mongols settling down?

[Freedom Onanist]

In my game the Mongols are settling and taking over the middle east as well. I held Jerusalem against 6 of their assaults but in the end I just didn't have the resources there to carry on.

Not sure about their numbers either, they do seem to be able to spam quite eassily. Also, their troop mix appears to be one of the strongest. I hope that when it comes to it my longbowmen can compete. They did in Jerusalem but that was a siege situation. I am waiting till I secured Europe and have enough Retinue Longbowmen to have a pop back at them.

[caravel]

I haven't played MTW2 but the Mongols in MTW1 were similar. They are supposed to be a rampaging horde and they are supposed to expand rather quickly and take a lot of territory. Their cavalry based armies are supposed to be difficult to defeat. Historically their empire stretched from China to Russia to Persia to the borders of Egypt and much of Asia Minor. The Khanate of the Golden Horde were just the western part.

[Vlad Tzepes]

In my campaign as English Mongols settled down in Middle East, taking Antioch and Adana from me.

A long attrition war followed, Mongols besieged my fortress at Aleppo and almost got it, before Antioch rebelled and Adana was conquered by a crusade I called in for help.

So I hoped they were gone for good but horror! after losing their last city Mongols returned to horde appearance, RTW BI style. "A people in flight..." Oh no, not again... Seems one has got to kill al the heirs to solve the Mongol Invasion.

[chunkynut]

In my campaign as English Mongols settled down in Middle East, taking Antioch and Adana from me.

Exactly the same thing has happened to me, I have lost these settlements and now regained them. This has been easier the second time round due to my subversion of the middle east. Once they took these cities much multitude of spies and priests/cardinals in the area 'picked' on ripe cities, converting the population and spies causing uprisings (they took them back but it cost them).

This has stopped their expansion to an extent, they have a much reduced capabilities against the last vestages of the eygptians and the turks/byzantians have lost a few territories between them. I've just beaten off 3 sieges (with many casualties on my side) and lost a field battle to them (massive casualties on both sides tho). They hold all of the middle east still and alot of Turkey bar Antioch and Adana.

Thank goodness the Timurids went to Russia!!

[Quillan]

I take it you guys never played the Barbarian Invasion for RTW, right? The Mongols behave like the Huns, although in some ways the Huns are worse. The Mongols in this game are rather insanely powerful, since almost all their starting units are 6 XP, but you don't get them all at once. In BI, the Huns begin the campaign with 9 stacks sitting in the middle of the steppes. Try the ERE in that game if you want fun with hordes.

But yes, they can settle down. In BI, the mechanic seems to be a little different. One of the "horde capable" factions, when it went into horde, got a bunch of free troops. As long as it was in horde, it didn't pay any maintenance at all for any of its troops except mercenaries, but it also couldn't retrain anything. When they captured a province, they had the option of either sacking it or settling down. Sacking it killed off about 80-90% of the population, had a really good chance of damaging most of the buildings, and collected a ton of money for the horde. Settling down left the population and buildings intact, but the minute a horde settled, they lost half of their free troops (they lost half the remainder when they settled a second city and all the remaining free troops when settling a third) and immediately began paying maintenance.

In this game, I don't see any "horde" troops, and even after the Mongols settled, the maintenance cost on their cavalry shows as ZERO. In my Byzantium game, they appeared in Sarkel region, sacked Bulgar, sacked Sarkel (both were Russian and became rebel), then captured Kiev and settled. I had my own horde nearby, of assassins, and I killed off a few of their generals, sabotaged every building that gave public order, and Kiev revolted. They went back into horde, moved north, took and settled in Smolensk. Since then, they retook Kiev, seized Moscow, Novgorod, Helsinki, Ryazan, Riga, Vilnius, Halych and Krakow.

[chunkynut]

Quillian I think you miss the point, some are saying that in their campaign that the Mongols to not settle down and only wander. Where as in my campaign (and others) they have settled and in mine the whole of the middle east.

As has been said the only way to destroy them is to kill off all the Mongol generals, or they become a 'horde' again.

And yeah I've got all the TW games so I've played BI.

[Vlad Tzepes]

I wonder if Mongols are capable of retraining their uber-experienced units. In my game, I was so worried about letting them grab a castle/fortress/citadel that I basically invited them to focus on cities.

The money they seem to have + ability to retrain heavy lancers and all those missile troops would make them unstopable (+ an aggressive AI, of course... ).

And yes I know the "horde respawn system" from BI (I'm vet player since STW) - but I didn't notice the differences when Mongols settle in MTW2, thank you for that.