Turks are much harder than Scots

[Didz]

Picking up on the Scots are weak thread posted earlier, I have to say that playing both a Scottish campaign and a Turkish Campaign in parallel I'm having much more problems with the Turks.

Quite apart from the occassional crusade that comes stomping through your lands, I am currently having to deal with the Timurid invasion from the East and an overspill from the Mongol horde from the north.

So, far I've lost two cities to the Mongols (didn't even bother fighting those seiges as they were totally no hopers due to minimal garrisons) and Mosul to the Timurids.

The assault on Mosul was amazing to play. Mosul was a fortress and fully garrissoned with Ottoman infantry, Saphi's, a few Turkish archers and two General's body guards. The Timurid's attacked with two whole stacks.

The shear volume of arrows flying in all directions was incredible, as was the way the elephants just seemed to shrug everything off (I think I killed one in the entire seige). I killed over half the Timurids including one general but lost my own when the gate to the inner keep refused to close and I had to drive off two charges by Mongol Lancers. Eventually it did close and there was another massive archer fight below the inner gate, until they brought up a spare ram and smashed the gate down. If I'd noticed the ram earlier I might have managed to destroy it and that might have made a difference, though I was almost out of arrows.

After that it was all over as my men went into panic mode.

The problem is, even if I defend every city just as fiercely by the time the Timurid's run out of stacks my empire will be wiped off the map.

The Scots certainly don't have to cope with that.

[Husar]

The problem is, even if I defend every city just as fiercely by the time the Timurid's run out of stacks my empire will be wiped off the map.

Don't forget that they can build new stacks in Mossul now.
But, why don't you have janissary troops by the time the Timurids come? Field some janissary archers and JHI and that army should cope with at least one timurid stack. I also tend to wait until the hordes have finally found a place to live, then their stacks spread out and it's easier to fight them one after another, you'll still lose some armies and maybe some settlements, but after a while you should be able to enter reconquista mode.

[Didz]

Don't forget that they can build new stacks in Mossul now.

Not yet they can't. All they did was trash Mosul and it went Rebel. So I'm hoping to take it back once they move on to Edessa.

I'm just curious why your army composition is the way it is so late in the game.

Possibly a playing style difference. I tend to concentrate on economic development and limit my expansion to mission targets so my castles only get the benefit of any left over cash.

In theory this ought to be a good strategy as it ought to generate a lot more income over time and thus lead to faster military development too. However, empirical evidence suggests that it doesn't work as well as the 'slash and burn' approach used by other players.

Witness the fact that my best troops are only Ottoman Infantry and Sipha's

I think if I play Turks again I might change the time line to 1 year per turn as 155 turns is just not long enough for my style of play.

[andrewt]

I concentrate on economic development early, too. I build mines first, then farms, ports, then merchants and all that stuff before building anything for troops. I expand early and create some good trading provinces early on to create a good economic base.

However, in my Turk game, I took a look at their 4 starting provinces and decided immediately that 3 of the 4 would suck bad economically. So I went for Antioch ASAP and captured the cities on the coast. The difference is that I did expand quite a bit but I like building up my conquered cities as well. I didn't conquer Baghdad at all and in retrospect, I probably would only convert Edessa and not Mosul to a castle. I probably shouldn't have bothered with Mosul.

In my game, I think I can create Janissary musketeers from 8 or so provinces before the Timurid invasion. That would make things easier. That and the Qapakulu. If you can get Janissary archers, they're better than Ottoman in longer fights. Ottoman has better stats but has comparatively low morale and no hardy trait. They get tired easily.

[Husar]

Ottoman archers don't have stakes to deploy, that's a big difference against Mongols and Timurids.
Onl drawback is on huge units, in order for the stakes to cover the whole front of the archers, they need to deploy in squares, not in lines. What unit size are you using Didz? On huge units it should also be easier to pin enemies on roads, that's why I find it hard to imagine a whole stack is unable to defeat against a Timurid attack, though I'd have used some spearmen against all those horses.

