Turkish Campaign versus Mongolians

[Saladin45]

Hello, Marhaba and Hola,


I am playing as the Turkish and have an empire that stretches from Yerevan and Tbilisi to Thesselonica and Corinth. Byzantines are destroyed and all, and I have no enemies on my western wing of my empire. In the south I have Acre Damascus, Baghdad, Edessa and the Egyptians are my allies. I have no problems with them and never have. But here's my problem.

The Mongolian invasion is probably 5-10 years off from me. (I'm going 1 year per turn with Lands to Conquer) So I've done this before and tried to fight the Mongolians, and they totally massacre me. I mean, armies completely destroyed, and just... It's pathetic the way I fight them.

So I'm wondering. What units are good against the Mongolians? Cuz my problem is that the Mongolians always come in using units that are very experienced. As in, those horse archers that are like 4 experience points up. You get me?

So what should I do? Just retrain veteran troops from the west and send them eastward? Or train mad troops? What units are good against Mongolian regulars? I must know. I hate the idea of losing my Eastern wing of my empire.

-Saladin

[Sher Khan]

You have five options.

Fight the Mongols in a siege.

This tactic can be disastrous on your gameplay, as the Mongols will literally swarm around your city. Having four full armies pop up on the map with a huge city under assault will destroy your framerate. I recommend to not try it unless you only face one Mongol stack.


Fight them in the open plains with mobility.

It can be done. Sipahis are good horse archers, and frankly the six experience Mongolian units have only affect their defense and melee attack. Their missle attack, however, is just as good as yours. Divide and conquer. Separate the Heavy Lancers and distract them. Make sure that each Mongolian horse archer is attacked by at least two Sipahi horse archers to overwhelm them. Widdle down their forces while pumping out more and more Sipahis in your Castles. This method will cost you a lot of cash in recruitment and upkeep and retraining. Your units will likely take massive casualties and be unable to handle the Mongol armies during the Mongolian turn. Your single stack will be overwhelmed by Mongol stacks surrounding you completely. Rush in with all cavalry, attack one stack and crush it, then retreat as far as you can and hope the rest of the Mongol army doesn't catch up. Keep reforming and creating new Sipahi armies constantly and wear them down in a battle of attrition.


Field as many stacks as possible, preferably with veteran troops.

Just do what the Mongols do and send in swarms of multiple stacks in a single mass movement. Pick off trailing Mongol stacks with multiple stacks and autoresolve to win. It's dangerous, costly, and prone to lots of crusing defeats because of the AI autocalculating your battles. It's also wildly expensive since many stacks are needed to overcome the experience bonus of the Mongol armies and their 10-star generals. Not recommended in the least.


A good defense is the best offense.

Field a few armies consisting of 1-2 generals, 5-8 Dismounted Sipahi Lancers, 4-7 Ottoman/Jannissary/Turkish Archers, and the rest with some Jannissary Heavy Infantry or light cavalry.

Your goal with these armies is to reach the mountainous regions of Southeastern Anatolia, near Antioch and Edessa. Understand your environment. Notice the many chokepoints you can take advantage of. Herd the Mongols with shadowing forces and fully garrisoned cities through the valleys and mountain passes of Turkey. This will help to stretch their forces out and leave a few units isolated far and away from the main Mongol forces and unable to receive reinforcements should a battle arise.

Attack a stack, making sure you're standing on a high, mountainous region. In the battle map, find a hilly, cliffside area where the Mongols will be restricted to climb and approach through one or two narrow passages. Here, you must deploy massed Dismounted Sipahi Lancers in deep ranks with guard mode turned on. Behind them, keep some backup infantry and then position your foot archers on high ground protected by natural cliff faces and spearmen. Set their arrows alight.

The Mongols must navigate the tight passes, and the fastest troops will approach the lines first. These will be their horse archers. Using flaming arrows, crush these advance units. Hopefully they'll only be able to fire at the front of your spearmen and NOT the sides or the rear. Have your spearmen hold their ground even in the face of Mongolian arrow fire. Their job is to stay put. A general unit behind them is welcome to boost morale a bit.

