MTW 2 Fighting the Timurids

[MarkyD]

Any tips on fighting the blasted Timurids anybody? Their Elephant missile units really knock my armies to pieces and as they arrive in mass I find it impossible to beat them...I'm sure they are quite beatable but any tips anybody?? Please??!!!!!

Markyd

[Shahed]

Hi MarkyD, welcome to the ORG !

Which faction are you playing as ? That would be useful to know. There are many different strategies you can use, depending on faction. As a rule, javelins, gunpowder, stakes, naptha... all work.

EDIT: Check these links:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...t=73428&page=2
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=74334

The 1st is an early thread about elephants, follows a copy paste of one of my initial posts:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Test against Timurid Elephant Artillery.

The results have convinced me I need go no further with this. I will however test vs Timurid Elephant Musketeers (or what's it they are called).

The limitations of these tests are:

1. Single unit type.
2. No other enemies to contend with on the field.
3. Terrain differences, although extremely minimal for gunpowder units.
4. Small sample size.
5. Ideal weather conditions enjoyed by both armies.
6. My somewhat skewed (by some standards) sense of humor.

The 2 test battles featured (drumroll!):

2 Janissary Musketeers
vs
1 Timurid Elephant Artillery

Test Conditions

• Palm Beach.
• (Gotta love the).... Sunset.
• Clear.
• Very Hard Difficulty.
• All units are experience 0.
• All units are armor upgrade 0.
• All units are weapons upgrade 0.
• Jannissaries deployed ranks 2 deep, loose formation, hold ground.
• Jannissaries fire on command, not auto fire.

THE RESULTS:

The enemy General is shot down!.


His troops are shot down!.


Some choose to retreat.


They are hunted down.
Primarily for the ivory (which is legal trade in this scenario).
Secondly for marksmanship training vs large slow moving objects.


Summary


Conclusion
Please keep in mind the limitations of this test. I believe it will be harder against the musket elephants. With that unit I believe it will be necessary to draw their fire to another unit, perhaps the General, or another cavalry or infantry unit/s so that the firearms are free to aim and fire without distraction. This is achievable though not by all and though not under any circumstance. With the right leadership under the right circumstance it is achievable by all.

In this case the elephants were annihilated with NO survivors for the loss of ONE Janissary casualty (which may be healed in campaign). This shows clearly that against this unit a simple duo of Janissary Musketeers can do the job very well, when they work as intended without bugs.

Point is if muskets kill these elephants they should theoretically kill any other elephants too.

Salute !!!

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

This is a very good thread with tips:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=83845

[MarkyD]

Hi ,
Well I'm playing as the English (hard pill to swallow as an Irish man!).
Another problem I've encountered, nothing to do with tactics, is when a large Timurid army attacks one of my cities (usually with re enforcements) the computer crashes (!). Too much movement for the processor I guess.

Anyhow I've had limited success with Long Bows but its very costly I any small victory has usually left my local army so decimated its totally open to re-assault by the cursed Mongels. How my empire is crumbling.

markyd

[TheLastPrivate]

Stakes and mass longbows are your best bet with the english.
English spears suck and suffer from low morale so I would rather use retinues with some armored swordman support, with some heavy billmen to kill the general. Try to lure elephant artillery fire with few mercenary horse archer units as well.

However if you meet timur army 1v1 on open ground, you will still suffer drastic losses. Your best bet is to have your cities/castles upgraded to cannon towers and using the cannon towers to beat them off.

[Ramses II CP]

Yeah, if you have cannon towers you can just sally and the towers will take care of them. That's an exploit though, and not very much fun.

Stakes, unfortunately, don't work on elephants, though they will keep the Timurid cavalry at bay. Against the elephants I'd use ballistae and massed fire arrows. The key is to target them immediately when they come into range. If their elephant artillery are sitting back bring your own cannons and duke it out.

I'd also try to be in position to withdraw in good order if the elephants break into your formation. You might be able to kill a few elephants in melee, but your losses will be horrific (I did this in my AAR, trust me).

[phonicsmonkey]

Also, keep an eye out for any Mercenary Elephants which may be in the region, they can be a handy addition

Not sure if it's possible as England to pick up javelin cavalry mercs, but I've found them very effective against pachyderms in the past....

[Shahed]

IIRC stakes work on all cavalry, elephants & camels included, IF they double march or charge through it. Correct me if I'm wrong though.

