Mongols against Crusader States

[angeleyes]

On my very hard/very hard late era campaign I am having trouble against the mongols. I just lost aleppo and edessa to them and now they're heading to Antioch. How on earth am I meant to beat 3-4 full stacks when I'm so close to going bankrupt?

What are the best ways to defeat the mongols with the Crusader States?

[Ichon]

What turn is it? If they are at Aleppo that must be quite late. CS has great heavy cavalry and infantry but not alot of ambush opportunities. Best is strong defense in castles with roving armies of heavy cavalry led by a night fighter general to pick out individual Mongol stacks. If you don't have a hill or a large part of the Mongol army is infantry then open field battles might be expensive if you use your own infantry much. If you are bankrupt that is nothing to do with Mongols- by the time they arrive so far east even on VH with BGRIV you should have plenty of cash.

[The Source]

just let them take some settlemnets of yours and the recapture them 4 turns later when they have like 3 units in it

or just use heavy infrantry and crossbows in birdge battles

[Dahoota]

I found it pretty easy to tie up the mongols with various agents when they got to this stage - especially when they have no religious control over the area and their capital is back in Mesopotamia. It can be very easy to cause cities they have captured to rebel or force them to keep units in the cities and stall them.

Using assassins to sabotage buildings and reduce PO is particularly effective because the mongols are usually stone cold broke for most of the game and can't repair buildings.

As Ichon said your best bet is making use of your heavy infantry and fight them in castles/fortresses. If you have to fight them on open ground do it at defensible a points like bridges and steep hills.

[Nyarla]

i agree, best way to beat em is to put an army on a steep hill, so just search for rocky terrain near a road and put your army, add two mangonels some archers/ crossbows and watch the show. when he manages to reach the top, his units are close to routing so just charge em with heavy cavalry from both flanks and 2 - 3 units of heavy infantry and you can hunt him all the way back down.
since Mongols boast many experienced units he' should be every time rated stronger than your army, free heroic victories here i come. worked fine for me so far, had 3 of em in one round of hill camping. afterward replenish your troops pull back those experienced ones and retrain em.

the AI usually acts stupid when attacking a high hill, crowding together, blocking his own units, reforming his units while under archer fire, having em run from left to right and so on.
arrows can't miss with the high ground bonus and the mangonels gonna blow huge holes in both his troops and the morale. if the hill has a cliff or other impassable terrain somewhere use that for defense since the AI got no way to deal with it.

another way if u really want field battles is having mostly heavy cavalry and simply charging him head on, when the enemy starts moving in for arrows, in a widespread line with more units on both flanks going around him to crush him from the back and encircle him. have the heavy infantry follow up the front cav, and engage the enemy frontline while pulling the cav back to charge once more wherever there is need. but thats still gonna deal u some losses and heavy cavalry ain't cheap. if u want, add a mangonel to shoot a bit before u start your charge to damage his moral and make him move towards u but don't forget to stop shooting or it could damage you more than him later

[ziserman]

I have never played with CS but if the mongols have reached Aleppo it's probably at least 80 turns into the game, you shouldn't be broke. If something like this had happened to me I would just start anew. This had happened to me the first time I played Rome, I was with the Julii. I had lots of regions but I was broke and I saw I would lose, so I restarted.

[angeleyes]

Yeah I probably will start again if you guys say I shouldn't be broke at this stage.. At least I'll know what do next time they come round. And with their immense armies early game, how are the mongols not completely broke straight away? And if they're that broke, shouldn't their units start disbanding because they're not being paid? Or doesn't it work like that in total war?

[Ichon]

Yeah I probably will start again if you guys say I shouldn't be broke at this stage.. At least I'll know what do next time they come round. And with their immense armies early game, how are the mongols not completely broke straight away? And if they're that broke, shouldn't their units start disbanding because they're not being paid? Or doesn't it work like that in total war?

It doesn't work like that.

[Dahoota]

Yeah I probably will start again if you guys say I shouldn't be broke at this stage.. At least I'll know what do next time they come round. And with their immense armies early game, how are the mongols not completely broke straight away? And if they're that broke, shouldn't their units start disbanding because they're not being paid? Or doesn't it work like that in total war?

Keep going! Challenging games are always the most fun

No it doesn't work like that - the faction goes into the red (debt) until it's army gets reduced enough and it's settlements make enough money to get it's treasury back above zero. Until that happens it can't recruit or build anything new at all. I'm also pretty sure the AI is incapable of disbanding units. I've only ever seen the mongols have their treasury come above zero once in SS and that was pretty late in game after I had destroyed alot of their armies.

Why are you broke? Armies too big or just not enough economical development?

[Mihajlo]

Try to give them some town(s) and set truce with them for some turns, then disband not needed troops and rebuild econ. After that you are ready to deal with them. Btw how many provinces you hold? By that time you should be over 50 provinces or you are playing casual...?

[Dahoota]

Try to give them some town(s) and set truce with them for some turns, then disband not needed troops and rebuild econ. After that you are ready to deal with them. Btw how many provinces you hold? By that time you should be over 50 provinces or you are playing casual...?

In my experience these kinds of tactics only speed up the rot. Unless you are playing Lusted's AI the mongols will not honour any ceasefire and just come after you again.

[k/t]

Yeah, the only good Mongols are dead Mongols.

[thespaniard]

Yeah, the only good Mongols are dead Mongols.

incorrect the only good mongols are ones that give me money.
And that is my all time favorite movie starship troopers the only good bug is a dead bug

[Nyarla]

never seen the mongols have any money. so how did u manage to receive some from em?

if u want, try paying the mongols money for his settlements. he's dead broke so u should make a real bargain and its cheaper than fighting him. he can't repair or build so his cities aren't worth much.
and don't worry even if u give him money, he got millions of debt so he won't be getting any new armies.

in my last game i payed him an average of 16k each city, after i repaired our relations through gifts, and i can either keep it or sell it to a faction that has enough money for a nice profit. just make sure u repair the buildings first.

there is more than one way to win this battle, you can make the mongols work for you

[ieroeksetastis]

First of all, I apologize for reviving this thread, but I see no point in creating another one with the same content. I am currently playing CS, 6.4, Early Campaign, Savage AI, VH/VH. I managed to beat Fatimids and Seljuks and am facing K-Shah right now, however the Mongols are due to appear in about 3-4 turns(warning message happened 3-4 turns ago). My easternmost settlements are currently Ahvaz, Tabriz and Kermashah. The K-Shah will almost certainly lose to the Mongols, despite being n.3 in overall ranking, and I am wondering what to do. Having read somewhere that the Mongols avoid attacking bridges defended by full stacks, I have considered putting full stacks at every bridge running the river Tigris, from Basra up to Diyarbakir(Romans own all northern provinces after the latter). Has anyone tried this? Is the rumourt about bridges defended by full stacks real, or will they still attack and try to break through? I think that if this works, the Romans will be forced to deal with the Mongol problem, or at least delay the inevitable.

[Delvecchio1975]

If I were you I'd create a chain of fortresses, and try to hold them against the Mongol onslaught - it should be fairly easy in any castle with 2 walls or more. get a mangonel to rain down terror over the walls, swords on the inner walls, spears at the inner gates with crossbows sideways to shoot anything coming through the gates. you'll need three sword units, two crossbow units, one or two mangonels, and the rest ALL SPEARS. put the spears on guard mode, so they don't get in the way of the crossbows.

[ieroeksetastis]

I have prepared a couple of forts with a similar yet smaller(half stack) setup, as delaying action till they reach my bridges/fortresses. Thx for the info though, maybe I'll make more forts and see how this works.