(BTW, how did you even manage to get over there without having to blast through the uncharted regions of your map ? Sent a diplomat to buy the city ?)

EDIT : have you considered kindly giving them the directions to Egypt ?

**hisn00bness** · 06-14-2007, 10:59

buying timnuktu from the moors is almost always a good idea .... consider the cost of sending an army large enough to guarantee capture of it all those years through the desert instead.

Think last time I bought it for an alliance offer and 12000 florins

**Didz** · 06-14-2007, 11:05

Originally Posted by Husar

On huge units it should also be easier to pin enemies on roads, that's why I find it hard to imagine a whole stack is unable to defeat against a Timurid attack, though I'd have used some spearmen against all those horses.

I'm using Huge units.

This seems to work better for spearmen and infantry but I've found horse archers useless in units of 80. I've tried using them en-mass several times but their skirmish function just doesn't work properly at that scale.

Firstly, if you put them in open order they simply don't even attempt to stay out of trouble, they just stand there and get overrun. If you accept the higher casulaties of being in close order they occassionally avoid infantry charges but cavalry either overrun them, or boxes them into a corner and massacres them.

And trying to get them to circle is just a nightmare, they either don't do it at all, or if they do, they manage somehow to circle their men into the enemy formation so they literally circle to their doom one by one against the enemies spears, bit like a queue at a slaughter house.

In small numbers I find horse archers great but an entire army of them is just a distaster from start to finish at this scale.

**Didz** · 06-14-2007, 11:15

Originally Posted by Kobal2fr

BTW, how did you even manage to get over there without having to blast through the uncharted regions of your map ? Sent a diplomat to buy the city ?

Nope I used the same approach I used in my Scottish Campaign (see the Scottish Blog in AAR).

I just started by sending merchants over, landing them on the coast and walking them across the desert. Then I sent an army over and captured it. Its a bit dodgy, if your at war with everyone, but I tend not to be so the risks are worth it.

Except for the Army transort I didn;t even bother using a fleet, just one boat weavering in and out of the enemies and trying to avoid pirates.

Originally Posted by Sinan

Didz could you please post that savegame on www.sendspace.com ? I'd absolutely love to have a look at it. Looks like a real challenge. I could also perhaps help you with some advice after having that closer look. It's definetly not going to be easy though, and some creativity might have to be applied.

EDIT: Also I've never had this kind of challenge so it would be awesome for me to play it.

Done
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xrvacb

Must admit the only reason I can think of for carrying on is that its such a challenge. I don't think I've ever found myself is quite such a bad position before. I think Mosul can hold out against the Mogols. I have bombards in there which have been sallying out of the gate and inflicting 20% casualties on the Mongols every turn, plus destroying their seige equipment. And I have Jannisary Infantry in the castle so it is pretty well defended if they do ever manage to assault. Edessa will be more of a challenge as its mostly garrisoned by militia spearmen. But on the whole I think I could cope with the Mongols, if they were on their own. The real problem are the Timurid's if they head inland to Damascus or worse still Antioch then I am in deep doodah's. If they head North or South I might survive, provided the Pope doesn't get excited, but pretty long odds on both counts.

**Shahed** · 06-14-2007, 11:31

Great, thanks ! I'll have a look this evening.

EDIT: Had a quick look and have a quick suggestion: you can try to become a vassal of either the Timurids or the Mongols. This way you have only one of them to fight. The Mongols are easier to defeat, in fact you can kill 2-3 of their stacks on the 1st turn. You might be well off to attack Egypt too (lol). However the Timurids are stronger so they are the logical choice to all/vassal with but I don't know of they will accept. This is not a defeat. You become a vassal for now let them concentrate on someone else, you concentrate on kicking the other out of your lands and take all of Turkey, create a chokepoint at Yerevan & Constantinople. Then you redirect to the other guy, break your alliance or vassalage and attack.

Disclaimer: This is just one suggestion, it's not necessarily the best one or the only one, nor does it claim to be.

