Will Mongols attack AI opponents?

[Batavian]

I'm relatively new to the game so I have only just experienced the Mongols while playing as the Egyptians. Playing at Medium/Hard and they appeared around Edessa. My question:

Are the Mongols exclusively a human player scourge? Or will they also attack the AI?

Not surprisingly, in my first game as the English, I never saw them. I did receive an announcement though of their arrival and assumed they were wreaking havoc wherever they appeared.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[PureFodder]

Yep, they can and do attack AI factions.

[Batavian]

Thanks.

I thought I was going to be immune from their initial spawn as I had allied with the Turks and they were in control of all my northeastern bordering provinces. I figured that they (the Mongols) would go after the Turks first. But unknown to me, one of the Turk provinces had revolted, leaving the Edessa province border exposed to the Eurasian steppe. That's exactly where the Mongols appeared.

[Kraggenmor]

I'm relatively new to the game so I have only just experienced the Mongols while playing as the Egyptians. Playing at Medium/Hard and they appeared around Edessa. My question:

Are the Mongols exclusively a human player scourge? Or will they also attack the AI?

Not surprisingly, in my first game as the English, I never saw them. I did receive an announcement though of their arrival and assumed they were wreaking havoc wherever they appeared.

Thanks in advance for your help.

My experience in my Egyptian campaign is that they are a 'player scourge' (nice term btw! :) ). I have yet to see them lay siege to an AI town. They've had some meager engagements with AI armies in the field but, no sieges. Even with AI settlements less well defended, and easier pickings, they consistantly come after only my cities and castles.

Just to see what would happen, I had Jihad called on Rome. A large stack of mongols joined it and I had a spy follow them about. That army proceeded to wander in a slow circle that started and ended in Antioch only moving every other turn or so. It even jumped on a boat, shot out to Niccosia (sp?) which was held by me at the time, parked there for a bit and continued it's wandering. All along the way my spy followed it. They never seemed to suffer desertion, despite never really drawing meaningfully closer to Rome and even at times moving directly away from the target. They had settlements with ports and plenty of ships. They could have bought merc ships. Nothing.

Once the Jihad was over, that army headed directly for Gaza.

I've said it before and will again: I understand the AI needing an edge here and there to compete with the human player but, such obvious 'screw the player' coding is OTT.

Certainly, if the human is as you are, out of reach of them they will then attack AI holdings. I don't think they'd sail from Jerusalem to England just to lay the hammer on the player.

[Batavian]

Just to see what would happen, I had Jihad called on Rome. A large stack of mongols joined it and I had a spy follow them about. That army proceeded to wander in a slow circle that started and ended in Antioch...

That's very interesting. Nice comment. Thanks.

[nheero143]

I've said it before and will again: I understand the AI needing an edge here and there to compete with the human player but, such obvious 'screw the player' coding is OTT.

Or is it that they come in usually around Baghdad, so will go for the Turks or Egyptians first? I'm playing as the Turks right now and will reload to an earlier game. Rather than completely eliminate the Byzantines, I probably should have made peace, keeping a buffer between them and Hungary, and focussed on Egypt instead to prepare for the Mongol invasion by Baghdad. They just came in with too many stacks. Ultimately taking Antioch and more. It's a money problem too. I've got to improve my economy skills. Once I can handle them, then dealing with the Timurids is another level more difficult. Hopefully, the skills I develop to get rid of the Mongols will work against the Timurids.

Also, the religious unrest in Byzantium (e.g., Thessalonica) makes holding these cities difficult at such a critical point. Expansion into Egypt would seem a better choice at that point (after capturing Constantinople, and perhaps Thessalonica). Maybe giving the latter city back to them (after sacking it) would be suitable to make peace.

[Midnight]

I've just finished a Scots campaign, and I deliberately toggled off the fog of war to see what the Mongols would do.

They spent about 25 turns meandering around Egyptian territories, not committing any of their massive, powerful and high-command stacks until turn 92, when one stack laid siege to a castle.

I hope the 'more aggressive Mongols' feature of the next patch fixes this, because I was hoping to see the Mongols actually achieve something against readily-available foes.

[Kraggenmor]

Or is it that they come in usually around Baghdad, so will go for the Turks or Egyptians first?

If they had, or would, attack the Turks, I'd agree. Instead they have consistently left Turk castles and cities behind them in favor of attacking Egypt (me). One of the Turk castles they left alone - Edessa - remained completely unmolested by the Horde. Until I took it.

