Medieval II Total War: Best Strategy Against the Mongols
Complete strategy guide to defeat the Mongol horde. Explains the advantages and disadvantages of field battle and siege battle, And how to use your army effectively to defeat the Mongol.
In Medieval II Total War sometimes the Mongol invasion become a problem for some player. In this article we will talk about how to defeat the Mongol horde in field battle, siege battle and how to hold the long enough while you building your army. Before you go to fight the Mongols, you should learn about your own condition. Do you have enough money to train a lot of units to face them in field battle? Do you have enough tower and good spear men to face the in siege battle? After you learn about your condition, you can decide which strategy is the best for you.
Field Battle Vs Siege Battle
The best strategy to defeat the Mongols in Medieval II is to force them into siege battle. There are several reasons for this.
Why filed battle is a bad strategy ?
- In Medieval II, the Mongol hordes usually tend to stick together. Because of this, other armies will join the battle as reinforcements, when you attack one of their armies. In Medieval II you can avoid this if your general has the “night-fighter” trait.
- In Medieval II, the Mongol army consists of mostly horse archers which have experience between 3 and 6 experience levels, thus making them versatile and deadly on open field inflicting your army heavy damages
- In Medieval II your heavy cavalry will be very difficult to catch and pin them down. Trying to take them with your horse archers doesn’t work too well either.
- In Medieval II, the Mongol horde generals are good leaders that have dread levels up to 9-10 points and their command abilities are over 7 stars. So their army have great bonuses on the battlefield.
- In Medieval II, the Mongol bodyguard has a disciplined mental state, highly trained in formation and each member has 2 hit-points instead of one. Trying to catch and kill the general on the field is a hard task, even if you pin him down, the other units will mostly come to his aid.
Why siege battle is a good strategy ?
- In Medieval II, the Mongol’s main weakness is their cavalry-heavy composition. Cavalry can’t operate siege engines nor can they scale walls. If you can disable their rams, trebuchets and catapults, then you don’t even need to fight their cavalry. Their Foot Archers are very bad in melee, and even their capable Mongol Infantry are no match for a good unit of dismounted knights.
- In Medieval II, although the Mongol usually tend to besiege the cities with multiple armies, their generals sometimes besiege the cities with a single army. This gives you the chance of a fair fight. If you have a capable garrison, you have the chance to kill the Mongol horde generals.
- In Siege battle, you have the advantages of ballista and cannon towers which can inflict serious damages to the Mongol army, in field battle you don’t have this advantage. If you had brought siege engines, It works little against the Mongols because their army has high mobility, making them hard targets. But in besieging cities they are grouped together in formation and marching slowly that makes them excellent targets for your ballista and cannon towers.
- While at the field battle the horse archers give the Mongols huge advantage. On the siege battles the cavalry lead them to their downfall. Even the worst spear men can take down a well armed cavalry member easily in Medieval II.
- In Medieval II, the horse archers tend to charge in the breaches, which incapacitates their horse arching ability that makes them easy prey for your spearmen. If you have many spear men, and also decent heavy infantry place them on the breach or the broken gate to destroy their units.
- In Siege battle the Mongols general will throws himself into hundreds of spear and when their general falls, all the bonuses that he gives his army is nullified
- In siege battle you have the chance to surround the enemy, pin it near the gate and destroy the routing units before they have a chance to escape
Playing Siege Battle
Because the Mongol have very bad infantry in Medieval II, the key is to let them break through your gates and crowd the area close by with spear men to kill their cavalry as they rush through. Support your spear men with your heavy infantry. Sometime the AI will send his general unit through the gates first. Kill him as fast as you can, and you will start a chain rout. Spear Militia with schiltrom is really great to hold your gates in siege battle. A single unit of 120 men can hold up 4 units of cavalry and routed them all.
