Kill mongols the easy way

[crpcarrot]

i do but then i enjoy it :) just wanted to see how differently people deal with them. but they seem to avoid seigning since 1.2 and they been runing around doing nothing for ages. i'm spread a little thin at the moment as i played the first part too slow trying to be at peace with the egyptians.

first time i faced mongols 1.2 playing turks yesterday and a unit of SI about 8 ranks deep in guard mode stopped a mongol HC charge dead on its tracks! i didnt think they would i was pleasantly suprised. i still lost the battle though just too many of them. i think with favourable terrain they can be beaten.

[Empirate]

Just wanted to add some observations and battle stories. Good thread, though hardly original...

In my Hungarian, 1.2 vanilla, VH/H game, I sat tight for a long time after an initial conquering spree, just teching up and getting very reliable reputation. I finally joined a crusade against Antioch, which was held by the Mongols then. They had come quite some while ago and were all over the place, from Gaza to Yerevan and Adana, everything was theirs. This meant they had split up their damn horde, though, so I only ever had to face single stacks. These were still the many-chevroned troops they start out with, and had those pesky eight star, max dread generals. Still, my balanced troops (Pavese XBows, Halberd Militia as backbone, plus Royal Banderium and Hungarian Nobles, mix in a Basilisk or two and two to three DCKs) were able to take Antioch without too much trouble, partly due to the fact that the Mongols weren't that strong in the north. A few turns later, though, they brought over some pretty impressive stacks - their usual mix of high-exp mounted archers, hybrid foot troops and Lancers, plus Rocket Launchers and stuff. I diminished their numbers in siege defenses, as many other people here seem to have done, rapidly took Acre and Jerusalem through more crusading, and was ready to call it a day, when all of a sudden the Timurids showed up.
At that time (you know what comes next, don't you?) I was already hit by the plague, and my economy was reeling so hard I thought I'd never see black numbers again. Luckily, the Tims quickly got into a war with the Mongols, taking Baghdad, Mosul and Edessa off them. However, they seemed to prefer to stay in Horde mode, they never kept a settlement. They only plundered stuff and went on. I had to keep them at bay using only the forces present, and on top of all this, some European neighbours declared war (Danes even took Vienna... ), so I couldn't send reinforcements from the motherland. Things were looking grim.
I had one max-chivalry, max-stars general in Antioch, and he was instrumental in getting rid of the Tims. My first attempts at open field battle failed dismally; unnerved, I reloaded. I had never seen elephants in action, they walked right over me. So I changed tactics and waited for siege defenses. This worked OK once or twice, as the Tims couldn't seem to decide if they really wanted a city or not. They'd siege for a turn, allowing me to sally, ballista towers taking heavy tolls on them, then they'd lift the siege and go after my field armies instead. I waited it out as best I could, and slowly, my economy recovered. I took Adana, Gaza and Edessa with my field armies, not wanting to face the Tims in the open again, and tried to lure them into bridge battles, which they continued to decline.
I finally thought wtf, I must fight them sooner or later, I'm in the black again and can handle a few losses. Thus, my general attacked in the field with an elite stack. I wanted to inflict casualties, then withdraw. Naturally, things didn't work out so well. When the Heavy Lancers charged, my lines broke. My heavy cavalry was no match for theirs; my Halberd militia was no match for their infantry OR cavalry (realized this too late; I had to go mostly without castle infantry); Hungarian Nobles can't hold a candle to Mongol Heavy Archers. Basilisks are useless against elephants, as they reload too slowly and aren't accurate enough. Only my PavXBows seemed to work, but these couldn't hold a line against the Tim rush.
I hoped to fight the Tim stacks one by one; that way, I might win individual battles despite heavy losses. Alas, no such luck. All Tim generals seemed to be Night Fighters! My own Night Fighter (10*, 10chiv, s. a.) didn't help at all here. So I waited for chances to at least only take on two stacks. My first field battles all were closely fought, and against stacks without elephants, I even won. The key is using the terrain! On the strategy map, watch out for high terrain, attacking from the mountains. This way, not only do you get free shots in plus a melee advantage, the enemy is also preoccupied with maneuvering much of the time.
Also, artillery in small numbers proved good for provoking a premature charge against (hopefully) set halberds. I got rid of Halberd Militia in the course of only two battles, and filled the gaps with heavy castle infantry where possible. Pavese Spearmen proved effective cav-stoppers, but DCK were much better where durability and morale were concerned. Also, I overloaded the missile part of my armies. In one huge battle, I fought three full Tim stacks (all without elephants, though) with only one stack and four units reinforcements. I wouldn't have won the battle but for making full use of high terrain, the reinforcing general's gold-chevroned fighting capability (ended up with 300-odd kills) and seven regiments of PavXBows plus one of Bulgarian Brigands. These made my main battle line. The heavy infantry was there for holding the enemy, the PXBs for shooting up everything in sight. Each of those PXB units earned two or three chevrons in that battle, the same goes for the three (depleted) Basilisks I had.
I attrited them, and whenever elephants showed up, I tried to whittle away the conventional forces as much as possible. I made a full stack of Hungarian Nobles for this purpose. They were more or less fast enough to stay out of the way of elephants, and took a toll on infantry and cavalry. It took me the sacrifice of approximately 60 units, most of them infantry, to whittle down the ten stacks the Tims had brought to only one - 3 stacks lost to 9, not too bad, eh? This stack, though, contained seven elephant units plus assorted ragtag cav and inf, greatly depleted in former battles. Then came the only battle in which I ever successfully attacked an army containing elephants. I had my seven trusty PXBs (refitted for full strength) and BulBrigs, plus a few Halberd Militia, DCKs and Hussars (great stuff for the money, one of my favorite units!). I occupied a slight rise on a surprisingly flat battlefield near the coast of Acre, while the Tims sat on the beaches. My seven PXBs in a long, open formation concentrated their fire on one regiment of Elephants at a time. This did the trick, the first elephant unit was gone in five or six volleys. The elephant artillery was a large problem, though, they cost me a lot of men. When the last Tim general charged, I met him with infantry and basically let them slug it out in melee. My main objective was to kill as many eles as possible, and my PXBs continued to do a great job. Ele muskets and cannonballs couldn't deplete them fast enough, and elephant charges were stopped by sacrificial units while all fire was concentrated on them at short range. This did the trick, and finally, the last Panzerphant was routed, harried by Hussars.

