XL guide: Volga-Bulgars

[Peasant Phill]

I'll post my review of their military strengt first. In later posts I will go over their postions and posible strategies.

(from xl's unit stats)
Unit Name Charge Melee Defence Armour Morale
infantry
Melee
Kursybays 5 0 2 3 4
Bashkorts 5 HS 1 2 1 4
Kazanchis 2 *3 2 3 6

The first thing that you should notice is the great infantry this cav based faction has. When it comes to infantry the Volga-Bulgars can rival with any faction in early and can still be decent in high.
Kursbays are their shield wall. They are very sturdy spearmen comparable with feudal sergeants (better melee, worse defence and armour), armoured spearmen ( worse morale) and rus spearmen ( better attack). Only the rus spearmen are better at their role.
Bashkorts are fast flankers. They are however not your typical flankers (high attack, catastrophic defence) but rather the opposite (low attack, decent defence). Why should you still use them? First of all you don't have any other melee unit until you've teched up to Kazanchis (I'm not counting slav warriors as they are just above peasants). Secondly, their heavy spear is a major asset, together with their defence bonus against cav they also can take on cave reasonably well. These men aren't fire and forget troops, they will survive when highlanders, ghazis and others perish. And believe me a volley of those spears in an unprotected back or flank followed by a charge will rout all but the most sturdiest men.
Kazanchis are just a dream for every general. A unit comparible to billmen (worse melee, better defence) or Swiss Halbardiers (better defence, less armour, better morale) avalable in early. Agreed, they need some teching up but by the time most other factions get their hands on those new pole arms, your troops will have painted theirs red with the blood of hundreds of soldiers.

Special
Hashishin 2 6 5 2 12

I've never bothered with Hashishin as they're IMHO to much trouble for wath they're worth. Sure you can ambush the enemy general or pull of a surprise flank manoeuvre but I have enough micro management with my HA. If anybody can put them to good use, bravo to them but I can't.


cavalry
Light
Steppe Cavalry 6 2 1 3 3
Murabitin Horse 6 3 2 2 4
Chernye Klobuki 8 3 2 1 4

Steppe cav isa very cheap, more than decent light cav unit. You'l be using them a lot in the earlier stages to get rid of archers, HA and routers. In these tasks they perform satisfactiory, just don't ask them to fight their way out of anything.

MH and Chernye are to be seen as upgrades to your SC. MH can only be trained in North Africa and should only be used in the desert as SC that can take just a little more. But by the time you train them that little more may be to little. I think higher of Chernye. They can do more than the tasks of light/medium cav. Chernye are lightly armoured lancers. Their speed combined with their charge can mean a mass rout when comanded effectively. just remember that they aren't heavy cav, most melees will spell death on them.

Missile
Horse Archers 2 -1 0 2 2
Steppe Heavy Cav 6 3 4 5 6

I've already expressed my surprise about the troops with the infantry, let me do the same for HA. As good as the inf is as bad are the HA. HA are not used for their killing power but for their ability to disrupt the enemies formation. To be able to do this you've got to be able to evade everything your oponent uses against this, in other words fast HA. SHC isn't a bad unit, it just can't be used as your typical HA. Use them as mediocre heavy cav with a range attack. This ranged attack also makes it a good general killer as their missiles are AP. If you use them as HA you will sooner or later get caught up by royal bodyguards or knights and lose the fight without being able to use even half of your arrows (if your lucky).
What is available than for the useful HA task? Nothing more than the vanilla HA. Wich only means one thing: you can isolate troops, you can encircle troops but charging those battred and tired troops will still be very costly. My advice: only charge in the best of situations (or in the most desperate ones) and make them valour up quickly.

Heavy
Bulgarian Royal Ca 8 3 4 5 8
Khwarazmian Cav 8 3 5 7 7

BRC is your run of the mill, standard royal bodyguard. Good to have in your army but maybe other troops could do a better job. SHC is only slightly worse than BRC (better charge, better morale) but has an AP ranged attack. The charge can be performed by Chernye Klobuki that have the same charge but are a lot faster. Then again If you want something 'knightly' before Khwarazmian cav, BRC is the way to go.