If they march or walk through them, they don't work on any cavalry. I remember 100% about walking through them because that's what I routinely do, by walk my own cavalry through stakes placed by my own archers, when they need to get out of the line of fire.

[Ramses II CP]

Hmm, maybe the problem is that the elephants rarely charge? I've not seen elephants killed by stakes even though they've attacked me through them. That being said, it was quite some time ago and I don't recall the exact circumstances. It's quite possible that they walked through the stake line before pounding me, but then again I've never seen enemy cavalry walk through a defended stake line either.

This calls for a test! Time to see if I can dig up an old England save from the period.

[Shahed]

That will be great. I just did a test but the elephants just walked through the stakes. Walked being the keyword. I remember I tested this as well, forgot the result though, have screens:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Only I forgot if they did or did not charge, I suspect they did'nt, probably routed before the charge/attack.
Hmm must have posted this in some other thread with the results of the test.
Anyway if you can do it, that would be great.

Look at hom many they killed before running out of ammo, don't everyone huddle together !!!

[imnothere]

tested only once. with english v timurid.

timurid elephants walks through the stakes, and all my stakes forest dissappear. dont even ask whats going on. maybe CA intended to create elephants as a stake-sweeper against stake-happy players???

perhaps it will work only if elephants charges. with mounted units, they'd still take casualties - but only not as bad as running into stakes. because i remember that those timurid elephants charges from the bridge. but then again there was 6 units of spears that they tried to flatten and failed.

that being said, elephants are easily routed once speared and fire-arrowed. once they turn berserked, they wont be rally anytime soon. i have never seen an elephant unit that rallied from berserked state or routed.

[phonicsmonkey]

If you're really cheeky you can herd them with fast cavalry like border horses...just dangle them around in front of the running-amok-eles and they will charge at them.

In this way you can lure them into the proximity of enemy infantry, sit back and enjoy the carnage...

Obviously this requires great skill and a suicidal cavalry captain..

200 posts, thankyou, thankyou

[Shahed]

Congrats !

[Fisherking]

If he is playing as the English he has mortars! Which can shoot over his walls and attack the Elephants before they get inside. USE THEM! If done well he can route them before they come in and route half the enemy army with them.

[Jason X]

hi MarkyD

i believe the elephant crash you are experiencing is not down pc specs but is rather a bug in vanilla (and possibly 1.1 too, can't remember offhand).

are you running the 1.2 (aka 1.02) patch?

[MarkyD]

Thanks for the elephant info people. I'll struggle on wiv yer advice. The cannon towers and sallying is a way I've succeeded in already...as you say not much fun though.
And Jason X...I'm actually running version 1.0 (!). I live in a rural place in the mountains and broadband is a no go for the moment so downloading a patch is a bit of a struggle. i assume its on the offcial site? I actually have problems accessing that too with my Medieval phone line.
The Mongo induced crash has actually made me have to change tactics as If i see two Timurid armies approaching one of my cities it actually induces two layers of panic. One, my armies will suffer...and two if they attack my city together .......CRASH!! Extra fear and loathing for no extra charge

Thanks again for your advice everybody.....appreciate it

Markyd

[Shahed]

No problem Marky. Umm that crash is the old one. You can find the patches here: http://www.gamershell.com/pc/medieval_2_total_war/ They are pretty large though and on a slow connection could mean a long donwload time.

Can someone please confirm if there is a seperate USA patch please ? I don't know since I used EU, and that's the only one I saw.

[MarkyD]

Hi Sinan

Yeah just checked it out 600MB. All I can say is *!~!!!! )**!!.
Decode that if you can. I'll have to try download it at work with some gentle persuasion on our IT manager. Just been playing again tried my usual tactics of trying to split the Timurid army up but it did still crash randomly..but i did have 'limited' success against the hordes. And to think, I used to hate the Milanese, until I eventually wiped them out.
This game sure gets under your skin!

markkd

[Cheetah]

1, Hire all the merc ele.
2, Hire as much jav cav as much you can (jinettes)
3, Hire all the javelinmen you can (afgans, etc)
4, use your artillery, England has good arty
5, charge them in the flank, rear with cavs (it works, ofc timing is a main issue)

[OverKnight]

Elephants have a key weakness, they run amok. I've used cannons to engage them at a distance, enrage them and send them ramming into their own lines.

