How to fight mongols?

[revar]

- My cavalry units have 61 soldiers while mongols have 103.
- They have full dread and command generals.
- They have several stacks attacking together.
- Their ranged units have higher range.
- Their ranged units have better accuracy and damage.
- Their heavy cavalry beats my heavy cavalry.
- Their ranged units beats my ranged units.

I tried testing in custom battle 1 unit vs 1 unit and i'm always getting destroyed completely.

- 1 unit heavy cavalry battle, they have like 100 men i got 61, my cavalry gets destroyed like paper.
- 1 unit ranged cavalry, they have 100 i got 61, they start shooting at me before i'm in range to do anything, ofc my ranged cavalry gets destroyed like paper.

So ok, i cannot beat them with heavy cavalry and i cannot beat them with ranged cavalry, let's try something different.

- Front row of spearmen, behind them a line of xbows and artillery. 2 units of heavy cavalry on left and right flank.
- They rush, all my units are under heavy fire and dying fast from tons of their horse archers.
- Their heavy cavalry charge into my spearmen!!, kill them all and get thro to my xbows and kill them all because it's immortal.
- If i send my super expensive heavy cavalry they die anyway like paper so it's not much difference.
- End screen shows statistics, my xbows and artillery killed like 8 guys, 15 guys..wtf? My spearmen killed most like 80. So artillery seems useless, ranged units compared to mongols too.

People say to fight them in castles, forts and play defensive but when they have already like 15 cities/castles i have to attack not defend because they already produce new units and i have to take all of their lands to destroy them.
Any ideas? I know i can just kill their famili with assasins etc. but i'd want to actually be able to beat them in kinda fair fight.

[Judeman266]

It helps to know what faction you are playing with.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[Virian]

How to deal with mongols on campaign map.

-Limit their expansion by taking castles near their spawn points.
-If you can't hold a settlement, destroy all buildings you can right before it's taken.
- Land missile units beat horse missile.
-Use you lights cav to take out their land missile units. Use heavy cav to flank the enemy.
-Your infantry is expendable but you need to use it to keep enemy cav busy so that it can flank the enemy.

Fighting the Mongols is a battle of attrition on the campaign map in which you will lose a lot at the start. Once the mongols original stacks are gone and you managed to contain them to several almost demolished castles which they will need to spend a lot of money and time refurbishing you can push back. This strategy only works if you can actually concentrate your forces on them and bleeding them dry as the resources needed to keep them in check are only usable by large empires and in all my playthroughs(except Genoa somehow) the moment I start being Supreme in strength everyone and their mothers started dogpilling me.

I mean in my Roman campaign I was at war on 4 different theatres of war before the mongols appeared

-The Cumans in the N-E whic was at a stalemate I was winning at a hair's edge thanks to numbers
-The lithuanins which were THE Northern power in the N
-My campaign against catholicism itself after they declared war on my last friend the HRE which I managed to push all the way to the Iberian peninsula after conquering Itally W
-My extermination of everything muslim in the east. By the time the mongols were close to come only the Kwarezmians were left as a power in the east and I was pushing them only through attrition as most of my units were militia grade with only a few professional units. while theirs were almost entirely professional.

Of those wars I only started the one against france and the western powers. Literally everyone else went to war with me by either breaking alliance or attacking me while I was overextended. Of those the worst were the western powers as they had numbers similar to mine but better quality overall. I remember having to SNEAK around and take the lightly defended cities in the Iberian peninsula with my full stack while cowering in fear until my reinforcements from my heartlands arrived to relieve the siege.

[revar]

I play 2 campaigns now, Teutonic Order and Poland but i'd like to know more general strategies vs Mongols because i like to play different factions and i always want to stop them/help other factions to not get destroyed. Should i let them fight with muslims and wait as they lose their original stacks or they will eat them and come to me anyway? Like i don't want their lands because they are large = lots of travel and far away from my capital. I could take them and give to my allies tho. But still i can't figure out how to fight them in battle. No matter what units i use in custom battle (ofc i try to balance the era etc.) they have always more power.

