The Byzantine Empire Vs the Mongols: Place your bets.

[unmerged(11366)]

Interesting story...

Once the Mongols were besieging a Chinese city. They captured a Chinese official coming to the city and took him prisoner. Subsequently, a Mongol in Chinese clothes entered the city pretending to be the official...and...surprise! the Mongol army got up and fled. The "Chinese official" congratulated the town's defenders on winning the battle and oversaw the dismantling of the city's defenses.

...once the defenses were all torn down, the Mongols returned in the middle of the night and by morning were swarming all over the city!

My ancestors for ya...

 

[Belissarius]

To get back to the topic at hand. i think that the mongols will be devestating to new players but you will begine to see players find strategies to counter the horde. Also the ability to counter the horde will be a direct ratio to how the horde appears.

1) If its an event with a set date then players will get teh upper hand very soon after buying the game as they will begine to prepare for the invasion.


2) If its an event that is random then it will provide a greater difficulty that will allow the player to prepare as they "know" when about the horde will attack if not the exact date.

3) If the process in part of the hard code of the game then it will be even harder for the players as they wont be able to study the events for the horde and prepare. Player will have to guess as to what is needed and when it is needed. And if the hard code is got a element of randomness to it it will be even more difficult as it will take time to learn when and what the horde will consist of.

However all this being said i think that players will over time determine when teh horde is likely to strike and formulate posts on the subject along with the steps to take to countre the mongols. Once this is done you will find the horde to be just another aggessive "nation" you have to deal with. Now I am very critical of paradox on many things, but you cant blame paradox for any choice they take on this. As there is no best choice as I will quickly show.

1) History is a great guide line and many players want to know that he game has some historical anchor. Also historic approch provide a built in balance range. (not perfect balance but a good ball park) This is because we know what happen historicaly so we get a good idea that teh historical event will have a good chance of getting close to teh desired result. However it provides all the needed info to counter the event and players knowing when the problem is about to happen will plan to counter it. Makes the event not have the same impact that they did historicaly.

2) This provides a bit of randomness to the historical position that tries to counter the very advantage the player gets with foresight. but it never reall works but this methode has the advantage of greater replayability of the game. But the player ussually has all ready prepared against the event long before the event could possibly fire, so randomness usually provides little difficulty to the events.

Both the scripted event methodes have the major advantage of being modded which cant be ignored.

3) This method provides surprises on both scale and time which makes it very hard to make specific plans the counter the horde and this difficulty however is only a temporary thing. Players will be able to through experiments and play determine the likely date of the horde attack and the scope and this will be posted and we will be right back to the status of the first two, you know when and whats comming so you prepare. This possible choice cant be modded and once its figured out it means that you cant improve the game so it is only a very temporary advantage at the price of modding this part of the game.

The net result is that players will in a few weeks to months determine the what, when, hows of defeating the mongols in the game. There is really no way to counter this as foresight that the player has is something that no progammer has been able to programme out.

 

[unmerged(9895)]

in my experiences of playing M:TW, the horde is unbeatable at first, but its tactics are quickly easy to figure out. since it will most likely be programmed to attack everything in sight, just make sure you have a nice hiding spot when it charges in with its vast armies (though historically the mongols where outnumbered in most battles) and then jump out from behind your rock when your enemies/allies have struck down most of their numbers and swoop in to claim the rewards for yourself!

for some nations (russia, hungary, poland, and armenia area muslims) this tactic wont be to feasable since they will most likely be the first targets of the conquering horde, these nations will just need a lot of luck to survive.

 

[Yozhik]

Mongols? What Mongols?

I don't want to get OT here so I'll be brief. Mongol Empire did not exist. There were no cities found, no roads, no nothing. Mongol Empire could not exist. The amount of forage and organization required to move the described mass (at least 100,000 men, meaning what, 200,000 horses?) was beyond the logistics of those times. Think Napoleon in 1812: the whole October-December campaign was full of logistical failures of both Russian and French forces, with up to 80% of casualties on both sides accounting to starvation and other non-combat issues. And Mongols are 600 years before that. They attacked Northern Russia in the winter of 1236 - can you imagine the attrition rates? If you can't, play EU2 for a bit.