Soon, the Mongolian army will finally approach, but with depleted Horse archers. Attack their massed units at multiple points with flaming arrows and allow them to skirmish back - don't move your spearmen. With flaming arrows, you'll score more kills per volley and you'll have a slower rate of fire. It sounds bad, but it isn't. The Mongols will waste their arrows on your well armored spearmen and they'll run out fast, while you'll still have tons of arrows left to fire with. Once the Mongols have run out of arrows and you're still shooting fire arrows at them, they'll issue a cavalry charge. Hold the line at all costs. Reinforce with backup forces if necessary. Here is where the battle will be won or lost. Hold your ground, kill their general, and watch the mass rout ensue in a few minutes. They should be unable to break your Dismounted Sipahi Lancers and should retreat. Only their infantry will be left, and these can be handled easily by whatever means. Chase down routers with light cavalry if available. Execute captured soldiers.

Once you are satisfied with the battle position you have taken, don't move from it. Or at least remember it. If needed, replace your battered force with a nearby stack and stand in the same spot. End turn, and the Mongols should hopefully attack one stack after another. You should be able to destroy 2-5 Mongol stacks this way before your army either routs or is too depleted to fight effectively. Simply replace and repeat. This is the cheapest method I believe in that the spearmean/archer armies are void of cavalry and pretty inexpensive. Easily replaceable too. It's my preferred method, and the Turks have the best spearmen to do the job.


Give up and die.

I, for one, welcome our new Mongolian overlords.

[Strategos83]

A humble suggestion:

Have an army of assassins ready to take out as many of the Mongolian generals as possible. The Auto-resolves on battles between your best generals versus faceless mongolian "captains" would then obviously leave you with many more survivors to carry on the defense..

Of course, even more obvious is the fact that even the most skilled assassin only has a slim to nil chance of successfully whacking a 10 star general, however when I say "army" I mean literally a couple dozen assassins waiting in eastern Asia Minor for those mongol mofos to show up.

On a more amusing note Western europe would probably be left littered with the bodies of diplomats, merchants, princesses, captains and lesser generals from countries youre not even at war with before your "army" is complete...

[mhisteal]

Give up and die.

I, for one, welcome our new Mongolian overlords.

Amen to that, and their demands are so light! 80% of all tax profits, our first born sons, and all of our daughters to pleasure the Mongolian army. No problem! All hail the Khan!

[Sher Khan]

I have a intelligence policy that involves me going crazy with watchtowers and spies. From the beginning of the campaign, every territory I own is immediately given a ring of watchtowers to watch the interior and exterior lands. For every new conquest, a general is sent out to place watchtowers an all fronts and fog-of-war areas. Spies are sent out to lands beyond the borders for extra visibility.

You want to keep tabs on the Mongols, knowing exactly where they're moving and mobilizing. Knowing where they're headed and how they're moving before hand is very useful in setting up a proper defense or raid on their armies. You don't want to lose track of everything in Asia only to have the Mongols pop out the fog of war next to a poorly garrisoned city like Antioch or Jerusalem.

[Saladin45]

Hehehe. Thank you very much everyone! Especially you Sher Khan, that article is amazing.

So far... It is looking actually pretty good! The Mongols came in near Yerevan. Then from the south they came in through Baghdad. (I didn't see Baghdad's Mongols until they popped up RIGHT outside the city) I've managed to destroy quite a few of their armies. All that remains now is one full stack army, one half stack, and the Khan of the Mongols who is sitting behind mosul on a bridge.

Also, I have been using Qupakulu's. I love those units. They CRUSH Mongolian lines. You won't believe the amount of damage I have done to them using those guys.

Thanks again. Now... Will this tactic work against the Timurids?

[Sher Khan]

Hehehe. Thank you very much everyone! Especially you Sher Khan, that article is amazing.

A little +rep goes a long way, lol.


As for the Timurids...

Now... Will this tactic work against the Timurids?

Yes. Yes it will. As long as you don't engage an army with elephants, lol. Any good defensive strategy - even mine - will be utterly crushed in the face of mobile, unstoppable artillery. When facing Timurids, make sure to field ample artillery to rout their elephants. After that, they're no different than any normal Mongol army.

[Sher Khan]

Sorry, but posting warped out on me, so double post and bump.

[Tajir]

Wow. You're making a mistake.

Here's what you should do.

Conquer Baghdad and ALL cities that border potential Mongol homelands.

Sell those cities/towns/castles to strong factions.

