Mongols in latest patch

[unmerged(25476)]

Peace with Religious enemies - all or nothing

I've been playing around now with the June 3rd Beta and have a small suggestion.

in my latest game the world was unfortunate enough to have the Golden Horde appear right after the plauge events had run their course. The result being the Horde ran over Russia, Cuman, Byzantine, Poland, Hungary, and Finland.... basicly the entire North - eastern half of the map in about 3 years.

The problem being that in Plauge afflicted provinces it appears the Mogols still suffer "0" attrition while eveyone else can't even mobilize thier army without suffering doublt digit losses. The result was predicitable.

I, (playing as Denmark with most of northern Gernmany and parts of Italy under my control) managed to throw them out of Poland and Hungary and set up a "neutral zone" in eastern europe shielding. I got really lucky there with a good king, lots of gold and the Horde busy fighting the Il-Khanate. and a really fortunate "Splintered Heathen" event. The Horde pummeled everything else in thier path and then turned on me again. The date is 1350 by now and there is no way anyone can throw them back without cheating...

The problem appears to be that the mongols will NEVER accept any peace unless forced on them by an event. I can hold my borders and perhaps even push back a little for a time but eventually I'm screwed cause they can move troops around with no penalty and they have 5 time the county base to draw troops from. To actually stop the threat I have to capture every single horde province on the map.. that would make me emperor of everything... plus I'd have to cheat outrageously to do it cause I can't afford that kind of a war... I'd say there needs to be a point... i.e. warscore over 300 in players favor where the mongols, (same problem with other muslims but to lesser extent) will accept a white peace proposal..

either that or add to the Mongols is that if after 1340 or so they control over 200 provinces to have some kind of breakup event, or integration event. something that gives it so you don't have to conqer the entire map to defeat the mongols.

 

[Riddermark]

yup yup.

Currently there is absolutely NO way that there can be a transcribtion from the mongol invsion event to the 1337 situation where the Horde is a Kingdom.

Cant it be done that once they lose the mongol culture, the Tribe becomes a Kingdom with all atrritions, demense limits etc ?

 

[unmerged(25476)]

I tried that but even if you force a non-mongol king... as long as they have that GOLD tag they still get thier attrition bonuses and AI behavior... i.e. never die never surrender mentality.

unless of course they become Christian in which case they have to have a prestige and claim to declare war and take territory but then that pretty much eliminates completly any chance of a player taking out the Horde without cheating.

 

[Riddermark]

so tie all their stuff to mongol culture ? wasnt it how it was before? what was wrong with it back then ?

or maybe create a GOL2 tag and give it to them through event so that they change to muslim kingdom with no specialties.

but i dont think thats possible doh

 

[unmerged(33270)]

It really doesn't make sense that no attrition thing for mongols. They should have at least some attrition.

 

[Riddermark]

especially since they came all the way from the east - thats a loong road surely they died. I htink the mongols were just a little scouting squad sent by the chinese

 

[Semi-Lobster]

Really they should suffer MORE attrition then regular troops, not less, they had to supply their men AND horses, which was a very important factor for the mongol army

 

[unmerged(5822)]

1. The nomadic tribes brought their societies with them (women, children, cattle and all), thus there were no supply "lines" worth mentioning.

2. The Mongol horses could eat the grass on the ground, they weren't "spoiled" like European horses were.

 

[unmerged(33270)]

The mongols shoudl really create vassals and they should loose their madness after a while, as it was in real history. Many Russian principalities were vassals of the mongols.
But I guess I'll have to wait for CK2 for this one too...

 

[Riddermark]

no attrition is a joke, because its only possible in a perfect world. I hope you arent suggesting that 150,000 mongols started their long way and not even 1, even 1 died during the trip to Europe?

They should have attrition - some very very small level of it at least. But removing it completely is neither rational nor historical.

 

[unmerged(25476)]

The reaons the mongols have no attrition is because with thier AI settings anything but "no attrition" turns them into weakling girlymen... (i.e. see V1.3 up to the last patch before June 3 version.)

The problem was that the attempts to scale back mongol power resulted in them getting trashed after only capturing a few provinces... not what anyone wanted...

for the most part I think they are pretty well balanced now except in the rare case where their appearance follows closely after the plauge events in which case they gains a massive "regular" army and that with the attrition bonus, and the "never surrender" thing makes it impossible for any AI to defeat them, and extremely difficult for even a player to do it without conquering half the map...

In addition the new scripted "distant province" and "multiple kingdom title" events make a difficult task next to impossible.

what is needed is some kind of "Check and Balance" so that if the Mongols get soo big that they still can't be defeated when thier "invincible troops" are gone sometime after 1300 then their empire is split up and divided or something.. call it the "mongol disintigration or integration events" where historically events and such have them kick in sometime after 1350 ~1400....

