Ah yeah... my current trouble that made me check the videos about Mongol... they joined the Jihadi to retake Cairo right after they appeared... which made them ultra hard mode ...

So far, I haven't been attacked by Mongols near a convenient river that was across the path of their advance to Antioch, so this choice hasn't been available to me (unless I retreat all the way to the river Jordan and let the Mongols get at least two cities and a castle, becoming a permanent faction).

@@christopherwebber3804, I just then defeated a full strength Mongol army that had seige equipment using the Turks in Tbilisi. ( City did have cannon towers upgraded ) 4 trebuchets, seige tower, rams and some artillery things i've never seen the Mongols use before. Tactic is: Have numerous Turk Archer Units atleast 5/6 groups, have ground units Spearmen, Janisarries, Sipahi, Mercs anything useful because once they breach your gate or wall you send everything at them timing there rush into the city or castle creating a Bottleneck ( Like 300 spartans movie ) . . . Now the thing I cannot believe I didn't know before! Your archers and javelins can use there secondary weapon whenever you want ( swords ) Just click the Bow Icon thats along with all those other Icons once and they turn into ground Units. ( These Archers were all I had left I overwhelmed them and stole the Win - Heroic Victory - I defeated a full strength Mongol army with nothing just 3 units of town spearmen, 5 groups of Turk archers, 2 afghan javelin men, 2 alan light cavalry and General cavalry Unit that i always leave out of the fight. . Thats it! Now imagine if I had Azabs, Heavy cavalry Sipahi, Janisarries and other stronger units. . I guess the main thing is is not to fight them out in the open, either attack there strongholds or let them attack you.

Foot archers have stronger missile attacks than cavalry archers (there's more men in a unit and more men per square metre). The Mongols don't attack all at once, but piecemeal. They usually co-operate by attacking you. You have to learn how to concentrate your army on part of the enemy army to win M2TW battles, and this is no exception. Although some of the Mongols are attacking your archers, your cavalry is out attacking the Mongol cavalry, and the Mongol cavalry tend to allow themselves to be caught - either they stick around to shoot at you, or charge you. Also, you have to have the right mix of cavalry - no more than 2 bow or javelin armed light cavalry units will be enough to ensure you catch the Mongol lights. Once you have them in combat, you can pile in with your other units (you really need the spearmen to beat the Mongols easily). In my case the Sergeants count as light cavalry although they have decent armour and charge capabilities, so you can use them to catch the enemy light cavalry. By this stage of the game, you should have experienced heavy cavalry that is well armoured and can resist the Mongol barrage long enough to charge home on them - as long as you don't allow the Mongols to concentrate their fire. Allow the Mogols to come to you, if you send out your units in an unco-ordinated attack they will meet the situation you describe and be shot to bits. Hopefully, you can allow the Mongols to attack your shooters on the hill, charge forward with the spearmen, then follow up or charge onto the flanks with your cavalry. By the way, I usuually try to hire two Turcopole units thus giving me an extra two shooting units, and may have more artillery as well.

@@christopherwebber3804 So, you are not playing at very hard? Why didn’t you show how well this works, on your ’How to defeat Mongols’ video? I mean, why make a video how to win a battle, and then not showing it..?

@@pelimies1818 I wouldn't play M2TW battles on any other setting than Very Hardi These battles were played on that setting - you can see that in the way the Mongol horse archers suddenly appear from nowhere. Showing the whole battle t makes the length of the video too long, and people won't watch it. It also takes absolutely forever on my slow connection to upload it, and I don't have space on my hard disk to store it. It would take me between 30 minutes to an hour to fight the battle. If you don't know how to win a M2TW battle, this is the wrong place to start to learn how to do so. This video is for people who normally win their battles but have trouble with the Mongols - that included me - and that has a lot to do with tactics, army composition, and deployment. Get those right and you don't need to watch a video of it being done.

@@christopherwebber3804 as fast as 30 min, to win 4 Mongol armies with your suggested army composition; enemy having 9-10 star generals and VH difficulty..? :D you are pulling my leg - I knew it. Happy Hollidays, Chris!

@@pelimies1818 Not pulling your leg, though I don't usually time it, and usually lose track of time, so I could be wrong, and anyway, could be much longer with a multi-army battle. I would try very hard not to fight four Mongol armies at once and to have at least one of their generals dead before the battle. You can avoid fighting all four armies at once by careful placement of your attacking armies or by the use of terrain. Probably helps when you have been playing these sort of battles on the table as DBMM before the Total War system existed (started as a WRG 6th edition player). And have spent years of real time playing M2TW

I agree but I've never played against them, my game is usually over before they appear ( I might have to re-install the game to allow the late mediaeval units)

Yes, but there are a lot, so that's a lot of save scumming. You often receive a mission to assassinate a Mongol general when they appear and I usually try to get one or two, but it's not as much fun as fighting them and using assassins does bad things to your king's reputation. you are never quite sure when or where the Mongols are going to appear, so having the assassins ready to hit them is not so easy - and you have to pay them all that time. Then again, you need experienced assassins if you want more than a 5% chance of success (and yet more save scumming).

Basically, attrition. You should be able to beast them in sieges (and anywhere you can force them to fight instead of peppering you with arrows, bridges, forts, etc.) while building up troops elsewhere. Once they’ve smashed themselves into a few castles, you can push them back and reclaim any lost lands.

Enemy campaign AI is terrible, if you're about to lose a settlement destroy all military buildings including blacksmiths, they'll be slow to replace these buildings if at all, so eventually you'll be facing trash troops. On map build forts in passes and fords, in battle use artillery, have any units with stakes and mounted cross bows are quite effective, those will be outranged but they'll distract the enemy and can be used to pick off enemy heavy Cav.

Read up on Mongol history, you will know approximately what year they are about to arrive. No excuse for being surprised once you know they arrive in several waves and also where they are likely to arrive. If you didn't prepare, you might be OK if you have gone for chivalrous generals and built some capacity for troop building in the region. They usually take several turns to reach Antioch and advance slowly.