Strategies against the Mongol and Timurid invasions

[Druzhina]

Here's some quick strategies on defeating the huge hordes of the Mongols and Timurids.

Mongols- Force them into a siege battle and make sure you have a lot of archers on your walls. Even if you loose the battle, you should still weaken them a lot. Since the mongols rely on mostly missile infantry, they should be easy to take out using heavy infantry if they attack your walls with siege towers/ladders. Another option is to lure them into a bridge battle. Keep a line of heavy infantry/spearmen in front of the bridge to hold off the hordes while your artillery and missile units blast the mongols. Fingers crossed you will kill the general early on.

Timurids- A good strategy against these guys would be to frighten their elephants. By firing artillery at them it is easy to frighten them. Ballistas are good since their a 1 shot killer and are pretty accurate. If you succeed in frightening their elephants they will storm around and kill off lots of the enemy army in their frenzy.

Other Strategies- Try to kill their generals. The Mongol/Timurid Generals tend to have awesome stats such as high dread. By going all out against the generals bodyguard you can kill the general and therefore demoralize the enemy armies and make your armies less frightened. After the Mongol/Timurid invasions you are able to recruit decent mercenaries such as elephants and rocket launchers. Use them well! My final strategy is that you throw loads of armies at the hordes. It's a very wasteful way to defeat them, but if you can't be bothered using any strategies...

Do any of you know some more strategies against these extreme factions? If you do share 'em here!

[Lost Crusader]

My tactics against the Mongols is very simple: Bring heavy cavalry, archers and spearmen. Open the battle with full scale cavalry charge against their foot archers. Defend archers with the spearmen, and use archers against their horse archers.

[Sarlvarian]

When i played as Scottland my scottish soldiers had no problem against the mongols. Lots of pickmen and spear men dd the job against the mongols and what i did against the timruids was ally them as soon as possible when they only have 1 or 2 settlements and put some armies right on there settlements when they are allied settlements when i did this they kept their settlement extremley weak and i was able to take all their settlement which was onyl 3 without very much effort and with no settlements they where destroyed.

[Swordboy]

All good suggestions. I think it's been mentioned before to strike at their rearguard armies with an (aprox) 80% spear & archer armies (the best of both you can afford) and the rest heavy cavalry. I'ts wise to do this IF you have several armies of your own that you can afford to lose. In other words, fight the hoard with a hoard. If they can't be induced into multiple bridge or city battles, this is your best bet.

I don't know about frightening their elephants though. I've occasionally routed them with gunpowder artillery and, either massed spearmen or heavy cavalry. In all cases, losses are horrifically high, and I've never been able to send their pachyderms packing with flaming arrows, that I can recall.

[Janissary Yetti]

I felt the full force of both invasions playing with the Turks. This stage in the game is pretty tricky for the Turks and you have to learn some lessons very quickly. I suggest that you resist charging at the massed armies with some of your own. Open war fare against both is a risky strategy. If you have castle as your forward bases you should be ok as you can eliminate the calvery threat by hiding behind several layers of walls. This may sound cowardly but as soon as they loose their infantry you can ride forth and attack on mass with spears and horsemen. You may also be able to shunt the pressure onto some neighbouring factions like eygpt for example haha gutted basically. Whislt they are attacking other factions you can attack their rear bases and armies often weakened by all the fighting. I say that the tirmuids are more difficult jsut because of the elephants which are well annoying as they kept on crashing my PC however they can be taken out by your towers or have javelin men on hand or naffutun. After the intial attack from both it becomes easier and you can think about counter attacking whilst they have no bases. Good luck and if you want a challenge play as the Turks and prepare for some seriously hard but satisfying fights.

[Insurgent]

I don't know about frightening their elephants though. I've occasionally routed them with gunpowder artillery and, either massed spearmen or heavy cavalry. In all cases, losses are horrifically high, and I've never been able to send their pachyderms packing with flaming arrows, that I can recall.

Simple. All you need is a unit of Ballistas. Ballistas are the most accurate form of artillery and can deliver a one shot kill on Elephants- combine that with flaming bolts and within 2 ballista shots you will have a whole platoon of elephants routing. You should only use archers on them if the archers you use are up on the walls because archers can be obliterated by mere cavalry charges, not to mention elephants!

I actually found the Timurids a lot easier than the Mongols; On the Mongols I was rather ill-prepared, while I had some big armies ready to give the Timurids a warm welcome to the western hemisphere!

[Janissary Yetti]

Simple. All you need is a unit of Ballistas. Ballistas are the most accurate form of artillery and can deliver a one shot kill on Elephants- combine that with flaming bolts and within 2 ballista shots you will have a whole platoon of elephants routing.

Thanks that is a really useful peice of advice, however the only problem i have is that the cannon elephants just shoot the hell out of my artillery and then the battle is almost all but over does the same strategy work for cannon elephants as well or do you try something else?