Khwarazmian Cav is the heavy cav you use outside the desert in later stages. This cav unit is your closest thing to chiv knights and all that follows them on the tech tree.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Great, the Volga Bulgars are my favorite faction. Just a few units that I believe should also be included:
- Urban Militia, Spearmen and Archers - vanilla archers are pretty much all the missile infantry you can get with the Volga Bulgars
- Slav Warriors - cheap garrison troops
- Slav Javelinmen - inferior to the Bashkorts in every regard, but cheaper to train and also only require a spearmaker. Useful in cases, in which you need them to provide some AP missiles in a province away from your homeland, such as Moldova, and you have not teched up to Bashkorts yet.
- Woodsmen - with the bonus in Lithuania they provide a cheaper alternative to Urban Militia, but I personally find them almost useless
- Variangian Swordsmen - only in Kiev and Novgorod, require quite a bit of teching up, but are a great unit able to easily destroy enemy infantry - something the Kazanchis are not that good at.
- Viking Jarls, Landsmen and Huscarles (plus the useless Viking Spearmen good for garrisons and their completely useless Raider Cavalry) - the Volga Bulgars have an easy path to the Scandinavian - Moscow -> Novgorod -> the Baltic, and playing with them one should really make a use of this, as the Huscarles are a really nice unit.
-Avar Nobles - Moldova only, Early only, I find them better overall (and cheaper to maintain) than the Bulgarian Royal Cavalry.
-Bulgarian Brigands - very hard to get and keep Bulgaria, and it takes a long time to tech up to Bulgarian Brigands, but they are a whole lot better than the vanilla archers.
-Welsh Longbowmen - only in Late and only in Wales. When the bashkorts and the Slav javelinmen are no longer available, you really need them.
-Sherwood Foresters - High, in Mercia. I do not think these are much different than the Hashishin, but you can train them and so I thought I would give them a mention.
-Vlach Mercenary Cavalry - I do not know the exact stats, but this is a good Light Cavalry, with better stats and most importantly morale than the Steppe Cavalry. Wallachia only. The Cherniye Klobuki are better, but you can only build them in a few provinces and once you get to the Balkans, the Vlach Mercenary Cavalry is a nice addition.

[Peasant Phill]

Thanks for the additions.

I didn't include all available units as most of them are trainable by everybody. Everybody knows what archers, UM's and spearmen are worth. Just as everybody should know about slav wariors, slav javelins, avar nobles (but good point about their upkeep).

I actually didn't know about Variangian Swordsmen and Vlach Mercenary Cavalry.

Varangian Swordsmen 4 *4 4 3 8
They are in everyway better than chiv men-at-arms except in the armour rating. But when you think about it, this is an advantage as the varangians have a better defence with less armour (desert here we come).

Wallachian Mercenary Cavalry 6 3 1 3 5
Superior to the steppe cav, Wallachian Merc cav can add to the diversity of your troops as good light cav.

Avar Nobles 6 3 5 7 6
worse charge, better defence, more armoured, less morale than BRC. I wouldn't call them superior to the BRC. Charge rating is the most important stat for heavy cav and here are the Avars lacking, they will however survive a melee longer (just don't match them up against AP troops). Everything depends on your personal use of heavy cav: pure 'hammer and anvil' => use BRC, a more 'hack and slash' use of cav => use Avars. IMHO, a prolongued melee is a waste of your cav that's what you got infantry for. Still I would be tempted to opt for Avars when money is thight but the teching up can negate the economical advantage.


My standard Volga-Bulgarian army in early
Two groups of two vanilla HA's (as teched up and valoured up as possible). Their task in defence is to disrupt the enemy formation as much as possible so the attackers arrive peace-meal and somewhat fatigued. Favorite targets: heavy cav and heavy inf. On the offence they'll try to draw out enemy units or keep their missile troops busy while my army can attack unharmed.

Three Kursybays as spearwall with Kazanchis on the flanks and Bashkorts behind them, ready run around the flank and spear the enemy in the back. I'll have to add Varangian swordsmen as main infantry killer.

I don't use vanilla archers in my standard army as their task is taken up by the steppe heavy cav. A good allrounder in my army: AP missiles, good mobility and they can fight there way out of most things. Only disadvantage: quite expensive.

