Defeating the Mongols/Timurids

[Rhyfelwyr]

I had a lot of trouble with these guys when I arrived into the Turkey region at around Turn 100 with Venice. The Mongols had already established themselves around the Holy Lands, and the battles I fought with them were very bloody. Every turn there would be one or two battles with us each sending full stacks against each other. I tried to hold them off at the mountain pass just east of Adana, and if felt more like I was fighting a WWII was of attrition than a Medieval battle. Every battle between us would see 60-90% casualties for both sides. It was crazy stuff. In the end, having just been pressed back from the mountain pass, a Crusade to Mongol held Antioch tipped the balance of the war in my favour, and eventually I drove them off.

But then the Timurids arrived. They marched past my castle at Bulgar, and eventually besieged my castle at Ryazan. Having lost almost two full stacks in 2 attempted assaults, they eventually took the castle. But it rebelled against them straight away, so they abandoned it and marched towards my city at Kiev. Preparing for the assault, I quickly assembled a basic army of Italian Spear Militia, Pavise Crossbow Militia, and one Carroccio Standard; and parked them all at the bridge just north of Kiev. However, the Timurids took the long way to the city from the south, and took it with relative ease. Then, the saw my weak captain-led militia army just to their north. So, they sent four full armies towards it, all led by top Generals with highly experienced armies. And they were butchered. My Spear Militia formed shiltrons at the bridge. Meanwhile, my crossbowmen lined the hills each side of the brige, giving every soldier a clear path to shoot through. The result was very bloody. Having annihilated four full Timurid armies, my army was depleted to around a third of its original size. Then the Timurids sent a small army with about five units of elephants. All were slaughtered by my militia army. Eventually, the Timurids sent their Khan with a full army against my militiamen. Finally the Timurids took the bridge, but having lost over 50% of another full stack army. That one lowly militia army slaughtered almost 5 full Timurid stacks in total, and cleared the way for my reinforcements from the south to retake Kiev. So bridges seem to be the answer to defeating the Timurids.

Just wondering, how do people here tackle these eastern hordes?

[ataribaby]

There was a thread on this a few weeks back you might find interesting: How to repel the Mongol invasion.

[DVX BELLORVM]

Just wondering, how do people here tackle these eastern hordes?

With great difficulty and heavy losses...

Playing as the Turks on VH, I was very lucky that the Mongols appeared north of my borders and went into Russia, conquering almost all east Europe. At the time I was heavily involved in wars against Bizantium and Egypt, and if the Mongols came on me with all of their might, I would probably loose the game. We did have some skirmishes along the northeast border, they captured one of my castles, but I soon took it back.

The Timurids were a different story. They appeared in my rear, near the Bagdad. At first, I had some success against them, while their armies were still scattered. Then they concentrated and wiped up 2 of my elite troops, along with my high command generals. And they went directly to my capitol, Antioch.

I decided to change the tactics.
I had a healthy economy, and turn after turn raised a new army and threw it against a horde. My casualties were extremely high, around 80-100%, and I was lucky if I killed 30% of their forces.
After about 20 turns of this war of attrition, I finally managed to break them.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I noticed that they refused to attack my forts, and since I blocked all approaches to the Antioch, they moved back and forth trying to bypass the forts, giving me the time to launch attack after attack.

What impress me the most when dealing with Timurids is the way my whole battle line would colapse and rout on sight of their high-dread general...

[Rhyfelwyr]

I just lost 2 full stacks of Venetian Archers, Venetian Heavy Infantry, and Feudal Knights; to six units of Elephants. Elephant Artillery are ridiculously overpowered.

[Matt_Lane]

I've only ever got this far as England but they have lovely heavy infantry and archers. With both Mongols and Timurids I played a waiting game giving territory for time to build up units. I then blockaded river crossings to contain their armies away from my cities and used assassins to eliminate their lesser generals. I chose to engage only their weaker armies on the periphery and avoided engaging their multiple stacks.

I eventually took on the Mongols with lots of cavalry (as England I'm not sure this was the brightest move) and the Timurids with high quality archers and infantry. As you've mentioned the Elephants are like medieval tanks and your only hope is too sap their morale until they rampage through their own lines. I mainly used flaming arrows and heavy cavalry charges to achieve this.

In the end this strategy was time consuming and expensive, preventing me from exploiting the Americas until the very end of the game. On the positive side they offer the best battles of the entire game, giving it a real kick just as things seem to be getting too easy.

[khaos83_2000]

I just build stacks and stacks of anyting and throw at them with auto-cal. I gather the stacks together and just attack together. Eventually they will be overwhelmed by financial might and numbers.

[DVX BELLORVM]

I just build stacks and stacks of anyting and throw at them with auto-cal. I gather the stacks together and just attack together. Eventually they will be overwhelmed by financial might and numbers.

Well, I guess you can beat them this way, but it takes all the fun away

[Empirate]

I always try to attack the rear end of their column, like one or two stacks. One or even two stacks can be handled with elite armies of optimal composition: Pavese Crossbows for shooting all day and winning any missile duel; heavy infantry that can soak up a charge of Khan Guards, e.g. Pavese Spearmen or better yet, good Pikes; heavy cavalry for quickly routing enemy siege weapons and foot missiles. Don't bring siege weapons, rather take a few more PavXes. You need the high ground, and you need clear lines of fire. React early and quickly when the enemy brings heavy cav charges to bear. Never leave your defensive position except in quick cavalry forays to target isolated infantry or siege. Your crossbows should target and quickly decimate enemy horse archers and heavy cav.
Against elephants, I've never really found something that worked well. I try to shower them with as many concentrated missiles as possible, one unit at a time. Also, siege defenses are good for taking out the pesky pachyderms, especially with cannon towers. Still, when the Timurids are almost done for, they usually have a lot of elephants remaining in my games.
As strange as it sounds, my summary is: outmissile them! Use missiles with a punch, like crossbows or even firearms, and blast away, preferably from on high. Take out all mounted shooters, and your cav has a lot of less trouble.

