Which faction is best when encountering mongols

[Slug For A Butt]

Glad to see you back Pizzaguy. I'll have a deep pan pepperoni, peppers, garlic mushroom and pineapple with a few jalapenos sprinkled on top please. How long till you can deliver?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Hey Pizza nice to see you again. Apart from the fact that England doesn't have pikes you are absolutely correct.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Glad to see you back Pizzaguy. I'll have a deep pan pepperoni, peppers, garlic mushroom and pineapple with a few jalapenos sprinkled on top please. How long till you can deliver?

Well let's see... there's no extra charge for the floor dust on the crust, the week-old pepperoni from underneath the oven jammed between the good ones, the saliva on the green peppers to give it an extra glistening shine, the moldy mushroom from underneath the dish sink, the pineapples soaked in jalapeno juice, and the jalapenos soaked in mop water.

I took the liberty of adding just a touch of dandruff to the parmesean cheese, and that juicy pool in the middle of the pizza that makes it look so delicious is actually something I can't describe in public, but you can use your imagination to figure out.

I seem to recall there was no tip last time, so I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I left in in the oven while I went on a delivery, and then put it on the bottom of my next two deliveries, right? I promise not to shake the box or drop it on your lawn... repeatedly.

Those aren't bugs, those are red peppers. Crunchy, aren't they?

Should be about 2 and a half hours for delivery. Oh, by the way, we now charge 5 dollars for each delivery. Have a nice night.



Oh yes, and uh... Medieval 2 Total war rules.

[Slug For A Butt]

Great Pizzaguy, just the way I remember them. I'll take two.

[Askthepizzaguy]

Hey Pizza nice to see you again. Apart from the fact that England doesn't have pikes you are absolutely correct.

Pikes? No pikes?

You can't get pikes?

Seriously?

Maybe I remember incorrectly. Been a while since I've played England. Got the Danes rocking at the moment.

Oh well. Any uber-spears work in place of pikes for the most part. And I'm almost certain you can get pikes.

But then again, haven't played in a while.

[Ramses II CP]

Pfft, what would you want with pikes when you can have stakes? Stakes don't require any fiddly clicking nonsense just to make them work, and when the men behind them draw their swords... Allah help the Mongols.

[Slug For A Butt]

Pfft, what would you want with pikes when you can have stakes? Stakes don't require any fiddly clicking nonsense just to make them work, and when the men behind them draw their swords... Allah help the Mongols.

Quite right, and those RL with decent melee stats and AP do a fine job on the Mongols that get through the stakes.

[Fisherking]

The Mongols are not that tough except they come in mass. I like the Polish best when fighting these guys.

In cities or castles I use Lithuanian Archers, Spear, & Axmen or Dks on the walls with an artillery piece or two.

On the open ground I leave the infantry at home and go for better mobility with all horse archers. I use one Polish Nobles for each two Shooters. The stack with or without a general can easily handle a full stack of Mongols.

If you plan on fighting at the bridges or fords then you can take along a couple of stake archers just to thin out their ranks but it may impede you if you are chasing routers.

I tend to place the Pns behind the shooters and save them for generals or Mongol lancers. I will divide the Pns into two groups of three and the shooters likewise in groups of three or four. During deployment I put all on wide spacing because you are obviously facing archers.

Array your two wings into rough Ls and wait for the Mongols to send up their first wave of horse archers. The crossfire with 6 units firing will decimate them before the foot even get in range. The Pns handle any pursuers and are a match for most any units in single combat. Once they are out of javelins they can chase the foot archers.

I destroyed the Mongol invasion each wave at a time in this manor…good luck and happy hunting.

As to the English, they are good but take a lot more advanced units to do the job and they require a lot more work to get the job done...

[Ramses II CP]

Bah, the English require no work at all FK. Set your stakes, turn off skirmish, and watch your longbowmen slaughter the Mongols. You don't even need a general or any different unit types. It's kinda boring actually.

[Fisherking]

Well, I don’t think that you are talking about just Longbowmen. It is Yeoman Archers at the very least and more likely longbow retainers. You can not run down the routers and a sizeable amount of the enemy escape to fight again. Once your men are out of ammunition they are of questionable value while mine can still stand up to the Mongol units left on the field.

The casualty rates are roughly even between the two styles however, but mine can face them in open field where yours do their best at the fords.

Both work, and work well but mine are also good against the Mongols big brothers with the addition of a couple more Polish Nobles where you need a different mix with cannon that are going to slow your force even more.

I like the English too but you know that the English have to go searching for the Mongols…they come to you if you are on the Russian Steppes…

[Askthepizzaguy]

Well, I don’t think that you are talking about just Longbowmen. It is Yeoman Archers at the very least and more likely longbow retainers. You can not run down the routers and a sizeable amount of the enemy escape to fight again. Once your men are out of ammunition they are of questionable value while mine can still stand up to the Mongol units left on the field.

