Advice on Mongols needed

[bauskasalus]

Hiya folks!

For the first time, I have decided on playing for Roman Empire and now I'm starting to regret that. SS 6.4, Meneths compilation, 2TPY and I can not defeat a single army of them mongols.
I have this feeling that they got machine guns and power armor from Fallout. Oly way how I was able to get peace, was offering them loads of money, which is not that bad for possibilty to muster more armies. But what's the point if even my strongest generals and soldiers fall like leaves from trees when fighting.
So I am begging you, oh mighty kings and emperors, is there any way to fight them and not constantly lose?

[Treaper]

Never fight them open-field. I can defeat them only in cities, so I am doing it this way. Maybe someone knows good strategy to open-field victory against them...

[Abdülmecid I]

Bridges are a nice option. Have some cheap units in the front, to serve as targets for the Mongol mounted carabiniers, at least three units of heavy spearmen in the back, with a general and one heavy cavalry as reserves. Rest should be sieging engines and archer spam. Deploy them carefully (always remember that the weakest side of every unit is the right one, because they have no shields). Also, I found ribaults the best anti-mongol measure. They can kill dozens of them, with a single shot.

[Roman Heritage]

May I ask you to provide a picture of your Empire (possibly with fow off so we can see the Mongol advance, too)? Seeing this would give us a lot more valuable informations that could make our feedback far more valuable.
I'm right now in the middle of my first SS campaign as ERE, in the Year of Our Lord 1202 or so. As you might guess, I haven't yet met the Mongols in battle, since they'll pop out in a matter of 15-20 turns, yet I met them in Vanilla and so I know something about them and their toughness. Btw, I'm really interested in knowing some details, just to better prepare, and give you advices:

- how long did it take them to sweep through Khwarezm and reach you?

- Where did you fight your first battle against them? Even a generic location would help.

- Which kind of troops are you using against them? Your defeats might be tied to this, too.

And here are some bits that could help you.
In open ground, Mongols are usually devastating, since their stacks are often made up of elite units + dreadful general that will melt your men's morale. That's why lots of people give up on fighting them in pitched battles and prefer waiting for them in fortresses and/or chokepoints. In my opinion, waiting for them in sieges is rather dull, since this gives them the opportunity - specially in their first 20-30 turns, when they're still marching all together - to surround your settlement with multiple stacks and simply overwhelm your defenses. Not even AI glitches can save you in these situations, since the artillery they usually carry negates you the opportunity to get a victory by destroying their equipment. You'll get slaughtered.

Fighting them in chokepoints such as bridges and mountain passes is far more sensitive, in my opinion. This way - speaking in terms of campaign map - your options are more varied than the ones you get by waiting them in sieges (basically, sit, wait, die). Terrain is your best ally. If you manage to get an higher position than theirs on the defensive, you can offset their missile advantage and try to obtain a valuable victory. As ERE, by turn 100 you should have reached access to Mourtatoi, archers which field some advantages: both good overall stats and availability as local castle troops, cheap, free garrisoned in castles (so fielding them shouldn't kill your income), long range and the ability to plant sharpened stakes. On high position, you can use them to deny Mongols their advantage.
Also, ERE gets pretty early Scoutatoi, which I think you'd already use as your main infantry force. Try to get them some armour upgrade and experience; they might not be that good at absorbing the impetus of Mongols, yet with sensitive positioning their large numbers, good armour and training, and - hepefully - higher position should help them absorb those turghaut's charge. Your only cavalry force which could somehow compete with Mongol ones at this point - based on my campaign progress in terms of building - are only Athanatoi, Scholarii and Latinkon. Also, you should try to fight them with high chivalry generals and high morale troops to offset the malus you suffer cause of their generals' high dread.
These relatively good terrain features can be found in Eastern Anatolia/Armenia. Cilicia, in particular, offers you three chokepoints: two mountain passes (on the border with Cappadocia) and a less reliable chokepoint between sea and mountains on the border with Syria. Cappadocia's borders are secured by a bridge, nearby the border with one of the regions of Armenia. Karadeniz (Trebisond) is protected by mountains and can only be reached by sea or by Adjara (East) or Cappadocia/Pontus (West/South). As for Armenia, I must say I didn't look with much attention to its chokepoints etc but given its natural features it is probable there's plenty of them.
Losing ground is, however, almost inevitable. That's why you should plan ahead and individuate those chokepoints in order to have your line of defense fall back to one chokepoint to another after a defeat; try building a supply chain (in terms of units) in order to make sure you can replace your losses, reorganize your armies, and so tire the enemies out. Your Empire is already built up, their is a relative infant. You can replace losses while they can't do it, at least for high end units. True, they get spawned reinforcements: yet, each one of their men who falls is one enemy less. Make them spill their blood for your lands. Tire them out, plan ahead. If you can't defeat them, try to survive this slaughter, wait for your occasion to revenge. Remember that in the worst of the cases you should still possess Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete; the Mongols can't get there soon, they'll be in bankrupt and won't focus on sea dominion. Wait there, continue your fight, and take your revenge as those demoniac wild heretics from the steppe start collapsing under their own weight. Byzantium has already known defeats, at Adrianopolis, the Yarmuk, Manzikert, yet there it stands. Rome will take its revenge!