[Kobal2fr]

I have to say I hate Turkey itself. Not in a cultural way, mind you - but the road networks are incredibly weird and annoying (Aaaah, Caesarea...wide open spaces, with only a useless little stump of road to cover it all...), and it takes ages to cross those mountains to link two cities... Tbilisi is about as far from Iconium as Caen is to Marseilles, but it takes like thrice the time to make the trip :/
Plus all those mountains make it hell to deal with brigands - one stack pops up 4 turns away from a city, and when you finally get there they're camping a mountaintop even sherpas wouldn't want to consider climbing...

Which is usually why my Turkish campaigns don't last long. Love their roster, love their stratmap specificities... Hate hate hate hate their lands.

[andrewt]

I never had to deal with them as I finished my Turk game before the Timurids showed up. That and the Mongols attacked Russia and haven't declared war on me yet. Their huge initial stacks and ability to build 0 upkeep units make them a huge pain, though.

I'm just curious why your army composition is the way it is so late in the game.

[magnum]

First time I faced the Tims it suprised me. I had been handling the Mongols fairly easy using a defensive strategy (the mongol AI is terrible at attacking, but does a decent job at defending.) Figured the Tims would be about the same.

Best battle I've had though was an almost full Janissary army facing two full stacks of Tims, all 3 silver chevron monsters. I destroyed the first wave (stack) by luring them to attack me. The second stack though wouldn't budge off their hill emplacement so I had to attack them. About half way through my assault up the hill their damn elephants (2 units of normal elepahnts, 2 units of the artillery elephants) came charging down. Talk about fun. They followed the elephants up with heavy Lancers and did enough damage that the battle ended in a loss. My best army against two stacks of their best.

Close, but a losing battle. Fortunately with 10 cities I could replace my loses while they couldn't. In the end that is the Turks strength when facing the Mongols and Tims. You can replace your loses more easily then they can. Press your advantage while you still have one or you face extinction.

[rvg]

Turks, imho, have a fantastic unit roster which more than makes up for their precarious geographic position. Horse Archer armies early on, then gradually phased out by infantry-based armies. Stakes, musketeers, tough spearmen, Turks have it all plus a decaying Byzantine Empire for a neighbor.

[Betito]

The trick i used to deal with mongols and timurids was to use the map to my advantage:

First of all, i gave Tsibili and Yerevan to Egypt, so they would face them first. I think i don't need to mention they were absolutely no match for the mongols, but they did last some handy 5 or 6 turns.

I used these turns to create 2 main defending stacks, each with reserves. The stacks consisted of my general, 5 to 7 spear units (saracens preferred, dismounted sipahi and spear militia as second choices). 5 to 8 foot missiles, i used Turkish archers minimum, sporadic ottomans... no janissaries as i couldn't build them, 4 to 6 HAs, at least half of them were sipahis. Some merc kwarazm(sp?) cavalry and, if i could, one artillery. Reinforcements were loads of spear militia to replace the spearmen who dies, and more missiles

I prefered spears over JHI because my plan was not to kill them on melee, but to hold them with my spears and let the missiles to their stuff. This is a task that, believe it or not, JHI are not quite capable of doing

Well, with these stacks i went straight to the bridges and river crossings. I kept one at the river crossing that gives access to Mosul and Eddessa, right between the mountains , and moved the other none to a middle ground between the said river crossing and the bridge that is north of Mosul. The idea was that i could have that general to defend either the bridge or the river crossing when needed.

The mogols at first were ALL for the bridge at first. That bridge proved to be holy, even without janissary archers. It has nice high grond the the missiles, and a nice low ground exactly where the bridge is, missiles behaved just as expected. After the second wave, my infantry lines were too fragile to hold the entire attack, but managed to hol long enough to let the missiles kill the heavy cav. Then, i relied on the sipahis and heavy cav the duty of killing the rest of them, which they managed to do... not without dying a lot themselves.