So rather than dream about Mongols maybe we can ponder a scenario in which a particularly clever monarch could 'create' an outside threat to unify the lands under his glory. Kind of like privateers from EU2, but this is going to be an entirely new level

 

[unmerged(26514)]

Except those mongols were kind of scary for the first 30 years

Now i agree, there is really no trick that could stop a player.
Either superpowerful, and you submit & use those troops for all their worth
Or just slap them around like those proverbial stepgirls...

But should we really worry about that.. that a player can continue playing? Nope its really just great, otherwise we would have lots of annoyment

 

[unmerged(16588)]

I think there should be something in the event whereby Genghis Khan, say, 1/100 or 1/1000 games, dies in his teenage years (like he should have, the dude has the devil's own luck), and so there is never a Mongol Horde. Now, this is all happy and fun for the CK timeframe, since noone has to deal with evil scary nomads, and it makes it a lot easier for the Russians to spread eastward and convert massive amounts of heathens. BUT, the interesting thing is the way this should translate into the EU2 time period (or the very tail end of the CK period):
-at the time of Genghis & Co.'s shenanigans, China was only about 1-2 centuries away from an industrial revolution similar to late 18th/early 19th-century europe. No mongol invasion very likely would have meant that such a thing came to pass, and China would have been the most advanced and most insanely powerful nation on the face of the earth.
Basically, I think it would be fun to once in a while have to deal with colonial chinese fleets in Africa and Europe in the 1500s in EU2 as the Middle Kingdom goes bok-choi and colonizes everything in sight.

 

[ForVictory]

Mongols? What Mongols?

I don't want to get OT here so I'll be brief. Mongol Empire did not exist. There were no cities found, no roads, no nothing. Mongol Empire could not exist. The amount of forage and organization required to move the described mass (at least 100,000 men, meaning what, 200,000 horses?) was beyond the logistics of those times. Think Napoleon in 1812: the whole October-December campaign was full of logistical failures of both Russian and French forces, with up to 80% of casualties on both sides accounting to starvation and other non-combat issues. And Mongols are 600 years before that. They attacked Northern Russia in the winter of 1236 - can you imagine the attrition rates? If you can't, play EU2 for a bit.

So rather than dream about Mongols maybe we can ponder a scenario in which a particularly clever monarch could 'create' an outside threat to unify the lands under his glory. Kind of like privateers from EU2, but this is going to be an entirely new level

I totally disagree

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Mongols? What Mongols?

I don't want to get OT here so I'll be brief. Mongol Empire did not exist.

Well that settles it then.

 

[unmerged(19666)]

Well that settles it then.

Second that. This truly must be the truth.

 

[Snall]

Meh, the entire mongols culture was formed on living tough...lol, Mogolian winters..are in one word, horrible. Anyway...meh.

 

[Phystarstk]

"at the time of Genghis & Co.'s shenanigans, China was only about 1-2 centuries away from an industrial revolution similar to late 18th/early 19th-century europe. No mongol invasion very likely would have meant that such a thing came to pass, and China would have been the most advanced and most insanely powerful nation on the face of the earth.
Basically, I think it would be fun to once in a while have to deal with colonial chinese fleets in Africa and Europe in the 1500s in EU2 as the Middle Kingdom goes bok-choi and colonizes everything in sight"

Is this true? Was China really this close to an industrial revolution? If so.. man.. that changes my whole philosophy on history!

 

[Barnacle Bill]

What about the battle of Manzikert?

It certainly made things more difficult for Byzantium, but it wasn't the knockout blow - as evidenced by the recovery of parts of Asia Minor under the Comneni. The sack of Constantinople was what really did the Empire in - that was what reduced the Empire from a major regional power to a minor one.