Most of their stacks are south where they almost destroyed Khwarazmians and are fighting Fatimid aka Egypt and Turks. Between me and them are Cumans who already lost 2 cities but there are single stacks of Mongols only.

[Virian]

Giving land to allies is an alien concept to me...If I can keep a region then I'll keep it and if I'm surrounded by enemies then I either ceasefire or start conquering...

As for what to fight in custom battle? Don't battle them on open fields as that's a death sentence unless you have numerical superiority... I guess you could try and savescum and see if you can either auto a battle or play it and see in which you do better but I'm not familiar with the teutonic order and my experience with poland is limited in stomping on their armies and exterminating their population so I can't help you in making strategies for those factions I'm afraid.

[revar]

I don't play this game only to win and be overpowered, i try to act/roleplay a more realistic ruler so with good reputation and diplomacy i have some nice things happening and i enjoy it more.

Then how do you fight them with other factions? It's difficult to not fight them on open fields really unless you make a def line with castles and wait for them to come. But this way you won't destroy them so if i attack i can't avoid open field battles most of the time.

[Virian]

I do RP as well... as a conquering Warlord, diplomacy optional. My Genoa campaign was in fact me acting as a spiteful doge that expanded his little country to greater heights and destroyed Venice by defying the pope after they insulted him by taking Milan in an unprovoked move and killed my best general(3 ing STAAAAAAAAARS)... and yet everyone loved me...

As for how to deal with them? I'm afraid the only campaign I pushed that far were the Romans and by that time I was simply autoed them due to my superior numbers... Large compliments of elite missile units as well as elite spearmen seemed to do the trick however... I haven't tried firearms against them due to obvious reasons but honestly mongols pretty much rock on all aspects of field battle so it's better if you simply defend against them. They are meant to be an apocalyptic event you only survive through great struggle if in their path so it is going to be a quagmire killing them, no easy wins I'm afraid.

[Duck of Death]

The Mongols may be strong and numerous... but they don't seem terribly bright.
Next game, Im going to try jedi mind-tricking them. *** These are not the lands you want...go back east and invade Japan***

[Strategos Autokrator]

There are a couple of trick you can use. Defend on a bridge and hold them in place with militia spearmen so that they gather in a pocket at the bridgehead. Place a mangonel right behind the spearmen and shoot into the pocket at close range. Use archers with stakes in front of the bridge. You can also use ribauldequins. I usually use two and aim for a unit on the middle of the bridge right before they get in contact with me. That will completely annihilate them. If this doesn't break them in concert with archers, you push retreat and halt on your crews and pull them out of there for the mangonel and spearmen to finish them. You need 1 mangonel, 2 ribauldequins, 2 cavalry, 4-5 spearmen, (maybe 1 halberd) and 9-10 archers. You use 3 groups of spearmen and keep 2 in reserve with 1 group of halberds to take out cavalry getting through the stakes. If you can't place stakes in front of the bridge, you have to use more halberds or pikes. Let the spear militia take the brunt of the charge. They are expendable in case your mangonel strike them. This can be done in a castle too.

When I fight them on the battlefield I usually use 4 groups of cavalry, 5 groups of spearmen, 2 groups of halberds and 9 groups of archers with stakes. Make a half-moon of stakes on the top of a hill, but make sure your flanks are protected by them as well. Bring reinforcements for when the battle is over, because you will lose men. Place the spearmen behind the stakes and halberds and heavy cavalry on the flanks behind the stakes. Pull the archers back. Place them on loose formation behind the spearmen so they can shoot over their heads. First 3 and then a second line with 6. Target their horse archers and archers, but make sure you have enough for their heavy cavalry. If they come around at your flank you attack them with cavalry and halberds at the same time. When they have only infantry left, charge them with your infantry and flank them with heavy cavalry. The horse archers can be "reset" from that annoying cantabrian circle by charging them and retreating. When they flee you're able to hit them with archers. When there's only a few left you can drive them off with the cavalry. If they have lots of infantry you should target them first to thin them out. Place your spearmen on defensive. Counter-archery is the key to victory. If you can't get good archers you should send an expeditionary force to England and conquer her. Convert York and Exeter to castles and start to produce them. You'll get them in Winchester, Nottingham and Wales as well.

