Dealing with the Mongol Invasion

[totalwar_legend]

Hey everyone,

How much trouble does the Mongol Invasion cause you on an average campaign? I'm thinking about doing a video guide for dealing with them, or at least showing a few methods that I find effective. Sound good? Let me know.

[PrestigeX]

Sure - A few things that will help people give some advice.

1- The most important... Which Faction are you playing as ?

2 - What is your Roster Strength ? -- as in, what kind of units are you able to produce / recruit in significant numbers -- there's a big issue vs. Mongols which is that when they show up, unless you've been playing a very aggressive / quick-growth campaign you'll probably be stuck with "early period" units (ie. if you went on Custom Battle, and chose 'early' - thats what you'd be working with most likely...).


Laying stakes infront of the gate in a siege, or a bridge , as one of the factions who've got units capable of doing so... Thats a bit like cheating.

Filling up a settlement with heavy infantry and defending a "choke point" - gate, alleys, etc...


Anyway lets say you actually want to face them head on in the field... My best advice is to nix the infantry component to a bare minimum, bring LOTS of good quality foot-missiles (xbows, archers, guns etc) -- Bring atleast 6 or more Heavy Cav ,,, and get H.A. mercs as many as possible / produce tons of your own if a faction who can.

The idea is to micmic the Mongol army -- but to bring a better / stronger version of it against them... Especially as the Egyptians who can bring a very competant army in the earlier period.

If you were say England, then you want to bring like 10 longbow troops (reg, yeo, or ret) a sprinkling of infantry (3 ) and fill er up with Assorted Cav - emphasis on being able to "Brawl" with the Mongol cav and defeat them.

The mongols will at a certain point send their Cav to smash you and it's at this critical point you want to A - kill their General, B - prevent them from killing too many of your foot-missiles (Who you need later to finish off the mongol infantry / horse archers). You need only a small group of infantry to help in the Cav battle (they come in to support your cav) and in the possibility that the mongol foot tries to charge, altho this is very unlikely as their foot component is almost always 100% bow-armed.

[Eisenhart_IV]

The idea is to micmic the Mongol army -- but to bring a better / stronger version of it against them...

Would that mean taking several stacks to the battle as well?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Would that mean taking several stacks to the battle as well?

Yes, otherwise they'll swarm your single elite stack with 4+ of theirs.

[Vipman]

You might want to add a final note that (one of) the easiest way to kill the mongols might be spamming the heaviest infantry with the highest unit stats you've got and auto-resolve battles as horse archers are terrible in AR If you just want to get rid of them no matter how, I wouldn't AR as it would just kill the fun in it.

Edit: oh I remembered there are mongol heavy cavalry and archers too, might not be so easy afterall, but should still be easier than played battles except well played defensive siege battles in fortresses...

[totalwar_legend]

I wouldn't mimic the Mongol army. Their armies come really balanced, with good heavy cab, missile cav, and quality infantry. The best way to counter a balanced army is to send a specialised unbalanced army. One with many weaknesses, but one huge advantage. Since the mongols are really experienced, you can forget a rout. However, experience accounts for nothing when it comes to missile attack and defence. But bringing a stack of 19 ottoman infantry + general isn't a good option because their heavy cav will just mow you down. So in that case, you need to get into a position where the Mongols aren't aggressive. The best situation for that is a Sally out, either from a fort or city/castle. Ottoman infantry beat mongol infantry in a skirmish, but before you waste all your ammo on their infantry, move forward a bit and shoot the lancers that are just sitting there. They'll probably come after you, but you'll have enough time to whittle them down to just a few troops. Anyway, that seems to work for me.

[Eisenhart_IV]

I must say i do avoid facing Mongols on an open field. I think nothing robs them more of their mobility and fire-power like siege warfare, hence i go with that, but i would be very interested in seeing them beaten on a field.

Also, what about the expenses involved in all these options? What would be the cheapest way to neutralise their threat?

[Aeratus]

Easiest way to mow down the Mongols on the field is to get a full stack of Chivalric Knights. The Mongols' main weakness is that they have no anti-cav other than cavalry of their own.

