The Unlimilted Mongol Invasion ?

[Thekingtomb]

I'm seeing this too. Playing England EE (Almost at 1300 so yeoman archers!), and I have a holy land bastion from Antioch to Gaza. I toggle_fow to see how the mongols are doing and they literally have 2 lines of full stacks, each about 30 stacks in, trailing towards the last few territories of Novgorod. On top of that, they seem to have a dozen full-stacks in the spawn area near Khiva, as well as large armies near their border with the Byzantines. The byzas are the other super faction in the game, I have an alliance with them so I'm protected from the Mongols (who the byzas are also allied with), but I'm concerned about the Mongols expanding into Northern Europe (I assume that at this rate they'll be in northern Germany by 1350). They're just spawning unlimited stacks.

I'm not too fond of AI factions being stronger than me, so I'm thinking I'll want to conquer scandinavia, germany, and italy (already have GB and France) to create a western european counterweight.

Glad to see that someone else has the same issues. I just started a France Campaign and I'm doing pretty well, but I am just astonished by the strenght of the Byzantine Empire as an AI faction. I had read posts about it but I didn't know the difference was that huge. They are just the top faction in the game from the beginning, they have huge armies and a lot of territories. It's crazy when you know that when you play the Byzantines it's not that easy. I remember the fight with the Turks was pretty difficult. But posts talking about that seem to say that it's because when you're playing BE, the AI will try to put you down while when BE is AI, as it is the most powerful country in the beginning, the AI will hesitate in attacking them.

Anyway yeah, your strategy seems good. The other AI powers don't have enough strengh to stand against the Mongol Invasion anyway so I guess you'll have to invade them first and stand against the Mongols all by yourself. Or you can ally with someone else and fight them, it'll improve your reputation. The trick is that if you attack the Mongols, your alliance with the BE will probably be broken, on the other hand if the Mongols attack you, the opposite might happen. Careful with your expansion plan though, don't ignore the Moors. They are also pretty strong and they must be overwhelming the Hispanic Peninsula at this time (another unrealistic thing since the christian realms of the Peninsula are always fighting against eachother instead of crushing the Moors first and then deal with their own private business). I am having problems with them with France so when you expand to eastern regions, don't forget to watch your back...

And against the Mongols, well, since you have the best archers in the game, I bet you can counter their own archers with more ease than me. Just deploy stakes

[Thekingtomb]

Also note that if you attack the eastern factions they'll be weaker and probably overwhelmed with more ease by the Mongols...
Try to make a Crusade against them ! ^^

[sixwings]

I've started a campaign as the Kwarezmians. Currently around turn 50.

What turnish do the mongols invade?

I'm allied with the fatimids and byzantines. Seljuks are pretty much destroyed. The empire is close to what the Mongols have in the OPs game, but it doesn't stretch that far north.

My plan is to give Urgench to the Byzantines who are the strongest, strengthening our alliance and hopefully I won't have to worry about a 2 front war. I will give the town just south of that to the papal states right at the beginning of the invasion. Hopefully by losing that town the papal states will get enraged and call a crusade on the mongols.

I'm planning on holding the mongols are 2 chokepoints. There's a river and mountains just south of where they enter. I have fortresses there (Gorgen, can't remember the other name) I have built a series of forts along these mountain passes which will be reinforced with full stacks. I'm hoping to hold them until the invasion ends and I can launch a counter attack. Right now im focusing on building a strong economy and building my treasury to support several hundred turns of war (currently at around 300k florins).

Hopefully my preparation will be enough. I'll post a game report in a few weeks.

[Thekingtomb]

I've started a campaign as the Kwarezmians. Currently around turn 50.

What turnish do the mongols invade?

I'm allied with the fatimids and byzantines. Seljuks are pretty much destroyed. The empire is close to what the Mongols have in the OPs game, but it doesn't stretch that far north.

My plan is to give Urgench to the Byzantines who are the strongest, strengthening our alliance and hopefully I won't have to worry about a 2 front war. I will give the town just south of that to the papal states right at the beginning of the invasion. Hopefully by losing that town the papal states will get enraged and call a crusade on the mongols.

I'm planning on holding the mongols are 2 chokepoints. There's a river and mountains just south of where they enter. I have fortresses there (Gorgen, can't remember the other name) I have built a series of forts along these mountain passes which will be reinforced with full stacks. I'm hoping to hold them until the invasion ends and I can launch a counter attack. Right now im focusing on building a strong economy and building my treasury to support several hundred turns of war (currently at around 300k florins).

