Fleets, dear. Put your 200k Carl Gustav units in boats and attack the mongol doomstack from there.
35000 mounted archers: please remake the hordes petition
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Fleets, dear. Put your 200k Carl Gustav units in boats and attack the mongol doomstack from there.
While nice, this does not work for many kingdoms (Persia, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Arabia, Khiva, the steppe kingdoms, Rus, Ruthenia...) and still requires a 200k doomstack to halt them.
More importantly, I think the problem is in longevity. If the Mongols got one unhealing doomstack it would be whittled down so that by the time they're attacking Hungary they can almost be stopped by a single Kingdom, and if they start invading Aquitaine their doomstack is irrelevant and their army is mostly levies. Right now, the doomstack rules whereever it goes, only stopping because the Mongols don't know their armies actually ARE big enough to invade the HRE or Fatimids.
I really feel this needs to be changed. A doomstack that cannot be beaten is stupid. I dont care if they have 200k and get reinforcements twice but as long as there is attrition its fine, it gets silly when I with 500k troops cannot win because of attrition.
Yeah, that's real believable. To avoid starvation and disease, cram all your armies onto boats out at sea.
Stacks numbering no greater than 10,000 to 35,000 amounting to 150 thousand (or a near number) should be implemented, led by cunning generals with that shoot and retreat tactic. It would still be quite challenging, but not too challenging and realistic.
The AI should only combine the stacks in question to combat large armies or to storm mighty castles- but only with an attrition value lower than five percent.
Hehe thats why I called them Carl Gustav units, which is a personal rocket launcher used to blow up tanks. It's a game meganic solution, like the 161k mongol stacks. It serves a purpose, but has not much todo with history.
It used to be the case that smaller stacks were used. It changed in 1.07, alas...
After living a crusade to liberate Poland from the Golden Horde, I agree with you. I though "people" were bound to general rules in this game, but when I saw the doomstack, I felt like we were all doomed, not because the AI had a good strategy, but because it didn't follow the rules. They should have suffered from attrition like I was, it was just not fair.
I used as the Byzantine Empire the trick of fleet-carrying mega stacks to lure an AI Il-Khanate and making it lose half its troops (with 1.07 and CK2+). I thought of it myself, but this is extremely gamey and it feels unreal and coward. Where are the land combats in all of this? It kind of break the immersion and I would like the Hordes to be able to suffer attrition.
Someone suggested the death of the mega-stack at the end of the first Khan. It could work, but it would still be easily beatable. I very much prefer the possibility for the stack to be invincible only when he appears (to simulate the fact that there are land behind it), then once they took control of enough provinces to be able to sustain it they would lose their invulnerability to attrition. They would be considered as a retinue popping of nowhere (of Central Asia) and beating them would be far easier since at least attrition would work on them.
I used as the Byzantine Empire the trick of fleet-carrying mega stacks to lure an AI Il-Khanate and making it lose half its troops (with 1.07 and CK2+). I thought of it myself, but this is extremely gamey and it feels unreal and coward. Where are the land combats in all of this? It kind of break the immersion and I would like the Hordes to be able to suffer attrition.
Someone suggested the death of the mega-stack at the end of the first Khan. It could work, but it would still be easily beatable. I very much prefer the possibility for the stack to be invincible only when he appears (to simulate the fact that there are land behind it), then once they took control of enough provinces to be able to sustain it they would lose their invulnerability to attrition. They would be considered as a retinue popping of nowhere (of Central Asia) and beating them would be far easier since at least attrition would work on them.
Just an idea; what if instead of having no attrition, the mongols can take 150%, 200% or 300% of the troops in a territory before starting to take attrition (so maybe a player can keep 20k troops there, the mongols can sustain 40k. The exact percentages can be used to balance it. And maybe they drop the attrition bonus after converting to another faith (which they tend to do after 2 or 3 generations, so by then the doomstacks disappear a bit more).
What's better for roleplaying than seeing everything east of Poland under a Mongolian banner? For example, trashing mad got his ass lovely handed by the Horde, and this just made his AAR even more enticing!
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Uh, because it's unrealistic for an army to be in a province where it exceeds the local population and not suffer any consequences for it? Because that's not how the Mongols worked in real life? Because the only way to defeat them is through gamey tactics not even accessible to everyone?
I would have liked to see how that would work out in a real world battle. As I said in a different thread, after troops have been at sea for even a few days, they would be weak from sea-sickness. And now they are supposed to fight the most mobile army the world has seen until that point in history, all wearing heavy armour? YEAH RIGHT. Maybe a puke-a-thon and the mongols slaughtering every poor bastard in that army.
So, you can beat the mongols in the game. Cool. But the battles with the mongols still need improvements.
By the way. Western/Eastern armies had the attrition problem. It didn't apply that much to mongols & muslims of the period. Why? Mongols are used to famine and resilient. Promotions under the first khans were meritocratic - they actually had an army made of soldiers. Westerners? Their armies are formed out of aristocrats unused to the harsh conditions and peasants that don't want to be there and mercenaries that want to live just to get paid. Apart from this, Genghis & his generals organized magnificently the mongol armies (they employed the help of the conquered whenever they could and promoting people on merits lead to an efficient administration and army). They had good logistics. Muslims are also resilient, but the climate is harsher so they shouldn't be able to manage armies as large as the mongols. But still, iMO attrition should affect them less than europeans.
