A bit of an inconsistency with the mongols.

[DiddlyDark]

Alright, as we know, the mongols were reknowned as the greatest horsemen of their time. So I decided to test it out in custom battle. Flat, grassy field, Keshik versus mailed knights, straightforward charge, and they get absolutely massacred. Whenever I pit mongol cavalry against any other cavalry unit, they get curb-stomped in minutes. I know that mongol cavalry relies mainly on horse archers and combination warfare. But it seems a little ridiculous for mongol keshiks and turhaguts to get massacred by the most basic european heavy cavalry. Just a question really.

[fumle]

I agree, I don't know how historical accurate it is, but I want to have the Mongols feel like superioer horsemen, not just a horde of average/below average horsemen. So I have long ago modified their stats, main changes was; increased speed, much better elite units. However I don't think its worth to upload since i also made another dramatic changes (huge increase in all unit sizes, so elite units have 200men etc.).

Anyways, my history books says the mongol horde was in general above average troops, but they had next to zero true elite units like the Mamluks. Im sure Point Blank had his own sources and reasons to give them their stats they have in RR&RC.

/Fumle

[Ichon]

Mongols did have a few elites which were probably quite close to knights of the 1200s era in armor capabilities but Mongol horses were for the most part smaller and slower however they ate less and could march for 1,000s of miles without alot of care. Mongols generals should all have ancillaries giving at least 25% boost to movement in my opinion.

Turhaguts are not that bad- it depends on what they are fighting alot as in most of 1200s they are good, 1300s and later they don't really match western heavy cavalry whereas historically Golden Horde had partial plate that was lighter and probably better than what was in the west in 1300s however they did not see the need for full plate and never really developed it.

Main change I would make in Mongols is a bit better armor possibilities for Turhaguts and have Nukeri be short range specialists with higher bow attack.

RC 2.0 most heavy cavalry tire out much quicker while will make them less able to catch the Mongol cavalry which have great stamina. Mongols never really excelled in heavy cavalry charge. They were certainly capable and could execute such charges but preferred maneuver warfare as that played to their strengths compared to European knights. Mongols did beat some armies in melee contests but usually took heavy losses and they lost a few such engagements early in battles(or purposely retreated but given the high casualties I don't know if it was purposeful).

Overall Mongols statwise are not too bad outside of few chances to upgrade but not many people play them and the AI rarely lasts past mid 1300s as a serious threat.

[Judeman266]

I also had this problem in my Mongol campaign. The Turhagut really are underpowered. I understand the need to balance between the huge unit size 40 (100) with other armies of the era, but comparing their armor to other units wearing the same thing they are pretty underpowered. It really is a RC problem. Even though in RC 2.0, feudal cavalry is being lowered to 50, The Kwarezm Imperial Guard have 80 men and easily defeat Turhagut.

[DiddlyDark]

Their armor could be boosted a bit. The mongols did have access to a chinese scale/lamellar armor, which is excellently represented with the lamellar, but there was also a silk undershirt which was designed to catch arrows so they wouldn't suffer anything fatal from the wholly inferior archers of the nearby countries. (I doubt it's possible to make an "arrow resistant" trait, so an armor boost could work) Another thing, if the mongols are such epic archers and all, then why is it that almost every other country has archers that beat the living bajeezus out of them. I know that the rest of the mod is excellently crafted and all, but it seems a little unfair to the mongols to make them suck at everything except archery,and that hardly matters when firearms show up. Because I know the almighty mod leaders aren't going to do crap, could anyone supply me with a tutorial on how to change the stats of the mongols so that they can be enjoyable to play as?

[fumle]

sure i can tell you how:
first find your data folder: C:\Games\Medieval II Total War\mods\Stainless_Steel_6\data or wherever you installed M2tw. Here you can find a file: export_descr_unit, thats all you need.
In the file you notice a describtion of each stat you can change, you should read this carefully so you know what to change.
Scroll down to the mongol units (or just search for "Mongol"), and change whatever you want!

As a litte help i can tell you what numbers you want to change:
The first number after "stat_pri_armour" is the armour value.
With the archers you want to change the first value after "stat_pri", this is the attack value. You can also change the second last number, thats the reload speed. Furthermore you are also able to change the range and missile type.
Also if you want to change the speed of units, insert: "move_speed_mod 1.2" (i can't remeber if it must be after a certain line, but i can see mine is after the "attributes" line). This will increase the units movement speed with 20% (that migth be a bit much!).

/Fumle

[DiddlyDark]

sure i can tell you how:
first find your data folder: C:\Games\Medieval II Total War\mods\Stainless_Steel_6\data or wherever you installed M2tw. Here you can find a file: export_descr_unit, thats all you need.
In the file you notice a describtion of each stat you can change, you should read this carefully so you know what to change.
Scroll down to the mongol units (or just search for "Mongol"), and change whatever you want!

