What to do with Mongols?

**ahmed5** · June 11, 2008, 08:17 AM

Hello,

How in the hell are u exactly supposed to destroy the mongols? I'm currently playing Denmark on med difficulty, and they've been sending stacks after stacks of men on at Stettin (citadel) with +4 exp (and always get thrashed!), how do u kill em off other than assassinating their family?

Do they keep getting reinforcements? they had around 7 full stacks when they reached polish territory, so far i've destroyed about 6 full stack, and yet they still have around 7 armies :hmmm:

and why do they always head for my kingdom no matter where i am!? (unless I'm Scotland lol)

Thanks

**Leutrim** · June 11, 2008, 08:43 AM

Originally Posted by ahmed5

Hello,

How in the hell are u exactly supposed to destroy the mongols? I'm currently playing Denmark on med difficulty, and they've been sending stacks after stacks of men on at Stettin (citadel) with +4 exp (and always get thrashed!), how do u kill em off other than assassinating their family?

Do they keep getting reinforcements? they had around 7 full stacks when they reached polish territory, so far i've destroyed about 6 full stack, and yet they still have around 7 armies :hmmm:

and why do they always head for my kingdom no matter where i am!? (unless I'm Scotland lol)

Thanks

As bad as this sounds it not as bad as playing the Turks and just as your making progress and money in europe you suddenly see 10 full stacks of mongols in Bahgdad |:

Anyways, I suggest using artilery and caverly in pitched battles. Best technique is to hide in your citadel and get lots of archers, cannon towers and spearmen/pikemen. and just put them infront of the gate. Remember, the mongols rely heavily on light dismounted archers and on cavelry, you've just gotta counter it, bleh.

**ahmed5** · June 11, 2008, 08:51 AM

the thing is, i know how to smash em in battle, but what i'm asking is: do they never stop getting men?

i could try going on the offensive and wiping them out but i do not have time train 7 armies to take them on whilst constantly getting sieged at Stettin (my kingdom is very spread out, i have about 5 settlements in north europe, 3 in britain, 1 in france, and 4 in the med)

**Leutrim** · June 12, 2008, 04:22 AM

Originally Posted by ahmed5

the thing is, i know how to smash em in battle, but what i'm asking is: do they never stop getting men?

i could try going on the offensive and wiping them out but i do not have time train 7 armies to take them on whilst constantly getting sieged at Stettin (my kingdom is very spread out, i have about 5 settlements in north europe, 3 in britain, 1 in france, and 4 in the med)

Right, well obviously they'll stop soon enough soon enough. Towns they've conquered are relatively weak, so try attacking them to distract the mongols. A bigger and more dangerous problem are the Timurids however, just use the same tactics.

**eggthief** · June 11, 2008, 09:22 AM

they reappear 2 times methinks.

**Monsieur Alphonse** · June 11, 2008, 09:31 AM

They come in three waves of each 3 to 5 stacks. So simply continue the war of attrition until their good stacks are depleted. They can train new units but those are rubbish. Let them run against the walls of Stettin and kill them.

**thricelost** · June 11, 2008, 02:02 PM

My first two games, HRE and Russia, I won before the Mongols were much of a problem. They were still the Egyptians' and Turks' problem. I also won before gunpowder was invented, so it was very early on. That's what I get for playing on default medium mode.

Anyway, now I'm playing on very hard mode as Egypt, so the Mongols are much more of a problem. They showed up early on and I've had to spend about 70% of my recruitment money fighting them (as opposed to fighting the other 8 factions I'm at war with) for the last 30 turns at least. I think I'm about to turn the tide, as they have only a few armies left, but from what I hear, it will be just in time for the Timurids to arrive.

Anway, I have found these strategies to be effective when dealing with the Mongols:

1) Create a ton of blockages for their armies and don't merge remnants of armies. The Mongols tend to travel closely, so spam the map with individual units and forts (much less costly if you have remnants of units -- 3 archers left over from a fight, or 1 mounted person, etc -- they take up the same space on the map). If you send out enough, it'll block all entrance points to your valuable regions. They'll attack, and you can retreat. They won't always attack again on that turn, but if they do, you'll have lost at most a couple of florins worth of units. Some might consider this an exploit, but I don't, as it's simply fanning out your troops to create diversions (and they don't have spies to see the size of your armies anyway). I was able to delay them attacking my first settlement for about 40 turns in this manner, and picked off 3 or 4 of their armies from behind in the process.

2) If their army doesn't have rocket launchers or trebuchets (which can quickly destroy your walls from a great distance), ballista towers are definitely worth the cost, especially on larger castles (which have multiple walls). When they're approaching a settlement, recruit a ton of spearmen to guard your gate (or any holes they punch through) when they attack. Meanwhile, their long line of troops get chewed up by ballistas and any archers you have on your towers while they assault your gate. Even if you lose, you'll turn a 900 strong army into a 200 strong army. Don't fight them on open field unless you really know what you're doing (ambush, have extremely high ground, etc).

3) Sell them far-away settlements. Being Egypt, I have a hard time keeping my captured Venetian, Hungarian, and Polish settlements. The enemies send spies in them all time, plus the population hates Islam. But I don't like to exterminate because it's less profitable than sacking. Some cities will conform with a bunch of imams, and others are hell-bent on revolting. The solution? I destroy all the buildings in the settlement to regain the florins, then sell the settlement to the Mongols. First of all, it's profitable to me because the Mongols will pay top dollar (their wealth is listed as "boundless" on the negotiating screen). Second, it forces them to spend their money on building up the gutted settlement (which I can reclaim if the Mongols too get pushed out). Third, it splits their forces and encourages them to attack towns far away from my capital and my most profitable regions. Fourth, the Mongols soon attack my enemies in those lands, making them less able to fight me on other fronts.