I also try to use Chernye Klobuki to chase away HA, take out isolated skirmishers/archers and chase routers (your typical light cav stuff). I do however use them to great succes in hammer and anvil tactics. They can get everywhere on the map within reasonable time, charge a fighting enemy and be off before a counter measure can be put in place. Just don't let them fight melee unless there is no other choice.

I don't use BRC except maybe as general (princes and ex-princes). Their tasks can be done by other troops that are more suitable or more polyvalent.

[Peasant Phill]

Tomorrow I'll explain the Volga-Bulgar rebel blitz, an opening manouevre that IMO is absolutly necessary to be able to expand later on.

[Martok]

Looks pretty good, Phil. Can't wait to see more.

[Bill Westwater]

Steppe Heavies are mediocre? When playing as Volga Bulgars i always consider them as the very best unit. They are relatively low tech, and it is easy to get them a valor bonus by building a Master Horse Breeder, and being both missile and hand to hand troops they valor up quite quickly. Bulagarian Royal Cavalry (the princes retinue) oTH are not that great and hideously expensive to maintain.
In just about everything else i completely agree with you, what an exccellent early period faction.

[Peasant Phill]

Steppe Heavies are mediocre? When playing as Volga Bulgars i always consider them as the very best unit. They are relatively low tech, and it is easy to get them a valor bonus by building a Master Horse Breeder, and being both missile and hand to hand troops they valor up quite quickly. Bulagarian Royal Cavalry (the princes retinue) oTH are not that great and hideously expensive to maintain.
In just about everything else i completely agree with you, what an exccellent early period faction.

SHC are a great asset to any army. It's a mobile missile platform which can defeat all but the best melee troops. In early there are only inferior to boyars but come a lot cheaper. So no discussion here. The only thing I said (and I still stand by it) is that in the role of heavy cav (think charging and some melee) they are only not amongst the best of their class in any period. They have good melee stats but their charge (important for heavies) is not comparable to royal bodyguards, knights orany other high-end heavy cav. They don't deserve a spot in my army because of their superior heavy cav performance, but because of their reasonable performance as heavy cav combined with their AP missiles.

Like you, I don't use BRC that much. I periodically (re)train them to get my princes retinue back at full numbers but apart from that I don't see them giving me their moneys worth.

[Peasant Phill]

I've started a campaign early/hard/GA. My unit size is medium. If you use a smaller unit size, your rush may be delayed which can cause the loss of some of the rebel provinces or an early war with one or more of the other factions.

This is what your royal family will see of the world in the first couple of years.



You start with one province, an army of HA's and steppe cav and a reasonable king (3 stars and authorian). The aim is to forge a decent size khanate for yourself without upsetting any of the neigbouring factions. If all happens according to plan you'll end up with at least 7 provinces, a good heir to the throne and as many alliances as you wish with whom you wish.

Gather all available troops under your kings command and attack the rebels in Muscovy. Don't worry about loyalty in Volga-Bulgaria, it won't drop under 100%. Train units of 133 men for a few years to subdue the newly conqured lands.
The rebels will flee to their fort. Although the siege will only last one year, you must attack the fort immidatly. Losing time means that other factions can conquer the other rebel controled provinces! (waiting one or two years will lose you smolensk to the Lithuanians and possibly Ryazan or Chernigov to the Kievians or the Cumans) Besides no rebel soldier can match your kings (dismounted) bodyguards. Still, be careful not to waste to much men as you'll need as many as possible to keep provinces from rebelling.

Repeat the battle/assault strategy through smolensk, Chernigov, Ryazan and Khazar. If you're lucky, Giorgia might still be rebel. Start pumping out slav warriors in Muscovy asap with the same goal as your training program in Volga-Bulgaria, namely for garrison and assault purposes.

Your heir will mature just a year (or two) before your king receives his 4th star. A shame really, but you can still make sure your heirs skills are based on 4 stars. Small battles are easy, so if you plan and execute your battles with care you can earn your king a good attacker virtue. Make sure you attack the year your heir matures and he'll be based on a 4 star king.

If you aren't playing on hard or expert, you might consider bribing the rebel general in Khazar rather than fighting him. Good generals are hard to come by so early.