Hopefully my preparation will be enough. I'll post a game report in a few weeks.

You'll hear about the Mongols around 1200-1210 I think and their invasion will start in 1220.
Like you I was extremely concerned about them, though far less directly threatened... I started to prepare pretty early, my plan was to block them on the mountains with some independent stacks. I had around 14 stacks. When they arrived at my borders though, they surpassed me in strenght (I guess, since I have manage to stay out of the conflict for now but who knows how long it'll stay that way). Since you're the first on their doorstep, I bet there is no way you can avoid them and you'll probably have to fight them on your own. Make sure you have several fortresses at your eastern borders, fortresses that will supply you in men. And this is not a loss of investment since you'll have to face the Timurids later on too. Prepare yourself with at least 15 stacks, taking in account the fact that they have excellent archer cavalry (better than the turkomans), great heavy cavalry (though inferior to your Royal Guard in terms of armour). Surprisingly they also have somewhat nice heavy infantry effective against armour. Your best options would be to fight them on favorable positions with mountains and hills or destroy them in siege by locking them on the gate with the boilinng oil. Careful though they often come with trebuchets.
On the other hand, there are some good news: they will be quickly in bankrupt since their troops are very expensive so they won't be able to recruit more soldiers. Try to destroy their armies one by one and avoid confronting their all horde together. Try to put a full guarnison in the the settlements that are close to the borders and surround them with 2 or 3 other stacks. And as you said, use the map, rivers with bridges and gap in mountains make excellent standing points. Don't underestimate them though. I suggest you save the game around 1210 or even 1200 and see if you manage them. Start building some army buildings (instead of farms and other in your fortresses) and train a maximum number of units.

Can't really add anything else though but good luck. I'm probably about to strike them myself with the help of my Kievan ally. And we would be grateful if you could post your reports and experiences about the way you fought the Mongol Invasion, since the best experience you can acquire is on the battlefield.

May Allah be with you in your fight!

PS: Why don't you try to request a Jihad against them? Should be great

[sixwings]

You'll hear about the Mongols around 1200-1210 I think and their invasion will start in 1220.
Like you I was extremely concerned about them, though far less directly threatened... I started to prepare pretty early, my plan was to block them on the mountains with some independent stacks. I had around 14 stacks. When they arrived at my borders though, they surpassed me in strenght (I guess, since I have manage to stay out of the conflict for now but who knows how long it'll stay that way). Since you're the first on their doorstep, I bet there is no way you can avoid them and you'll probably have to fight them on your own. Make sure you have several fortresses at your eastern borders, fortresses that will supply you in men. And this is not a loss of investment since you'll have to face the Timurids later on too. Prepare yourself with at least 15 stacks, taking in account the fact that they have excellent archer cavalry (better than the turkomans), great heavy cavalry (though inferior to your Royal Guard in terms of armour). Surprisingly they also have somewhat nice heavy infantry effective against armour. Your best options would be to fight them on favorable positions with mountains and hills or destroy them in siege by locking them on the gate with the boilinng oil. Careful though they often come with trebuchets.
On the other hand, there are some good news: they will be quickly in bankrupt since their troops are very expensive so they won't be able to recruit more soldiers. Try to destroy their armies one by one and avoid confronting their all horde together. Try to put a full guarnison in the the settlements that are close to the borders and surround them with 2 or 3 other stacks. And as you said, use the map, rivers with bridges and gap in mountains make excellent standing points. Don't underestimate them though. I suggest you save the game around 1210 or even 1200 and see if you manage them. Start building some army buildings (instead of farms and other in your fortresses) and train a maximum number of units.

Can't really add anything else though but good luck. I'm probably about to strike them myself with the help of my Kievan ally. And we would be grateful if you could post your reports and experiences about the way you fought the Mongol Invasion, since the best experience you can acquire is on the battlefield.

May Allah be with you in your fight!

