Mongols are tough!!

[Jagger]

As Venice, around turn 145, the mongols finally attacked me near Budapest. The Mongol army was lead by a 9 or 10 star general and was a full stack of about 1300 men with a nice combination of hvy/light cavalry, bows and infantry. Large numbers of the mongols had bows.

I hastily put together an army of 1500 men lead by my one 10 star general, the faction leader. I had 7 units of pikes, 2 units of Italian spear militia, 2 units of Italian hvy infantry, 3 units of musketeers/handgunners, one bowmen unit, a poor mix of cavalry with only one barded hvy cavalry unit and a mortar. It was the best I could put together on short notice.

The battle was a massive struggle. All my musketeers/handgunners and bowmen were rapidly decimated by a rain of arrows. Then the mongols just started picking off my pikes, spear militia and cavalry. I was taking heavy casualties but had nothing left to respond with except my one mortar. I finally sent a couple of militia cavalry to trap one mongol light cavalry arrow unit off and behind my right flank. Those units were just swarmed by other mongol cavalry. I immediately sent the rest of my cavalry to rescue them from their predicament. I hated to separate them from my infantry but I didn't want to lose a third of my cavalry. As this cavalry battle developed off my right flank, suddenly the mongols launched a general attack across my front with the greatest concentration on my left flank pikes and my one left flank schiltron spear militia. My left was weakest with all my cavalry tangled in melee off my right flank and the mongols hit the left hardest. I countered with my Italian hvy infantry and diverted some mounted sergeants back to my left. Then my schiltron spear militia broke and my left flank started collapsing. All seemed lost as my left crumbled and my cavalry on the right was barely surviving. Then a miracle. The Mongol general died in a charge against the schiltron on my right. Suddenly a mongol unit, here and there started routing. Then the entire mongol army started retiring, most still in good order. My cavalry survivors were able to run down most of the retreating infantry but all the mongol cavalry lived to fight another day.

Amazingly tough battle!!!!! I lost around 500 men to the mongols loss of around 700. But I was losing. I thought I was finished....till the death of the Mongol general. His death lead to the voluntary mongol withdrawal.

Lessons learned? All muskets, arquebusiers, handgunners and bowmen are useless against the massed mongol bows. They fire too slow and firearms had no impact on Mongol morale. Lack of good armor or shields meant they couldn't survive against arrows. The mortar was useful. Although arrows cut down the entire mortar crew except two stunned survivors. The pikes were decimated by arrows prior to the determined mongol assaults beginning. They held but barely. One of the two schiltrons did not hold but they were also very weakened by arrows and the mongols focused on that one unit. My cavalry was able to hold its own but never dominated. They also suffered many losses from the hail of arrows.

And there are more mongols coming...

I must be able to survive and counter their arrows. I must have cavalry that can survive arrows and fight heavy cavalry. So I am immediately building more of my most heavily armored cavalry with barded horses. I am raising more pavise crossbowmen. They might survive the massed bows of the mongols. I need more anti-cavalry infantry to support my spear/pike line...so raising Venetian heavy infantry. I am not sure about the pikes. They can survive mongol cavalry attacks but have very poor armor and no offensive capability. I need heavily armored spearmen-either the Italian spear militia or armored spearmen. They are less effective against the massed mongol heavy cavalry charge but should weather the storm of arrows and have some offensive capability. I am considering a cannon or two but I doubt they would survive long. Mortars are probably better because I can keep them behind my spear line.

Beware...the mongols are out there, looking for you...and they are tough.................

[Hamburglo]

Sweet post. Good luck with the rest of em!

I've yet to face the mongols, but you sure make them sound scary.

[Orda Khan]

Nice account of the battle.
My main concern is the fact you say you were losing, your lines were crumbling and what did the AI do at this stage? Threw in the Mongol general!!!
Not excatly the suicide general bug we remember but not exactly a smart move either. It seems the AI still has much to learn

......Orda

[Butcher]

I've found the best solution to the Mongols: As the Byz's, they've sieged me in Trebizond once every two years for 10 years so far: I have slowly whittled them down, them losing ~1,000 men a siege. The a.i is not clever enough to wait me out, but instead tries to assault through three lines of walls. Add a couple of assasins taking out the odd leader when they can, and the mongol threat is slowly diminishing.