 

[Riddermark]

haha oh yes like that will help - they appear in 1230s and get the events to kick them back in 1350s..

 

[unmerged(5822)]

They wouldn't be weaklings if their AI worked properly and they didn't make peace with targets ripe for conquest, declare war on all vassals of their enemy kings/dukes and/or could actually bring themselves to get to enemy provinces across "neutral" provinces. When the two Mongol empires go at each other, they expand into each other fast. The same would happen if they didn't make peace for five pieces of gold just as they are about to smash the last stone in the crumbling fortress walls and then don't bother to cross the province again in order to get to the enemy behind it. The Mongols should never make peace with vassals, and ideally every independent duke or count in their way would face the ultimatum "be my vassal or die".

 

[Sera]

The original poster feels the problem with Mongols lie in their uncompromising nature never to accept peace proposals. Clearly, he is mistaken; there is much evidence to the contrary that Mongols couldn't be bought off as readily as that. The main flaw, in addition to recent AI problems (often rendering Mongols seemingly inactive) is in my mind the special attrition rules they benefit from.

no attrition is a joke, because its only possible in a perfect world. I hope you arent suggesting that 150,000 mongols started their long way and not even 1, even 1 died during the trip to Europe?

They should have attrition - some very very small level of it at least. But removing it completely is neither rational nor historical.

Correct. Though as most would agree, the decision was likely based on gameplay reasons to compensate for fundamental game design flaws and poor AI.

The mongol army was just about exclusively cavalry, approx 60% of it light. Each horseman had several spare horses (approx 5 or so) from the animal herds that trailed each toumen (division). This likely could have contributed to the popular misconceptions of Mongol vast numerical superiority as the main reason for their astounding success. The historian Turnbull almost denies any difference existed in Mongol logistics compared to their more sedentary enemies in the early stages of the conquest in his works about Genghis Khan & the Mongol Conquests however.

Recent research has suggested that the Mongol failure to capture and hold Syria was not only a result of military losses at the hands of the Mamluks. Rather, it was also directly related to logistical problems encountered by the Mongols in Syria, namely the country did not have the capacity to feed a large Mongol army. This had a twofold affect on the Mongols. First, the Mongols were unable to bring with them all the troops that they would have liked, so as to increase the chances of defeating the Mamluks. Second, when they did succeed in conquering the country, the Mongols were unable to leave a large enough force to maintain their conquest.

Clearly Mongols were subject to the laws of nature. However, considering the game design flaws how could we go about implementing them in a better, more realistic manner, while still taking the game limitations into consideration?

Though the Mongols were the ultimate swarmers, they tended never to actually act like a swarm (in game terms they should very seldom place armies in huge stacks). Despite often vast distances separating individual toumens (the Hungarian front was over 600 miles for instance), the Mongols enjoyed superior situational awareness by using corps of mounted couriers to relay messages and orders. Tactically, they communicated with signal flags for the most part, but also with horns and flaming arrows. Strategically, Mongol spies were always sent in ahead to the next target region under the guise of merchants.

Mongol success depended on having terrain on which to maneuver. Generally when the horsemen could swarm around the enemy, they won; when they could be channeled, they lost (also see Alexander the Great's tactics on dealing with horsearcher swarmers). Noted historian, Sir Charles Oman argued that there were three types of terrain in which the horseman could not fight efficiently: marshes, where horses had to follow trails or get stuck, dense woodlands where horsemen would be channeled onto narrow paths, and very mountainous terrain where movements was restricted to passes. As Oman states, "the Tartar (Mongol) was essentially a conqueror of the steppe and the plainland, and in Europe it was the lands of the steppes and the plains only he swept over."

My suggestion would be to make the Mongol special attrition rules only be in effect while in plain/steppe terrain if possible or to to remove the immunity entirely. To compensate, Mongols should be given a movement speed increase (exlusively mounted, always fresh mounts). Mongol Mongol military leaders should be afforded a significant bonuses to Marshal attributes (Mongols were unparallel tacticians of their time). It goes without saying that none of their armies should ever be governed by anonymous commanders. Mongols should not suffer fog-of-war, if indeed the AI ever does (superior situational awareness).

Of course I expect little to none of that to happen due to restraints on coding time allocated CK patching. :wacko:

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Of course I expect little to none of that to happen due to restraints on coding time allocated CK patching.

The mashal scores can be corrected if they have poor ones by events.

 

[Riddermark]

The mashal scores can be corrected if they have poor ones by events.

wow..