[PseRamesses]

Think light and manouverable not heavy and fortified!

I play yhe Turks a lot and have had great success with Afgan Javelinmen (mercs) and the on that the Turks can produce (forgot the name). Light cav like desert cav is great to chase down thoose pesky mongol HA´s but it takes 3 to effectively corner one HA so be patient and take them out one by one. Be offensive and stay clear of the eles. (or you can edit the units stats for eles in the txt-files)

[Cheetah]

Any unit that can throw a javelin is your friend when fighting vs Timurids.

Best of course are the jav cavs, like jinettes, desert cav, boyars, polish nobles. If you dont have them try to hire them as mercenaries. To be honest I have never tried to hire them, do not whether it is possible, but I assume javelin inf should be available in some regions, like afgan javelins.

[Cheetah]

Mongol threads:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88887

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=79195

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88889

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=88861

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74475

Timurid threads:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74051

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=73428

[khaos83_2000]

oh ya ...
from my field experience, long pikes seems to be outstandingly effective against the elephants when those beast r not charging.

[Benandorf]

Against Timurids, two words: Fire. Arrows. Those elephants will go nuts and at worst case scenario the AI choses to execute his own troops and they die. Best case they rampage and do serious damage to the rest of the army.

Truthfully, though, if you're in west Europe you can just about Ignore them, depending on what difficulty level you're on. Or, failing that, crusade against them (which always ends wonderfully). If you're trying to win quickly, you can finish up before the Timurids arive with some luck.

But, in the inevidible case that you will fight Elephants, be sure to use those fire arrows. And I've never had a whole lot of problems with Mongols, just use lots of pikes and spears in front of archers.

[Empirate]

Fire Arrows don't seem to work for me. They're not accurate enough and don't do enough damage. OK, if you are English and use high-tier Longbowmen, you might have a chance. But my trusty Hungarians had to rely on Bulgarian Brigands. Even four units concentrating on one unit of Elephants didn't cause it to "go nuts" before it reached my lines...

[GFX707]

I just lost 2 full stacks of Venetian Archers, Venetian Heavy Infantry, and Feudal Knights; to six units of Elephants. Elephant Artillery are ridiculously overpowered.

Yeah. I tried to fight a Timurid stack "bridge battle" style, and although none of the Timurids moved or shot from the other side of the bridge I lost 20% of my stack to those things. Then the other 80% fled as soon as their infantry touched mine.

[gardibolt]

I just fought a particularly nasty battle against the Timurids---it was their last citadel, though, and I was tired of fighting Elephant Artillery so it needed to be done. The AI knew what was coming it seemed, and huddled six units of elephants all in the square. So it was a nightmare piercing through to them, and when I finally got there, every time one would rampage it would go right through my troops, causing massive casualties.

That wouldn't do, so I hauled my culverin up to the topmost wall and blew two holes in it so I could assault from multiple directions; when the elephants rampaged, it would only wipe out a portion of the army. It was a very near thing---many units only had 2 or 3 men left in them---hardy souls indeed!!

[jepva]

I had the unique pleasure last night of watching the Timuride horde attack the Mongol horde while beseiging the Mongol held city of Antioch. There is justice in the world!!

Another oddity - a Mongol unit on jihad for Constantinople stands outside the city for six turns without laying seige to the Byzantines. The turn after I take the city from the Byzantines, they attack!!

Otherwise, get your cites up to hugh size with cannon towers - and once they lay seige - sally out - well actually, you don't even have to leave the city for your cannon towers to level the playing field. Normally, I set out pavise CBs (non-skirmish mode), supported by infantry, along with my artillery to just outside the gate. The CB's take out the Mongol horse archers when they attack, the infantry counteratttack the lancers when they attack the CBs, and the artillery just adds to the cannon tower's death toll. When the Mongol foot archers come forward attack them with your cavalry. I used this same tactic successfully with just ballista towers last night - but because of the limited range, you need to sally out as described above to get them in range. In either case, even if you don't drive them off, they won't have enough men left to effect a successful assault the next turn

If you DO want to fight the Mongols in the field - 16 mounted crossbow units, split into four groups each having a supporting heavy cavalry unit. The trick is to seperate a single Mongol stack from the horde. You can usually do this by placing your stack to just within extreme movement range of the nearest Mongol stack The nearest unit will attack but his buddies won't be able to get in the fight. If you DO wind up facing two stacks - withdraw from the battle, since they have already moved as far as they can to contact you, they won't be able to reach you at your withdrawn (campaign map) location.

[gardibolt]

Sallying out will pick up the pace some though, since it lures them into closer range of the towers. I like to take a cheap spear unit that can schiltrom, put them in that mode and park them right outside the gate. The Tims can't resist going after them and it's their funeral.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Another oddity - a Mongol unit on jihad for Constantinople stands outside the city for six turns without laying seige to the Byzantines. The turn after I take the city from the Byzantines, they attack!!

I had the exact same thing happen in my Venetian campaign, except it was a Turkish Jihad army which parked itself outside Constantinople for around 50 turns before I took it. A bug perhaps?