Of course this strategy is unpredictable, but there's nothing more satisfying than watching from a distance as your enemies kill each other.

Edit: Also, amok elephants, while still dangerous, won't fire whatever artillery that is strapped to them.

[MarkyD]

The elephants, do actually make me (rather disgustingly) wish there were Ivory traders floating around the game to sort them out.

[18zulukiller]

The elephants, do actually make me (rather disgustingly) wish there were Ivory traders floating around the game to sort them out.

Marky D your concentrating on the wrong thing mate so is everyone else in this thread. The problem with the Timurids isnt there elephants although they are a pain in the arse and dam hard to defeat. Its a combination of the elephants and the 10 dread (possibly 10 starts aswell) Timurid generals, as in the elephants scare the crap out of your men and so do the 10 dread Timurid generals combining them togethor equals instant routing for your troops on the open field. So first thing you need to do is build an army of assasins and level them up anyway you can (blowing up stuff in cities is a good way to level them up fast) and then go kill those generals. Now taking on Timurid stacks with only a captian incharge isnt easy but it is much easier then trying to do it with a 10 dread general incharge.

Anway on open field battles dont expect to win expect to lose (England is probably the worst country for taking on the Timurids espeacially in Version1), what your objective on open field battles is to grind the basterds down (there elephants) or if there is a general on the field kill him. First thing you need to do is pick the battleground carefully (i think right clicking and holding on the map gives you terrain detail) you only really want to fight on either the edge of a mountain were you have the high ground on a bridge or in a fort. Your stacks should be made up of lots of archers that can deploy stakes your best spearmen (to hold of cavalry) and either Catapultes or Mortars or trebuchets depending on the situation, ballistas can be pretty handy aswell. Flaming catapaltes are good on bridge battles, Mortars are good on mountain sides and fort battles and trebuchets are good from forts (i think they have a longer ranger than mortars i'm not sure though).

Right for settlement battles you need cannon towers & mortars for citadles & fortresses and cannon towers and catapaltes for cities and archers that can deploy stack for both. For Fortresse & citadles its pretty easy to deffend just lightly deffend your outter ring and use your cannon towers & mortars to take out the enemy and then fall back when you lose that wall and just keep grinding them down. For citties i know a bit of a trick pull all your men of the wall and get them in the city centre and then place either a couple of your most damaged units on the walls to get the cannon towers working (the ones that will reach the timurs) or you can place cavalry at the base of the cannon towers to get them firing. In the city centre deploy your stakes to block of the entrances to the main square and then deploy your catapalts in line with the main street and set them to flame and set your archers to flame aswell. When the timurids breach the walls the majority of there army should come up the main street if your luck the elephants will be at the front and the combination of your catapultes and flaming archers should make the elephants go berserk and send them ploughing through there army instantly killing the lot of them. You see the way it work with an elephant charge is they dont kill everyone instantly when they charge they just knock them on there arse and then they stand back up. But in an enclosed space like a street (works on bridges aswell) theres no space for them to fall over so they instantly die.

Ahh sod it i'm feed up typing heres a couple of things that you need to know though.

1) Elephant mercs can be found around baghdad.

2) You can't higher jinnetts so dont even bother looking for them.

3) In version 1 of the game (straight out of the box) theres a thing called the two handed bug which means Billmen & Dismounted English kinghts are useless. This bug effects lots of units in the game for different factions but it hits the english the hardest as it basically fecks up the majority of there ground troops plus they have the added pain in the arse of having really poor spearmen.

4) Get the patch you really need it, go to an internet cafe if you have to or get a friend or member of familly that lives somewere else to download it and post it to you.

[MarkyD]

Thanks for that advice,I've already got a family member to dowwload it and I should have it soon .Since I've started this thread I have had reasonable success and now my biggest problem is the 'crashing'. Hopefully by mid week i'll be happily taking the Mongos on with no crash fear lurking around.

I've never really taken much interest in the assasins as I'm rather impatient with their slow learning curve and I probably send them in the deep end too soon.

When I get the patch I already know my Mongo tactic will be retreating to a city/Citadel (a bit dull but works) and blowing the snot out of them. The dullness will be rewarded by hapiness in seeing the Dumbos routing left right and centre (I feel a doctor Evil laugh coming on!)

Cheers Everybody
ooh hahahaha!