Cheesy tactic I know, but if it keeps them occupied whilst I convert the heathen catholics, then it's fine by me.

[Burns]

If you are able, try to call a Crusade onto a Mongol controlled city. Hopefully that will bring in some assistence whether or not they get to the target city.

[JFC]

The best tactic I used was mercenary recruitment of Archer Cavalry. Fight fire with fire.

[Jagger]

Nice account of the battle.
My main concern is the fact you say you were losing, your lines were crumbling and what did the AI do at this stage? Threw in the Mongol general!!!
Not excatly the suicide general bug we remember but not exactly a smart move either. It seems the AI still has much to learn

......Orda

I am not going to berate the AI on its tactics in that battle. The Mongol general was committed at a crucial moment in the battle. If his unit and others had managed to collapse my right flank as my left was also falling apart, the result was have been a devastating defeat on my part. I often commit my general as well at crucial points in the battle.

Overall, the AI used excellent tactics in this battle which utilized the strengths of the Mongol army very well.

If you are able, try to call a Crusade onto a Mongol controlled city. Hopefully that will bring in some assistence whether or not they get to the target city.

I think I will try to call a crusade on the Mongols. However there aren't many western nations left. England is my ally, strong and would probably join. Denmark is strong but an ally of the Mongols and excommunicated. Spain is also strong but I believe excommunicated as well. Poland has one province left as the Mongols have devoured most of Poland. France also only has two provinces left so is much of a factor any longer. Hungary is weak as well with only three provinces left.

I will have to check the age of the pope. If he is about to die, I may wait till he passes before calling a crusade. That would bring in the most help from the outside as reconciliation might encourage more to join.

Interestingly, I just got a note about a second horrible invasion from the east. Sounds like the Timurids have arrived near Bagdad. If they can take out the Egyptians, their arrival might be good news.

[katank]

Merc horse archers are surprisingly effective against them. In my Turk game, the merc Turkomans and Akinjis were doing better than my own Turkomans and even Siphais in shooting up the Mongols. (Can't be explained by stats at least)

[Bakma]

in my turkish campaign, the mongols didn't attack any country for about 10 rounds.
I started to attack their leaders but as he began to loose he ran away and then many other mongol familie members came from the caspian sea (north caspian)
they started to attack russia and they conquered a russian city but till then, they don't do something why? are they too lazy or what :D

they should eleminate the polish and russians :D

[FactionHeir]

You can prevent extra Mongol reinforcements from coming in from outside the map by killing all their leaders currently on the map. Worked for me in my Milan campaign where I had the entire world and had mass troops and assassins waiting for their arrival, frantically ending turn after turn :)
Only had to deal with 4 stacks that way.

[A jezy]

so it is 1242 and not a single Mongol have pop up yet .is this a bug or something ? or do they come a little later?

[Jagger]

so it is 1242 and not a single Mongol have pop up yet .is this a bug or something ? or do they come a little later?

You are a bit early. Playing as Venice, I didn't have my first battle with the Mongols till around 1368. You will also get a message describing the arrival of the Mongols. But depending on what nation you are playing and the direction of Mongol expansion, you may not see them for quite awhile after the message.

PS: The crusade idea was great. Both the English and Danes have sent full armies on the crusade against Mongol Rega. The Danes started their crusade even though excommunicated and were allied with the Mongols. No longer are they allies. Now quite a few nations are at war with the Mongols. Plus my assassins are hard at work.

[R'as al Ghul]

The Mongols are the scourge of God. They're Gog and Magog. My Venetians (VH/VH) had no idea what kind of barbarian demons they are.
I've first encountered their armies when they marched on and besieged my fortress in Adana.
I tried to stop them in their tracks with a field army, led by Zilio the Mad my only general in Asia minor. My army was pretty Cav heavy with extra Mercs like Alan Light and Armenian Heavy Cav, plus Hospitallers and some foot archers, Venetian Heavy Inf and the odd spearmen made almost a full stack. Unfortunately, Zilio the Mad causes a morale drop of at lest 2 when leading an army. I've tried to beat a 2/3 stack of assorted Mongols, lead by at lest a 6* General, twice with Zilio, but the Madness had already spread amongst my men.
The battles began promisingly, I had the higher ground, I unleashed a hail of arrows, tried to catch his HA with my light Cav but that lead nowhere. I lost more men then the Mongols in the shootout and even the all out Cav charge was happily met by their Cav. Even my infantry support wasn't able to hurt them considerably. I was routed after my charge.

