Well, I don't know. I think the battle was rather well done, actually, and it balanced the demands of gameplay, story, and historical expectations nicely, as BT is wont to do.
Please don't take this as hostile criticism, but I disagree with at least some of your points, and here is why:
...and compared to the real Romans, BT's Romans have done ahistorically well. They manage to DIRECTLY hold land where no Greece/Anatolia-based Empire has ever done, and regularly hold off nomad armies without help from other nomads.
The Rus, for example, also dealt with nomads/horse archer nations just fine. They destroyed the Khazars, assimilated the smaller nations (Oghuz Torks, Berendeys and Sharukan Qaraqalpaks), marginalized the Volga Bulgars, held off the Hungarians, drove the Pechenegs off into Wallachia and were slowly beating back the dreaded Cumans. Then came the Mongols and dealt with the Bulgars, Cumans and the Rus themselves in just three years.
They have a lot of tactics manuals, mostly because it gave you some social credential as an intellectual and a warrior to write one. Implementation depended on what was at hand, and truth be told, (in OTL) without Turkish auxillaries a period Rhomanian army isn't worth much. BT's army is, if anything, unreasonably strong without resorting to mercenaries.
And as for division - come on! This is the Jochi Ulus, alone. You cannot really divide it at this point. It's either that, or Chingiz was a total fool and not a world legend who forged the world's deadliest military out of divided tribes. The spies - the Mongols themselves had famously excellent intelligence, both spies and of course their expert scouts. They often surprised armies on their own turf, even though there are some notable exceptions - notable, as it were, precisely because they are exceptions.
Again, the Romans don't have anything close to the period composite steppe bow. Their archers don't have a longer range than the Mongols, they have a shorter range. Their Caucasian mercenaries might be a match, and maybe some of the Rus (and marginally Steppe Dane) cavalry, but Vladimir threw his men away, the Alans are too few, and the Danes were defending their infantry.
The reason why horse archery is generally done at 60 feet range is for efficiency and not for range; there are numerous Arabic military manuals explaining that. Turkish (and Mongol bows are as good or better at this period) could easily clear 300 feet had they wanted to, but then they'd waste the arrows they have transported over vast distances on inaccurate shooting.
If anything, BT probably gave the Romans too many breaks in this description, no doubt to describe game results. The trick of ambush behind the hill actually worked on the Mongols and brought the Mamlukes victory. The Mamlukes also happened to be a top-notch horse archer army AND have enough numerical advantage AND were speedy enough to cut off Kitbogha's retreat and pin him against the river AND the Mongol army had a heavy element of Georgian and Armenian allies, mostly on foot.
Oh - AND it just so happened that Baybars himself was a Cuman who had seen the Mongols in action first-hand. There's no way any of the commanders at Yaik had that much experience. And even then, the Mongols put up a very tough fight and it was closer than it should have been.
This is after all Subotai we're talking about; the man is an indisputable legend and storytelling requires him to be almost superhumanly prescient. This does not reflect badly on Methar so much as build up the Dire Mongol Threat (that so often disappoints completely in actual CK). And as for someone getting the short stick - Orda is certainly a random pick from a hat. A very disciplined and able commander who was in sole command in Poland's worst 13th century defeat and beat numerically superior European armies several times (consider that his entire ulus was just 20,000 men) - here he throws away his entire claim to power because the story demands it.
To be honest, Jamuqa+Subotai+Batu+Orda in one battle versus a largely provincial Roman army to me means complete extinguishing of the pesky Danes, a dead Byzantine regent, and a glorious burning of Kiev. So the allies got off really rather well.
It's always an interesting discussion, and I have to agree that the battle verged on improbable - the Mongols behaved like rank amateurs. They weren't facing a professional horse archer force that outnumbered them something like 2:1 in cavalry on familiar ground; they faced roughly equal numbers of assorted feudal ragtag-at-arms stiffened by some fancy guards, leagues away from any real centres of power.
By all counts, the Romans (and the Danes) proved themselves more than worthy in this one. I'm as big of a Roman fan as a Mongol fan, but generally speaking the Romans rarely had to deal with anything quite like the Jochi ulus (the Huns?) - and their track record isn't stellar when they did, although one can hardly compare across centuries.
Cheers.