During the first few years, you will be bombarded with alliance requests from almost all neigbouring factions. I would exept them all. Peace is very important in these upcoming years where start to organise your khanate. You don't need to keep a faction neutral to be able to attack it later on. War will come to this region soon enough and then you can chose your alliances more in purpose of your next victim.
The whole region will be more or less in one big alliance. So if you just attack a faction, you'll end up only being allied to Countries that can't attack you. It'll end up in a multiple front defence which your economy can't sustain.

You'll have to wait for the right time to take new rebel provinces or to attack a weakened faction which most/all other factions turned their backs on. Both the Lithuanians and the Cumans would be great targets. The Cumans for their access to the mediterranian combined with their trade provinces, the Lithuanians also for their sea access which and the shortest way to the scandinavian troops.

If you strike at the right times, you'll own the whole eastern

[macsen rufus]

IMHO bashkorts are THE VB secret weapon. They are versatile, and shouldn't just be relegated to flanking. With their defence stats and anti-cav bonus, they can form the main battle line more effectively and cheaply than kursybays. I use them more like spearmen with missiles, not skirmishers. A couple of volleys of those spears can wipe out a royal knight unit, and make a serious mess of mongol heavy cav. The AI never uses them properly, just as skirmishers, which misses their all-round strength.

[Kavhan Isbul]

I avoid using the bashkorts for forming the main battle line, because even though they have higher morale than the kursubays, they are smaller unit sizes, and they lack any armor, making them quite vulnerable to missiles. In defensive battles, the AI has a tendency of making missile duels, and since most Volga Bulgar neighbors have plenty of HAs, this tends to leave me with huge casualties. There are less men per unit with the Bashkorts, which makes any casualties they sustain even worse - if you have units depleted to 30-40 men, it is hard for them to hold the charge of Mongol Heavies or Cataphracts.
I personally tend to deploy the Bashkorts behind the Kursubays, sometimes even instead of archers (vanilla archers are not thet good anyway), and this leaves them an opportunitiy to fire all their javelins at the enemy, which is held by my kursubays. Once they are out of ammo, I use them to plug in gaps and support kursubay units that are having a hard time. I agree though that they can be used as flankers or even as main line holders, although this would be a bit abusing them.

[Peasant Phill]

When blitzing or in the opening of your campaign in general, you have to be very aware of your economy. The revenue of steppe provinces are in no way comparable to the revenue of the lush West-European provinces, nor do they have the trade potential of the Mediterranean provinces. Ignore your economy in the first ten years and you'll be the weakest eastern faction for a long time. And believe me Novgorod, Kiev and Bohemia are just waiting for a chance to enlarge their territories unpunished.

This advice is even more important when blitzing the rebels. The Volga-Bulgars are Muslims and the neighboring provinces are all orthodox catholic, which means that their are more men needed to pacify the recently conquered regions. More men => more expenses.
I would advice to develope your farms and trade first before starting with your military. Also don't just garrison until you have loyalty for very high taxes, calculate if the increase in income is worth the increase in upkeep.

[Kavhan Isbul]

As far as the economy is concerned, I recommend getting to the Baltic as soon as possible. As the Volga Bulgars you cannot avoid a war with the Novgorodians, better sooner than later, as the Novgorodian units are overall more powerful because of the Vikings and the Druzhina cavalry and infantry. Novgorod is a rich province, and it allows you to build a fleet and start developing trade. It also controls Finland, and from Novgorod it is easy to expand along the Baltic, and even to conquer the Scandinavian Peninsula. The Danes and Swedes have strong infantry, but most of it cannot defend against heavy cavalry and the battles with them are easy - I would personally rate the Scandinavian factions as the easiest enemy the Volga Bulgars will face throughout the game.
An alternative option is to push south towards the Black Sea, but the Turks are likely to beat you to Georgia and the Cumans can be tough to deal with. Conquering their lands is best reserved for later, when they are in war with the Hungarians and perhaps also the Poles, Kievans or Lithuanians.
Controling the Black Sea and the Baltic will be important eventually, because once you grow relatively large, the Catholics tend to send Crusades your way and you would not want any of them to appear in an undefended coastal province.

[Peasant Phill]

As the Volga Bulgars you cannot avoid a war with the Novgorodians, better sooner than later, as the Novgorodian units are overall more powerful because of the Vikings and the Druzhina cavalry and infantry.

(Un)fortunately these words are undoubtedly true. But like Kavhan said, it's your chance to get to the baltic without upsetting to many factions.