Liked it
I’m eager to try this startegy out against the Mongols.
ive used a similar strategy to this versus the timurids.
it required having a citadel and allowing the first section of it to be taken after having 1 unit on the walls to control the towers long enough.
since the timurids have elephants and lots of artillery this worked well since i just stacked the third and second section walls with archers and i had to do this about 10 times +
but one thing you quickly learn is that u cant rely on the computer to automatically win any defending situation for you lol
Currently using siege strat against timurids and mongols sim (VH/VH/NOlim civ Denmark at war with e1 pretty much). By far the most advantageous strat in terms of casualties and officers. So long as you have an upgraded (fortress at least) to hold them at. Because of the tendency to siege cities with multiple armies beware of trying to hold a CITY in this fashion for a long time. so far at least, citadel of Thorn has been holding out against the poles/ hungarians; and citadel sarkel against the timurids and mongols.
A seedier strategy is to allow the AI to break your 1st wall in a citadel and positioning your army to defend the 2nd/3rd layers…not only are the towers closer together so more firepower but, as well, so long as you keep the 1st wall unrepaired it nearly guarantees a long traffic jam for your missle troops as well as having the effect of breaking up w/e force is attacking you. Rams can go thru broken gates and walls but towers cant and since the 2nd cit wall is always embanked….just do the math
I trained lot of arab cavalry (80 soldiers,egypt)so i am always using them to crush the mongols.Their archers shocking when they see 2000 of cavalry lol.But u need lot of money to train them.
i have the spanish and anotaloia borders and also nearby cities of jerusalem and moor’s region.But all europe is against to me.If there is somebody to this u should take care of this
Mongols are fairly easy to beat even in the field. Playing as the French, a mixed army of a few archers (3-4) some heavy cav (6 at least) and the rest heavy infantry will kill them pretty effectively on open ground. Just form the heavy infantry into one big line (wider than the mongol front), and charge forwards, with cav on the flanks and archers directly behind. Wing the cavalry out to kill any archers flanking the main line/disrupt cavalry charges into your own flanks. The enemy infantry archers will usually either stay to duke it out, or be too disorganized to retreat properly, and will get overwhelmed and start trying to melee with your (much better) infantry. Pull the cavalry around and in from the flanks and rear to slow the archers down if they’re still trying to retreat, or to surround them if they’re standing and fighting. Use the archers to pincushion the enemy general or any horse archers that are bothering your infantry.
your cavalry will probably get raped, since they have to be the blocking force and stay in contact rather than charging in and out of battle, but its still cheaper and more versatile than having an all cavalry army
Remember to execute the prisoners too, no point in fighting soldiers twice, and they’re filthy heathens to boot. Nothing says “leave my country alone” like a dozen princes and generals named “_____ the Merciless”
this really helps allot but I don’t think its that easy if you are Egypt as you are the first to face the Mongols and you wont discover gunpowder before they come. is there a certain way to fight them if you are Egypt?
If u r low on money and u dont no this yet press ` and type in add_money 40000 and press the up arrow and enter until u have as much money as u want. I dont no if there is a certain way to fight the mongols if u r egypt. my adivice is to find a strategy that works and stick with it. If u need help with choosing units just choose quality over quantity
there is a way that u can win every time using auto resolve press ` and type in auto_win defender if u r the defender or attcker if u r attcking. if u dont no who is the defender or who is the attacker. the is the person getting attacked, if u r seiging a place and they come out and attack u. u r the defender. if u r on some ones land and they attack u. u r the defender
as egypt I do half horses archers and half royal mamluks or normal mamluks. you can even have 3/4 of horse archers. This doesnt work againts the timurid elephants. Use your horse archers to kill theirs. you put you melee cavalry as far as the enemy as possible. inflict as much damage with your horse archers dont worry about your casulties do hit and run and bring them to you heavy cavalry. Try to kill as much heavy lancers as you can with your horse archers cause they are the best cavalry of the game.Ho ya ,never sacrifice your generals just retreat them. I always play at very hard setting.