[revar]

Yeah it's probably like you say, they are the biggest power on open fields in the game and just accept it, and accept big casualties after every battle aswell. It's also due to their bigger unit size like 100 vs my 60. I just though there is maybe any tactic beside hiding behind walls, using assasins or auto-battle.

But i did some more test custom battles and i think the best counter for mongol missile cavalry are crossbowmen (with big shields on their back). They have good def (armor+shield) and they crouch, turn their back with shield so i lose only ~20 men until they kill full mongol unit. The problem is, xbows have less ammo than archers. But with archers i didn't win a single time because they die so fast, even tho they have faster rate of fire than xbows. Xbows have also slightly higher range. But i might take 2 units of archers for deploying stakes but they seems to work kinda random like sometimes enemy cavalry gets thro it and nothing and sometimes they lose 20 men instantly. So idk.

Artillery is completely worthless like 4 units can't kill even half of 1 enemy missile unit so i don't even bother producing/taking them into any battle vs Mongols.
There is only one thing. How the hell my heavy cavalry barely can kill their light missile cavalry? Like seriously, heavy armored knights with deadly charge vs some peasants with bows and after my charge i lose instantly like 20 men and i keep losing them until i barely kill them with 15-25 men left. This is way to much casualties. Even if i look on stats my heavy cavalry have 18 def, 14 charge, 5 attack while their missile cavalry have 5 def, 4 attack so idk what the hell is wrong with this game.

@Strategos Autokrator, i noticed your reply just now, that's some interesting stuff i'll test it and see how it goes. Any replacement for halberds? More spearmen? Cus i probably won't be able to use them but will test in custom battle anyway.

Edit: Ok i found a problem. In bigger battles if i have several units of archers/xbows they refuse to fire. Some of them are, the rest stays idle and do nothing. After the battle some units didn't even use ammo. How can i fix this? Cus it's gamebreaking right now if i take 7-9 missile units and only 2-3 of them are killing anything.

[Strategos Autokrator]

You have to micro manage archers. You have to give the order to shot to one unit at a time. You can't give the order to a group of units. If you do they will shot at random targets and what not. If you use too many units of archers against one enemy unit you get a diminishing return in terms of kills. 3-4 units against 1 unit is enough. Keep them on loose formation. You also have to space them so that they shoot over the head of those in front of them. The terrain can be used to your advantage. It's probably your best force-multiplier. You can replace halberds with soldiers wielding two-handed axes. They do well against cavalry, but keep them behind the stakes and make sure there are no open space between the stakes you deploy. You can also use these to flank the enemy infantry when they fight within your stakes. As you know, your own cavalry will die if they run into them. So they have 3 jobs. Help against cavalry, protect your extreme flank and flanking to break the morale of the enemy infantry.

One more thing. Target their general and kill him with archers. When he's down to a few men, you can charge him with heavy cavalry. When he dies, they break. He's the Center of Gravity. This is the most important thing you do.

[Dekhatres]

Yeah it's probably like you say, they are the biggest power on open fields in the game and just accept it, and accept big casualties after every battle aswell. It's also due to their bigger unit size like 100 vs my 60. I just though there is maybe any tactic beside hiding behind walls, using assasins or auto-battle.

But i did some more test custom battles and i think the best counter for mongol missile cavalry are crossbowmen (with big shields on their back). They have good def (armor+shield) and they crouch, turn their back with shield so i lose only ~20 men until they kill full mongol unit. The problem is, xbows have less ammo than archers. But with archers i didn't win a single time because they die so fast, even tho they have faster rate of fire than xbows. Xbows have also slightly higher range. But i might take 2 units of archers for deploying stakes but they seems to work kinda random like sometimes enemy cavalry gets thro it and nothing and sometimes they lose 20 men instantly. So idk.