A full stack of Chivalric Knights should be able to beat 2 Mongol stacks simultaneously.

A full stack of archers can sometimes work, but you need a hill generally. If you have a full stack of stake-deploying archers, that would be pretty effective.

What would be the cheapest way to neutralise their threat?

For a budget approach, I would go with mostly archers to shoot them down at a range, plus some heavy cavalry to guard against their charges.

[Eisenhart_IV]

The only successful open field battles (not counting bridge battles) that i have had against the Mongols have been with a massed out, full stack army of Quapukulus (playing as the Turks), and, in fact, one stack of those guys and a general could take out several of theirs, but i did not find it satisfying winning that way. That's when i switched to siege warfare instead, and i didn't really attempt other (more balanced) ways of beating them on the field. I must admit i often do use sharpened stakes deployed at the gateway, and i never considered it as a form of cheating, because if the Mongol horses walked through those stakes (which sometimes has happened to me in sieges with more than one wall, and when i have deployed majority of my troops behind the inner-wall) they would be absolutely fine.

[Fluffy_Bunny]

I dumbly completed the campaign years ago. I recently came back to this game and have been lurking on these boards to learn more of the fine details.

I'm in the middle of a Spain campaign now on N/H and wanted to share my experience with the mongols thus far. In the first crusade called I took Antioch and decided to try to maintain a foothold in the holy land. I quickly expanded to Acre and Aleppo and Egypt gave me Damascus in a ceasefire... That was a horrible choice as it took many turns to stabilize. Just as I was getting the region under control The mongols show up with Antioch as their target. I was horribly unprepared. Lucky for me the mongols had a misstep and left their faction leader's stack too far away to receive reinforcements and I struck out from Aleppo and other areas with a large force of Jinettes and other cavalry and managed to kill their faction leader and Withdraw without taking too many casualties. I did this to one other stack and both of those bloodied stacks went back west for reinforcements. Now I had 3 full stacks left at my gates in Antioch for a siege. My biggest mistake is I wasnt sure that that was where they were going so my garrison was woefully unprepared. I had 2 generals, 3 Spear Militia and 8 Crossbow militia facing down 2 full stacks of mongols (I am not sure why the 3rd didnt come in) and I hadn't completed the Batista towers yet. There wasnt anything I could do about but try to survive the siege. My other armies in the region were too badly beat up from facing the other stacks of mongols. So the siege commences and I notice 1 thing... between both mongol stacks they maybe have a total of 10 foot soldier units and all of them are archers. They also have 3 batter rams and... 1 tower. That tower was their undoing. I setup all 3 Spear groups on the wall where their tower was lined up, then I put all of my crossbows on the other side of the gate. At the beginning of the battle I sent my generals body guard out immediately and hit the battering ram crew. I left them there just long enough for the tower to get past the battering ram and then ran them back into the city (this took out 25% of my cavalry). Now as soon as the tower reached my walls the Mongols stupidly sent all of their archers up the tower. I waited for them to be lined up and sent my Cavalry out again to hit them while they waited to climb the tower. Eventually enough archers die to start a rout and the mongols are left with 3 healthy rams and no foot soldiers to use them.

After that defeat the mongols ran back for reinforcements. The first stack to hit me once they returned was the remnants of the stack that sieged me before and the few archers they had left died before reaching my gate. I'll provide updates as I play through since I now have fresh stacks of Mongol armies outside my gates and a much more prepared garrison (and ballista towers).

[Eisenhart_IV]

Intersting story Fluffy_Bunny, and well done! Good luck with the rest of the stacks.

Playing as Spain i would be itching to play my Almughavars from the walls against the Mongols. Not sure if that's a good idea, but still.

[Sitalkes]

I've defeated the Mongol invasion twice in the Crusades campagin, first as Jerusalem and second as the Turks. I lost Richard the Lionheart to them the first time but even playing VH/VH I found no need to fight them from behind walls. I just attacked them while I was likely to be on top of a hill. A good force of archers, some artillery, good infantry and a mixture of light and heavy cavalry is all that is then needed. Using the Turks I beat them with an army consisting mostly of spearmen in one battle, and was able to use massed Jannisary and other archers in another battle. You just need a positional advantage. I also used assasins to kill off their leaders, that means you have to fight fewer armies and the Mongol scourge doesn't survive so long. Well Ok you get more Mongol armies in the main campaign but as long as I can fight them from on top of a hill or even in woods I'm sure they can be beaten in an open battle.