As a litte help i can tell you what numbers you want to change:
The first number after "stat_pri_armour" is the armour value.
With the archers you want to change the first value after "stat_pri", this is the attack value. You can also change the second last number, thats the reload speed. Furthermore you are also able to change the range and missile type.
Also if you want to change the speed of units, insert: "move_speed_mod 1.2" (i can't remeber if it must be after a certain line, but i can see mine is after the "attributes" line). This will increase the units movement speed with 20% (that migth be a bit much!).

/Fumle

So, how do I change the number of soldiers per unit?

[fumle]

Find the line "soldier", the first number is the number of soliders. Remember this is a base value, huge settings muliply this value with 2.5 so if you write "soldier 100" you get 250 men on huge scale. (btw 100 is maximum).


/fumle

[Silver Legionary]

How are Turhagut underpowered?

They are REALLY good heavy cavalry, and they have MACES.

They wreck most anything. They also have like 80+ men per unit on huge settings.

[Ichon]

I can understand some complaints about Mongols lack of armor and advanced units that keep pace with Western armor but complaining about their missile units is just weird. What other factions can "almost every other country has archers that beat the living bajeezus out of them" make this statement true? Mongols have the best archers in SS- only a couple other factions have anything that come close in terms of range, accuracy, and attack.

[Judeman266]

They have 100 men in each unit. While they can defeat European knights, they can't defeat Kwarezm Imperial Guard or Khassaki. It's not really that much of a gap though. Its just that even with their lamellar armor and armored horses they only have 10 armor.

[Ritterbruder44]

Mongols were feared horsemen, not because of the individuals, but because they had enourmous armies of conquered peoples and their tactics involved a lot of fake retreats, encirclements and harrassment.
European knights could easily beat them in hand-to-hand combat, the problem was to catch them and keep cohesion

[Ichon]

Mongols were feared horsemen, not because of the individuals, but because they had enourmous armies of conquered peoples and their tactics involved a lot of fake retreats, encirclements and harrassment.
European knights could easily beat them in hand-to-hand combat, the problem was to catch them and keep cohesion

The Mongols were usually outnumbered- they had a large army but spread it through half the world and in most places they had less than those they fought. Capture of Baghdad was one of the few times they were vastly numerically superior to their enemies and mostly due to a consideration of what happens after slaying the Caliph and further ambitions of conquest to the west- they had to make a show of force that would demonstrate fighting against them was hopeless which combined with their already known ruthlessness accomplished their objectives in the short term but defeat by the Mameluks ruined their further objectives.

European knights did not easily beat them in melee- it was about even if you look at the invasions of eastern Europe. This is in 1200s when European metallurgy was not very advanced. It wasn't until late 1300s that European could be said to have much advantage if any and more likely 1400-1500 that European armor reached its height relative to other styles.

Mongol strategic strength was rapid long distance movement surprising enemy before they were ready and making gathering an army difficult as a wave of refugees ran ahead of Mongols eating supplies etc that a defending army would need. Also Mongols were quite good at spying and able to exploit relationships of their enemies.

Mongol tactical strength was a very fast(relative to the era) all cavalry army, strong close range communication, effective horse archer tactics, and ruthlessness- chivalry was not a concept Mongols understood aside from resolute courage.

[David93]

Spot on Ichon.
One of the small things that annoys me about SS is the "mongol horde"
but its likely the best way to represent there power.

Few other things that made mongols superior to the europeans, europe relied on either elite and small amounts of knights, or large amounts of levied troops, untill the europeans start to form professional armies again.
Another thing is leadership, at least when the mongols started, generals were promoted on ability and not family relationship or "nobility" Tsubatai, is a great example and probably the greatest general who ever lived, although not very well known.
Every mongol generally had multiple horses, the mongolian word for "poor" is actually related to having to walk. Multiple horses means that mongolian mobility isnt matched untill the blitzkrieg and pattons charge. We all know how effective that is, when you can attack faster than your enemy can retreat.
Plus the "mongol retreat tactics" are really something else, armies were sometimes drawn for days behind them, before the mongols turned and annilalted their exausted enemies. As ichon said the mongol ponies are small and not built for charge tactics, but they were more manuverable in battle and are extremley hardy beasts, built for endurance rather than speed or strength. Few other horse breeds would survive the harsh mongolian winters.
The mongols were also able to survive very well in harsh enviorment and when lacking supplies, they could drink the blood and milk form their mares.
Another important factor is the mongol command structure, they had commanders for groups of men in 10s, 1 man commanded 10, each of thoses commanders was led by another, who essentially led 100, then 1000, 10,000 and the leader of the army. This is an amazing command structure and made sure that commands flowed swiftly through the army. Each of these "commanders" was elected by his sub-ordinates so again was choosen for ability over everything else.