When the Mongols come, they'll pick on those factions first, and by the time they reach the modern Turkish region, they've already been beaten down to less than 3 stacks for their entire empire.

When I was playing as Egypt, I kicked the Turks out of their modern homeland and situated them in the Baghdad and Northern Caucasus regions. When the Mongols came, they got RAPED!

[Sher Khan]

Wow. You're making a mistake.

Here's what you should do.

Conquer Baghdad and ALL cities that border potential Mongol homelands.

Sell those cities/towns/castles to strong factions.

When the Mongols come, they'll pick on those factions first, and by the time they reach the modern Turkish region, they've already been beaten down to less than 3 stacks for their entire empire.

When I was playing as Egypt, I kicked the Turks out of their modern homeland and situated them in the Baghdad and Northern Caucasus regions. When the Mongols came, they got RAPED!

Never! Either I alone will crush the Mongols, or no one will! Or at least I'll die trying, lol.


Honestly though, it's a great challenge to face the Mongols. However, they're not so dangerous, considering that their AI movement seems to gravitate towards Antioch and Jerusalem and, if the other cities are heavily garrisoned, will pass by your other cities without much incident (except Yerevan and Tsbilisi, they seem to love sacking them).

For instance, Mosul and Baghdad were filled up with Ottoman Infantry and Jannissary Heavy Infantry in preparation for an enormous Mongol seige. The Mongols, much to my dismay, just walked passed me and headed through Anatolia, swinging around towards Antioch.

Thinking quickly, I 'gifted' Antioch to the Egyptians - the treacherous Egyptians have been at my throat for a good 20 turns, so it was a worthwhile deal for a ceasefire, especially with the Mongols a mere two turns away from Antioch's walls. I figured it was a worthwhile revenge effort. It got even better because the Pope called a crusade on Antioch the very next turn, lol.

So, the Mongols engaged the Egyptians and crushed them at Antioch, while I offered assistance for a ceasefire with the Khans. At the same time, Crusading armies were at war with Egypt because of joining the crusade and were now barreling their way towards Mongolian held Antioch. I must say, I had a great seat to watch the greatest show in the Mid East, lol.

[Tajir]

Never! Either I alone will crush the Mongols, or no one will! Or at least I'll die trying, lol.


Honestly though, it's a great challenge to face the Mongols. However, they're not so dangerous, considering that their AI movement seems to gravitate towards Antioch and Jerusalem and, if the other cities are heavily garrisoned, will pass by your other cities without much incident (except Yerevan and Tsbilisi, they seem to love sacking them).

For instance, Mosul and Baghdad were filled up with Ottoman Infantry and Jannissary Heavy Infantry in preparation for an enormous Mongol seige. The Mongols, much to my dismay, just walked passed me and headed through Anatolia, swinging around towards Antioch.

Thinking quickly, I 'gifted' Antioch to the Egyptians - the treacherous Egyptians have been at my throat for a good 20 turns, so it was a worthwhile deal for a ceasefire, especially with the Mongols a mere two turns away from Antioch's walls. I figured it was a worthwhile revenge effort. It got even better because the Pope called a crusade on Antioch the very next turn, lol.

So, the Mongols engaged the Egyptians and crushed them at Antioch, while I offered assistance for a ceasefire with the Khans. At the same time, Crusading armies were at war with Egypt because of joining the crusade and were now barreling their way towards Mongolian held Antioch. I must say, I had a great seat to watch the greatest show in the Mid East, lol.

HAHAHA!! I've had tons of those situations.

Pit one group against the other.

Hey, try this -- buy three Mongol armies (bribe) and pit the bribed generals against their masters. Wreak havoc on the Mongols before they reach your gates.

The thing I love about this game is that I can find at least ten alternatives to direct war.

By the way, try bribing a Moorish army, they've easily got the single best unit in all of the world! The CAMEL GUNNERS! SWEEET! First, Camels scare horses, and secondly, they've got guns!!

[Cassy]

What I always do is make sure Mosul is a castle fully upgraded as possible, and when it comes to a Timurid or Mongol invasion I make sure there's a full stack of the best defensive troops I have available there. I also include suitable units to leave the castle to attack the invaders in the field. But what's really useful is to have a full stack of just horse archers, especially as The Turks. With this army you can attack the invaders time and time again, just attack until you run out of ammo and retreat and repeat.

