Fighting the Mongol horde?

[POemil]

I have bought CK2 about a week ago and I am still in my first game as Poland.
So there I was happily minding my business and expanding steadily. I had the lands belonging to the Polish crown, the Lithuanian crown and most of its lands, and 2 more duchies in Ruthenia. All is going fairly well for a first time I think until the Mongols come. A few years ago I received a warning and was interested to see in how it would affect the game. I saw them steadily expanding and growing; the Ilkhanate in the south, the golden horde in the north.
I expected them to implode any moment, but the golden horde kept crawling closer and closer to me, until they bordered me. Once they did they dowed me.All my levies together were about +20k which was by then bigger than anything i had encountered. Unfortunately, about 2 months in the war a golden horde doomstack of 120k appeared. They just marched from county to county and assaulted everything. 2 months later I was at -100% warscore and lost all of Lithuania, over a third of my lands...
Rather upset with this humiliating defeat I started looking into ways to reclaim what was mine, however before even got the chance to think of something, they attack me again. Sure enough the same doomstack appears a few weeks in the war and slaughters and assaults everything. In a desperate gamble I fought with my assembled army and some holy orders hoping to win or at least slow them down but to no avail...
So now I lost the kingdom of Poland as well, leaving me with my final 2 duchies and little hope of recovering...
All I could do in return was murder the great Khan's only son..

So tell me, is there any point in continuing this game? Will the Golden horde implode giving me a chance to reclaim my lands? Should I start over? And most important, how can I fight a 120k stack of mongols next time?

 

[Mods]

Playing on the eastern side of the map is a race against the clock, if you think poland is bad, try out russia
When the mongols come and you're in a vulnerable position you should do everything you can to sabotage them right from the start (murdering their sons, joining wars helping nations they're invading), don't leave it all to luck.
The trick is that their doomstacks don't reinforce (but don't take attrition either) ,meaning over time they'll just be like any other nation without any special qualities
As for saving your game can you perhaps convert your heir (only if he's underage) to the Khan's religon? That would do it
Warning though if you don't have SOI that would result in a game over

 

[Darkgamma]

First of all, you should register your game.
Now...

Those are the mongol horde events. It's WAD - it'll be popping out doomstacks for some time then (good thing you killed his son, though, it'll get somebody illegitimate to the throne and might cause a civil war).
You should marry everything you have to everybody in Europe - wait put two more decades and they'll stop popping out that doomstack in every war. You need as many allies as you can assemble - preferrably continental European allies (no Sweden, Norway, England) such as the HRE, France, Castille, Byzantium, whatever you can that's south of the Channel and the Baltic.
If you're lucky, they'll turn to Scandinavia by way of Finland, and the HRE will declare war on them.
Pray a lot, too - that tends to help.

That's what happened in my game - a theocratic HRE controlling Swabia, Bavaria, Italy and Armenia (!) fought holy wars with the Golden Horde based in Gotland.

 

[Robin67]

I got owned by the mongol hordes 5 minutes ago because their 100k doomstack does not want to take attrition damage in mesopotania. the problem is that my units still take the huge amount of attrition damage, so that my doomstack shrinked to about 60k form 90k. i mean i can raise 300k levies + my retinue of about 40k heavy cavalary but i don't stand a chanche if the just run around in provinces with a supply limit of 18k or 24k. I get that they should be a challnge but when you are the roman empire and got all nearly all of the acient roman empire under your control you should be able to fight them (which i was to a degree but then attrition killed everybody till they could kill me)

 

[fridabina]

Warning though if you don't have SOI that would result in a game over

The Mongols are tengri followers when they come, so having SoI wont help him, only way to play pagan right now is too play a mod.

 

[Heartsbane]

Are they still Tengri or have they converted to Orthodox? You could try to create a marriage alliance if they did convert to ORthodox (I did this before the horde sacked Novgorod on my Poland game and they never attacked me) which will buy you some time. The Golden Horde always seems to fragment due to instability after a few decades which will give you ample opportunities to retake any lost land once their levies dip below 20K due to rebellion. It wouldn't hurt to secure an alliance with the HRE either.

 

[TheLionHeart]

It seems like the golden and ilkhanate haven't pushed too far in many of my games usually they will take out the Cumans and other tengrist tribes without too many scars, then they take one russian kingdom and begin to collapse. Also the ilkhanate conquered Persia quickly but then the Shiites called a jihad for Persia and the Fatimid conquered it easily. That is usually the pattern for the mongol hordes for me, maybe I have just been lucky in those playthroughs.

 

[GothicEmperor]

I always kill the guys leading the horde until a native Cuman takes over. They still have access to all the Horde CBs but at least they're a bit more prone to infighting, what with having an actual demesne limit.

 

[der Kriegsherr]

Wait, the Mongols actually attack you guys?

Last Byzantium game I played, I spent nearly a century expanding into the Middle East and preparing for my bumrape by the Mongol horde- er... a massive war that never came.
Granted, it was in 1.06, but still.