PS: Why don't you try to request a Jihad against them? Should be great

Yeah I don't really plan on fighting them on the field until they have stopped getting free reinforcements. I have a series of forts in the mountain passes that they have to pass through to get into my lands. about 4 forts and 1 citadel per pass (there's 2 passes). The plan is to have each fort /fortress with a full stack in them of fully upgraded troops. I'm only around turn 60 right now so I'm going to start building the armies in 10 turns or so. I have been getting the kwarezmian noblemen each turn they become available though. I have about a stack and a half of them (they have a 9 turn cooldown so i figured i needed to build up a force of them ahead of time).

My plan for seiges is pretty simple. I will have a ton of infantry (spearmen/archers/trebuchets) with 4 units of cavalary (usually merchant militia cavalry). 2 units of cavalry will sally out of the fort/citadel to knock the enemy troops off their seige towers/ladders/trebuchets. Then I keep them bottle necked at the gate and let that oil pour down upon them. I would like to see how effective their horse archers are when faced with massed spearmen and hot oil pouring down upon them. Half the time the oil will pour down on the general killing them too. Pretty hard for the high dread generals to cause my troops to route if i'm in a town center.

If they want to get into the heart of the Kwarezmian empire, I will make them pay for each step through those mountain passes with blood.
I'm playing on H/H.

[Andytheplatypus]

I am playing a cs campaign and I had destroyed the fatimids and seljuks and khwarezmians. so that pretty much only left my to face the mongols. first turn mongols invaded I offered them loads of gold, urgench and alliance with trade rights. that turned their attention north away from me instead of south. worked out well for me so far. I just keep giving them money to keep relations good

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

Try to hold a peace with the Mongols and if War Breaks them make a coalition using your Allies as a back shield and attack them full power . Make peace with any western enemy you have in Italia or North Africa.

[Roma_Victrix]

The byzas are the other super faction in the game, I have an alliance with them so I'm protected from the Mongols (who the byzas are also allied with), but I'm concerned about the Mongols expanding into Northern Europe (I assume that at this rate they'll be in northern Germany by 1350). They're just spawning unlimited stacks.

Don't despair, my friend. I've played plenty a campaign well into the 1500s. The Golden Horde does not last forever. They eventually get worn down. In fact, after the Black Death in the 1350s is about the time they usually start to decline in my campaigns. Conveniently enough, this is around the time (late 1370s) the Timurids show up on the eastern fringes of the campaign map. They're Mongols like in the Golden Horde, only now they're Muslims with hand gunners and elephants. If you hit the toggle_fow like you said, you'd notice most of the Mongol settlements are poorly garrisoned while their full stacks are off ravaging other territories. The Timurids pretty much sweep over these and crush what remains of the Golden Horde while they're distracted on multiple fronts. Although a bit stronger with gunpowder technology, the Timurids don't nearly have the amount of full stacks that the Golden Horde had and usually exhaust themselves way quicker. Therefore, it's a win-win scenario for you!

Hope that helps,
Roma_Victrix

[Thekingtomb]

Well I just won the campaign after taking care of Italy and destroying Sicily. I am going to try to continue to gain "even more glory". I a planning to attack the Mongols on the Southern part of their territories while sending some troups to reinforce my Kievan allies in the North.
I have finally regained control of the military supremacy, though many of my troops are located in Italy and facing the treatening moors.
As soon as I start the war and get my first battles I'll post some reports and pictures about the sieges and land battles.

[Thekingtomb]

the treatening moors.

Damn. Threatening*

[flyingcat]

Mongols are truly powerful,but AI mongols can be destroyed by good battle strategies.Some Comments as followed:
1、Choose a good faction or try to get good archers.Pesante Archers(best),Mourtatoi(Easy to get).Dismounted Bekh Druzhina(6 attack ,better than best.Low availablity)Cilician Archers(Mercenary,also good)
2、If you do not have good archers,try to train some cheap archers or units and use them as arrow-folders.Desert/Turkish Archers are very suitable.
3、No matter how many stacks of Mongols you are facing in a region,bring at least 3 stacks of troops.
Assemble your good archers when facing a stack of horse archers.
A decent general with high dread could lead a stack of infantry and some HorseArchers to finish Turhaguts easily.(In this Circumstance,try to separate Light cav into several different armies.distracting enemy forces well.Easier to finish enemies separately)
Use a balanced army when facing a balanced Mongol army(the hardest to treat with,Mangonel is very,very useful in this kind of battle if used well)
[Use Spies,Assassins and Dread Generals.Try learning to get good use of terrain condition.]
In this way,I managed to use a general and 3 full stacks destroy 7+ full stacks of Mongols(My computer is poor,so I had to 1V1 each time).There're still more powerful methods,but perhaps you should use these first.
The laziest way is to defend the city and bridges.But dull.