Since then I've developed a new tactic. Zilio was send to exile, he's currently roaming the countryside begging for alms. A captain has taken control of Adana, a proud castle with a strong (8 Venetian Archers, 2 Armenian Archers, 4 DisFeudalKnights, 1 Ballista, 1 Catapult and 2 Armoured Spears) garrison. Slight panic spread nevertheless when two Mongol stacks laid siege and started to build equipment. Around 2000 of those devils where camping around the castle.
When, after 2 turns of preparation, they finally attacked it turned out that only one of their armies brought siege equipment. Well, that made defending easier since I only needed to defend one side of the castle. I was able to set fire on one ram and two siege towers. The ladders that made it to the walls where quite easily repelled by my FootKnights and my Venetian archers rained death on them until their quivers were empty. I managed to kill more than half of them before they retreated. Compared to their army count it's probably nothing but gives me some time to breathe and reinforce. I used this time wisely and drew the Pope into the war by a naval attack on a Mongolian fleet parked beside the Papal Navy. The Pope also got the Nicaea province as a gift from me earlier and hopefully he'll sent some troops. He did so once when I was attacked by the Byzantines. A Crusade could also help.

But, if you want my advise, until further notice (i.e. until someone posts a Catholic counter army), I'd hide in a huge castle and pray to the Almighty that the walls hold them off.

This is a real challenge and I like it. I've also the impression that the AI is doing better when playing Mongol armies but that must be because of the units themselves. Another cowardly advise, autocalc may be your friend if you're really desperate.

[Quillan]

Autocalc is most definitely your friend any time you're facing a missile heavy enemy army, and even more so when it's mostly horse archers. The autocalc doesn't take those into account; it's strictly a number crunch. From playing the Byzantines, I routinely won field battles with minimal losses facing an infantry heavy army, but if I autocalc'd the battle I'd either lose or suffer heavy losses. My first heroic victory came defending a bridge against an all dismounted knight army with nothing but horse archers. The game figured 2:1 odds against me, and I think I lost about 40 men fighting it out. Put together an army of armored spearmen, fairly cheap and bulky units, smack into a Mongol army and autocalc it. Odds are fairly good you'll win, where if you fought it on the battlemap you'd lose hideously.

Personally, I don't recommend this as it feels like cheating to me, but it's one way to win. It's up to you if you want to do it.

[Mandos]

The Mongols' powerful generals are their greatest strength. Use assassins to take out a family member, then use night attacks to isolate the stacks lead by captains. Use mostly cav of your own and pin them. Mongol armies are actually about half infantry archers, so kill those first with cav. Even with no general on their side it will be a tough fight, since each mongol unit enters the map with 6 exp points! (on VH at least)

[Vlad Tzepes]

The Mongol Horde taught me to plan in advance my defences.

During my first campaign, as English, they took my Antioch and Adana and, after long sieges, Aleppo as well, sieging with multiple stacks, slowly wearing down my longbowmen and knights, as I had no way to retrain or reinforce them. I was bankrupt and lost.

During the second one, as well as English, I abandoned Antioch, Adana and Aleppo and went south, fortifying Acre and Gaza. Acre gave me an advantage as Mongol stacks had to attack one by one. After several losses, they went looking for an easier bite.

Now I'm on the third campaign, as the Venetians. I heavily fortified Antioch and Aleppo, but the sweet Mongol Horde chose the Russian steppes. They stopped at Vilnius, after I requested a crusade against them - and the fortress there keep switching sides.

I expect them to come south pretty soon (they own Kiev) and search for Constantinopole. I plan a defensive position on the Danube (a bridge battle), then retreat to the fortress (soon to be upgraded to citadel) in Sofia, and then for the final battle in Constantinopole (that's a campaign win condition for Venice, so no way of losing that).

The only open battle against Mongols was somewhere in Anatolia, and looked more like a skirmish: I commanded 2-3 units of light and heavy cav, 4 longbowmen. They had 4 units of Heavy Lancers and several units of infantry. There were lots of impassable cliffs on the battlemap, so I hoped I'll be able too shoot them out from a distance. It was like throwing confetti at them.