Then, they went north and tried to reach through the river crossings. I proceeded to reinforce the decimated general, and go aid the other stack, which was untouched at the moment. Those river crossings were even better than the bridge: Even higher hills, even harder to reach my inf lines... easy.

Then the timurids come and i thought it would be mor eof the same.... i gave Tsibili and Yerevan to the russians this time, and placed my stacks.
Then i got caught by surprise, because these guys, instead of concentrating their forces in the same useless way as the mongold did, spreaded out: trebizond, the river crossings AND the bridge at once. Not only that, but the elephant factor is one to be respected, a lot.

I lost the bridge and the crossing, and almost lost trebizond too: that was an aaaaaamazing siege, in which i lost 3 valour 7 sipahis, and some valour 4 JHI. Luckily for me, i already had muskets by then, and it was them the heroes of the story, shooting and shooting from the city's central plaza, and finally routing the sabbadars and heavy lancers. I ended with 50 surviving muskets.

Still, i was in an inconvenient position with these new horde... My last resource was to call a Jihad to the 'far west'... i think it was Thessalonica, Byz's capital. That got two timurid stacks out of the eastern fight, and then i managed to re-organize myself.

I loved that campaign!! Turks soooo rock!

[Askthepizzaguy]

Picking up on the Scots are weak thread posted earlier, I have to say that playing both a Scottish campaign and a Turkish Campaign in parallel I'm having much more problems with the Turks.

....

So, far I've lost two cities to the Mongols (didn't even bother fighting those seiges as they were totally no hopers due to minimal garrisons) and Mosul to the Timurids.

The problem is, even if I defend every city just as fiercely by the time the Timurid's run out of stacks my empire will be wiped off the map.

The Scots certainly don't have to cope with that.

While I admit the Turks are not my favorite faction, heres a couple tips.

Take out the few rebel states nearby at the beginning with those cheap, disposable infantry units. Save those expensive horse archers for non-seige, important battles. Expand early, expand quickly.

Make peace with your neighbors early, get alliances if necessary. You need time to build your empire. Once you have the space, then you need the florins.

Once you build up properly, see if you can't call a jihad by training up one of your Imams. Send your entire standing army on this jihad... it should give you several turns of reprieve from army upkeep. Use this money to bolster your farms, trade, ports, and fortress.

Train your generals up, especially at night. Fight any and all night battles. You need this for the hordes.

Stave off crusaders the usual way, with blockades at land bridges and naval forces turning back catholic navies. Sink them, block them.

Try to take over Egypt before the mongols come. Your empire should be ready.

When the Egyptians are done, and Turkey is fortified against the Byzantines, (your jihad should aim to repel them from Asia minor, use navy and land bridges to block them as well)

disband all irrelevant troops and send your best generals toward your best fortress.

Build the most massive and powerful army Turkey has ever built. Make this a priority by turn 50.

When the Mongols arrive, let them take a city. Then surround the city with about 3 stacks, all with NIGHT FIGHTER, and reverse the tables on them.

No city can withstand an assault by 2, let alone 3 maxed out stacks. With NIGHT FIGHTER, the mongols may not be able to field more than 1 army at a time.

Systematically eliminate each mongol stack, one by one.
Send reinforcements if neccessary. Use the terrain advantages.

When they are gone, prepare for the next wave. Rinse and repeat for the Timurids when they come.

The key is knowing when not to fight. Dont try and save your city, if it's surrounded by 2 mongol stacks it is done. The best you can do is take as many of them with you as possible. Spam a bunch of spearmen and fill the garrison with cheap, blunted spearpoints and archers firing flaming arrows at elephants from the walls.

You may just wipe out half of them. Perfect for your main force to mop them up.

Use cheapo troops as garrisons. Use expensive horse archers for beating back standing armies. Never use horse archers for simple seiges. Even your less than stellar infantry is better than horse archers in melee. Too expensive to waste good horsemen on spear and sword seiges.

use bridges if neccessary to hold back the Mongols. Bridges may not work so well vs elephants. Best bet against elephants is artillery fire or archer fire from walls.

Good to go...