have you survived the mongol invasions as turkey?

[eugenioso]

this is a dumb question that is spawned purely by my curiosity, but how did you manage to tackle those 12 elite mongol armies arriving in bagdag?

[crzyrndm]

Expand early and fast. Getting Constantinople really helps your economic situation, and establishing highly developed castles just between baghdad and constantinople (there's three already, I just can't remember the names). Get farms in those as fast as possible and high chiv generals to get the highest population you can so you can get fortresses and citadels.

Expanding along the coast towards Jerusalem, instead of back into the poor wastelands around baghdad helps.

Don't face the mongols in the field, just sit in a well defended castle/city and murder them as they attack the walls (their infantry is weak, and their cav has to go through the spears at the gates).

[13lackGu4rd]

as the Turks try to get an alliance with Egypt and hope they won't backstab you, as you want to minimize the fronts you'll be fighting in the early game(until the Mongols arrive), focus on taking out the Byzantines, especially Constantinople but all of Greece too if you can, so they won't harass you later on. try to ally yourself with Venice and Hungary too, against the Byzantines and than hoping they won't backstab you either. if you succeed than convert all your castles in Turkey to cities and focus on building farms and governing with high chivalrous generals(call a Jihad on Baghdad or something to get quick chivalry traits). the reason for this is that cities grow much faster than castles, and you want fully developed castles to face the Mongols. a few turns before the Mongols show up convert those cities back into castles and start building key military buildings(mainly barracks). as the Turks you can generally fight on equal footing with the Mongols if you have enough of your high quality troops, otherwise dig inside your castles with plenty of infantry and archers(Janissary Archers also have stakes, which are terrific in castle defense).

[Silverheart]

I did the same way I always do: strengthening the defences of my settlements and killing them beneath the walls.
Turkey has so many mountains that it takes a long time to move around, even for the Mongols, and that gives you the time to recruit massive forces.

Also, if the Mongols bypass a strongly garrisoned settlement, you just send that garrison out to try and halt them at a bridge or attack their Horde armies when they spread out.

[=Bright=]

Janissary Archers + Bridge battle + stakes = dead Mongols.
Janissary Archers + Gate defending + stakes = dead Mongols.

[.L.]

Janissary Archers + Bridge battle + stakes = dead Mongols.
Janissary Archers + Gate defending + stakes = dead Mongols.

Janissary's usually come after the Mongols rape the out of you though. They're good against Timmies though.

[crzyrndm]

Janissary's usually come after the Mongols rape the out of you though. They're good against Timmies though.

You can get them around the time the mongols arrive if you focus on growing a castle or two(by double conversion is fastest). Seeing as you know the mongols are coming, many players do get to deploy their best troops in time for the invasion

[In3x]

Conquer the entire world (or as much as you can) but Baghdad before they show up, then jihad against Baghdad so all your troops are massed on that side of the map. Alternatively you can if you conquer the entire world reasonably quickly (say 50 turns) you will have enough time to simply walk all your troops back without a jihad, this will cost you a lot more money however.

You should have at least 20-30 stacks by the time the Mongols arrive. As they generally don't attack until they are besieging a settlement you can isolate individual Mongol stacks and destroy them. If you are impatient like me your 20 stacks should easily be able to autocalc the Mongols into oblivion as long as you can engage them with a 3 to 1 ratio of stacks. I recently played a Scotland campaign where I used this tactic. Another useful thing to do is to build watchtowers above and below the Caspian Sea as well as in the mountains north of Baghdad.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you are monstrously powerful by the time the Mongols turn up they will be little more than a nuisance and even a nice way to lower your troop upkeep.

[lolIsuck]

Conquer the entire world (or as much as you can) but Baghdad before they show up, then jihad against Baghdad so all your troops are massed on that side of the map. Alternatively you can if you conquer the entire world reasonably quickly (say 50 turns) you will have enough time to simply walk all your troops back without a jihad, this will cost you a lot more money however.

You should have at least 20-30 stacks by the time the Mongols arrive. As they generally don't attack until they are besieging a settlement you can isolate individual Mongol stacks and destroy them. If you are impatient like me your 20 stacks should easily be able to autocalc the Mongols into oblivion as long as you can engage them with a 3 to 1 ratio of stacks. I recently played a Scotland campaign where I used this tactic. Another useful thing to do is to build watchtowers above and below the Caspian Sea as well as in the mountains north of Baghdad.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you are monstrously powerful by the time the Mongols turn up they will be little more than a nuisance and even a nice way to lower your troop upkeep.

conquer the entire world in 70 turns? If you manage that it won't be difficult to hold off the Mongols

[eugenioso]

sorry guys i meant YOUR experiences with surviving against them. when the mongols came i had control of egypt, all of turkey and even some of russia, as well as constantinople.

my war against them was one of pure epicness. they sacked mosul and they managed to take over antioch 3 times while antioch was the target of a crusade. it took me 30 turns to finally hunt down temujin and destroy the mongol hordes. realistically they never had a chance of winning. all they did was take antioch and i retook it by assault 2 turns later. in the meantime they lost around 8 armies to fruitless assaults and the other 4 to field and bridge battles.

[Count De Monet]

I expand early on. I get an alliance with Egypt and take Cyprus early. I usually expand down to Damascus and Antioch. I leave Acre and Jerusalem to Egypt and I expand as far north as Sarkel and as fart west as Durazzo. I try not to surround myself with enemies too much until after I have defeated them. I did set the Campaign to end in the winter of the year 2012....so I cant take all the time in the world to expand.... =P

[AngelDeath]

well , i tweaked the 'mongel invasion' to a puny invasion .. ..
only 3 general in a army ..
can i even lose ? ...
descr_stats do the trick ...

okay , jokes aside ..
as turks .. fight all ur way to europe . swallow the whole egypt fac. no use ally with them anyway , they will backstab u sooner or later .. leave bagdag , than when monguls arrive wage a jihad , send all ur jihading army there , well , u need 10 full stakes if u ar not planing to lead the battle urself .

[Count De Monet]

actually Egypt has always remained my ally when I played as the Turks. It leaves me without having to worry about them in the early campaign so I can take care of the Byzantines who early on have much better troops.

[danny X]

i always found, that when i played as Turkey and took Antioch, you would immedietly become a target for Crusades to be called against you!

[.L.]

i always found, that when i played as Turkey and took Antioch, you would immedietly become a target for Crusades to be called against you!

Ally with the pope.

[tudor93]

Ally with the pope.

yep, ally with the pope because he is not a greedy bastard and he won't backstab you after a couple of turns just like the other AI factions would do

[.L.]

yep, ally with the pope because he is not a greedy bastard and he won't backstab you after a couple of turns just like the other AI factions would do

He's really far away man. Anyway, it'll buy you some time.

[tudor93]

He's really far away man. Anyway, it'll buy you some time.

*cough*crusades*cough*

[Justsomeone777]

Just try to get janissary archers ASAP, with their stakes, the mogols can easily be beaten in the war of atrittion.

[Aeratus]

Turks was the first campaign I played after finishing my first Catholic campaign (required to unlock the other factions). Fighting the Mongols and Timurids was so fun I played another Turks campaign immediately afterward.

Mongols are easy to beat if you have enough stacks. I think that's the key point. To get enough stacks, you have to blitz the entire middle east, so you have a ton of fortresses and citadels when they arrive.

The best army to fight the mongols is a stack full of Spahi lancers or Qapukulu. Alternatively, a mass of archers and spearmen are also ok in some situations.