All of these tips aren't really tied to my experience against SS Mongols (since I have yet to meet them, and I can't wait for the challenge), but rather to a close examination of both terrain features and my army's limits and bonuses, and the familiarity I've gained with the horde system in Barbarian Invasion and Vanilla Med II. Hope it helps; writing this down surely helped me outlining my defensive stance against the Horde. Can't wait for this challenge, really.

[bauskasalus]

Thanks
Unfortunately no screenshot will be available, I was so pissed off after losing about 10 fights in a row, that i deleted ME2. About ten minutes later, re-installed it and redownloaded SS.
So I'll just begin a new game with ERE. Again.
Roman Heritage, regarding your questions:
They destroyed Kwarezmians in about 25 turns. Our first battle were in Antioch, one turn before they demanded it or else, I told to go and %*@#^%* themselves. Than that nightmare begun. In a about 6 turns most of my troops were destroyed, which were 7 fulls stacks. I new that at some point I will have to fight them, so my armies consted of 3-4 those heavy Roman spearmen, 4-5 Morkutai archers, the rest usually consisted of turkoman archers, frankish or kwarezmian knights and light cavalary I could get my hands on. My empire consisted of nowaday Turkey, Balkans, Greece and Sicily.
The only way I managed to gain some victories was using 2 or 3 armies at the same time, deploying assassins in attempt of slaying generals before battles and using hills. Altough I must admit that i forgot about wooden spikes. Now that makes so much sense!
Anyway, thanks again and off I go to kick some Seljuk butt

[Roman Heritage]

The game tried to get rid of you, but it did not work hahaha

Thanks for your answers, they might come useful in a matter of turns (a bit scared? probably. It has been quite some time since I faced such a challenge ). I'll try to make them pay an high toll for each square inch of ground for you, too Perhaps next time try using a bit more heavy cavalry? Mongols Horse Archers are so deadly it's almost impossible to counter them with your own, better charge them head on. Yet, Mourtatoi could, given high range and larger numbers. I'll let you know on this post how it goes (although it might take a while to really meet them in battle).

Enjoy your new game

[RuthlessChubbz]

I'm all about archer tactics and I generally won't play factions where the best archer unit is garbage. I also have a love affair with horse archers and find they're the most cost effective unit for dealing pain to an enemy while suffering little loss to my own army.

My tactic depending on which faction I am and the quality of my archers, is to fight them in the open and make them rush me in a hail of arrow fire. Obviously long range missiles are a requirement while stakes, armor piercing, etc. are a bonus. My archers are protected at all costs and I will usually base them on a high corner of the map of possible. Note that I don't use horse archers, just normal ones. HA will just run out of ammo too quickly and I wouldn't bother matching the horse armies of the Mongols because they are superior.

If my archers run out of ammo and there's still too many left for my other forces to handle, I will retreat and save my army by using some decoys to lead them away from my main force while they're backing out. Thus when my army has retreated I've lost the battle but caused an overwhelming amount of casulties to the enemy. Casulties which their silver & gold chevron forces can't afford to lose.

Hit and run...not pitched battles will see you through the day.

The Turks are my favourite faction because they're fantastic at hit and run tactics and I can't wait to face the Mongols in my current SS game. I played as the Moors in my last game and by the time I got near the Mongols, I was unstoppable.

I'm not sure how effective the Byzantine are at hit and run but I know they have some fantastic units and an incredible advantage over the Turks at the start of the game. I think the weight of their armor tends to drag them down though. However I know your archers have stakes by default so you should be able to smash them pretty easily.

[+Marius+]

Simple.

Go to your export_descr_unit file and to achieve realism modify all horse arches to deal a reduced 2-3 missile damage and reduce their range to 70-90.
Next reduce the ridiculous high damage value dealt by their blunt weapon wielding melee troops.