 

[Mods]

Wait, the Mongols actually attack you guys?

Last Byzantium game I played, I spent nearly a century expanding into the Middle East and preparing for my bumrape by the Mongol horde- er... a massive war that never came.
Granted, it was in 1.06, but still.

The mongols prefer to attack it's weakest neighbours, that's why you see a mongol scandinavia so often...
Byz and HRE? not so much

 

[Mods]

The Mongols are tengri followers when they come, so having SoI wont help him, only way to play pagan right now is too play a mod.

converting to a pagan religion won't end the game, but if the mongols decide to convert to islam later you'll get a game over without SOI

 

[POemil]

Thanks for the info guys. I'll keep playing for some more years to see what happens when their ruler dies. As he is 62, can't be that long anymore. If they don't implode after his death I'll try something new, maybe ERE and I'll try being more prepared!

 

[panionios]

I started a game as Rostov. Already own Rus and Ruthenia. It's 1135. I guess it's the only country in the region that can handle the Mongols.

Planning to take over Crimea from Cumans and kill the Bulgars so that I can isolate the Cumans and do whatever I want with them.

What should I do to best prepare myself? Form Russian Empire? Should I claim Perm or leave it after the Mongols arrive?

 

[grumphie]

since like 1.06 the mognosl are broken. form then the AI started to form doomstacks of all tis attrition free stacks, which basicly romoves any possibility to defeat them besides coastal invasions. only troops type i saw thus far that could pretty much destroy them was mased of heavy infantry ins hieldwall, that proceed to murder them in melee.

 

[supernova]

I started a game as Rostov. Already own Rus and Ruthenia. It's 1135. I guess it's the only country in the region that can handle the Mongols.

Planning to take over Crimea from Cumans and kill the Bulgars so that I can isolate the Cumans and do whatever I want with them.

What should I do to best prepare myself? Form Russian Empire? Should I claim Perm or leave it after the Mongols arrive?

I'm also playing a Rostov game currently, I decided to grab everything I can get. IMO, I can do a better job killing the Mongols than an AI Cumania, so I took their lands and formed the Russian empire. As I've still got some time until the horde arrives, I'm now trying to marry my kinsmen onto the thrones of neighboring kingdoms (worked for Hungary, Croatia and Poland so far). Let's see how things turn out...

 

[unmerged(88697)]

The doomstack's horse archers do most of the damage. But, these can be neutralized by forcing the horde to attack at a river crossing, which yields a -7% to archer attacks. Then, as your army gets into the melee phase the odds become even better.

 

[unmerged(26764)]

A few tips on taking on the initial Mongol Horde directly:

1. You absolutely must be able to raise as many units as they have -- which means over 150k. Over 200k would be my threshold. If you can't do this, you are too small. Submit and wait for them to weaken and then break free. They have massive advantages over you as it is. If you can't meet them 1 to 1, you have no chance.

2. Heavy infantry. Heavy infantry. Masses of heavy infantry. Heavy infantry can shieldwall to live through the power of horse archers in skirmish, and then hold up well in melee. As a Russia, this is great -- your cultural retinues are elite defensive heavy infantry. As Poland -- well that's a bummer. Still, build tons of heavy infantry retinues.

3. Maneuver. You need to assault back holdings from them with small force to avoid losing, while getting enough units massed to take them on directly while avoiding attrition. This is very hard. In bad terrain, it can be impossible. But you need to get the Mongols to engage, and then dump all your troops into the battle the very next day from surrounding counties. Boats are helpful if you're coastal. But against the Mongols you rarely are.

4. Re-raise levies again and again. When you lose a stack, disband it and reraise. Again and again. The Mongols can't do this with their doomstack. This is how you extend 150k troops into 300k.

5. Accept loses. Sometimes, it's a fine to just accept the loss of an invasion -- losing a whole kingdom -- as long as you're big enough to take it. Then as soon as you recover, attack them to take it back during the truce. You may be able to quickly assault fast enough to win the war before the Mongol doomstack stops whatever it was doing to rush to your front. Now you have another kingdom to lose next time they attack again.

6. Whittle down the doomstack. The goal is to slowly whittle down the doomstack to something small enough to beat. It doesn't reinforce. There are periodic replacements though. But if you can cut that 150k doomstack to 60k, you can probably beat it directly. Once you do, chase it down from county to county until it is permanently destroyed. If you're big enough, you can do this in one war. If it takes 4, trading a kingdom back and forth, so be it. Once you cut them down to size, pounce to eliminate the threat permanently.

 

[Hatethese]

I'm currently the Empire of Scandanavia in 1075.I figure I'll be able to form the Russian and Wendish empire before they come.I plan on leaving all my eastern lands as duchies.The question is can the DoW for empires?

 

[TheTeaMustFlow]

No, the Tribal Invasion CB they use targets a kingdom. However, they will also take any occupied territory.

 

[AvroLancaster]

Am I reading this right? Did this thread get Necromanced pretty hard?