Mongol behaviour in late SS6.4

[InsaneAbacus]

I hadn't the time to play SS in months.

So I would like to know your expierience with the mongols. Especially in late SS6.4!

How far they go, how much they conquer etc. What are the differences if I use gracculs or savage Ai?

I heard the AI in general likes to focus on you if u are playing with graculs Ai, is this also true for the mongols?

Sorry but i never came past turn 30...

[Siddyus]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

VH/VH using Gracul's AI. I had to edit the movement points to 500 though, but it makes them totally menacing and still manageable at the same time. They are less menacing with just the standard movement points IMO.

They usually weaken around 75-100 turns. By then you can easily push them back... if you survived the menace.

[Theramines]

I played a Seljuk campaign (H/H, Bgr II, Savage ai [?? not sure of the name; the middling one]) a few months ago and it was fantastic fun. No bridge battles or stakes. No auto-resolve. I took them on in the field. I lost heavily at first, but bled each region dry of mercenaries and recruits before retreating, region by region. They got as far west as the line of Trebizond, Caesarea and Adana before they ran out of steam. I finally beat them in the field at Edessa, thereafter they collapsed pretty quickly.

I can't be sure, but they seemed to redirect most of their armies my way after the fighting started. They lost momentum in Russia pretty quickly. The Kwarezmians held out along time there. I can't remember them doing much, if any, damage to the Cumans.

I wasn't skilled enough to win the early battles, I aimed simply to inflict as many casualties as possible and eventually win the war of attrition. I could replace my losses, the Mongols couldn't.

Army composition:Eventually I settled on a combination of 6-8 companies of Ottoman Infantry (clouds of arrows), 4-6 spears and javelins, two heavy cavalry, horse archers, and one mercenary Armenian or Alan cavalry (for their awesome speed: they mess up Mongol horse archers who have been shot up by the Ottoman Inf). Retreat the Ott.Inf. behind the spears as late as possible. I took the horse archers off skirmish mode and kept them, 'spread out', on the flanks to protect the OI and spears as long as possible. The heavy cavalry I saved to counterattack Mongols caught in melee.

The way you use reinforcements is crucial. Your casualties will be huge. Don't send reinforcements in small detachments because these won't be enough to rebuild shattered armies. Nor try to build full stacks before sending them east: that takes too long. Send your reinforcements in 10 unit/half stacks under a general whose only purpose is to escort these half stacks (to avoid rebellions). A half stack doesn't take too long to build and is often enough to rebuild shattered armies along with local mercenaries.