The Timurids have Arrived!!

[Exarch]

00the timurids have arrived in my campaign-i'm sicily vh/vh- around turn 148 or so.
the mongols have settled around turkey but they're pussyfooting around and a shadow of their rapid expansion selves 30 turns before
does any1 have any xp with the timurid?
where will they go?
are their tactics any differen to the mongols-not that i'd know, i've purposely avoied the mongols-what with their elephant canons etc

and the tihng is, i do want them to expand.
as sicily, my provinces are half the map away, with my closest being the garrison on cyprus.
knowig full well that the3 mongols adn timurids start wit a rpid expansion cuz of the upkeep of their massive armies, i've been gifting them gold every now and then to keep on teir good side, as well as to encourage them to bled the bloody egyptians white.
it seems that the mongols have settled cuz they have turkey but arent expanding, much to my disappointment
i wanted nonstop bloody total wars...

[Stuntdawg5]

Well it depends. If they entered the map in the north (Russia), then they'll go to Kiev. But if they entered south (Yerevan or lower) then there is a 90% chance they'll go to Antioch.

Now to fight them. Do NOT engage them in a battle on a plain. You will be mauled. I suggest you let them expand until they've run out of steam (All their beginning stacks are gone) and then hit them with everything you can muster.
One tip, if the Timurids hit the Mongols, and the Mongols can get a few full stacks against them, the Mongols can do some serious damage against em. I watched the Timurids fight the Mongols for Antioch and the Timurids were taken down and kicked. They lost every stack, but one.

So, thats pretty much all the info I can give you on the Timmy's. Good luck fighting them and remember NEVER fight them on a plain unless you vastly outnumber them and are willing to take huge losses.

[Exarch]

thanks stuntdawg=)
will update how my tactics and strategies went when i finally go toe to toe wiv the timurids=)

[TheJoker]

This is going to sound /retarded/ but as England I used full stacks of retinue longbowmen (with generals). in the open field with results that were better than I got with a more balanced army. It basicly coutners the mongolian strength in that EVERY LAST GOD DAMN ONE OF THOSE HORSE RIDING, FLEA BITTEN, CITY SACKING, LEG HUMPING SONSA OF A BIZZLES CARRIES A BOW.

With a few exceptions, namely thier spears and heavier cavalry units.

Your Retinues can outfight thier spears in melee, and what good is heavy cavalry vs a BOX OF STAKES. Yes, it's cheap, but a BOX of stakes will do nicely when it comes time to kill off those ten star generals.

your retinues can outshoot, and outfight most of a Mongol army, you'll take impressive losses, but it's worth it for the epic battles. (with reinforcements and the like I've had one of these in the holy land last a few hours).



edit; Pee Ess. Flaming arrows make elephants go crazy and murder thier families.

Double edit; This is no help whatsoever as Sicily as I don't thik it'll work with Muslim Archers.. I forget if they have stakes. If so, give it a try? =P

[Exarch]

This is going to sound /retarded/ but as England I used full stacks of retinue longbowmen (with generals). in the open field with results that were better than I got with a more balanced army. It basicly coutners the mongolian strength in that EVERY LAST GOD DAMN ONE OF THOSE HORSE RIDING, FLEA BITTEN, CITY SACKING, LEG HUMPING SONSA OF A BIZZLES CARRIES A BOW.

With a few exceptions, namely thier spears and heavier cavalry units.

Your Retinues can outfight thier spears in melee, and what good is heavy cavalry vs a BOX OF STAKES. Yes, it's cheap, but a BOX of stakes will do nicely when it comes time to kill off those ten star generals.

your retinues can outshoot, and outfight most of a Mongol army, you'll take impressive losses, but it's worth it for the epic battles. (with reinforcements and the like I've had one of these in the holy land last a few hours).



edit; Pee Ess. Flaming arrows make elephants go crazy and murder thier families.

Double edit; This is no help whatsoever as Sicily as I don't thik it'll work with Muslim Archers.. I forget if they have stakes. If so, give it a try? =P

well done joker. your tactics are very sound-an all missile army to take out the timurid advantage of horse archers.but i hafta ask, what about when the timurid heavy cavalry? wat happened when they charged ur mass ranks of longbowmen? were they pyrrhic victories or did u choose ur terrain carefully like bridges and mountains?
ur rite about the muslim archers of sicily-they dont have archers but are still useful, and besides, i kinda like the cosmopolitanism of sicily inthat they are muslim archers^_^.
as for tactics,
i was thinking of pulling off the same thing i did in a historical battle when i used to play Rome:TW-the battle of Carrhae where u get to play as Crassus facing off against a cavalry and horse archer heavy Parthian army-not unlike the timurids (except for the elephants).
at the historicla battle of Carrhae, i formed up all my heavy infantry legionaires into a tight circle in testudo formation, thus allowing the sassanid horse archers and heavy cavalry to close ina nd engage me...while my cavalry chased off one unit of horse archers a dewcent different, doubled back, and charged right slam into the back of said sassanid horse archers or sassanid cataphracts. Then order the legions to break testudo and charge into the fray...then chase after another sassanid unit of horse archers and repeat....
this strategy i find msot useful in long empty plains and deserts unlike the terrain which i'll be doing most of my battles with the timurids. the norman knights dismounted will play as the legionaires and spearmen in general are an obvious plus in the army.