With enough cataphract and levies to match their numbers, you should be able to defeat them if your fighting each horde seperatly, and you attack them so they don't get 30f% warscore for capturing a province with a population of 7.
Neither am I. I also don't play duchies or counties and expect to survive the Scourge. Play a reasonably sized kingdom if you want to survive there. Build retinues, hire mercenaries, train generals, etc.
If Mongols followed game rules properly, they'd be stuck to East of Aral Sea for the whole game. I wonder if people pay attention to the wars between AI rulers.
I disagree. There ought to be a better way to represent the Mongols that relies on in-game and understandable mechanics. Immune to attrition is just too much, since if it were a human player, he would go to the Atlantic effortless. Like someone said, they could have great generals and better troops, but still being of reasonable size and beatable by a large and united kingdom like Poland, Hungary or the HRE. Of course if Russia had been form at the time they came, they would have been stopped much earlier, but historically they arrived when Kievian Rus was in a turmoil (or because of that, I'm not sure...). The Il-Khanate, I think, take advantage of the Seldjuks decline and could almost be compared to a decadence war. They doesn't have to have those unfair advantages, or if they have, just for a very short time. Once they are installed, they should play by the rules.
AI Poland and Hungary shouldn't beat them. In fact, they can't even reach there without overrunning united Russia first and that's more powerful than either of them by 1220 in all my games. And even with current conditions, Mongols either don't even declare war on HRE and are badly beaten if they attack, their stacks are reduced to pretty much nothing by the time they reach there as they assault everything they siege.
If they were affected by attrition, they could never beat Russia or the Seljuk placeholder. Every kingdom has the minimum of 50K troops that's available always (HRE could raise 150K when Ilkhanate attacked their Mesopotamian holdings and Mongols were effortlessly beaten back) and Mongols can't even raise most of their levy for some decades due to conquest penalties.
Long story short, any country that could win against them can do the same in the game and any country that were badly beaten also shares the same fate. I don't know how easy people want the 'boss fight' of this game to be. It's like the flood, build a boat to survive it. If you can't, well, what is to be expected?
Heck, I just destroyed a 120K Aztec stack. Just lure them to the shore with a small army and drop your big stack from the sea as the battle commences.
If they were affected by attrition, they could never beat Russia or the Seljuk placeholder. Every kingdom has the minimum of 50K troops that's available always (HRE could raise 150K when Ilkhanate attacked their Mesopotamian holdings and Mongols were effortlessly beaten back) and Mongols can't even raise most of their levy for some decades due to conquest penalties.
Long story short, any country that could win against them can do the same in the game and any country that were badly beaten also shares the same fate. I don't know how easy people want the 'boss fight' of this game to be. It's like the flood, build a boat to survive it. If you can't, well, what is to be expected?
Heck, I just destroyed a 120K Aztec stack. Just lure them to the shore with a small army and drop your big stack from the sea as the battle commences.
That's why I wrote about less atrition in provinces near see...
Yesterday I Faced GH finally in my game as muslim. Till their invasion I became Sultan of Khwarizm, Persia, Khiva and Georgia (also I rule in part of Cumania and Alania). When GH attacked I had about 90.000 levy soldiers waiting for them. First battle I faced in Ryn Desert when my forces (45.000) failed badly against Mongolian army (40.000). After I lost they started chasing me. Meanwhile I gathered rest of my forces and bought 20.000 mercenaries (didn't use LoR, so no retinues) which I gathered in Duchy of Itil and West part of Emirate of Tyumen. Also I put my best leaders there who were either my sons or... Mongolian Vassals (they became after my invasion of Persia, part of Ilkhanate). My armies attacked from 4 directories (together 75.000 soldiers) and crushed 38.000 Mongolian totally. Meanwhile another 40.000 in stack get close so immidiately I've moved against them with forces that left (58.000) after battle and attrition. Another victory and 33.000 Mongolian died in a battle. And what was all I could do - only 38.000 soldiers left against 67.000 Mongolians together (one stack of 60.000 and 7.000 that left from previous battle). What I can say now - against splitted Mongolian (40.000) I had chance (2 battles I won, but also 1 lost), but if they would gather in one stack as Ilkhanate did when they arrived - I wouldn't do nothing. BTW I was the strongest in region, but when GH attacked also Ilkhanate invaded me to take Persia back, so that's was my end as great ruler there...
Now I am badly reduced...
I would say the Mongol nations should have all of their current benefits, but only the Ilkhanate, the Golden Horde, and the Timurids; and only when there are no landed claimants to the title. Since I believe the Mongol nations all have a form of Gavelkind succession by default this will force the heirs to fight amongst themselves before continuing their conquests.
Its not a question of survival its a question of theoretical survival. If I play as Russia I expect to get kicked, but if I get the HRE, Poland, Hungary and ERE to ally with me and support me I should be able to win in a pitched battle. At present this is not the case.
I don't see the Mongols as a "big boss final", I see them as an historical event that happened and that could not have happened since we are in an alternate world. I want this event to fit in the game and I'm not impressed by the tricks to beat giga-stacks that didn't exist at the time. AI is supposed to be better at handling attrition, so why would they be incapable of beating Russia if they come in strenght and said Russia is divided? Once they have those lands, they have a pretty big empires and be scary, but I don't want them to use tricks forbidden by the game to the player.