Please don't take this as hostile criticism, but I disagree with at least some of your points, and here is why:
...and compared to the real Romans, BT's Romans have done ahistorically well. They manage to DIRECTLY hold land where no Greece/Anatolia-based Empire has ever done, and regularly hold off nomad armies without help from other nomads.
The Rus, for example, also dealt with nomads/horse archer nations just fine. They destroyed the Khazars, assimilated the smaller nations (Oghuz Torks, Berendeys and Sharukan Qaraqalpaks), marginalized the Volga Bulgars, held off the Hungarians, drove the Pechenegs off into Wallachia and were slowly beating back the dreaded Cumans. Then came the Mongols and dealt with the Bulgars, Cumans and the Rus themselves in just three years.
They have a lot of tactics manuals, mostly because it gave you some social credential as an intellectual and a warrior to write one. Implementation depended on what was at hand, and truth be told, (in OTL) without Turkish auxillaries a period Rhomanian army isn't worth much. BT's army is, if anything, unreasonably strong without resorting to mercenaries.
And as for division - come on! This is the Jochi Ulus, alone. You cannot really divide it at this point. It's either that, or Chingiz was a total fool and not a world legend who forged the world's deadliest military out of divided tribes. The spies - the Mongols themselves had famously excellent intelligence, both spies and of course their expert scouts. They often surprised armies on their own turf, even though there are some notable exceptions - notable, as it were, precisely because they are exceptions.
Again, the Romans don't have anything close to the period composite steppe bow. Their archers don't have a longer range than the Mongols, they have a shorter range. Their Caucasian mercenaries might be a match, and maybe some of the Rus (and marginally Steppe Dane) cavalry, but Vladimir threw his men away, the Alans are too few, and the Danes were defending their infantry.
The reason why horse archery is generally done at 60 feet range is for efficiency and not for range; there are numerous Arabic military manuals explaining that. Turkish (and Mongol bows are as good or better at this period) could easily clear 300 feet had they wanted to, but then they'd waste the arrows they have transported over vast distances on inaccurate shooting.
If anything, BT probably gave the Romans too many breaks in this description, no doubt to describe game results. The trick of ambush behind the hill actually worked on the Mongols and brought the Mamlukes victory. The Mamlukes also happened to be a top-notch horse archer army AND have enough numerical advantage AND were speedy enough to cut off Kitbogha's retreat and pin him against the river AND the Mongol army had a heavy element of Georgian and Armenian allies, mostly on foot.
Oh - AND it just so happened that Baybars himself was a Cuman who had seen the Mongols in action first-hand. There's no way any of the commanders at Yaik had that much experience. And even then, the Mongols put up a very tough fight and it was closer than it should have been.
This is after all Subotai we're talking about; the man is an indisputable legend and storytelling requires him to be almost superhumanly prescient. This does not reflect badly on Methar so much as build up the Dire Mongol Threat (that so often disappoints completely in actual CK). And as for someone getting the short stick - Orda is certainly a random pick from a hat. A very disciplined and able commander who was in sole command in Poland's worst 13th century defeat and beat numerically superior European armies several times (consider that his entire ulus was just 20,000 men) - here he throws away his entire claim to power because the story demands it.
To be honest, Jamuqa+Subotai+Batu+Orda in one battle versus a largely provincial Roman army to me means complete extinguishing of the pesky Danes, a dead Byzantine regent, and a glorious burning of Kiev. So the allies got off really rather well.
I realise that you probably lost the battle in the game, so you had to write a matching AAR but the way the battle was conducted seemed quite improbable. I hope the rant above sounds a constructive criticism. If not, my apologies.
It's always an interesting discussion, and I have to agree that the battle verged on improbable - the Mongols behaved like rank amateurs. They weren't facing a professional horse archer force that outnumbered them something like 2:1 in cavalry on familiar ground; they faced roughly equal numbers of assorted feudal ragtag-at-arms stiffened by some fancy guards, leagues away from any real centres of power.
By all counts, the Romans (and the Danes) proved themselves more than worthy in this one. I'm as big of a Roman fan as a Mongol fan, but generally speaking the Romans rarely had to deal with anything quite like the Jochi ulus (the Huns?) - and their track record isn't stellar when they did, although one can hardly compare across centuries.
Cheers.
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