Coincidentally, I'm currently re-reading Byzantium and Its Army: 284-1081, by Warren Treadgold. On this subject: "In 1081 the Domestic of the West Alexius Comnenus seized power at Constantinople with the help of the Varangians and some other mercenaries" ... "Alexius gathered new forces, most of them mercenaries, and eventually retook part of Anatolia. In one form or another the empire survived for almost four centuries longer, and continued to have provinces called themes. But the army assembled by Alexius was no longer the direct descendent of the Roman legions, as the old themes and tagmata had been. Nor did the empire ever regain the unquestioned superiority over its enemies that it had lost in the eleventh century." So I'd say Manzikerk was the beginning of the end, even if the end came in somewhat of a slow motion.

Actually, it continued for quite some time. Basil was followed by his brother and then his neices on the throne. The last of these, Theodora, didn't die until 1056.

From the same source: "Since by 1028 the only surviving members of the Macedonian house were women past childbearing age, the dynasty was doomed to die out. But during the next thirty-one years the empire was in the hands of Basil II's incompetent nieces and the five undistinguished men they married, adopted or chose. Even these rulers could not wreck the army all at once." ... "Despite these accomplishments, the army was deteriorating and growing increasingly discontented, especially under the bumbling emperor Constantine IX Monomachus". Treadgold goes on to describe the various aspects of that unworthy's mismanagement that actively harmed the readiness of the army, and the neglect of the army by the next two emperors, before Romanus Diogenes came to power. The later attempted to rectify things, but Manzikerk came before that had gone very far. The field army was OK (would have won, barring treachery), but the local defense forces & fortifications that in earlier times would have held up the Turks after a loss like Manzikerk were still in bad shape and simply collapsed.

 

[unmerged(9895)]

Mongols? What Mongols?

I don't want to get OT here so I'll be brief. Mongol Empire did not exist. There were no cities found, no roads, no nothing. Mongol Empire could not exist. The amount of forage and organization required to move the described mass (at least 100,000 men, meaning what, 200,000 horses?) was beyond the logistics of those times. Think Napoleon in 1812: the whole October-December campaign was full of logistical failures of both Russian and French forces, with up to 80% of casualties on both sides accounting to starvation and other non-combat issues. And Mongols are 600 years before that. They attacked Northern Russia in the winter of 1236 - can you imagine the attrition rates? If you can't, play EU2 for a bit.

So rather than dream about Mongols maybe we can ponder a scenario in which a particularly clever monarch could 'create' an outside threat to unify the lands under his glory. Kind of like privateers from EU2, but this is going to be an entirely new level

?????????????????????
this whole point is absourd!

1. no roads, why would there be roads? the mongols were conquerers, not builders. the lived and died by the horse, not carts and wagons like europeans. have you ever heard a horse complain about there being no road?

2. your numbers are all messed up. there probly wasnt even 100,000 mongols in the entire army, let alone in europe. they almost always fought (and won) against armies much larger than them. they did this because they were able to create the illusion that they had many more forces than they did. combine that with supiorer tactics and mobility, and you dont need numbers.

3. mongols lived off the land, so they didnt need to bring supplies with them, they would just take them from the land they conquered. makes it a lot easier to forage when you have been doing it your entire life.

4. russian winter, sound bad? i'm sure it does, but if you were a mongolian, living in the steeps of siberia, you would think russia to be a tropical resort compared to what you were used to. these mongolian horsemen are made of a lot tougher stuff than those french men you are talking about.

5. no cities were found because they burned everything to the ground. nothing was spared their wrath, not even moscow.

maybe i'm so angered because i know my heritage, and mongolian blood goes back only 4 generations, and to say that they didnt exist is like saying that the world is flat (and about just as dumb!)

 

[unmerged(9895)]

Is this true? Was China really this close to an industrial revolution? If so.. man.. that changes my whole philosophy on history!

on wether or not the chinese people were close to an industrial revolution, i dont know, but you can't think of china as merely one nation at this time. warlords could only control what lands they could rule by force, and the mongols were able to use this to their advantage by taking them on one at a time and piting them against each other. so even if they were techincally advanced by a large margin, they would of spent more time fighting each other than doing things like colonizing africa and other areas of the world.