They also had a excellent form of "pony express" that was both faster and more efficent than the pony express hundreds of years later. The mongol Yam IIRC

The image of a mongol horde is a horrible one at best, the depiction of mongols winning battles by numbers etc is an image created by their defeated oponents.
The only empire that rivals the mongols was the british one hundreds of years later and it doesnt even come close to the same type of military achivement. Mongols defeated supposedly civilised armies while the british defeated enemies that were so massively inferior in forms of technology its a joke.

[Silver Legionary]

Gotta agree with David93 on the European states not having as many "professional" warriors as the Mongols at the time. Not that I'm saying they didn't have ANY, just that I agree that their armies were "mostly"' based on either small cadres of elites, or large amounts of levies, with less of a middleman soldier class than the Mongolian army.


Also have to agree on the Mongols basing their pool of generals/commanders on men with ability before those with just connections. IIRC, the Mongols had so different a perception of leadership from Europe that one of their greatest commanders ever (Tsubatai?) who also couldn't really walk on his own, was actually helped around on some sort of man-carrying device, because of his military genius and his ability to make sound decisions in war.
He would've been laughed at in Europe, at that time.

[Judeman266]

Alright just redid an analysis of the Mongol cavalry, for this purpose I will use RC 2.0 for the comparison.

Here's the description

Keshik:
Elite
When readying for war with the Jin dynasty, Ghengis Khan created an imperial bodyguard from his finest, bravest and most loyal troops - the keshik. Armored in heavy armor, on armored horses, the keshik charge was a unstoppable as it was terrifying. There is now power in the world capable of standing against them.

Relevant Stats:

mount eastern armoured horse brawler charger

So they shouldn't have a huge charge but should be able to fight in melee well.

stat_pri 7, 3, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 45, 1

They have a terrible charge in comparison to other bodyguard cavalry.

stat_pri_armour 14, 7, 3, metal

They have good armor but they their defense skill is pretty low when compared to other bodyguards.

Turhagut Lancers:
Superior

Heavily armed men who keep the day watch. Experienced men armored in a lamellar cuirass called a 'khuyad', they never let an enemy closer than what is needed for a thrust of their spear, or a bite of their gulda. But not only are these warriors protected, their war-trained mounts are as well.

Relevant Stats:

mount eastern barded horse charger

This means they are not as armored as the the Keshik but the charge should be pretty good since they are chargers and not brawlers

stat_pri 6, 6, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 60, 1

Have charge of very light cavalry, lower than it should be.

stat_pri_armour 10, 4, 3, metal

Western knights wearing heavy mail and riding barded horses have stats around 15 armor, 5 defense skill, 5 for shield. Turhagut have leather lamellar on top of a mail hauberk riding on a barded horse. Is it arguable whether that it comparable to heavy mail?


The bottom line is that the problem isn't that Turhagut are underpowered. It is that the Khan's Guard unit (pretty much a large unit clone of the bodyguard) was removed from SS after 6.1. I don't think that it was necessary toremove them since their are more useless units in the EDU. Even if you couldn't recruit more Khan's Guard units after the campaign started it would be good to have them at the beginning of the campaign. I would need some feedback from PB or Ichon to tell me if the above comments make sense.

Anyway you should use Hohuchi Lancers for quick strikes and flanking manuevers. Only use Turhagut for charging heavy infantry and melee vs cavalry.

[k/t]

Spear 2 + superior 3 + 1 for something I'm missing = 6. Spear charge = 6. What's the problem?

Heavy mail 6 + feudal 2 + barded horse 2 = 10. Which knight with that equipment has 15?

Lamellar 7 + barded horse 2 + 1 for something I'm missing (possibly silk undershirt) = 10.

I think you expect way too much from a spear and a pony. "Chargers" doesn't mean they have a huge charge. That's Lancers.

I remember the Turhagut riding armoured horses...maybe PB changed their models with BC ones that have barded horses.

[Judeman266]

@Ichon K/t

Mailed Knights have 11 charge, English, Portuguese, and Imperial Knights are (barded horse brawler charger) and have 13 charge. Also aren't the Turhagut wearing light mail underneath the lamellar. I'm pretty sure the +1 is for the silk undershirt too.

[k/t]

Because they use lances, not spears, and they are Lancers.

[Waffen9999]

I'd say the flaws with the Mongols lie a bit in the way they are presented. I'm not sure what exactly the state "long range missiles" or whatever means with regards to them, but I noticed that their most basic HA unit I forget the name does not have it. Where as the Lithuanians HA unit does. All Mongol archer units should basically be able to outrange everyone else. Pretty much the only unit that would come close would be Longbowmen. Mongol cavalry units endurance should also be second to none.

On the strategic map level though I think they're also a bit lacking in the way their faction is presented. They could use some unique structures, perhaps something like the Yam >think early version of the Pony Express< Their infantry though is also sorely lacking. Granted they didn't particularly excel in it obviously, but, that's why they had conquered peoples. Perhaps they should have access to heavier troops of the factions they conquer?