The AI took two separate paths in approaching my forces and, despite my relocation efforts, soon caught me in a pincer movement. Everybody fought valiantly but... hell, they didn't even ask for a ransom...

[cambrax]

I've had most success fighting them with heavy cavalry. I've been throwing massed charges (8-10 units) straight at the mongol lines, then withdrawing, with a small number of infantry and missle units safe on a hill somewhere. Seems to be about equal losses from a properly managed charge, and it certainly works over several battles as a war of attrition.

[Lycan]

6 exp??!! ..yeah dosent look too good for my russians then. I just got the Mongol arrival message in my vh\vh rus campaign. Never fought the Mongols before but i remember something from MTW1 about "The Horde of the Tartar is numberless. Each one has the head of a dog and carrys about him enough weapons to arm several christian warriors. God help us should they look to the east" or something like that.
lol I'm currently at war with the Danes, HRE, Byz and the Hungarians with no money to buy a ceasefire. Thats the Russian economy for ya. Just gotta hope that my Grand Duke Miroslav The Merciless with his 10 star command and 9 dread can put a hole in them. He's been rampaging about east-europe since he was 16 with basicly the same full stack of Khazaks(all with 3-5 exp now) that can massacre a high tech full stack of western inf with almost no losses. Danish mothers probably scare their children to got to bed at night by telling them Miroslav is coming. But I guess theres always a bigger fish...

[FactionHeir]

At least in MTW you could bribe them into your faction and actually keep all the mongol troops in that stack. As a byzantines then, I had bribed 2 mongol generals with troops over a few turns and had them duke it out with each other before sending in the experienced byzantine army (i didn't know how to retrain back then, so I had loads of half units but very experienced)

[Orda Khan]

Without all those upgrades the Mongols would pose as much threat as they did in MTW. IMO relying on upgraded units and huge armies is pretty naff. It would have been better to give them the stats they deserve

.......Orda

[Shahed]

Jagger just read your first post. That was a great battle.

You gave a lot of helpful tips and the account itself is helpful.

You fell for every trick in the book, did'nt you ? Go for the isolated bait, then overcommit your only mobility i.e your cavalry. then while your mobility is tied down, general attack. Man that would be heaven for any cavalry commander. Lucky you got out of that one, must have been wild. I would have loved to watch a battle replay of that one.

I've lost a few generals like that though, head on charge into spears (haha!), is not always as good as it's generally supposed to be.

[supadodo]

Bridge battles are your best friend should you fight them beyond walls. Put lots of spearmen at the end and watch a horsey massacre. I also recommend using units with the effective vs armor trait like sword staffs and Halberds, they are great at taking out the hvy lancers. I also noticed alot of times that if you take out their general, they get a huge drop in morale. Example: General runs across bridge to waiting spearmen and became the first to die. All other units including Heavy lancers bottled it soon after engaging.

[ChewieTobbacca]

First time playing as the Turks, the Mongols first arrived south of Baghdad. Fortunately, I had planned it out and had my armies ready at the bridges and crossings. I'd have a deep formation of spears (usually dismoutned sipahi lancers) supported by JHI's and tons of Ottoman infantry. These were the only open battles where I won consistently (one of my stacks once defeated 2 stacks, but had they sent a third stack, I would have been utterly crushed).

The only open field battle I had against the Mongols, I was completely destroyed despite having superior numbers and troops. The high dread + command rating of the Mongol commanders means that your units will rout quicker and the Mongols will fight harder.

As in real life, the Mongol advantages of firepower and mobility have to be negated to beat them - if you can fight them in a forest area, you'll have a considerable advantage with an infantry army. Otherwise, pin them either to a siege or a bridge or pray.

I defeated the first wave of Mongols then turned west without realizing that more stacks spawn... this time, I wasn't as well prepared and had to scrap up an army out of nothing. Fortunately for me, I was able to grab the river crossings before they got there. With the enemy down to half a stack left, they went into Jedda when a major earthquaek struck, killing the Khan and disbanding the Mongol hordes.... for now.

