Which faction is best when encountering mongols

[imnothere]

by slapping the mongols with heavy fines for illegal entry and parking of horses, and then hitting them with heavy str 13-15 attack if they don't pay.

i do agree that it is tricky to use billmen. but parking behind the stakes makes it alot easier. plus with the two-hander bugs, i don't really use them by themselves and more of a suppliments with mercenary spears and levy spears. maybe 1 unit of bills to 4 units of spears.

plus any mongol infantry units that want to wade into combat while my other spears are engaged will get slap very hard with heavy bills.

welcome back Budwise.

[Alexander: The hellenic empire]

If that is the case with Billmen, you could also use viking axemen (powerful enough) by playing with the Danes. They are as good as billmen, not to say that they might also be better.

The problem here with the English is that if you created a "fort" with stakes from Longbowmen the Mongol Horse Archers with circle around the fort and shoot your soldiers down!

In my experience, I have not been able to avoid this.

Returning to what I said about the Danes, they are inferior to the the English since they lack stake-placing archers. However, in my Danish campaign on Difficult/Difficult, I stopped the Mongol Horde, thanks to a line of forts and cities resembling the Maginot Line (Second World War).

[I really need to find that screenshot! )

I had constructed a line of forts from Denmark to Venice and supported it with loads of Huscarls. (I believe this cannot be included as an example since by then I had achieved an incredible expansion and wealthy which I have never matched in any other campaign I played)

[Jason X]

The problem here with the English is that if you created a "fort" with stakes from Longbowmen the Mongol Horse Archers with circle around the fort and shoot your soldiers down!

In my experience, I have not been able to avoid this.

but the point is that longbowmen completely outrange mongol HA - massed foot archers are exactly the counter you need to HA heavy armies. the stakes just make them uber! the only issue is getting them to attack you and dealing with any artillery

[Alexander: The hellenic empire]

but the point is that longbowmen completely outrange mongol HA - massed foot archers are exactly the counter you need to HA heavy armies. the stakes just make them uber! the only issue is getting them to attack you and dealing with any artillery

Aren't the HA difficult to hit if moving?

[RickooClan]

It will be no doubt the most effective way to kill HA is using shooting unit. And in any shooting duel pavise unit simply own as they can minimize the damage from range attack.

I cant really see why a longbow unit can do a better job than, lets say pavise crossbowman in terms of killing the mongols HA.

Other than the HA, the mongols army does not give much trouble, any factions with decent spearman and moderate infantry can get the job done. You dont really need the stakes to preventing the HA or calvary hitting you.

Also for the stakes....how about the mongols camping at a defensive position and waiting your army to come? As the mongol army consist a majority of shooters actually they tend to play defensively rather than offensively.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

For me it is important that one stack can do a lot of damage and stay alive. This means that the stack must be able to win a battle and be able to fight an other one during the same turn.

The usual battle against the Mongols is one of your stacks against two of theirs. This means that they have more than enough heavy cavalry to destroy a line of spearmen. Together with their high dreaded generals your infantry is likely to route. Genoese crossbow militia have a 3 morale and Italian spear militia have 5 morale. This means that when they get tired they will route. You can win but it also can go horribly wrong. Fighting two battles during the enemies turn with a militia army probably won't work.

English yeomen have also 5 morale but their stakes don't route. If you deploy your units at a defensive position and back the Yeomens up by some armored swords and some heavy cavalry you can win with relative low losses. Your army van fight an other day and still be successful.

250th post

[Ramses II CP]

Regarding the Mongols not attacking, if you have missile superiority (And you will with the English plan) the AI will come to you. The only cases where they will not are second stacks that suffer from the passive AI bug, but your arrows will not likely suffice for a second stack anyway, so withdraw and attack the reinforcement stack this time. Quite frankly in my experience the Mongols are never defensive unless they're suffering the passive reinforcement bug or they're across a bridge/ford with overwhelming ranged superiority.

With regard to hitting moving horse archers, your men have shields and the HA's movement reduces their own accuracy while running them the risk of smacking your stakes. If the HA are constantly moving, target the other enemy units or use one of your longbow contingents to bait them into a charge against the stakes. If all else fails, shoot out your arrows and withdraw to hope for better terrain in the next engagement. Ideally your position wouldn't allow the HA to take higher ground than you and if your line of retreat is staked out they can't get fully behind you. Remember, you can train more Longbowmen, the Mongols can't retrain anything, so all you have to do is keep them bleeding faster than you.