Artillery is completely worthless like 4 units can't kill even half of 1 enemy missile unit so i don't even bother producing/taking them into any battle vs Mongols.
There is only one thing. How the hell my heavy cavalry barely can kill their light missile cavalry? Like seriously, heavy armored knights with deadly charge vs some peasants with bows and after my charge i lose instantly like 20 men and i keep losing them until i barely kill them with 15-25 men left. This is way to much casualties. Even if i look on stats my heavy cavalry have 18 def, 14 charge, 5 attack while their missile cavalry have 5 def, 4 attack so idk what the hell is wrong with this game.

@Strategos Autokrator, i noticed your reply just now, that's some interesting stuff i'll test it and see how it goes. Any replacement for halberds? More spearmen? Cus i probably won't be able to use them but will test in custom battle anyway.

Edit: Ok i found a problem. In bigger battles if i have several units of archers/xbows they refuse to fire. Some of them are, the rest stays idle and do nothing. After the battle some units didn't even use ammo. How can i fix this? Cus it's gamebreaking right now if i take 7-9 missile units and only 2-3 of them are killing anything.

arrows deal less damage to units on ground higher than them and more damage to units on lower ground than them, so always make sure your missile units have the higher ground in order to take less damage and deal more, the bonus is quite significant

if you want to defeat mongols with missile units then position your army on campaign map accordingly, dont just attack the mongols and fight on whatever battlefield it happens to be, position you army at the top of a mountain on campaign map and you will very likely be spawned at the top of one in battle map too, then just let them attack you, they will have to walk all the way up the mountain and when they will engage your troops they will already be exhausted, their arrows will do little damage and if they have trebuchets or anything else they will most likely leave them behind or wont be able to use them to full effect

bridge battles are an option too but they're kinda cheesy

heavy cav dying to horse archers, i remember that, indeed a situation, the problem is with how cav melee combat plays out which is chaotic, it's basically like when you your foot units get swarmed by another foot unit and it's just a huge blob where soldiers end up hiting each other in the side or in the back, if those horse archers were to fight the knights face to face they'd get obliterated

[anonymous_(\)008]

Responding to your points..
- My cavalry units have 61 soldiers while mongols have 103
Not much you can do about this, i'll mention how i counter later


- They have full dread and command generals
Kill him xD or try to gain melee cav superiority


- They have several stacks attacking together
Never face multiple armies on the field, only at bridge battles.. but it depends on army comps though, if the armies have less heavy cav support, than you can beat multiple armies in field if you have a good balanced army and know how to conserve your arrows


- Their ranged units have higher range
- Their ranged units have better accuracy and damage
Against Horse Archers, heavy infantry archers out-gun them by a good measure. Never fight fire with fire (eg: HA vs HA, Archer vs Archer), always Archers vs HA, Cav/heavy infantry vs Archers. Be prepared to lose lots of men and plan accordingly


- Their heavy cavalry beats my heavy cavalry
I believe Catholic heavy cav are better than eastern heavy cav..


- Their ranged units beats my ranged units
Again, when it comes to mongol ranged units, don't fight fire with fire, fight fire with water


Fighting the mongols greatly depends on which faction you're playing as. I usually play as Novgorod and my tactic is to conquer the steppes early on and defend the bridges and river-crossings on the Ural River (it runs along the norther and western borders of Jaiksk). Even if you don't take out Cumans and Kiev entirely, these settlements are important apart from usual Novgorod holdings :-

Castles :- Sarkel, Bulgar, Serdobynskaya, Yelabuga and to some extent Tmutarakan
Cities :- Murom, Astrakhan and Kazan.