[homefry]

1. Fight the horde with your horde on the open field.

2. Hit and run

3. Fight the stacks without the elephants.

4. Send trained assasins at them.


1. I mass produce heavy cavalry before they arrive and send stacks and stacks of heavy cavalry at them. (But I only send in 1 stack at a time. I hate putting them under AI control)

2. I get my best general with all heavy cavalry and 2-3 units of light cavalry. Hit the Timurid/Mongol force that doesn't have elephants or appears to be the weakest. When the battle starts, rush them with my cavalry. Use the light cavalry to boggle down the Timurid light horse archers. (once the light cavalry do the job, get them out of there and onto the next light horse arhcers.)

Once a unit starts wavering or the enemy reinforcements arrive, get them out of there and manually withdraw them towards the direction you attacked (that way they withdraw towards your own horde) I ignore the enemy general for now.

Once you hit the campaign map, your forces will withdraw towards your own horde and then you hit the weakened stack with your new stack that was waiting for action. Rinse and repeat.

Once you get an enemy stack whittled down, concentrate most of your force on the general's bodyguard. But make sure your forces don't rout. Once they start wavering, get them out of there to withdraw or brave enough again to fight. (the Timurids best weapon is the ability to make your units rout).

3. Elephants are a pain. The only way to get them is to make them go berserk. By the time, you hit the stacks with elephants, there shouldn't be any full stacks with non-elephant units. I just do it quick and dirty. Send 3-4 units of cavalry per elephant unit and make them rout.

4. There is usually 1 scrub general that your assasins can kill. If you can kill a general with an assasin, then hit this force first with your stacks even if this stack has elephant units.


Ironically, I use the hit and run tactic that made them succeed in real life.


Side note: If you can get them to attack you on a bridge, then the tactics there are straight forward. Hold the bridge with infantry with artillary in the back.


(I'm not sure if this is 100% right, but if you have your forces withdraw or rout in all directions of the battlefield, you'll get the message that your units disappeared, so make sure you manually withdraw them)

[Smakkz]

Aye, let me join in on the lament

Fighting the mongols for the 55th turn now, as they have gotten a solid foothold in my territory.

VH/VH, stainless steel mod 4.1, Templar Knights

For me, templar longbows in sieges are the best you can have, with some swiss guards providing melee, cannon towers are a must.

In battle, mass cavalry charge smashes their ranks, aim for the head of the snake aka the general...

[Commander Ruunu]

i'll say bleed them to death when they attack your castles/cities, i've won mant heroic victories when they attack city with multiple stacks

[Kietharr]

Invasions are only really tough if you don't know they're going to start and you're right on their attack path. Best way to deal with the mongols is to use tons of assassins to kill their ubergenerals (you will lose a lot, eventually you will drive the ones you don't kill insane). Let them grind themselves down on your fortifications, don't give them an inch. Attack their forts to cut off unit production or their cities to cut off gold, either one will work to destroy their unit production. If you're not a Muslim, burn all of their religious buildings with assassins to help cause unrest compounding their problems. The best way to deal with their troops is putting a ton of spearmen behind your city's gates and a ton of archers and heavy infantry on the walls. Heavy infantry defend against enemy archers who will slaughter your archers when it comes to melee combat.

Timurids can be either trickier or easier depending on who you're playing. Best way to kill them is to kill their elephants before they get close to you, without elephants they're nothing special. Use bastilas as everyone has said so far, if you don't have any ready when they attack any siege weapons make due. The main goal is to rout the elephants so they go crazy and kill everything thus causing the rest of their force to rout, and to do it far enough away from your lines that your men won't be in ground zero. Combine this with light cavalry for chasing down routing enemies and spearmen/archers to protect your artillery.

[Ambiorix_thijs]

Dont let the mongols open the siege attack, attack that army first, than let that army attack you and repeat till they all die, here is how you do it:

Well i defeated 80 percent of the mongol horde that came to my Bulgar Castle, I as RUssia. Its the first mongol horde though, havent tried this to the next wave with all their siege.

They siege you always with one army while the others stand around, you attack them, put some pikes in front of the walls, shilhttrom them and they come a bit closer so your towers and archers can shoot all they want. If their horses charge your pikeman kill those. what happens is they loose 80 pecent of one of their armies; Next turn they siegeattack you with the other 20 percent. Easy to stop that. You retrain your pikes, and next round they siege you again with a fresh new army, so you just repeat that until they leave or are completely death. NICE.
Cool thing is that the Mongol lancers that attack you rout v fast cause they have fire from archers and towers first, the morale of the bodyguard is so high that the mongol leader fights to the death vs your pikeman. Shiltrom is good vs cavalry.


My army was : 6 units of spearman, 8 peasantarchers, 4 Dvor arhers.

Cossack Musketeers will do more damage though. but my city that can make them is to far. Dvors rule anyway so no problem.