The casualty rates are roughly even between the two styles however, but mine can face them in open field where yours do their best at the fords.

Both work, and work well but mine are also good against the Mongols big brothers with the addition of a couple more Polish Nobles where you need a different mix with cannon that are going to slow your force even more.

I like the English too but you know that the English have to go searching for the Mongols…they come to you if you are on the Russian Steppes…

Not to interject, but I've expanded with England as far as Baghdad (with everything in between conquered, both north and south) by the time the Mongols arrive, so yes, indeed, you don't need to wait for them to come to you if you're a mad, mad, mad (dangerously mad) blitzer like me.

[Bravedude]

I personally love attacking both Mongols and Timurids as the Rus. I'll usually take over all of eastern Russia about to invade Poland and HUngary when the Mongols come. I prepare myself for them by making stacks of all fully upgraded Dvor. I can pretty much wipe out the Mongols armies and use the remaining Dvors to resupply my weakened armies in Hungary and Poland 30 turns and three less competitors.

[Yoyoma1910]

I say the French.

Maybe you disagree, but that's because you have never faced a wheel of French Munster Cheese, the supper secret weapon of the Franks.

No man, nation, nor dog, save those who have spent the entirety of their lives building an immunity to this substance, can come face to face with the overwhelming odor (similar to a well fermented sheep's bottom) much less flavor (more similar to a well fermented sheep's bottom) and survive.

[Cheetah]

I say the French.
No man, nation, nor dog, save those who have spent the entirety of their lives building an immunity to this substance, can come face to face with the overwhelming odor (similar to a well fermented sheep's bottom) much less flavor (more similar to a well fermented sheep's bottom) and survive.

ROFL!

Actually the French can be quite good: aventuriers, pikes, noble knights and horse archers even!!! Good combo.

[imnothere]

yeah, french are actually aint bad in LATE period, even if alot more expensive... - a decent French army against Mongols will easily set you back over 10000 florins even without the upgrades.

Armoured sergeants (not sure about pikemen, i am against pikewall units working under the hot middle-east sun where they can get skin-cancer and catch arrows) in front, Scots Guards (longbow) at the back. and one of the heavily-armoured units - Dismounted French Knights for example, to cover the broken line or to flank. Aventurier(maybe) are ok too. Knights are ok, although i tend to forgo the Noble Knights in favour of Templars and Hospitallers. Strong artillery units - basilisk/Culverin/Serpentine will force the Mongols to close the range with you. Unless supported by other mounted units, I will forgo those expensive Mounted Archers as well.

I thought that the French uses the trebuchets to throw their dirty laundry at the enemies?

[Ramses II CP]

Err, sorry, missed your reply there FK. Longbowmen don't need a ford or even a hill to bleed the Mongols. You can build forts out of your stakes that protect your line of retreat and neutralize the Mongol cavalry completely. Obviously you have more power at range, so you cause casualties much faster than you take them, and since there's no need for a general to collect bad traits you can retreat any time. My single stack army can face any number of Mongol stacks and inflict heavy losses before retreating to do it again.

I'd fight the Mongols on any terrain and take longbows with stakes over any other force every single time. The only way I don't massacre them is if they get the reinforcements bug and won't attack.

...but it's not as much fun as taking a HA heavy force against them, I'll grant you that.

[Fisherking]

@ Ramses II

Any idea what your casualty figures are like when you do that.

I would not take on multiple stacks with mine. When it is time to retreat I often find that they want to exit in some weird place that puts them at risk…

I know longbows have lots going for them…at least Yeoman Archers and better vs. Mongols. I just wish they could take on the elephants.

Mine can stand up to the big Ts also but the casualties are about 30 to 40 % when they do.

[Ramses II CP]

Casualties against a Mongol stack are usually light, the Mongols are unwilling to just duel their HA against your longbows, so the HA often wander around doing very little damage while their regular archers just get torn up. The Mongol infantry is extremely inferior to Retinue longbowmen at close range, so if they attack through the stakes they get massacred.

Yeah, the Byzantines and Turks are much better against the Timurids. An all longbow stack against the Timurids is going to get pounded about 80% of the time because you just can't get both companies of elephants to rout, even if you're shooting them exclusively.

The biggest disadvantage of the longbow strategy is that I can't chase. Even if the Mongols rout the rest of their army gets away, so I have to fight them again, so you end up fighting more battles (And 'losing' a good number of them by retreating even if you inflict 10-20x the casualties you take). Mutliple Mongol stacks don't significantly increase relative casualties because of the passive AI bug and the fact that the Mongol stacks stay so close together; i.e. where you normally had 5-8 companies of enemy archers they now pack 10-16 into the same space and just soak up more arrows.

People who say it's an exploit are pretty close to the truth, it's AI abuse, no question, but I think if you put a player in control of the Mongol armies (including their experience bonus) they'd be, stack for stack, almost unstoppable.