You may also want to take Kutaisi, Tbilisi and Baku (regions south of Sarkel) since they tend to come for Anatolia and these areas provide lots of natural strategic choke points (bridges leading to Tbilisi and Baku), narrow corridors in Kutaisi and Baku to funnel Mongolian reinforcements and since these are all hilly terrain, your armies are almost always assured high-ground advantage in battles. Also, Baku serves as a good launching point of a counter-invasion into the Mongolian heartlands.

So, my main strat is to hold off the initial Mongolian stacks at the Ural rivers and the foothills of the Caucasian Mountains, once their initial advantage starts dying out, i start marching from my line of defences and face them in field battles and invade their lands. You gonna need a lot of troops in reserve for this, i usually start recruiting units from 1170 or so.

Mongols in bridge battles:-
1 General
6 Long-ranged heavy archers (Dism Junior Druzhina, Luchniki, Pesante Archers, Murtatoi, the likes)
2 stake planting archers (Mostly Norse or Lithuanian archers, longbows, etc)
2 expandable units for enemy HA fodder (usually crossbow militia, Pavise crossbow are best if not, just about any cheap ones will do)
4 Spears (the beefier the better)
4 Heavy Infantry/spears (to fight at the bridgehead)
1 artillery unit (bring treb or mangonel)

Quiet straight forward and cheesy/exploitative but it's the best against mongols.. In bridge battles, main strength of mongolians is the general, kill him and the others will swiftly follow. Plant stake at bridgehead, the areas that can't be covered by stakes should be covered with spears in schiltron (usually three is enough, put one of the spears behind these three as backup and rear guard), rest of the melee infantry should stay behind stakes only engaging units that crosses the stake line.. So, basically, you're making a box using stakes and schiltrons with melee infantry backup (use a mix of sword infantry and spear/two-hander to be able counter both heavy infantry and cav that manage to cross the stakes). Oh yes, put your expandable units (usually Xbow) at the edge of the bridge, they should be in front of the box and the first to come in range of the approaching enemy HAs, the AI is stupid and will concentrate fire on these guys intead of more favorable units.. Take care not to let your infantry cross into the stake-spear box unless it's end-game, that box is pure short-ranged archer/Xbow kill zone, contain enemy inside the box and let the ranged units shoot. Regarding long-ranged archers, i always bring six, and place 3 each on the wings. Take them off auto-fire and auto-skirmish and in loose formation with shallow depth. Now, with 3 each long-range archer on either wing, if you are facing more than one army, don't use all of them from the start, depending on army comp of each enemy wave, put 2 or 3 of them as standby duty for the next waves. One more thing is, as mentioned earlier, the bridge landing on your side is short range archer/xbow killzone (stake planter and expandables).. the actual bridge is long-range archer killzone. If there are no enemies on the bridge at a given time, stop your long-rangers from shooting and instead wait for the next wave. Their main job is to kill enemy HAs and HCs on their approach. Oh, about artillery, i usually bring Trebuchet since Novgorod doesn't have mangonel (if they have i will always favor mangonel), i place this unit inside the box of spear/stake.. It's main job is to shoot animal carcass at the bridge and reduce morale of enemy, when the enemy reach the bridgehead, they will abandon the seige engine right there to serve as an obstruction for enemy units mainly to disrupt charge bonus and unit cohesiveness. If you bring mangonel, place it behind the box and just keep throwing fire bombs..

Mongolians in field battle:-

1 General (Optional if facing average general or captain lead army, bring extra heavy cav if so)
5 Heavy Cav (the best you can find) - their main job is to counter-charge enemy heavy cav
2 Melee Cav (Light, medium, heavy, militia ..doesn't matter though good charge and speed is favorable) - their job is to act as vanguard or charge-absorbers for your heavy cav in cav fight.
2 Heavy Horse archers if not, light cav eg: mounted sergeants (need good armor so don't bring light HAs, scouts, hobilars, etc) - job is to finish off remaining horse archers.
6 Long-range archers (best you can find; need good armor and good range) - their job is to shoot down bulk of HAs and weather enemy arrows. Put in loose formation, ALWAYS.
4 Melee infantry (spears or dismounted knights; need good armor and good shield) - their job is to tie up enemy infantry or "push"/ "intimidate" enemy foot archers or if possible help out your heavy cav fight the mongolian heavy cavs.