**hisn00bness** · 06-14-2007, 12:12

If they head North or South I might survive

correct me if wrong here; but I don't think i've ever seen the Timurids go further south than Gaza...

On that note; hows egypt doing ? there might be time still for you to send an army (by ship to speed it up) south to capture Alexandria ;Caïro; and even Dongola followed by (if the timurids go north to antioch) securing the citadel of Gaza. If you can' t get Gaza nicosia can be an option (could make an excellent reconquista fortress)

This way you could use Egypt as a new economic base to push the timurids back; since they are sure to lose quite a bit of troops taking the north if you play your cards right in Aleppo/Antioch

failing that I don't see an easy way out

**Tusk** · 06-14-2007, 13:20

I just had a bit of a crazy (or fun) idea

- since you are facing two hordes, why don't you do the next best thing and become a horde yourself? (kind of). What I mean is, take some of those full stacks you have in your cities, basically abandon your whole kingdom, load everyone onto ships and sail to northern Italy or France or some such. Of course, you'd have to leave a few units in your cities as a delaying tactic so that you are not totally wiped out before you find your new home. With the full stacks you have in your cities, you could take a whole lot (4-5) italian or French provinces methinks.

There is actually also some basis for this in history - many nations have just packed up and left when faced by powerful invaders, in turn invading some other poor defenceless tribes. A good example is the Swazis when faced by the Zulu invasions in South Africa.

It's a bit radical, but might be loads of fun, and certainly puts more distance between you and the Mongs/Tims. Imagine a Turkish horde descending on Venice/Florence/Bologne! You could also get travel cash by selling all the buildings in your Turkish cities.

**sapi** · 06-14-2007, 13:30

Didz, that looks like a lot of fun

I might grab the save tomorrow and have a play around to see what I can come up with - it'd be nice to have a challenge for once

**Husar** · 06-14-2007, 13:40

Originally Posted by Tusk

I just had a bit of a crazy (or fun) idea

- since you are facing two hordes, why don't you do the next best thing and become a horde yourself? (kind of). What I mean is, take some of those full stacks you have in your cities, basically abandon your whole kingdom, load everyone onto ships and sail to northern Italy or France or some such.

Some people did that in RTW already.
I once also built up the new Seleucid empire on british land.

Haven't done that in Medieval 2 yet, but it's something I might try in the future.

**Didz** · 06-14-2007, 13:51

I suppose the only thing stopping me trying some of the ideas you guys are suggesting is my own personal house policy for playing a muslim faction.

For example, as a muslim faction I will not launch an unprovoked war against other muslim's. Its strictly forbidden by my religion and only the infidel's do that sort of thing, because their's is not the true God.

Likewise, my mission is to protect the sacred lands of my ancestors not take a holiday in northern Italy. Perhaps a possible option would be to offer Egypt protection, in which case I would gain access to their resources without actually killing any of them but I haven't tried that yet.

If the worse comes to the worse I thought I might carry on playing from Africa. Possibly, attempting to liberate Andalulsia from the infidels or even moving back to support Egypt. If I can establish trade with the new world I might have enough income to rebuild.

**Betito** · 06-14-2007, 15:37

Wow, what a hard situation Didz; on saturday, i'll have a close look the your savegame, as it seems quite a challenge. My first question is, how come you don't have constantinople??

In the meantime, remember that both mongols AND timurids are muslims. You can call a jihad to far west lands.... one that belongs to a strong catholic faction, and both of them are likely to respond the call. This will get them new enemied, and will disperse their forces.

Ummm, i see nicaea is rebel, you might as well consider sacking it to pump your money.

Mosul seems well defended, what if you sally?, if you have good troops, you could win that one... or wait till they assault...

Damascus seems like a helpless case.. damn, good luck there!

Also, what about Rhodes and Crete? you could consider sacking those (i can't see who has Rhodes in the mini map)

That's all i can think of for now

**Didz** · 06-14-2007, 15:55