[ChewieTobbacca]

BTW I LOVE The fact that the Mongols are so tough in this game... the ones in MTW were a pushover (talk about funny having 15 full stacks ready in Khazar to push em out as soon as they spawn), these are much much tougher

[R'as al Ghul]

A fair encounter:



I'm taking bets on the outcome.

[Spartiate]

I always take Acre and Jerusalem and simply wait for the Mongols to attack. I garrison Acre with 10 units of infantry and 10 units of missile troops. After each succesive Mongol attack i repair my walls and reinforce from Jerusalem. Eventually they get so weak that they head off in a northerly direction and bother someone else. The real challenge is when the Timurids show up.

My other strategy is to keep a full stack of missile cav and heavy cav back a ways from a city and then attack the besieging army as they settle down to build their siege engines.This way i generally outnumber them.

Some day i hope to be brave enough to take the Mongols on in a fair fight

[Basileus]

I thought i would try something different on my last Turkish campaign but alas things developed differently then i hoped. The Mongol horde arrived near bagdad but did not attack it, it had 4 JHI/4 Ottoman Inf/6 Saracen Inf and of course the plan was to keep defending there, so i quickly trained 6 Ottoman Inf in Mosul which i expected would be the target and it ended up being so. I ended up destroying almost 3/4 of the horde with those 6 Ottoman Inf hehe and used Assassins to kill the leader and the heir to finish the Mongols.

5 Years pass and the Plague strikes while i get crusades and my Allies Russia/Egypt declare on me aswell so im at war with everyone except the Moors. I never had the chance to prepare/rebuild my small empire for the Timurids so i thought i would try to assassinate their generals, 8 Assassins stealth towards the Timurid nobles at Yerevan and luckily enough with the support of another 2 fresh Assassins i ended up destroying the Timurids with only a city loss in Yerevan.

This was basically the best and easiest way i´ve ever defeated both hordes, funny thing is i´ve made my own Timurid army now hehe, got 1 stack with 6 Elephant Artillery and 2 Elephant Mercenary units and some HA with a general that pretty much steam roll over everything in their way. The plan is to send them over to the new world and scare the little Aztecs. :D

[Jagger]

I just had my second battle with the mongols in the open fields between
Budapest and Krakow.

Again, my Venetian army had my 10 star faction leader as commander. My troops were composed of pikes, one Italian spear militia, pavise crossbows, 3 units of Italian heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. The Mongols were the standard full stack commanded by a great general.

First things first, I assassinated the Mongol general...hurray. Then I attacked.

One thing about the Mongols, they don't fight defensively. They are very aggressive troops and controlled the flow of the battle from start to finish.

Another hard, hard battle. If you have an open flank anywhere, the Mongols will find it. I could not protect my pavise crossbowmen and they were massacred by cavalry. Part of the problem is due to the crossbowmen's inability to skirmish properly. When charged, they take too long to run.

Pikes are not the answer to the Mongol cavalry. Again the Mongol cavalry will find and hit any open flanks of pikes. Pikes hit on the flank do not perform well. However, my one spear schiltron survived multiple attacks while locking the Mongol cavalry in place for my cavalry and heavy infantry countercharges. My pikes suffered very badly but the schiltron performed heroically. Next battle, I am not bringing pikes. I am going entirely with schiltron Italian spear militia.

My Italian heavy infantry performed well attacking the Mongol heavy cavalry but they paid dearly. I started the battle with 210 and ended the battle with 24.

I took the victory with losses of about 550 men with the Mongols losing around 700. Even worse, the Mongols paid the ransom for the troops I captured. I will have to fight them again.

In the meantime, I am withdrawing to rebuild my army.

[Spark]

Time to resurrect the mongol topics :D

I'm basically having one hell of a time fighting off the (now settled) mongol hordes. I'm currently playing Milan, the typical european army consisting of a solid mass of steel slowly marching forward. My armies consist of some armored pike militia, a lot of dismounted men at arms & feudal knights forming a solid wall of armor (24 defense rating, 10 armor, something like that), several genoese crossbowmen units to make swiss cheese of approaching infantry, and Famiglia Ducale heavy cav duked out in even more armor to steamroll enemy infantry formations and stop enemy cavalry charges. I also hire some free company men at arms (mercenaries) for their very strong offensive abilities.