[Highlander of Scotland]

play as scotland. Bring pikes and highland archers into the streets of a city. Your pikes will be able to take a lot of hits and crush their cav and your archers work as infantry and archers. This tactic works against any countyr. Even a full stack of geonese crossbows.

[Kataphractos]

Laying stakes infront of the gate in a siege, or a bridge , as one of the factions who've got units capable of doing so... Thats a bit like cheating.

Not really, it's just using all resources available to you to their best effect.

I say if you have stakes, let those so-called horse lords spit themselves on them.

[totalwar_legend]

Yeah I agree. You can't just call something cheating because it works really well. Cheats are command codes, and that's it! If anything it is an exploit, a mild one at that though.

[Kataphractos]

I wouldn't even call it an exploit. It's just fixed field defenses that you can place before the battle starts. Now, if you could pick them up and reset them as needed during the battle, that'd be another story.

[totalwar_legend]

Very true.

[Fluffy_Bunny]

Quick update. I havent been able to play much this week but I did progress a couple turns. The mongols came up at Antioch from below. I was prepared to let them assault the city but the next turn they shifted over and the faction leader, with less than half a stack, decided to siege my weakly defended fort in the area... Apparently the faction leaders for the mongols are cocky because he was again out of range of reinforcements. I sent half a stack of Jinettes at him and easily killed the faction leader and the rest of the units in that group and gained a new general for myself. It will be interesting to see how the Mongols respond. So for those keeping score, I have killed 2 faction leaders and defended a horribly unbalanced siege against the Mongols so far.

Also for the stake argument .. is there anything in reality that would have stopped a medieval general from laying stakes in front of his gates during a siege? I cant think of anything, so why not allow it in game?

[Maklodes]

Also for the stake argument .. is there anything in reality that would have stopped a medieval general from laying stakes in front of his gates during a siege? I cant think of anything, so why not allow it in game?

A general could do it, and I think many did (as a cheap, moderately effective measure for slowing the enemy down), but stakes would not have killed cavalry that effectively. In M2TW, hundreds of cavalrymen might impale themselves on wooden stakes, even after hundreds of their comrades have already impaled themselves on those same stakes.

Doesn't it seem a little funny that stakes -- sharp pieces of wood stuck in the ground -- pose more of a threat to cavalry than, say, armored sergeants -- armored professional soldiers (with a focus on anti-cavalry combat) with steel spears who can actually thrust, feint, move, and... well, fight?

The existence and use of stakes in battle is historically accurate. They're extreme effectiveness in killing cavalry is fairly implausible. I wouldn't call it cheating to use them, but since you brought up the question of the reality of stakes Medieval warfare...

[Fluffy_Bunny]

I wanted to give another update. At Antioch with mostly Peasant Crossbows and Spearmen I managed to hold off the second wave of Mongols. The key to victory was Sally out. Every time they laid siege to my city the mongols had one stack to the front and one to the right of my city. The second important piece was that I had 2 generals in the city but I believe one would have the same effect. On the Sally I stretched my ranged units over my front gate and around the right corner (the side where the second stack of mongols was). At the beginning of the battle I rush my generals out and bring them just outside of range of the mongol archers this causes them to rush horse archers at them. You can run the generals in and out of the city letting your Ballista towers and archers widdle them down. While this is happening the second stack will move toward the front of the city every time the generals are outside the city walls. The best part is they stop where they are when the generals go back inside. Once the second stack has a decent number of units in range of your ranged units take the generals inside and lets your arrows do the work.

Using this tactic I was able to kill 2 Mongol generals in sally outs and get percentages of 60-70% killed to 20% lost. That plus a few key strikes from Jinette armies to kill Generals has the mongols running away from reinforcements.