strategy againt the mongols?

[jlam987]

Right now I am the Byzantine empire. I have conquered all of The Turks and 1/2 of Egypt. The problem is the Mongols have just invaded and have 5 stacks near the Antioch region. They have already a couple of units outside of the city with about 1/2 a stack. They pretty much slaughtered me. Half of their units were calvary. I was wondering do you guys have any strategy's
against the Mongols in a siege battle? Open battle? I spent a bunch of money on stuff like ballista (spelling?) towers and recruiting units.

Thanks for all your help.

[Gattamelata]

The Mongols are a whole order of magnitude more difficult than the other factions you'll face (until the Timurids). Here's how I have held them off:

1. Make them come to you. Force them to siege you. They're not bad at sieges, but their cavalry-heavy composition is less effective when sieging. If you can sally and crush their foot archers, then they don't have any troops that can man siege engines.

2. Be prepared to sacrifice cavalry to take out their trebuchets and rocket launchers.

3. Build cannon towers in your eastern border cities - they are a fantastic equalizer, especially in a sally.

4. If necessary, be prepared to abandon a border city. Leave behind spies and priests to create disorder, so that when the province rebels you can take it back.

[edders]

I actually have a completely different strategy when Mongols besiege my cities/ Castles: Abandon the walls and let them come to you. At least half of the Mongol stacks come equipped with trebuches and rocket launchers and on VH I've personally never been able to take out even one of them with a cavalry sally.

By moving all your troops into the main square you can block the city entrances with spearmen much more easily - I can't say I've faced them with the Byzantines on any battle difficulty higher than medium, but upgraded spearmen (Armoured Sarges are a big help for Western nations), arranged into Schiltroms, were always an extremely strong defence against Mongol armies, especially since their cavalry find it impossible to mount an effective charge leading into the town square. Their shields also protect them very well against the constant stream of arrows sent their way.

With even just low level archers firing their flame arrows into the enemy armies (who almost always come at you disorganized with this strategy) you should be able to keep out an almost infinite stream of armies, so long as you have the moolah to keep retraining your defenders. As for siege engines, they will usually stay outside the walls whilst the fighting's going on. In rare cases they will abandon their weapons and reinforce the cavalry, or start moving slowly into your cities (so slowly that the majority of the fighting will already be done). Just be careful if the Mongols renew their attack too close to the siege engines (e.g. just inside the walls) in which case your packed troops will be perfect targets.

To be honest I even use this strategy when the Mongols have no siege weapons (excluding towers, ladders etc.) since their cavalry usually charge straight through the Gate whilst their infantry are still climbing up and down the walls.

The advantage you have with the Byzies is that they almost always face the principle Mongol threat (their early invading stacks) before the Black Death hits. Facing off against multiple besiegers with no money and rapidly dwindling defenders was an interesting experience as the HRE...

Other people have also loudly extolled the benfits of fighting bridge battles, though obviously it's not always practical to arrange these for every Mongol stack.

[Imperator_Maximus]

I haven't fought the mongols yet but considering how closing related they are to the Huns from RTW BI, I think the strategy I used on them will do just the same.

Like these guys said having them beseige a city and have their units crushed when trying to bring a spear wall does wonders. Another strategy could be having an entire cavalry army. You being the Byzantines I would suggest having it full of Kataphractoi. Before the battle starts spread them out in a single line across the entire width of the map. When it starts, have them walk them run across the map. All the enemies will get caught in the net. Any cavalry units that go past the enemy send back for a rear end attack.

Like I said I haven't tried against the Mongols yet and considering how much experience many of their units have (6 points!!!) you may be better off at seiges.

[sporkyness]

heres a nice little tactic for sieges

if you have trebuchets or catapults, you can plug holes in your walls with em. while not completely blocking out the enemy completely it does give you an oppurtunity to have your archers rain death on whatever is trying to force their way through. you can even use cheap units to pin them down in the hole.

luring the mongols in and using it is a great way to defeat them.

another strategy is to fight them only at land crossings. stand a large missile based army on a land crossing which u think the mongols will pass, then when they attack its a simple matter of shooting the crap out of them. be sure to have some heavy inf and spearmen on hand to hold the crossing if they try to come over.

one of the weaknesses of the mongols lies in their army only having normal type archers (apart from naptha throwers) they are pretty much useless against heavy armour. if you have the resourcess you can win in a battle of attrition. just be carefull when then run out of ammo and their HHA charge you from all directions.

im not a big fan of the byzantines so i didnt play them much. cant offer much advice using their troops.

hope i helped

[domino_rfc]

Tbh i have fought the Mongols quite a few times with several nations and as long as u have upgraded walls and a few archers to deal with thier engines and a few swordsmen to deal with laddermen its easy peasy, i dealt with the full horde this way with Scotland. Slew them easily beneath the walls of Kiev. And just try and engineer as many bridge battles as you can to thin thier numbers a bit.

[Elric von Rabenfels]

I once dealt with them as Denmark. I captured Jerusalem and other Cities and Castles there. They attacked a Castle and that´s how I won:

1. Cannon tower upgrade gave the heavy losse before those ladder got to the walls.
2.Till they moved to my inner castle wall, I killed the most infantry by crossbows and archers. There were still about 7 full units of cavalry left.
3.As the last infantry guys of the mongols crashed the gate with a ram, all the cavalry stormed into the gate. Right into 5 units of Obudshaer´s. I was placing them all with pike-wall ability direct in front of the gate. All Cavalry died. Great Victory