[Thekingtomb]

The problem is that the Mongols have probably some of the best archer cavalry in the game. Their missile attack is 6, and that is huge for archers with bows. Plus my byzantine archers aren't really heavily protected with only 12 in armour. And the Mongols' archer cavalry have this annoying ability of circling around.
Nevertheless I'll try that but I suppose this strategy is more effective with crossbowmen because their missile power is much greater. At least I don't have to fear a frontal attack with my stakes. But I guess it would be better with England .

[flyingcat]

Oh,Mongol foot archers,just use knights to finish them.

Crossbow doesn't work quite well.When you use archers,try to get a good terrain.That's why many players choose Byzantine because they can face Mongols in Armenia's hills.With a good general and 4 Mourtatoi+some scoutatoi on the uphill,you can win a Heroic victory.

If you truly have no ideas about winning,then follow these steps:
1.Use 2 archers+8-9 heavy inf+ more than 4 cav(heavy&light). to face a Mongol army which is mainly consisted of HAs.Better if your enemy is stronger than you.(Personally I think 9:10 or 4:5 is the best)
2.Put your main army backwards(not very far) Leave one heavy-armoured infantry scattered to attract your foes' arrows.
3.Wait until your foe runs out of arrows.
4.Push your Main Infantry forwards to engage.Use some cav to attract Turhaguts,then leave the main Mongol army without shelter in the flank/rear.
5.heavy cav(including general) ride to Monguls' flanks and rears,give several charges,and Mongol HA and infantry can't hold long.
6.Finish Turhaguts with heavy cav and inf.

It's perhaps too far to transport Longbowmen from England.Longbowmen are local units which are not available in Holy Lands and Middle East~~If you wait for Yeoman archers...Then Monguls are no longer a threat to attract a powerful monarch's attention~~
P.s:Your general should have above 5 command,better with dread.

[StupidAlarmClockGuy]

By 1260 (late era campaign anyway) their armies start petering out really quickly. Any stack they lose shows a visible drop in their military score, and that line doesn't go back up.

[prefking]

Do the mongols ignore RR or can they recruit what they want, where they want, when they want?

[prefking]

Because i' ve seen them recruit HA, infantry and cavalry in both cities and castles pretty much every other turn.

[StupidAlarmClockGuy]

Are you sure it's active recruitment in settlements or new stacks coming in?

[419]

I am in a similar situation as you in my Byz campaign...except with a far more pitiful economic base to work with, and a 'slightly' worse diplomatic situation (war with France, Hungary, Venice, Sicily, Fatimids, Papal States, Mongols, Kievans)...



I've crippled the Turks, but it seems like the Mongols will deal them the fatal blow. War has just began with the Mongols, who besieged Edessa. I manage to hold the city at the cost of 75% of the garrison. There are now 2 more Mongol stacks inbound. Luckily I have ceasefire with Turks...

unfortunately, one of my 2 ten-star/ten-dread generals (at the age of 34!-- probably one of the favorite characters I've made in this game) is busy in the West fighting against the Latins. The other is battling against the Fatimids who ALSO have ~10 stacks in the area. I am making steady progress against them, having recently captured Acre and Damascus.

My net income is like 10k / turn. I see no option but playing defensive against the Mongols -- I am sending all my siphonatores units (6~ ish of them) to defend the two most threatened settlements. Hopefully these should annihilate the Mongol stacks while I finish conquering the holy land.

It'll be an interesting campaign in the west as well. France have basically split the HRE in two, and are undeniably the greatest power in Europe at the moment. I think I need to vassalize Hungary as well, or war with Poland is inevitable, and that front would be pretty much indefensible should that occur.

[prefking]

Alarm Clock, Several veteran units just show up at a city/castle (all with between 3 and 5 chevrons). Defnitely not walking in from off-screen. Those experienced units are just killing me. I'm running out of spearmen to soak up their cavalry charges and dismounted turgahut. Playing as early era kwarezmians.

[StupidAlarmClockGuy]

Early Era? That might have something to do with it, I only play Late Era.

I suppose there's something scripted in for the Early Era version, designed to boost Mongol settlements so they don't get rebelled against and flattened by the time they finally show up.