(this sarcastic post was not intended to be accepted as spam)

 

[TKaz84]

I've never played to the point where the Mogols come, so can somebody tell me how many mongol troops you are facing? Because if you are facing "endless hordes" than someting is not right.

It is estimated that at the time of the Mongol crusade there were 200,000 Mongols. Period. Men, women, children, elderly, everyone. At most there were 100,000 mongol warriors spread out over a vast empire. This means there should be at most 80,000 men spread between the two Hordes. The Mongols relied on speed, surprise, and shock to conquer nearly the entire known world.

Mongols should also not be recruiting much from their conquered territories, as any men capable of fighting would have either been slaughtered or dispersed. They should get some help in the form of light cavalry (from tribes joining the crusade) but never any infantry type or knights.

If any of this already is already happening good. these are my thoughts.

 

[HisMajestyBOB]

There does have to be a balance between history, and getting the Mongols to perform right, and general gameplay. So strictly historical mongol numbers won't work: they'd quickly get slaughtered.

 

[Sera]

I've never played to the point where the Mogols come, so can somebody tell me how many mongol troops you are facing? Because if you are facing "endless hordes" than someting is not right.

It is estimated that at the time of the Mongol crusade there were 200,000 Mongols. Period. Men, women, children, elderly, everyone. At most there were 100,000 mongol warriors spread out over a vast empire. This means there should be at most 80,000 men spread between the two Hordes. The Mongols relied on speed, surprise, and shock to conquer nearly the entire known world.

I would say the Paradox developers subscribe to the popular notion of Mongols as hordes of bloodthirsty warriors (not sure about the actual beta numbers though). Mongols prowess were implemented almost purely through superiority through numbers and cheating (no attrition). They even habitually employed unskilled anonymous commanders in charge of their armies (later patches has somewhat remedied this). Of course, Paradox was probably forced to settle for such a design to compensate for the incredibly poor AI.

Historically, Mongols often secured stunning victories even when outnumbered, to a large part due to their superior swarming tactics. Swarming is a military strategy in which a military force attacks an enemy from several different directions and then regroups. Important aspects of swarming are mobility, communication, firepower, and unit autonomy. As a matter of fact, military thinktanks today are looking to adopt and develop swarming in doctrinal warfare.

The Mongols had also developed several ruses which they used again and again with great success. One of their favourite was the mangudai technique utilised to crush the Poles and German (superior in number) at Leignitz. They managed to lure the heavy cavalry of Teutonic knights and Templars into a trap by deliberately folding back the center (composed of light horsemen). Once the Europeans had committed their other elite heavy cavalry into the attack, the Mongol light horse archers sidestepped the charging knights and enveloped them from three sides, showering them with a deadly hail of arrows. Smoke bombs were used to add to the confusion. And when the moment was ripe, the Mongols delivered the coupe de grâce with their heavy cavalry.

The Europeans were ill-suited to face the horse archers because of their lack of missle bearings troops and their poor tactics. Western armies relied upon their heavy cavalry as the main striking force. Its primary purpose was to deliver a decisive charge to break up the enemy formation. Infantrymen played a supporting role protecting the rear while the knights charged, and finished off unhorsed enemy cavalrymen. The western knights possessed superior armour (plate armour and chain mail), rode stronger horses, and were superbly trained, but they could not close with the faster and lighter Mongol.

One easy fix would be to afford the Mongols significant/vast martial bonuses to reflect the above. In fact, other martial cultures such as the Normans could do with a similar if slighter bonus. Mongols could then have their army size reduced to more historical level and attrition reinstated (at least on non-plain terrain).

Mongols should also not be recruiting much from their conquered territories, as any men capable of fighting would have either been slaughtered or dispersed. They should get some help in the form of light cavalry (from tribes joining the crusade) but never any infantry type or knights.

If any of this already is already happening good. these are my thoughts.

Actually, the strength of the Mongol empire was part in their ability to integrate the best aspects of every conquered culture. They resorted to forced conscription among vanquished peoples and at times employed these troops as expendables during wars.

 

[unmerged(30936)]

Personnaly I think that the real big problem with Mongol in the game now, it's that they recruit local troops, making them bigger and bigger.... and nearly unstoppable if you don't attack them quickly with all that you have.
I think it's not really realistic.
So I don't know if it possible to do it, but the idea could be :
when they conquer a new countie, they can't raise troops in that land.
And to represent the fresh troops, they should have sometimes a specific mercenary event with free mongols troops (but an event that fire really rarely).
The effect would be more or less realistic, they come, they win, unstoppable, etc... then litle by little they stop (they've lost a great part of their troops), and then other countries take their land back.