[Saladin45]

Repped you Sher Khan. Oh and, I cannot wait for the Timurids. The Mongols are a no problem now. They only half one beaten down half of a quarter stack army remaining. My new vision for conquerage? The Italian city states!!! MUAHAHAHAHAH!

*Catches self from insane laughter*

.... Excuse me...

[Tajir]

In my current campaign, the Mongols and Timurids are at war!

[Akbar]

So you are awaiting the dreaded Timurids? You should make your armies hold the bridges and river fords around Baghdad/Mosul. Thats what I did last night. Played Turks. Sorry for the lousy english, I'm from Sweden.

My Lineup: General, 4 Quakapulus, 3 Sipahis, 4 Jannisary Archers, 2 Jannisary Muskets, 2 Dismounted Sipahis, 2 Heavy Jannisars, 1 Trebuchet, 1 Mercenary Elephant Artillery unit. About 1600 men in all.

Their first assault included their standard horde of heavy lancers/archers, some halberdiers, 4 units of elephants and a general with 8 stars. A second army (remains of their first wave) came at me from behind: A General with 4 stars and 3 units of horse archers.

My tactic was obviously to try and choke and kill 'em all at the bridge while my general finished of the smaller force assisted by the elephants and the sipahis. That he did in an instant.

At the bridge my "brave" Archers planted their stakes and then ran like hell to take cover behind the Spearmen/Halberdiers. The muskets were lined up at the flanks of the heavy infantry since they can't shoot well indirectly. They relied on the stakes to slow down the Infidels, and on the Quakapulus to charge in from the sides once battle was joined. The Trebuchet were safely planted behind the infantry, loading up with rotting carcasses but prepared to switch to burning pots.

The Timurids generously made most of their cavalry commit suicide against the stakes. Their Elephants did not seem to be harmed though. 2 units crossed the bridge, the other 2 (elephant artillery) remained on the other side firing like hell. Assisted by their archers on the bridge....
My victorious general returned at this moment. He sent the Sipahis to the flanks, but kept his own Elephants in the centre. The battle enters a strange futuristic phase with both sides literally unleashing hell. Torrents of flaming arrows fell on both sides, muskets blazed, cannons thundered and the Trebuchet fired flaming ammo at almost point blank range.

The Turks won out. The one unit to let me down was the Elephant hirelings....traitors no doubt. Or maybe it was the fact that the enemy concentrated their fire on them for some time. Or the calamity and noize and all....they amoked around with remarkable peacefullness behind my lines for the better part of the battle. The Timurids that dared crossing the river were dispatched with brutal efficency, their general killed by Quakapulus when he charged through the flaming hell with his last men. The spearmen fought valiantly in the center, seeing of several Timurid charges. But the timurids were too few and too weak. Or to lame .

My brave but tired and depleted men then realised that the 2 units of elephants on the other side were still there. The musketeers bravely ran forth and enticed the enemy to attack. My men were almost out of ammo, so the task to finish of the rampant behemoths fell on the Quakapulus and the General. They did what was expected of them, regretfully losing many a brave soldier in doing so.

Then disaster! Another army of Timurid came at us (Technically not the same battle, but the AI isn't always smart enough to make all available armis attack at once - the second and the following army attacked in the same game round, but one after another) screaming insults. My army were down to about 900 men, but now they knew how to fight this enemy. And the Timurids had no Elephants this time....ours had rallied, promising that they would never amok again. That they did not.

I used the same strategy, but the Sipahis were now positioned on the flanks from the start of the battle. The General (some guy born in Rome actually - we took it some 150 years ago) bolstered morale in the left center. Without their Elephants the Timurids were doomed. They perished on my side of the river, impaled or shot down, few of them even reaching our lines. Some guy named Timur the Pious led them - no doubt just some rogue that history will not remember. He got a flaming trebuchet projectile in the head, poor chap. My valiant general charged across the bridge to kill the enemys rocket artillery crew. End of story.

