1220 Bookmark "The Mongols" Advice on strategies?

[HIPDownloadAcc]

So I was thinking of giving the Mongols a try for the "Khan of Khans" achievement as I haven't done a serious CK2 campaign in a while. I've done the starting war with the Khvarezmians two times to try and figure out the optimal start, it hasn't been going that well as I would have hoped hence I'm turning to the forums in hope for some advice.

1) Scenario: I fully siege every single holding in the target. Everything falls to me after the war, this option is a bit more expensive on the starting troops since I split them in 4k stacks and carpet siege everything after I've dealt with the Khvarezmian troops. There's some siege events which gives instant attrition or am I wrong? Anyhow, once this is done I would like to hand out vassal Kingdom titles to my sons, but I can't for some reason.

2) Scenario: I try to end the war as fast as possible, sieging just the county and not baronies/cities OUTSIDE of the Kingdom of Persia, which means when I'm done I have all those native Persian Sunnis that join independence factions right away. This allows me to keep more of the initial starting troops. Still can't give out Kingdom titles though. And council always votes against me when I try to imprison the Persians.


What strategy should I adapt to make the initial start as good as possible? As I see it the council is always what screws me over coupled with me not being able to hand out Kingdom vassals right away to my fellow Mongol brethren.

 

[alxeu]

If you siege a top holding in a county, you get everything in the county. Best solution? Siege the top holding of everything.

 

[HIPDownloadAcc]

If you siege a top holding in a county, you get everything in the county. Best solution? Siege the top holding of everything.

That's good to know, I was not sure if I needed to siege every single barony or just the top county. Do I have to manually click on all the baronies after the wars and designate them as county capitals in order to be able to give them to my sons and mongol brethren?

 

[PG908]

That's good to know, I was not sure if I needed to siege every single barony or just the top county. Do I have to manually click on all the baronies after the wars and designate them as county capitals in order to be able to give them to my sons and mongol brethren?

No, silly, you pillage them into nothing.

 

[alxeu]

That's good to know, I was not sure if I needed to siege every single barony or just the top county. Do I have to manually click on all the baronies after the wars and designate them as county capitals in order to be able to give them to my sons and mongol brethren?

It should default to the castle as the typical capital holding, though if the castles aren't capitals, then yes, you would.

Also, for future reference, any invasion casus belli (for example, William's in 1066) has the same effect of all counties that you take the top holding of becoming part of your demense. So long run, just take the time to ensure you have everything (capitals, really) under control. Its part of the reason Mongols were (extremely) overpowered before Horse Lords. A player, with those hordes, could steam roll all of Europe rather easily.

 

[alxeu]

No, silly, you pillage them into nothing.

Haven't played nomads before, though I do know that pillaging causes rebellions, so be prepared for the rather harmless peasant revolts.

 

[PG908]

Haven't played nomads before, though I do know that pillaging causes rebellions, so be prepared for the rather harmless peasant revolts.

Those rebellions are so broken, it's easy to crush them with your perfect tactics control, and after an arbitrary amount of pillaging (usually once you destroy a holding, but often before), the numbers strangely jump down to 100-500 men per revolt.

Generally you have to use pulses for your conquests, where you take a bunch of land from multiple realms (I find a de jure empire size is ideal), then you start pillaging and suppressing with your stacks one the conquest phase is over. When you want to conquer again, you should have at least reached the diminished rebellion point, and you want to wait for the short-term +50% modifier to wear off before conquering more.

 

[HIPDownloadAcc]

No, silly, you pillage them into nothing.

I do not like pillaging that much, causes too much internal instability and random "40k rebel stack in middle of nowhere" type scenarios.

 

[Bernard95]

1) There's a very old trick that you can use to get around siege events- simply dismiss your army's commanders. Still works as far as I know, though you will lose a few men since someone needs to be left as garrison.

2) Siege down every single county and there won't be any Persians left to complain, but you'll be at the mercy of whatever council laws you have.