In field battles, there main strength lies in their numbers and their heavy cavalry. Their Horse Archers are OP but they are nothing long-ranged heavy infantry archers can't handle, their infantry are also beefy but this is SS, they are still very much vulnerable to frontal heavy cav charge and good ol Hammer and Anvil tactics. It's when they have large number of heavy cav arm that they start to pose any real threat. When battle starts, put all foot archers in loose formation and shallow depth, say, 3 man deep. Behind this line, i put general and 2 melee vanguard cav in shallow formation. Behind this line is the main heavy cav line (i prefer rectangle shape but not too shallow formation). behind this line i put the four melee infantry and Heavy Horse archers/Light Cav. Battle starts with heavy archers opening fire to weaken HAs (note: WEAKEN, not shoot down every man per unit. That's just waste of time and arrows. Shoot one HA with one foot archer until number is bought down to 30-40% and move on to next unit. If the HA does that circle thingy, just move on to different target), when HA start getting weak, it's usually followed by a heavy Cav charge, i simply counter charge with small vanguard of light cav and general, use your vanguard cav in shallow formation to try and catch at least two heavy cav. Your general should retreat after initial charge, you don't want him to die, vanguard cav should melee with the enemy cav, follow this with charge from your main heavy cav arm and behind them the small arm of infantry (urban spears and/or dismounted knights) will advance doing anyhting that needs to be done like fighting dismounted turhaguts or helping your heavy cav, meanwhile your two heavy horse archer/light cav should wait a bit and once the heavy cav engagement starts sprint towards the out-field and charge at any remaining horse archers from the flank. Now, take your archers off loose formation and just do basically what is required, help out infantry, shoot some more horse archers, etc.

[anonymous_(\)008]

As Virian stated, warring with the Mongols is all about attrition. You need huge economy and large amounts of reserves already waiting for battle and keep them coming in.

[anonymous_(\)008]

I forgot to mention, my defence line comprises of 1 bridge army per bridge, 1 field army behind per bridge and hordes of reinforcements. Purpose of the field army is to
1) "Sally" out if an army or two got seprated from the horde and i can 1v1 them in field battles and retreat behind bridge after the battle. This greatly reduces casualties in the long run as it reduces the chance of facing multiple armies at the bridge.
2) If the bridge defence fails and line is broken, i can hastily beat them off with the field army and regain the bridge

[revar]

So many useful info from you guys, thanks a lot. Some things i didn't even think about doing or that they work this way in this game. I have some questions tho.

- how to force enemy to come at me when i attacked him on campaign map? Sometimes it works if i bait them with 1 unit of my cavalry but sometimes it doesn't.
- how can i replace long-ranged heavy archers? I have only light and low quality Archers/Lithuanian Archers 9-10 def, 3 missile stats. Pavise/Livonian Xbows are the best missile i have 12-13 def, 10 missile.
- what's the difference between heavy cavalry and melee cavalry? Isn't heavy cavalry a melee too?
- can i see cavalry speed stat somehow? Cus you said "good charge and speed is favorable".
- any way to see range stat on my missile units?
- what's the difference when i put my cavalry in shallow formation and 3 man deep or not?
- isn't it better to use heavy cavalry instead of vanguard if i can afford it? Same with expandable units.

For bridge/river-crossing battles did you mean something like this? https://postimg.cc/image/nfx68zhu9/ or i didn't understand it correctly? Blue = xbows, Brown = spears, Red = sword heavy infantry, Green = stakes, short-ranged archers. Game didn't let me put stakes closer, they were cut off or completely gone. I know these 2 units expandable xbows i should place in loose and shallow formation.