NO!!!!!! A THIRD army came from the same direction. The General had about 700 men left, but again noticing the lack of Elephants he decided to once more stand his ground - the citizens of Bagdhad relied on him, after all. His archers and muskets were severly depleted, and it took some grim fighting to finish the enemy - this time it was the Heavy Jannisars time to shine. The hated Timurid cavalry were crushed after charging through the stakes, but only a few Quakapulus and Sipahis remained now. They pursued the enemy, who fled along the riverbanks. So it was the Heavy Jannisars who charged through our own stakes and cut their way through the remaining enemy infantry, across the bridge, reaching the enemy artillery and routing the crews.

Victory once more....My general gathered his men for a roll call and found out that only 500 were left. And alas, a fourth army were approaching - and they did have Elephants. 4 units. A prudent retreat was ordered. " We'll fall back towards Baghdad, men. We have reinforcements there - no use dying here today"

Then to my astonishment the enemy choose not to attack a second time (that would have forced a battle just outside Baghdad) but marched past my army towards Mosul. And this is the last army of the Timurids! Tomorrow night they will die for their ignorance. The most victorious of Generals has been given a new command - taking charge of a nearby army that just lost their leader due to old age. They welcomed their new General who now had some 8 stars and 6 dread points - he wasn't to nice to the Timurid prisoners but hey - it's called TOTAL war after all. His "Old Guard" has been sent to Damascus for reinforcement and a well earned vacation.

Learning points:
1: Hold the bridges. All of them. The enemy will most likely only attack at one or two of them, but then you'll have reinforcements nearby at the other bridges. I had four armies waiting for the Timurids around Baghdad/Mosul.

2: Use a well balanced force. The army listed above is excellent on the open field, but it's obviously also very good at holding bridges. The Elephants is a welcome bonus, and they become recruitable at about the same time as the Timurids show up. I have 4 units, spread out in these armies. I also use rocket artillery in some - bought when the mongols were crushed in Russia using the same strategy btw. My armies cause panic and countercharge and I think that's what you have to do against this enemy.

Cheers, my fellow Turk! /Akbar.

[Saladin45]

Alright then. I will post armies in on the bridges around the time the Timurids show up. This seems like a really good strategy that I plan on using. Thank you both! Reppin you too Akbar.

[danny5454]

build the highest level government buildings in your huge cities to train lots and lots of janissaries then their infantry will have no chance against you and i have discovered that nothing can defeat the Janissary one on one so it is a bit expensiver but A few of em in all your armies and those mongols willbe sorry they ever set their eyes on the mediterranean.

[Town Watch]

4 words: Sipahis destroy mongols utterly.

Kill their heavy cavalry and lancers first, keep skirmish mode on. Then target and kill their horsearchers, then proceed to charging the crappy footarchers, destroy them and move around their general and overwhelm him, or shoot him to bitz...

Once I got the warning I left tblisi unguarded, spammed 2 sipahis full stacks, and moved them to yerevan. Eventually I had 7 full stacks fighting the mongols, that was well enough because I carefully attacked with 2 armies(1 horsearcher) against one of theirs.

I destroyed all but one mongol army before other reinforcement armies came from the steppes... Then I followed them to russian area and withdrew from combats, so that the enemy armies became isolated and ripe for picking.
Just spam those sipahi around and you won't lose against the mongols. Though it might get a bit boring.

Although I actually played on M/M in my turk campaign, the mongols would have died just as easily to my sipahi's arrows on the battlefield. I just wouldn't have had that much money, to make 7 armies...

[CtrlAltDe1337]

1 thing to remember is that your troops can be easily replaced, the Mongol's can't. It doesn't matter if it takes 100 of your guys to kill 50 or 75, because you can raise another full stack in a few turns and wittle them down again.

Oh, btw, stakes really pwn Mongols in siege battles. I reccomend you get some Ottoman inf asap.

[Sher Khan]

Only Jannissary Archers can plant stakes, not Ottoman infantry.

But yes, get some Ottoman Infantry ASAP. They're good soldiers and they lack only great morale to make them the best soldiers you could ask for (they have 5 morale whereas more decent infantry like feudal knights and dismounted Sipahis have 9).


Remember, however, that if the Mongols settle down in a province, they won't be so easy to crush anymore. Being able to raise armies and not pay any upkeep will make their economy uncontested as the greatest the world will ever know. They could potentially field more stacks than you yourself could ever afford.

Basically, don't let them settle, and if that fails, don't let them get comfortable in their new home!