[TheJoker]

well done joker. your tactics are very sound-an all missile army to take out the timurid advantage of horse archers.but i hafta ask, what about when the timurid heavy cavalry? wat happened when they charged ur mass ranks of longbowmen?

Stakes happened, they all died.

When their elephants showed up, I used fire arrows, and they went insane and killed thier own men.

Spear infantry? Outfought by my retinues with thier swords

Just be sure to use a high Chivalry general, (like a crusader!) to improve thier morale and you're set.

Oh damn what a bastard you are. Ingenious though, i'm not trying to put you down, but the Mongols are probably still trying to comprehend why they are fighting England in the first place. Then they see a box of stakes with smaller stakes flying out from the centre, slaugthering the cav who are still wondering why they can't go through the bigger stakes. It must be incredibly satisfying to see a Mongol general or a King go down to arrows or stakes.



+rep

It's all a compliment to me, and you have NO idea how satisfying it is to see them go down like that! That many Retinue Longbowmen really do rain arrows in a way that the enemy army seems to discintegrate as it charges up the hill. (I micro manage a fair bit to keep them aimed at anything threatening that might get through my stakes if it becomes important.)

[Renco]

This is going to sound /retarded/ but as England I used full stacks of retinue longbowmen (with generals). in the open field with results that were better than I got with a more balanced army. It basicly coutners the mongolian strength in that EVERY LAST GOD DAMN ONE OF THOSE HORSE RIDING, FLEA BITTEN, CITY SACKING, LEG HUMPING SONSA OF A BIZZLES CARRIES A BOW.

With a few exceptions, namely thier spears and heavier cavalry units.

Your Retinues can outfight thier spears in melee, and what good is heavy cavalry vs a BOX OF STAKES. Yes, it's cheap, but a BOX of stakes will do nicely when it comes time to kill off those ten star generals.

your retinues can outshoot, and outfight most of a Mongol army, you'll take impressive losses, but it's worth it for the epic battles. (with reinforcements and the like I've had one of these in the holy land last a few hours).



edit; Pee Ess. Flaming arrows make elephants go crazy and murder thier families.

Double edit; This is no help whatsoever as Sicily as I don't thik it'll work with Muslim Archers.. I forget if they have stakes. If so, give it a try? =P

Oh damn what a bastard you are. Ingenious though, i'm not trying to put you down, but the Mongols are probably still trying to comprehend why they are fighting England in the first place. Then they see a box of stakes with smaller stakes flying out from the centre, slaugthering the cav who are still wondering why they can't go through the bigger stakes. It must be incredibly satisfying to see a Mongol general or a King go down to arrows or stakes.

+rep

[Lost Crusader]

The Stake box tactic would be good, if the Mongols don't have the artillery. But confining your army into a small box would probably mean destruction by their elephant artillery. Besides, the stakes won't stop the elephants.

It is not impossible to defeat them in the open. I had the best success with the army of archers, spearmen and heavy cavalry. Archers can decimate their horse archers, and (sometimes ) rout the elephants with flaming arrows. Defend the archers with your spearmen and attack their foot archers with heavy cav. Whenever possible use the high ground.

On the strategic level, prepare for a war of attrition and expect heavy losses.

[Stuntdawg5]

But wait, if he needs help for the Timurids and they have elephants, can't the elephants run through the stacks without any damage to themselves? Atleast thats what I heard, sorry if I'm wrong, I've never fought the Timurids with a faction that has stakes.

[Lost Crusader]

But wait, if he needs help for the Timurids and they have elephants, can't the elephants run through the stacks without any damage to themselves?

That's right! The elephants run through the stakes undamaged, destroying the stakes.


For me, the best advantage the Mongols have are their high-dread generals. On many occasions I've seen my whole battle line collapse and rout on a very sight of the Timurid general charging.

[Old Geezer]

Elephants can be routed with flaming arrows quite easily. Playing as Denmark, I hired a regular elephant unit and another one with canons. In a battle against the mongols I sent them out to soften up the hordes and almost immediately and without taking any losses both pachyderms bolted. One heavy mongol cavalry unit was nuts enough to attack one of them while it was going amuk and got thoroughy trashed. Bothe elephants ran off the field and I quit the battle. What a fizzle. You can counter the Mongols and Timmurids with some spears, crossbows, hired hore archers, and hired fast cavalry to pin down their cavalry. I have found that even scouts are effective at pinning their cavalry so that my heavy cavalry lcan catch them. If you don't have something to catch their cavalry with you wind up chasing them all over the field and get too tired to run. A really fun way to whack the Mongols and Timmurids is to have a huge army of serpentines and/or ballista and fire flaming projectiles at the Timmurid elephants.

