Late Era Byzantium - Mongol Trouble:)

[brubaker19]

So I’ve played MTW for years on and off and in the last few months have played successfully as Kingdom of Jerusalem H/H in early era. I’m now playing as Byzantium in late era.

Campaign is sound, have a bit of money, cleared up Greece into my kingdom and I’m at war with Hungary but coping well. However the Mongols are now on my eastern borders and unlike early era Kingdom of Jerusalem I won’t have the money or capacity to take them on in all out war, even if I make peace with Hungary.

Have I bitten off more than I can chew with the Byzantium late campaign. Who the bloody hell is reposinble for stopping them I feel like I’m defending the left flank of Christendom from the pagan hordes and Hungary still wants Sofia back.

Has anyone else had experience of playing SS, as ERE in late campaign and had success?

Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Peter

[Sarkiss]

So I’ve played MTW for years on and off and in the last few months have played successfully as Kingdom of Jerusalem H/H in early era. I’m now playing as Byzantium in late era.

Campaign is sound, have a bit of money, cleared up Greece into my kingdom and I’m at war with Hungary but coping well. However the Mongols are now on my eastern borders and unlike early era Kingdom of Jerusalem I won’t have the money or capacity to take them on in all out war, even if I make peace with Hungary.

Have I bitten off more than I can chew with the Byzantium late campaign. Who the bloody hell is reposinble for stopping them I feel like I’m defending the left flank of Christendom from the pagan hordes and Hungary still wants Sofia back.

Has anyone else had experience of playing SS, as ERE in late campaign and had success?

Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Peter

Hey Peter, sounds like you are experiencing what the emperors at the time would - being a 'protector of the Christendom' all the while fellow Christians in the west not really giving two about it
i haven't progressed so far in my early era ERE campaign yet, but the stage i am at atm is quite boring and im steamrolling the map, short of taking over Rome in the west etc, so Mongols would actually be very welcome as its got to the point when its just too easy and uninteresting. although playing as late era Kwarezm i found Mongols to be poorly led - their stacks would often wander around aimlessly for many turns. so you campaign sounds like a more engaging experience.

the best way to defeat them are river crossings and fortified mountain passes where you can channel them in and try and bleed them dry. make sure you bring along a lot of good quality archers. in the Balkans you have once that can construct stakes pre-battle, those are the most useful i found. but you probably already know all of that. if Asia Minor is already lost, you can construct 2 forts to block the Bosporus crossings south of Constantinople. that should give you a fortified frontier but Asia would probably have to be abandoned of course.

good luck and keep us posted on how it went, sounds like you have a fun campaign ahead.

[Dekhatres]

pay them 10-20.000 florins and get an alliance with them, unless you're playing with the super aggressive AI (Graacul i believe) the alliance will hold and they will just go be someone else's problem, fatimids usually do a good job at stopping the mongols

before you decide to fight them i'd advise to take over sicily or maybe north africa, have a base you can retreat to incase things go bad

[Duck of Death]

Oddly, I never had a Mongol problem as the Byzantines... But plenty of trouble with them as Jerusalem.
Just did what Dekhatres above said, made an alliance and watched as they circled around me and took out the Turks.

By that time, the Mongols began to peter out and they weakened the Turks to the point that I could move north and take them out

[brubaker19]

So I've found my archers (late era) you get stakes so I let them damn pagans besiege me rather than sally forth or open field. I actually encountered one army of Mongols full of gold chevrons Stakes in the right place (normally the gate) and that takes out the majority of their cavalry and after about 60 years I've actually forced them back whilst still waging war with Hungary - who also are now regretting sacking Constantinople about 15 turns in!! The poor Kingdom of Jerusalem ended up on Cyprus (that might even be historically correct) but I'm half thinking of sending an army down there retaking it for them and then gifting it to them - i'm that sort of guy.

I'm still just getting by financially but investing most of that into economic buildings and avoiding serious spend on mercs. I've never in about 18 years (yip) I bought MTW when it came out ever played ERE and its a great and challenging faction especially in late campaign. Thanks for all the advice above - very useful.

[yutterh]

That sounds like a really cool and fun campaign. I am also that kind of person that would gift people land. I just got back into medical 2 as well. Right now I'm playing ad France though. Was planning on doing a crusader states game eventually as well. Sounds like I'll be having a lot of fun when I get to it.