As soon as I took it, the Mongols sent an army over to siege it.

[PureFodder]

In my Moorish campaign the Egyptians were so strong the Mongols could only muster a couple of settlements before they were stopped dead. In my English campaign the Mongols took the entireity of the Holy lands and battered their way through the Turks and Byzantines into Greece.

I was glad my empire was way over in the west and they were way over in the east.

[Arcanthias]

After a couple of easy campaigns in the west, I decided to play the spanish (my favorite from MTW1) and go to the Holy Lands. I sold all my lands in spain and settled around Jerusalem, taking all of Egypt and everything in the north beneath baghdad and Caesera (the Turk had only a couple of region left in the caucasian mountains). When the Mongols arrived (they were one of the reasons I decided to play that way), I was almost ready, with a huge stack at baghdad, and ballista towers. The 3-4 mongol stacks of the 1st wave appeared south of Baghdad, and to my surprise, they went directly to antioch (but moving quite slowly despite their lack of siege weapons). They besieged the city. I won the first battle, but couldn't break the siege, and lost the city to their last two stacks. After that, I took Antioch back (they had very heavy casualties and lost almost everything during the battle but 1 stack). The remaining mongols (1 stack) went to constantinople and waited there until their second wave arrived (also near baghdad), 4 or 5 more stacks, that went straight to constantinople through my lands. They took the city (from the byzantins) but lose it some turns after when it rebelled. After that, their 5-6 stacks wandered some time in yugoslavia, near Ragusa, doing nothing, even when a jihad was launched on jerusalem (my capital).

Their behavior was quite strange. They spent a long time doing nothing. Their attack on Antioch was "clever" in a sense that I never thought they would attack there (I was waiting for them at baghdad, Mosul and Jerusalem). But after that, they never attacked me again. I hope that some patch or mod could make them more agressive. They could have tried to besiege more than one of my cities...

[Aaron A Aardvark]

The Mongols reached Spain just as I won my English campaign. This was around turn 200, so they must have spontaneously wiped out Egypt and probably the Turks too.
Now I have a border with them, (and the Tumerids in Russia) so I'm going to carry on to see what happens.

[hrvojej]

In descr_regions file some provinces are marked as horde targets, among them Antioch and Jerusalem. So, I would imagine that if you hold those provinces, you are more likely to be targeted by the Mongols.

[joe4iz]

The Mongols that have appeared at Baghdad sack all the cities on route to Antioch. They will attack Jerusalem and sack it but will not stop until they set up shop in Antioch. From there they will reconquer the rest of the provinces.
As I have only played as Christian factions , this has been my experience.

I always ask the Pope for the first crusade to Antioch. After I get that city, I sack it and give it to the Pope for mutual army agreements. I then take Acre and try to make a base there.

This keeps the Pope from being the Mongols ally as they did in my first campaign.

[FrauGloer]

In descr_regions file some provinces are marked as horde targets, among them Antioch and Jerusalem. So, I would imagine that if you hold those provinces, you are more likely to be targeted by the Mongols.

True. Other targets are Smolensk, Kiew, and (not quite sure) Constantinople. In my Scottish campaign, they went for Smolensk - pity, as I had been looking forward to fighting them over the Highlander-owned Holy Land.

I followed them with spies to see what they were up to. They arrived near Sarkel, besieged it for one turn, but then abandoned their siege and moved to Smolensk, taking it after one turn of sieging. After that, they just went completely passive, not attacking and not being attacked by the several russian stacks in the area. Lame...

I wonder if anything would change if you designated other cities as horde targets (Budapest would be quite historic, as they were finally held at bay in Hungary) or if the Mongol AI is hardcoded to attack only the default targets. As it is,in my games the Mongols (prior to settling down) never really penetrate far into Europe proper, but stay in the (middle) east.

[Quillan]

In my first campaign (as the Byzantines) the Mongols appeared in the Sarkel region at the northern end of the Caspian Sea. Everything between Iasi and the eastern border was Russian. The Mongols proceeded to sack Bulgar, Sarkel, and took Kiev to settle. The city revolted a couple of turns later, they went back into horde, moved north, and took Smolensk where they settled again. From there, they moved out in all directions, retaking Kiev and snagging Moscow, Ryazan, Vilnius and Riga. It was only after they took Halych from the remnants of the Russians that they decided to go after me.