The easiest way to handle both of these factions is to let them settle down and spread out. Hopefully they will take some losses doing so. You may then rather easily defeat them in detail. If you try and attack them while they are wandering around in a group of 8 or 10 stacks you can defeat them by repeatedly attacking a leading element with 3 stacks. You may take huge losses at first but can win eventually even with autocalculating battles on v/h setting. If you send lots of assassins and kill of most of their generals and you have a very high level commander the whole task becomes much easier, if tedious. I am going to try holing up in some citadels and forts to see how the Timmurids do assauting axe wielding Norsemen backed up with trebuchets and gold level experience war clerics. I am building a host of ballista for the field battles.

One of the more difficult aspects of fighting these factions is the lack of high level cities and citadels in the area to recruit and refit your troops which take losses. My Templars and Hospitalers have to go half the way back accross the map to get retrained.

[TheOnion]

My Templars and Hospitalers have to go half the way back accross the map to get retrained.

I thought you could only have Templars OR Hospitalers, not both? As soon as you accepted the first order the 2nd would not be offered.

[Swordboy]

For all it's worth, I usually wait until the very last to take on the Timurids. I'm playing the Danes now and have everything but a few former Turkish provinces (now sparcely garrisoned by Mongols) and a few remote Egyptian provinces left, but no one who's a real threat save the few stacks of nasty Mongols scattered about, and the dreaded Timurids, with their 8 full stack armies loitering around their only province, Antioch.

Needless to say I want to wind up the campaign with a bang, and those black & red fellas are really fun to fight. I had a very experienced (all silver level) army, commanded by an 8 star general absolutely wiped by a 9 star Timurid Uber General and his (ALL silver level) army that of course included 2 cannon & one gunner elephant. As luck would have it, he had almost no foot infantry and a huge amount of heavy horse archers and heavy attack cavary. Having sent a spy to look at each of their armies, THIS was the baddest of the bad.

I had 2 experienced Serpentines, 6 Norse archers, 6 (upgraded Crusader Sergeants) a couple Norse Swordsmen and the rest Golden Huscarls, also trained & retrained at a Swordsmith).

We held for a while until the elephants charged in and, with the help of the Khans Guard & Heavy Lancers, they routed my infantry.

The Huscarls & General units did do very well tearing up the "tear-er-uppers" though, including a couple of the elephants.

Even so, we lost pretty badly, maybe 85% of the army, but the Timurids lost over half theirs as well, including (and most importantly) about half of the elephants. Neither general was lost in the conflict. Given that the troops we faced were the supreme Timurin army led by the Khan, and that we faced it in the open field, with a S*&^$% starting position around the port of Antioch, we didn't do too badly I suppose. I've had worse losses to those fellows before.

The major point is that the Timurids, as others have noted, cannot afford such losses, especially with their propensity to mill about without taking any provinces. Spies indicate that only 3 of the eight remaning armies have elephants in them, so these will be hit first (with the crappiest spear militia & archer armies) if practicable.

I have armies moving around Antioch to block all the bridges to induce them to attack, and to prevent them from coming up behind any of the blocking armies. I'll get the #@$% beaten out of me a couple times more probably, but after that it's just a matter of time and numbers...

[AngryTitusPullo]

I've played English campaign before defending Antioch against stacks upon stacks of Timurids invasion.

What help me alot was having longbowmens use fire arrows on the elephants...

Never once did they breached my walls

[boerekovic]

i used Janissary Musketeers on the Walls making their armor useless.
2-4 Musketeer units give you the feeling of a real defence,maybe its the effect of the gunpowder.They can Slaughter their Armies in your cities Streets because of their range while the enemies wait for the Ram for Advancing.

[antaeus]

sharpened stakes!!

they are mongol/timurid killers cause they always charge in.

in a city its more lethal. one set of sharpened stakes in front of the gate, one set of spearmen behind them. and some full strength archers on the walls will usually deal to any mongol/timurid army.

either that, or one set of archers with stakes at the end of a bridge and a few spearmen... then step back and let them cross. let the horses die on the stakes and their infantry die on the spears. you can deal with 2 or 3 stacks at a time with good bridge/city wall tactics.

i have found the mongols often own the timurids.. .leaving their weakened stacks wandering around randomly in anatolia not seeming to know what to do...

unless i have dealt to the mongols.. i usually leave the mongols with one city as a buffer against the timurids when they arrive. leaving them in edessa or mosul.

[Oberhut]

Fight them in the cities and castles.

[Exarch]

as a political tactic, i'm bribing the timurids to take on the mongols. those two giants can bleed each other whiteThe pope has responded to my request to launch a crusade on jerusalem which the mongols have take, so luckily that should weaken any of my catholic competitors!...in the meantime, i hafta deal with england who has betrayed me-the ****ers.
i intend on cutting as wathe throguh their continental terriroties until i reach their island and lay claim to the island.

[homefry]

Are infantry useless against the elephants?

What about cavalry?

[antaeus]

Are infantry useless against the elephants?

What about cavalry?

all the top tier cavalry should deal with the elephants...

french lancers.. german gothic knights etc etc.