Mongol problem solved.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

Dumbing down the Mongols is only going to induce the SS team to hurl several times more stacks at you than they do already.

Fight them in settlements and forts. Here are some examples from an old campaign. Don't play on Gracul AI. If you still cannot win, make peace with them.

[RuthlessChubbz]

I just had my first Mongol attack on a fortress I'd just taken from the Khaw 1 turn ago. No time to prepare and it was one of my early fortress era armies with the following units:

1 X General's Bodyguard
1 X Manongel
1 X Treb
6 X Fari Calvary
3 X Siphas Lancers
4 X Turkish Archers
2 X Mo (that Byzantine archer unit that can deploy stakes)
2 X Siphas Spearmen

No ballista towers built and my army is primarily designed to smash in the field and isn't intended for prolonged fights. No heavy infantry because the Turks doesn't have access to them at this stage without resorting to mercs.

Currently being seiged by TWO full stacks. I had my first battle which locked up most of the way through (may need to use the ReallyBadAI fix if it does it again). First time actually being seiged by two stacks on ReallyBadAI and the Mongols were smart enough to deploy ladders and towers to the BACK of my base which I wasn't expecting from the usual woeful AI and they brought a battering ram around to my side gate as well.

My first battle had mixed results. I could only deploy stakes on the side and inner keep gates and this took out almost all of their horseys (not that smart in the end funnily enough). At the stage it locked up when all their heavy infantry and archers were fighting my Lancers at the inner gate. I kept my Fari in the inner keep and let loose all my arrows when they battered their way through.

When I play the battle the second time through tonight I plan to keep all my forces in the inner keep and let them have the outer walls with the idea being that they'll be force to come into the one entrance. I will then deploy both of my stakes on the inner gate and fire every single thing I have at them as soon as they come through. The Treb & Man should help me achieve this.

If this works I'll have completly wiped out two full stacks and I can then help the Khaw (who I just allied with and gave military access to as soon as I took their fortress) wipe out the rest hopefully before they're destroyed.

I've also got two armies attacking Sicily at this stage with Egypt dead, the Byzantines bottled up and allied with and I've also allied with Kiev who attacked me for no reason, so I took one of their cities. The Cumans are currently vassals of the Khaw are no concern. Funny thing about Sicily is that they're excommunicated and just recently had a successful crusade against them which caused all the Catholic nations to declare war on them so no one cares that I'm smashing them.

Hopefully I can finish off the Mongols by using hit and run tactics and ambushes well before the Tims come around so I can get some Citadel era armies with cannons. The Khaw will be useful allies since they own a fair chunk of the map and they're in the way of the Mongels as well. In battles where they join me, I'm going to keep my forces back so they take the brunt of the attack.

[RuthlessChubbz]

Locked up twice last night when I had them down to 90% *SIGH*

However the inner keep strat worked like a charm. Just need to rememeber to put stakes on the side gate and sit a unit of calvary there so they run over over them. And backup stakes in the inner keep. Having 12 archer units concentrating fire at a single gate while your seige engines are going at it is a thing of beauty.

[Grabbin_Megroin]

If you find an isolated stack of Mongols, try attacking them with 2 or 3 full stacks. Let the allied armies attack first and then attack a weak point in the enemy army with your main force to defeat them. I would also advise against letting a general lead the allied armies, as they will more than likely rush in and die.

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

If you find an isolated stack of Mongols, try attacking them with 2 or 3 full stacks. Let the allied armies attack first and then attack a weak point in the enemy army with your main force to defeat them. I would also advise against letting a general lead the allied armies, as they will more than likely rush in and die.

The main problem with this strategy is finding the 2 to 3 full stacks in game turn 1 in the late campaign when the Mongols turn up.

[Grabbin_Megroin]

Yeah, if you're any faction that comes into contact with them before you can get the economy/military ball rolling then it doesn't work.

[Theramines]

With the Mortatoi in open battles against horse archers armies like those of the Seljuks or Mongols I always try to plant three or four sets of stakes well in advance of my main battle line, then run the Mortatoi back to safety as soon as I click "start battle". Carnage for the horse archer scum.