Now, how do you go about a war with Novgorod?
On strategic level, an attack on Novgorod itself will probably mortally wound your enemy. As Novgorod is their main troop producing province.

On tactical level, the war will be somewhat harder. Again, like Kavhan said, Novgorod has some very strong units. You'll most likely face armies consisting of rus spears, vikings and boyars (maybe with woodsmen or druzhina). But some tactics can solve this problem.

tactic against vikings:
Vikings wreak havoc on your spears and in woods. They can hold their own for a while against most units. Their biggest problem is their lousy defence (normal as flankers). To cash in on that weakness, I use some fast cav against them. Chernye if possible but steppe cav is also possible. Move two units of fast cav to the back or side of the Novgorodian battleline and locate a good target. This could be a viking unit that's lagging behind or who's flanks aren't protected. Let one of your horses charge the vikings while the other unit keeps moving to position itself behind the targeted vikings. Just before your charging light cav and the counterattacking vikings collide, you should stop the charge and move your cav away ( the feint attack) and let the vikings chase you. while this happens you should position your second unit in the back of the vikings and charge them (wait long enough so the targeted unit is to far to get support). When the vikings are hit in the back, your decoy should turn again and charge the vikings to. If done right, the vikings should be charged in the back and immediately afterwards charged while reforming. The depleted viking unit will run in just a few moments. Afterwards, rinse and repeat.

Tactics against boyars.
two words: massed firepower. Use a shield wall with more missile units than the Novgorodians. Although boyars are excellent fighters (so attacking will be very costly) they are horsearchers at heart. They will missile duel instead of charging your spear wall. Don't attack them until all your arrows are depleted. Alternatively you can use horsearchers as uncatchable arrow platforms. But be aware that light cav can seriously ruin this strategy.
I like to use steppe heavies behind a spearwall. The steppe heavies have AP missiles, are armoured, mobile and can fight well if needed. If it is safe enough, you can encircle the boyar unit to minimise casualties.

Tactics against rus spears.
To be honest, I don't have a tactic against this unit. The Rus spears are probably the best spear unit in early. The Volga-Bulgars don't have a unit they can use in a rock-paper-scissor manor against spears unless you've teched up to Varangian swordsmen. I always try to keep them out of the battle until most other units are depleted or running away. After that I swarm them from all sides and hope they rout fast. if I can't keep them from fighting I try to keep them at bay with my Kursybashy and support them as soon as possible.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Initially, if the Volga Bulgars manage to get to Moscow within a turn or two and beat the Novgorodians to it, the latter have no choice but to conquer Finland and Estonia. Estonia is the worst province to hold in the entire XL mod, because it is so ridiculously rebellious that I doubt there is any point in conquerint it at all, other than for strategic purposes (if you have ships in the Baltic, you might want to prevent the Scandinavian factions from gaining a foothold on your side of the sea). Anyway, the Novgorodians have to tie up a significant number of troops in Estonia just to quell the inevitable rebellions. Novgorod is usually poorly defended, and it is easy to take, forcing the Novgorodians to flee to their castle as the AI tries to avoid a losing battle. Next, there is a tough defensive battle against them, and they tend to be allied with the Lithuanians, who show a tendency for supporting them with some more Boyars.
I prepare for this battle by building plenty of Bashkorts, as they are the only way to deal with the Druzhina infantry uber unit of the Novgorodians (and the Kievans). One or two units of Bashkorts hold the enemy, while another unit decfimates it with javelins. The Boyars create a problem, as they tend to kill quite a few Bashkorts with arrows, so you will need some archers and some Kursubays to deal with them. There will also be Vikings, and perhaps even woodsmen, but these are basicly fodder for the Bulgarian Royal Cavalry.
I also always build an Inn in Moscow as early as I can - the Volga Bulgars need it for the Cherniye Klobuki anyway (and these are a great solution to the mounted crossbowmen the Novgorodians usually train), and when I decide to invade Novgorod, I hire whatever mercenaries I can. It is hard to afford them for too long, but many of them die in that great defensive battle for Novgorod (if they do not, then they die storming the castle), and once Novgorod falls, the pillaging pays off. Novgorod itself is more valuable than Volga Bulgaria in all possible aspects - income, trainable units, strategic position.