To summarize: To win a field battle against Mongols and Timurids alike, make sure of the following:

-maintain a massive advantage in terrain. The importance of this is first and foremost.

-get yourself a very good general for the job, else all your troops are easily routed by max-dread generals and mongol troops with huge shock impact - artillery, elephants, Lancer charge. The latter two proved deadly almost every time.

-overload on long-range, armor-piercing missiles. PXBs are good for the job. I imagine Musketeers would be even better. The terrain advantage makes up for your lack of infantry.

-only take three or four cavalry, as they're inferior to mongol cav anyway. Your killing power lies in missiles, as strange as that may sound.

-have reinforcements ready, especially heavy cav and heavy inf, to quickly plug the gaps.

-don't be afraid to lose a battle once in a while, you can withdraw and refit easier than they.

-concentrate fire to quickly take down a strategically chosen element of the enemy army. I took out almost all Timurid infantry first, so they couldn't hurt me in sieges and I could do to them what I wanted in sallies. I took out elephants last, as these take a lot of firepower and can soak up your ability to deal out damage in a battle.

-fear elephants. Try to avoid them. They're quite unbalanced in some ways (tactically, not strategically), so leave them for when you're ready to deal with them.

-taking out the enemy general is as important as in MTW here. Usually, I don't much care about the enemy general, but against the Mongols/Timurids, it's important to take care of those high-dread suckers.


Veeery lengthy post here... hope you forgive me!

[andrewt]

I haven't fought them yet as the Turks but my Sipahis with full armor upgrade (1 only) and at least 1 chevron has slightly better stats than the Mongol's 3 silver chevron heavy missile cavalry. I haven't fought them yet because they spawned in Sarkel and they just recently conquered Russia. I think it was after gunpowder was already discovered when they did. I think I'll finish conquering 45 provinces and finishing the game before they attack me. The Hungarian's last province, Iasi, has a full stack and is a fortress and it stands between their capital of Kiev and my lands. I deliberately didn't conquer it. I think Janissary muskets with Qapukulu support against their cav can hold them off. I'm going to add some Sipahis, Ottoman infantry and Janissary archers just because I can't make the muskets fast enough. And I have 4 provinces who can make them now.

[WhiskeyGhost]

As Egypt on Vanilla 1.2 H/VH settings, i found the best way to deal with them is to send out some mamluk archers and do what you can to get around behind them and destroy those blasted trebuchets and rocket launchers. After that, its easy since they are easily defended against in sieges and good defensive battles (not necessarily bridge, a good hill battle works just as well if you have enough spears to hold your lines against their cavalry, while your archers pick off theirs). Strangely enough, they appeared near Tblisli and Baghdad but every wave wanted to come take over my new capital, Jerusalem. Even though they had 4 full stacks sieging me, i found it quite easy to disperse them defending if you actually let them on the walls, and break up any units they try to ram the gates down with. Just manage your archers away from ladders, and have them shoot the mongols up as they come over the wall. It's hilarious watching many hundreds of infantry die to archers direct firing them on the wall