If you have to fight in the open (relieving a besieged settlement, usually), defeating the Mongols and, later the Timurids, in open battle is doable, but costly. A solid core of 6 to 8 long-range archer units (Mortatoi), plus two or three javelin units should be sufficient to win 50-60% of your battles. To protect the archers and javelins, use a line of spears (4 to 6 units), of course. Put the spears in schiltrom if possible so the archers can also shoot through the gaps. Direct your archers' fire to concentrate on static enemy units, rather than units doing the circle-and-shoot. A semi-circle or arrowhead defensive formation is also useful for protecting your flanks.

Don't bring a lot of cavalry to the fight. Maybe just one medium and one light. Your General's Bodyguard is your heavy. Instead, use cavalry sparingly, mostly for late battle mopping up, or to counter-charge particularly heavy concentrations of flankers. For this, heavy cavalry is useless. Fast Armenian or Alan mercenaries are more useful. Charge and then get them out as quickly as possible to disrupt and scatter them. They are also useful for scattering circle-and-shoot units.

Late in the battle counter-attack with your cavalry to apply the hammer and anvil to surviving Mongols in melee with your spears.

Expect at least 40% casualties, so quickly rebuilding your armies is a priority. I send replacements east in half-stacks to amalgamate with shattered armies. Building full stacks takes too long, while smaller detachments aren't enough to rebuild armies. The half stack seems to do the job.

Hang in there, cross your fingers and fight like a caged animal.

[teks]

Late response, but thought I'd weigh in.

I sent my heir to fight the golden horde with the best byzantine soldiers I had at my disposal at 1290 ad. Mongol soldiers can't hold a stick to the byzantine roster.

I set up 4 mouratoi in a loose formation at the front with skirmish off to make short work of the enemy horse archers. I didn't use stakes because the AI can't handle them. Behind them I had a thin line of spears with javelins parked between their lines. The spears would take the mongol cavalry charge, while the javelins would help wittle them down. Behind them I had 2 Kastrophylakes and a varangian guard waiting in reserve. The kastrophylakes would engage the mongol heavy infantry, while the vanangians would counter charge any cavalry who punched into the spears.

The real meat of the army (besides the mouratoi) were the cavalry. 3 units of scholarii, and the generals body guard. 2 parked on each side of the army just behind the archers. on their outside flank lie an additional mounted Akritae on each side. The scholarii are more then capable of fighting the mongol heavy cavalry. They can't pull back once engaged, so instead the akritae would flank with javelins or even charge against them. One additional unit of Stratoitae would hang at the side as well ready to catch the mongol archers and cause general chaos.

In order to keep the sheer number of mongol heavy horses in check, 2 units of horse archers would swing wide and try to pull a couple out of the fight.

Really, it works very well. No heroic victories, but I was able to take a couple full stacks before I had to dig into my reserves. The mongols liked to charge in with their horse archers, but they just get annihilated by my archers. My light cavalry would happily charge the rest. The mongol foot archers are a bigger threat, but again the light cavalry are free to charge them. From there the mongols like to charge in with their heavy cavalry, but they can't win a fight with the scholarii and my mounted javelins had no trouble flanking them once the engagement begins. From there I have the varangians charge any heavy cavalry who charged into the infantry line, while the castrophylakes charge in to meet any mongol heavy infantry before they can hit my horses. The trick is to make sure the scholarii don't charge too early, so they remain close to the infantry line. They aren't fast enough to withdraw like knights can. Once they are in the fight, thats where they are gonna stay.

Might not be the most efficient way to handle the mongols, but its satisfying to beat them at their own game without resorting to cheap tactics.

[russik112]

Just read through this thread and this got me even more excited to try out SS! Good luck with them mongols OP

[Korsan82]

If you want to use exploits, you can always deploy your stake capable archers in fron of your settlement gates and set the stakes there (requires some tricky positioning). Right behind the stakes put your spearmen. Once the battle starts take your archers and send them on the walls as you don't want them to be your first line of defense against horses.
Let the enemy crush the gate and see what happens.
Put on your headsets for even better enjoyment.

40% of their army dies straight, that's the cavalry part which charges first as soon as the gate is broken.
When the infantry arrives the gates they usually face only dead bodies and their morale drops dramatically.

Of course you need some men on your walls as well as they bring in ladders and siege towers. But usually a good defensive unit per position is enough.

[Treaper]

Btw, are there some limits for stakes, how many horses can be slained before stakes will fall?

[Korsan82]

Btw, are there some limits for stakes, how many horses can be slained before stakes will fall?

It will stop killing when there is no horses left

Btw do a broad formation so the stakes area gets broader. You only need 1 unit at the gate and maybe some behind walls in case they tear them down with trebuchets/catapults. You have to deploy stakes behind walls on guess though