Of course the problem is when said mass of steel can't touch the mongols :p

In this campaign, Milan has been more or less occupied with every territory west of Constantinople. Meanwhile, the mongols have been ravaging through the middle east, reaching as far as Constantinople and sofia (Sharing borders with what's left of of hungary, poland and the HRE). 150 turns into it, the last city I had to take was Constantinople, which I did via amphibious assault on a crusade, catching the mongols off-guard (I think they had about 10 units in the huge city). I also had a spy to unlock the gates and attacked at night with my band of elite units from my european campaigns, and the mongols practically got slaughtered in the streets of Constantinople with very few casualties on my side. Crusade successful, campaign victory, my 2 crusading generals get a bunch of traits (8 stars each) and my elite units gain even more experience.

After all that, I decide to take my army out to clean the territories west of Constantinople of mongol influence. Oh how big of a mistake that was. I find that anything outside of cities/forts gets absolutely chewed up by the mongols. I have sealed off the 2 passageways across the bosphorus strait so that the mongols have no way of reinforcing their armies via their cities to the east, but their 6 or so stacks currently present are just overwhelming.

I've had to resort to many less-than-honorable tactics:
- hole up in cities/castles, and build forts at the end of every turn. Mongols are very much horrible when forced to face european heavy infantry man-to-man in melee.
- autoresolve. Seems maneuverability counts for nothing, since heaviliy armored & high chevron infantry & cavalry easily beat overwhelming numbers of mongol light cavalry & infantry in calculations.
- bridge fights. Pretty much clog up the bridge and force city-like combat where it boils down to a melee, which I win. The arrows cause a lot of casualties, though.

When it comes to the open field, though, my only option seems to be to just sit there and let them decide the outcome. Have others figured out winning field strategies with typical european units? My cities put out about 100k florins a turn, so money is not a problem.

- The Milanese have no light cavalry (you've got an outstanding superheavy cavalry unit, and that's pretty much it) and no decent horse archers (mounted crossbowmen are terrible against mongol horse archers), so beating them at their own game seems like a bad idea.
- Lines of pikemen seem to get decimated before the mongols charge you, and even then they are particularly good at finding weaknesses in your lines (this is VH/VH btw).
- I'd love to be able to use musketeers, only they literally do not fire in the face of arrows. As soon as even one man in a musketeer unit dies, the entire unit reforms and keeps reforming for as long as people are dying = no chance to fire off a shot (what the hell were you smoking, CA?!?). Guns should be the solution, but not with the way they currently work :\
- There are not enough HA mercenaries to field against the mongol hordes.
- Can you fight them with masses of genoese crossbowmen? The genoese are really good at absorbing arrows, but when it gets down to hand to hand fighting, they will lose out, so you can't field too many crossbowmen and too few line infantry/cavalry. Might be worth trying.
- Heavy cavalry seem to fare well (their armor can take a lot of arrows, and they beat mogol cavalry in a fight) but I haven't tried massing them, nor do I think I can keep up a stream of reinforcements for top tier cavalry. None of their archers can penetrate armor, so this might be worth trying also.

The only options I'm seeing are to slowly fort-crawl your way to their cities and take them in one turn with artillery, then repeat the process. I tried maintaining a siege once, and the next turn they sallied. Before I could get all my lines set up, there was a whole sea of horses/archers/any combination of the two pouring out of the gates and onto my forces. I charged all my infantry/cavalry into them and somehow managed to push them into their city, where the remainder of my infantry did its duty. Losses were heavy, to say the least. Anyways, I'm wondering if anyone else has managed to find a decent strategy yet.

[katank]

Even with experienced Eastern armies, beating Mongols in field battles is fairly dicey. Since you seem to be able to afford it, I think your best bet is simply mass heavy cavalry.

If supplying tons of top tier Ducal cav is a problem, I suggest trying tons of BG units (20 BGs, I kid not). Sounds like you have plenty of regions. All the generals are probably worthless and sitting in cities getting fat/corrupt, reducing income. Their BGs regenerate if they live. You'll also get adoptions to replace those that die.

Other than that, maybe massed xbows on a hill might work. Simply march huge stacks up in the meanwhile to take their cities and grind them down. Note: Mongols horde and aren't simply eliminated when you take all their cities.