4) Buy out their merchants. If the Mongols do get several settlements (they have 4 to 6 of mine at any given time in the Aleppo area), they'll produce merchants like mad and build buildings to recruit merchants. It's great cash cow if you have experienced merchants in the region.

5) Go on Jihad (or Crusade) and attack the Mongols instead. Buy up tons of those units that cost 60 or 90 florins and throw them at the Mongols. Some may desert but the majority of them will stay with you long enough to get sacrificed, especially if you park them in forts or settlements along the way.

6) Recapture settlements behind them. In my game, they exterminated the first couple settlements they captured, but then settled into an area they found nice. They didn't backtrack to prevent me from recapturing the earlier settlements.

**Ambiorix_thijs** · June 11, 2008, 10:53 PM

its easy. fill up the city or castle they are close by

Sally forth from your caslte or city. 3/4 Archers or xbow on walls --1/4 pikes

put the pikes before and after the gate in guardmode and shiltrom. The mongol cavs will try to rush in to the pikes.
1/ Your archers and towers take alot out before they arrive
2/ the mongol cavs run to death on your pikes+ General fights to the death so he is killed fast.
3/ Shoot it all up, w8 for timer.
4/ if you havent killed them all, they will begin the siege and attack you, however, they will have a small army now and the reinforcs are to slow or dont have siege equipment.
5/ repeat till all mongols are death, just keep "sally forth", attack the siegers.

you win

**Gornard** · June 12, 2008, 06:04 AM

I've recently started a turkish campaign on H/H. It's my first time on this difficulty and as an islamic kingdom.
I know theres an unsual amount of juicy rebel cities around me, but i began thinking is it worth while to selectivly conquer them?
I'd like to minimize contact with the mongels, and i know that even though they appear around bagdhad that they usually make a b-line for antioch.
Maybe i should leave antioch to the rebels, egyptians or crusaders and try to expand up north or head on into the byzantines early.
Is this at all worth while?

What are the chances of the mongels appearing up north instead of south? If the mongels appear south will the tiarmuids usually appear up north (it's what happend in a previous game) or vice versa?

**Leutrim** · June 12, 2008, 06:47 AM

Originally Posted by Gornard

I've recently started a turkish campaign on H/H. It's my first time on this difficulty and as an islamic kingdom.
I know theres an unsual amount of juicy rebel cities around me, but i began thinking is it worth while to selectivly conquer them?
I'd like to minimize contact with the mongels, and i know that even though they appear around bagdhad that they usually make a b-line for antioch.
Maybe i should leave antioch to the rebels, egyptians or crusaders and try to expand up north or head on into the byzantines early.
Is this at all worth while?

What are the chances of the mongels appearing up north instead of south? If the mongels appear south will the tiarmuids usually appear up north (it's what happend in a previous game) or vice versa?

They tend to appear closest to you although in one occassion both mongols and Timurids appeared north of me when I was the Turks and they didnt attack anyone or conquer for atleast 50 turns before unleashing on my northern territories. I'd conquered Egypt and syria by this time.

Basically, I would let the Crusaders and Egyptians fight over those lands if your not sure, it always worked for me when they appeared south. But it must be said, the crusaders and egyptians dont do much and you've got to keep a considerable force in Antolia at all times if you're constantly conquering Europe up north.

**Bessems** · June 12, 2008, 08:03 AM

The most effective way to destroy the mongol armies is using stakes at rivercrossings. For example, when playing the turks you need 3-4 janissary archers in your army (this is basically the only force you need to kill thousands of mongols) place it on a rivercrossing (make sure the mongols cannot attack you from both sides of the river or you will be destroyed).
Now simply move your archers to the rivercrossing and plant stakes on the road just when the bridge stops. Start the battle and most times the mongols will charge with there cavalry and just run into the stakes killing all of them.
Use your archers to shoot down the survivors. (With 4-6 units you will destroy 50+ units of mongols).

Edit It seems CA has solved this kamikaze 'bug' with patch 1.3. The mongols are not that eager to attack you at rivercrossings, but they still do in some occassions (just make your armies as small as possible like mentioned before, 3-4 janissary archers is basically all you need, perhaps 1 jan. heavy inf unit and a general (heavy cavalry) to kill survivors and to hunt down the mongol infantry.

But you are not playing the Turks nor the English nor the Polish so you cannot use stakes. Remember that pretty much all AI enemy armies do not attack your armies they only want to lay sieges to your settlements. So block the way! The easiest way is to block them at rivers. Place a strong armies with lots of archers, spears and artillery on rivercrossings. By doing so the Mongols will not attack your armies but they move arround there armies searching for an easier way to reach your settlements. In this way is it quite easy to make sure the Mongols will never ever reach your cities.

Keep in mind that there is no limit on how many Mongol Armies will appear, the only limit is time (they appear arround 1200) and will do so up to arround 1300 (then the Timurids will appear) so even when you destroy 50 stacks they just keep coming.

I like the Mongols and Timurids, they make the game more fun, because they are though opponents in an open battle. The only downside is they keep coming at you and at some point you will get bored fighting the same enemy over and over again. But when using the tactics mentioned above you only have to fight them when you want to so they should not be that much of a problem.

**Gornard** · June 12, 2008, 08:37 AM

Do they keep coming even if they take over a city? Is there a limit to the amount of mongel armies at any one time?

The timurids come in one lump don't they?

**pericles_plato** · June 12, 2008, 10:05 AM

I beat the game before the timurids. Guess i'l pull of an USA thing in WWI *Fight for no selfish.* What turn do the timurids usually come in? Mongols usually come in late 60's 66-69.