Btw. is there any bridge map in custom battle maps? Cus i can't find any.

[Dekhatres]

- you can get the enemy to attack you by skirmishing a bit behind his army, you dont even have to engage just run arround and maybe harras a bit if possible, works about 70-80% of the time
- you might not need long ranged heavy archers, the high ground increases your archers damage and range just fine and many mongol horse archers have quite low range, if you have quality archers available good but if not it's not that big of a deal imo, medium or good enouth archers are ok
- afaik cavalry isnt divided in "melee" "heavy" or "shock" in medieval 2, it's just light/heavy and horse archers
- you can see cavalry speed in EDU (export_descr_unit.txt located in SS6.3 folder) find the unit you want and look for a line called "move_speed_mod", for instance Feudal Knights have "move_speed_mod 0.95"
- range stat can also be seen in EDU, you need to look at a line called "stat_pri", take Longbowmen for example they have "stat_pri 5, 1, quality_mass_bodkin_arrow, 190, 30, missile, missile_mechanical, piercing, none, 0, 1" 190 is the range
- wouldnt know, i think deep formation is more maneuverable, while a shallow formation "spaghetti lines" hits more enemies with a charge
- i guess it depends on situation, whatever works man

yea, i mean it doesnt necesarily have to be exactly like that, the point of a bridge battle is to keep the enemy packed in a small place and nuke it with artillery and missile units, ribault is crazy effective at this, you cant put stakes on roads

i dont remember, i think there were

[anonymous_(\)008]

Dekhatres pretty much got it covered but just want to add on a few points.
- first one happens because the enemy is not too fond of attacking (since your army is stronger). Usually, i carefully march my whole army forward, a little at a time, mongol horse archers will eventually march out once you are at some distance from their deployment zones so be careful, once HAs is engaged, other units may follow.
- If you play Catholic nations, you wouldn't get heavy archers (except for Venice Psante Archers or longbows from england). Proper heavy archers are good because of their higher rate-of-fire, higher def and attack, ability to melee and have way better morale. but the generic archers will also do the work Ok if you have high ground, but you will loose a lot of them. Pavise Xbows should also be good, haven't used them extensively to be sure though..
- Yes heavy cav is melee. I was just generalizing since any non-ranged cav will do the job.
- answered
- answered
- Shallow formation is wide, hits more enemies and possible to stop/catch the charge of two units at once but downside is you tend to loose more men in a single charge as well. Deeper formation is the opposite, more maeuverable, easier to retreat and also better for conserving men per unit.
- If you can afford to, than yes, that would indeed be a stronger charge and longer lasting expendable. Regarding expendables, i sometimes prefer better units. but on cav, I'm just advising using cheaper cav for this since they'll almost always die off anyway and heavy cav are expensive and quite hard to replace compared to militia and AoR cav and such.. In my experience, it's more cost effective in the long run since the end result is almost the same if you use cheap cav.

Yea, that bridge formation can work. I'll advise moving the blue crossbows in the rear to the river bank on each wing, in front of the green guys. https://postimg.cc/image/6xfpudjwn/ here's mine, quite old, i've made some slight modifications to army comp and unit placements since then.

[revar]

Oke, i guess it's all i wanted to know, definitely will help me and maybe some other people aswell and not only vs Mongol fights. Thanks a lot for all the explanation and info guys, cheers!

[Point Blank]

Please see the 'RC2.0 Ultimate Edition Updates and Changes' thread in the RC sub-mods forum. Cavalry and spears are being seriously re-worked, along with an increased range for xbows to compensate for their need to load before shooting, a global increase in missile weapon effect vs cav, and updates to the BattleAI depending on the faction you are fighting against, ie the Mongols will fight somewhat differently to other factions. The new version will be released shortly.

As they say above, a mix of spearmen and xbows is a good start, with some heavy cav to break disrupted units and light cav to run down routers. Mongol infantry units only have around 100 men as well; typically they will be a non-factor except for their archers.