My second campaign (as the Spanish) they appeared in the Yerevan region. I kept turning FOW off to keep tabs on them. They sacked Yerevan and Tbilisi...at least half a dozen times over. They'd move north into the Sarkel region, get 1-2 moves north of the mountains, then head back south. They'd sack the still rebel Tbilisi and keep moving south. Sack Yerevan again, move south one move, then turn and head back north. Rinse, repeat.

In my third campaign (Venice) they appeared in Sarkel, but at the southern end of the Capsian sea this time. They moved towards Sarkel and sacked it, but didn't get anyplace else because every time they got over to Kiev and sacked it, the next wave of Mongols would appear and the horde would always move back to meet the new arrivals. Kiev was Danish the first time they sacked it, the Danes retook it when the horde moved east to meet the second wave, so they sacked it again, the Danes retook it while the horde was joining the third wave, they sacked it again, the Hungarians took it while the horde was meeting the fourth wave, and the Mongols sacked it again. I finished the campaign at that point.

[danfda]

In my Russian campaign, the Mongols went south and took out Egypt, even though Sarkel was Rebel and there were weak only Hungarians to contend with (I expanded North and West). After I started moving into the Balkans, the Mongols and I were great trading partners and on-again-off-again allies for the rest of the game. Never once did they attack me, and we sailed ships all about each other's waters and no ports were blockaded...It was great. Truthfully, that was the most profitable alliance I've yet had in this game.

When I was Scotland and crusaded about the Middle East, they promptly attacked me. Though I had been sacking and ravaging all of the ex-Egyptian cities and giving them to the Poles and the Pope, I had Antioch left and they took that for their home base. In reality, it was a good decision by their leaders and I did not fault them for it. :)

[nheero143]

If they had, or would, attack the Turks, I'd agree. Instead they have consistently left Turk castles and cities behind them in favor of attacking Egypt (me). One of the Turk castles they left alone (I forget it's name, the one northeast of Allepo) remained completely unmolested by the Horde. Until I took it.

As soon as I took it, the Mongols sent an army over to siege it.

There does seem to be a Mongol conspiracy of sorts against the human player. It seems suspicious at the least. There are high value targets in the code apparently like Antioch, but also they have this behaviour of gathering in stacks, waiting a long time to attack. I reloaded my Turkish game back to move 50 and am replaying it with better results, better economy. Converted more nonstrategic and coastal castles to cities.

True. Other targets are Smolensk, Kiew, and (not quite sure) Constantinople. In my Scottish campaign, they went for Smolensk - pity, as I had been looking forward to fighting them over the Highlander-owned Holy Land.

I followed them with spies to see what they were up to. They arrived near Sarkel, besieged it for one turn, but then abandoned their siege and moved to Smolensk, taking it after one turn of sieging. After that, they just went completely passive, not attacking and not being attacked by the several russian stacks in the area. Lame...

I wonder if anything would change if you designated other cities as horde targets (Budapest would be quite historic, as they were finally held at bay in Hungary) or if the Mongol AI is hardcoded to attack only the default targets. As it is,in my games the Mongols (prior to settling down) never really penetrate far into Europe proper, but stay in the (middle) east.

This time, the Mongols are apparently coming in at Sarkel instead of Baghdad, so the Russians will have their hands full, unless they go South to Antioch again.

So, I think I'll go ahead and take out the Egyptians now, let the Mongols work on the North. but I'm getting worried. They have no land acquisitions yet, but have the biggest army from viewing the power chart. They're massing along the border I guess (~turn 79). It's going to be a big war when it happens and Russia is my ally. I just hope it's not a straight march to Antioch again. But my armies are more substantial this time, higher caliber.

[Multiplicity]

They do attack the AI factions. First time I played Egypt, when the Mongols arrived, they attacked the Turks first. Though oddly enough, Mosul rebelled on the Turks during the siege, and the siege was lifted. Didn't take them long to retarget themselves on me that time. All the otehr times, they tended to settle with other factions. My current one as the Byzantines, they originally took the Kieve region from the Poles, but the Poles managed to take it back and drive the Mongols back into wandering. Now several stacks did reappear during the northern borders of the Turkish lands, but they ended up wandering toward Kiev once more. Only time they attacked me was during a Jihad, and I assassinated the leader leading the Jihad army, making them go away (oh I so love doing that).