I have played many many games vs the Mongols and i must say this is the most effective way to kill them completely and easy.

[Haakon]

Phew! Glad I found this thread and forum. After conquering all of Europe and Africa playing England I have now hit a brick wall thats known as the Timurid Empire.

Those elephants just anihalate everything I throw at them, and all my citadels have been converted into cities many turns ago. So far I have buildt a massive armada and have all their ports blockaded in hopes of crippeling them financially since I know that elephants are expensive upkeep but no luck.

I shall try the ballista strategy when I get home from work, and if it works I will be in eternal debt for all your advice.

[pwijnands]

So far I have buildt a massive armada and have all their ports blockaded in hopes of crippeling them financially since I know that elephants are expensive upkeep but no luck.

Only the mercenary elephants have upkeep, the Timurids get theirs without upkeep at all (but they do cost a lot to train). You can try to sabotage their stables instead, that's where they can produce their elephants. They can train them in the 4th and 5th level stables. But then again, I've had an AI opponent without any buildings intact still recruit units. So it may not have any effect on them.
You can always train more assassins and sabotage every expensive building they have. You can tell if you are making progress in the financial graph, if it is sloping downwards you're doing a good job. Since you said most settlements are cities, you can also make them revolt by converting the population and using spies. If the city doesn't revolt it doesn't matter that much since they have to use a big garrison with low taxes to keep the city under control. Every unit that is garrisoning a city on low taxes is only costing them money.

[Soryn Arkayn]

When fighting the Mongols and Timurids you just have to accept that regardless if you win or lose battles, they're going to be bloody and you'll suffer heavy casualties.

I prefer to play as England, so when I fight the Mongols and Timurids I use Heavy Billmen, my best archers (Yeomen or Retinue Longbowmen), and Hospitaller Knights (I don't even bother with English cavalry because they suck!). The composition of my armies depends on those of the enemy's: if they have a lot of cavalry, I counter them with my own cavalry; if they have a lot of archers, I use fewer archers and more infantry and cavalry; if they have few archers I use more archers to exploit their ranged weakness.

The best strategy to use against both invaders is their own: brutal, overwhelming force. When they invade, they always have at least 8 full armies of highly experienced units and generals. The simplest and best way to destroy them is to train at least four full armies, then try to single out and destroy their armies one or two at a time, if possible. It's also vital to take away their settlements ASAP so they can't replenish their losses, which will make it a war of attrition that you should inevitably win.

Also, if you're a Western faction (and therefore Catholic, except for the Moors) you should always Crusade to the Holy Land so you don't have to pay unit upkeep costs while they're en route. That way you can afford to train a second wave of reinforcements to send along. It's worth calling a Crusade even if it's not against the Mongols; if you have to declare war on Egypt or the Turks, do it, because you can always make peace with them later, and those factions will usually be too preoccupied with the Mongols to attack you anyway.

[Duke4747]

Im still a noob at the campaign because i havent seen the mongols yet lol. I think im prepared tho lol

[Garnier]

Against the mongols I just use an army almost entirely made up of horse archers of some sort, and a few heavy cavalry to kill their foot archers. The mongols are easy enough to beat.

[Cyrus Spitama]

I'm playing a turkish campign right now, and I'm getting my fair share of Crusading armies and Mongols in my lands and I have to say that Naffatun are a godsend and now officially my favourite unit in the game. Get two or three squads of these guys behind your infantry as they hold off the main charge in a siege and watch half the mongol army burn to death while the rest flees.

[d_jennings21226]

I'm playing as venice and I'm making them my number 1 priority since i own nearly all of europe and no one else is a major threat, I'm barely holding Iconium in asia minor which is a huge city with cannon towers and with a full garrison barely manages. it's super hard against mongols with my armies but I use a ton of
1.italian spear militia and sergeant spearmen due to their cost, effectiveness agaisnt cavalry and relative resistance to arrow fire and make the rest of the armies
2.heavy calvalry as much as I can which is hard because Venetian calvalry is there weakest point and some
3. venetian heavy infantry which just rip up mongol units in melee if they can manage the charge and they defend a open wall hole really well,
4. venetian archers which outrange mongol calvalry and fire quicker than crossbowmen and have a light infantry level of attack and I have
5.pavise crossbow militia who have long range and are really good agaisnt armour making them cause insane casualty' when defending walls and are decent in melee and good at taking missile fire.
6. Carracio standard especially when defending make units defending an open hole in the wall very resistant to routing even when devestated by mongol charge.

I find standard heavy infantry type units (feudal knights etc) perform very poorly against mongols except in maybe defending walls from seige towers.

and the mongols always tend to out manuver and swarm around my armies with especially there heavy calvalry archers shooting and charging very effectivley.

[King Yngvar]

Personally I found the Mongols too easy to deal with. So I overpowered their units in export_descr_unit