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Another question... Can you play as the "Makedones" dynasty? (whose greatest member was Basileios B' Boulgaroktonos, and who ruled up to 1068 IIRC (I might be wrong here, so don't use it against me in a court of law )

everything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...

 

[Demetrios]

From the same source: "Since by 1028 the only surviving members of the Macedonian house were women past childbearing age, the dynasty was doomed to die out. But during the next thirty-one years the empire was in the hands of Basil II's incompetent nieces and the five undistinguished men they married, adopted or chose. Even these rulers could not wreck the army all at once." ... "Despite these accomplishments, the army was deteriorating and growing increasingly discontented, especially under the bumbling emperor Constantine IX Monomachus". Treadgold goes on to describe the various aspects of that unworthy's mismanagement that actively harmed the readiness of the army, and the neglect of the army by the next two emperors, before Romanus Diogenes came to power. The later attempted to rectify things, but Manzikerk came before that had gone very far. The field army was OK (would have won, barring treachery), but the local defense forces & fortifications that in earlier times would have held up the Turks after a loss like Manzikerk were still in bad shape and simply collapsed.

And that has to do with my post how? I merely said that the dynasty continued, not that they were competent!

And he doesn't give Theodora much credit, does he? And in 1028, neither she nor her sister Zoe were technically past child-bearing age. But it's Basil's fault that he didn't marry off his neices to competent men and groom them as his successors...

 

[Yozhik]

KrisKannon,

I'm sorry you're taking this so personal. If you can get past that, I'd love to continue, however.

"mongols lived off the land, so they didnt need to bring supplies with them, they would just take them from the land they conquered. makes it a lot easier to forage when you have been doing it your entire life."

I challenge you to calculate logistics for mounting a winter-based raid across Siberia. We're talking thousands of miles with no food in sight. If Mongols burnt everything, where did they find forage on the way back? Mind you, just Russian period alone saw three separate invations (1223, 1236-1238, 1239-1240). Napoleon perfectly illustrated that one can not successfully trace back his own steps once the countryland has been plundered, and the Mongols here have done it three times in a row, all with success.

Roads are a very important part of a civilization. While your advancing troops may need no paved highways, your messengers do. They need a place to stay overnight and to rest their horses. And they need to know where are they going.

"these mongolian horsemen are made of a lot tougher stuff than those french men you are talking about"

I am sorry, but is this based on any facts?

"no cities were found because they burned everything to the ground. nothing was spared their wrath, not even moscow."

In that case how come there were cities standing in Russia, Persia, and China, regions, overrun by "Mongols" in the 13th century? In case of Russia there is only one case when a city was razed to ashes (Ryazan), but it came back not a decade later a few miles up the river.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Yozhik]

"at the time of Genghis & Co.'s shenanigans, China was only about 1-2 centuries away from an industrial revolution similar to late 18th/early 19th-century europe. No mongol invasion very likely would have meant that such a thing came to pass, and China would have been the most advanced and most insanely powerful nation on the face of the earth.
Basically, I think it would be fun to once in a while have to deal with colonial chinese fleets in Africa and Europe in the 1500s in EU2 as the Middle Kingdom goes bok-choi and colonizes everything in sight"

Is this true? Was China really this close to an industrial revolution? If so.. man.. that changes my whole philosophy on history!

If China had been that advanced back then, why was it nothing more than a puny feudal kingdom in the 19th century? Russia has been hit with Mongols as well, yet it saw the first factory in 1600s and major industrialization in 1700s.

 

[Yozhik]

I think there should be something in the event whereby Genghis Khan, say, 1/100 or 1/1000 games, dies in his teenage years (like he should have, the dude has the devil's own luck), and so there is never a Mongol Horde.

Well, that would hardly change anything for most of Europe. We still have Viking raids, Arab raids, and tons of unpaid mercenaries running around the countryside... In fact, I'd love to see "rebel" sprites in, say, every second province at all times. That would be very historical, no?

 

[Yozhik]

Except those mongols were kind of scary for the first 30 years

No more that stacks of rebels in Civ2... Just defend well and watch them die