[CptPicard]

Sure they do. In my English long campaign I have almost won, and I control most of Europe all the way to the Russian border. All of Russia, most of Hungary and Poland are destroyed by the Mongols and to my dismay they have now nicely settled in the eastern part of the map, and just started attacking my rather weakly defended eastern holdings. Fortunately the Russian provinces are so large that I definitely have the edge, but it's a long way from my core... seems like I'll be fighting all the way to gaining my last 5 provinces, in particular when the remnants of the rest of Europe just won't accept peace even though they're all but destroyed...

By the way, where do the Timurids enter the map, and is there any hope the mongols might end up having to fight them? I really need to get them involved on two fronts...

[Multiplicity]

I think the Timurids have the same entry points as the Mongols do. I have seen them fight each other before when the Mongols totally obliterated Egypt and the Timurids had their eyes on the Mongolion controlled Antioch.

[Husar]

Well, in my current campaign as the Turks the Mongols appeared in Russia and defeated Russia, now they started attacking me and the Hungarians also keep attacking me despite having a huge border with the mongols. Poland, also somewhat threatened by the Mongols, tries to get a ceasefire with me but wants me to pay a lot for it. Now I am the strongest faction despite the Mongols and Timurids(who appeared in their back and are at war with the Mongols) and never attacked Hungary except to lift sieges. That really makes me wonder how the AI sees it fit to attack me rather than prepare for the Mongols?
Now the answer should be obvious since all factions which share a border with the player will attack the player sooner or later.
Alliances are pretty useless since your only reliable allies are on the other side of the worldmap, far away from you so that you can't expect much help from them anyway. I think this is a bit sad and renders diplomacy pretty much useless, but it's called TotalWar after all(in this case I wonder why they even bothered putting diplomacy into the game).

[nheero143]

Alliances are pretty useless since your only reliable allies are on the other side of the worldmap, far away from you so that you can't expect much help from them anyway. I think this is a bit sad and renders diplomacy pretty much useless, but it's called TotalWar after all(in this case I wonder why they even bothered putting diplomacy into the game).

It is aptly called Total War.

I suppose there are ways to keep your alliances in good shape, tribute or other gifts. Making alliances with strong factions is usually a good idea even if they are far away, on the other side of your enemy, who is usually adjacent to you. Also, what seems far away may not be so far away once your empire approaches 45 territories.

I have had a few battles where my ally has shown up to join in. That is so cool, but it doesn't happen very often.

In the present game as Turks, I notice the Mongols at war with Russia, but have not taken any territories yet. I'm at 70% of their strength. I have 40 turns until the Timurids show up, so my strength will have to make a serious improvement by then. But my sights are now on Egypt. Sacking all of those cities will fuel my military development, hopefully to allow me to hold off the Timurids, and/or the Mongols if they move South from Russia.

In the last game as Scotland, the Timurids wiped out the Mongols. I suppose it depends which part of the map they spawn from. On the same path would likely to lead to the Mongol's elimination.

[Ars Moriendi]

I find it hard to believe there is no bias against the human player.

Short H/H campaign, me as byzantines. I attack the turks, get to Aleppo quite fast when the Mongols pop up near Baghdad. I decide to halt my advance (regroup, retrain, convert, repair etc.) as I was streched too thin already. I take the bridge east of Aleppo, and send spies east to witness the horde fragging the turks. They don't, instead they just walk around their cities and carefully avoid the 5-6 stacks the green ones have in the region.
"Okay, then, let's give them some incentive." I say and send my diplomat in. After offering 5-6 gifts of 500 per turn, in 2-3 turns we're allied and with "Perfect" relations. The diplomacy screen also says the mongols are at war with the turks. I was expecting some serious horde-vs-turks action. Instead, they dissapoint me again when, after 5-6 turns of wandering aimlessly in the region, the mongols feel that the fat cities or the mediocre turk armies aren't worth their effort - they attack ME, their "perfect" ally, on the bridge to Aleppo. Two stacks perish.
The next turn I send my diplomat to make peace - they happily accept it, and I also get a full refund on the initial bribe. Our relations still "perfect". Another turn passes, and they attack me again !
I took an oath - never to attempt the alliance part of diplomacy in M2TW again - it's about as useful as a raincoat in Sahara.

[Magraev]

There are ways to mod the diplomacy to make it more reliable. I saw a thread about it on this forum a few days ago.

[nheero143]

I took an oath - never to attempt the alliance part of diplomacy in M2TW again - it's about as useful as a raincoat in Sahara.

Maybe the Turks had a better offer? You were outbid.

In my replay (from turn 50) as the Turks, the Mongols have entered from the North and have finally established a homeland in Kiev. What a relief! Now I have about 20+ turns remaining before the Timurids arrive, so I'm building my armies up, while I finish conquering Egypt. I'm at about 80% of Mongol strength right now, but leading handily in the other categories, except for cash, which the Mongols have quite a lot of. In the game before I reloaded, I was hopelessly overrun by the Mongols at Antioch. This time it will be much different. Maybe the Timurids will have that honor.

[Lord Fluffy]

I think there is somewhat of a bias. In a previous game as England, the Mongols and the Timurid were fighting each other over Antioch. I snuck in and took the settlement to the west of Antioch, which was rebel at the time. By the next turn the Mongols sent an army to siege me. Of course that left Antioch wide open for the Timurid which were all too eager to take it away from the Mongols.

[Kraggenmor]

An update to my previous experience:

After my previous Egyptian Vh/Vh campaign was crushed under the heel of the Mongol hordes I re-started. Pretty much the usual stuff up to the Mogol horde so I'll skip to that.

The Horde entered at the appointed time, in the Russian province of Bulgar.

As I was busily shifting troops and equipment north to re-inforce the region against their inevitable onslaught, they promptly laid seige to the settlement of Bulgar and took it.

They lingered there for a turn or so and then, unbelievably, moved their entire force south to Turkish held Sarkel. By 'entire' I mean 'entire'! No garrison in Bulgar.

Predictably, Bulgar rebelled before they even reached Sarkel. Once they did reach their target they again seiged and captured it. This time though, they lingered for a few turns and lightly Garrisoned the place before heading back to Bulgar.


Meanwhile, following some good advice found elsewhere here, I have set up forts in choke points leading to Tblisi and Yerevan, both have which have had troops crammed into the to the point that the walls actually bulge outwards. More troops are moving north to act as field support and siege interdiction forces.

The Mongols return to Bulgar and......

do nothing?

Thats right. Nothing. They stand around it, completely encircling it, and do nothing.

Eventually, Sarkel rebels throwing off the shackles of Mongol opression which elicits and immediate response from the horde troops currently languishing in Bulgar. The entire quantity of troops musters up and marches forthwith back to Sarkel where they.....

do nothing.



Yep, they park around Sarkel and don't even try to retake it.

What follows still utterly baffles me. From initially entering and taking Bulgar and then Sarkel, they spend the remaining time marching back and forth between the two, now rebel, settlements. They actually wore a rut into my monitor where they kept marching back and forth!

EVERY wave of the Mongol horde has entered the map, and has spent it's time marching back and forth from Bulgar to Sarkel.

When I saved and quit for the night it was the year 1300, and the Horde seems to have finally taken an interest in doing something else as they are ALL heading toward Kiev. The lead unit is less than a day's march from Kiev so , later tonight I hope to see what - if anything- they do.

[fabiano]

I've just finished a Scots campaign, and I deliberately toggled off the fog of war to see what the Mongols would do.

They spent about 25 turns meandering around Egyptian territories, not committing any of their massive, powerful and high-command stacks until turn 92, when one stack laid siege to a castle.

I hope the 'more aggressive Mongols' feature of the next patch fixes this, because I was hoping to see the Mongols actually achieve something against readily-available foes.

Hi,

My France Campaign, the Tumirds spend 10 or + turns just watching the Turks cities. They satnd there 5 stacks of 9 star generals looking the sand.

But When I conquer some cities, who they attack? Me... :(

Fabiano

[Kraggenmor]

But When I conquer some cities, who they attack? Me... :(

Fabiano

Aye! Thats why I haven't made a move on Sarkel or Bulgar myself. I'm certain that doing so will just bring the weight of the horde down on me. Once I've won it I'll find out what happens. ;)

[gardibolt]

I was on a crusade to Jerusalem, and arrived there just as the HRE besieged it. Since the target of the crusade was taken by the HRE the next turn, I sent my troops down to Gaza and seized it (and Alexandria and Cairo a few turns later). The Mongols, per their programming, went straight to Jerusalem and beat the snot out of the HRE, wiping them off the map of the holy land. Then they came for me at Gaza, and I've been besieged there 7 or 8 times now. But they've also seized Antioch from the Egyptians, and every now and then send a stack off to other Egyptian holdings. So while I'm definitely a target of the Mongols, so is the AI. I don't help matters any by blockading the port of Jerusalem, I guess.

Playing on M/M