It works to a exstent if your agant the mongols it should go fine if your have a citatal or huge city or fortress or minor city but the timrods tend to break the wall with there arilary
Mongal infentry genraly cant meet up to the knights of the west but there cavirly are like a wall so spear men are your best bet (never auto_resolve agnist either)
one of my favorite things do do against the mongols/timurds (this requires ALOT of moneybut works out well) is to bribe their generals away you have to have an xperinced diplomat tho but you destroy a mongol army and you got a awesome general but you cant bribe away the khan and khanzada but they usually have the weaker armys which can be easily destroyed
Hmmmmmmm… All these tips may work, but what I like to do while defending a settlement under siege is to attack them before they attack you.
- Group all your infantry at the gates.
- If the enemy has less archers than you, send your archers just past the main gate and open fire. The AI will automatically pull its troops back and in some cases you can kill off 40% of your opponent without resistance.
- Then when cavalry charges your missile troops, send them back on the walls and place your infantry where the archers once were.
Hope this helps
So lets say you own Baghdad and you are being attacked by the mongols, but you keep beating them, and dont let them take the city. Will they keep sending new armies till they take it?
Its easy to beat mongols with byzantines just hit them with your cavalry and use your latinkon and spearmen to take the bulk with the cavalry going around and smash them in the back (try not to get a general to fight to the death)
hey i was wondering how big can you make your army max? because i saw a guy who posted that he had 2000 cav, is this through reinforcements or is there a way to maximize your army capacity?
I beat the whole mongol army befor all on open feild when i was useing poland on hard. i sent my top 4 generals filled up all armys with only calvary and horse calvary and attacked one or two armys at a time, sometimes even auto resolved. The mongols didnt even get a city, other then the ones they sacked in eastern russia, btw i didnt use money cheats i had the money be sending crusades at the begining of the campain and sacked every city in egypt and turk’s i had about 150000 florins from that, which is also a good stragety to get money without hacking.
Against the Mongols I produce infantry and archer heavy armies because if you go into their territory with a big army you can entice them into attacking you on advantageous ground – especially if they have superior numbers. Just make a big batch of high-grade foot troops (dismounted anything), a bunch of archers and a few cavalry units to run down the routed units, and maneuver them onto advantageous ground. Wash rinse repeat [=
Recently I have been playing the turks and egyptians – so the mongols are a pain.
I play an unpatched version of the game – so I am unsure if these tactics works on the patched version.
My strategy was basically this – take Baghdad as qucikly as possible and build ballista towers. Then garrison it with as many archers as you can.
When the mongols arrive get them to besiege the city, and launch a sally attack. Line the walls with archers and then sit back and let the towers wipe out he besiegers.
At the same time I built up large reserves of horse archers. These were used to track the mongols and I only offered battle at bridges.
In an open battle I adopted the tactic of ordering the archers to hold their ground. That way they had usually killed the infantry and the mongol archers at about the time the arrows ran out. And then I launched mass attacks on single units – generals if possible – in the hope of overwhelming the units.
Both of these tactics work pretty well – especially the sally – since generally you kill the enemy and don’t lose a single man.
In Medieval II, the Mongols are best land army as were they.
capture islands in the mediterannean seas. sell one to the mongols so it becomes their capital and you get some money. wage war to ensure they dont capture mainland territory so any family members must be born on the island (keep a spy here to monitor this). wipe out mainland armies. then take out island that you gave them and no more mongols. also good for timurids
also having fleets of 20 ships placed over the green arrows at constantinople and cordoba is good way to allow access to only your own armies. enemy armies cannot cross this blockade.
that is also useful for stopping crusaders and jihads depending on who you play as
capturing the english/scottish lands are good for financial backing. they have the protection of the sea. set those to auto manage building as finacial setting. build a garrison in the towns as yo get free upkeep units and one or two peasanets in the castles as they cheepest units for upkeep.
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ya i was the turks this onetime and i conquered the whole world without cheats wich was pretty awsome. But when the mongols and timuriuds came i would draw them into attacking one of my cities or castles and i put naffauton and jannisary musket guys on the walls and it worked like a charm.
If you manage to force the Mongols or Timurids to engage in battle on bridge, this is more effective than using cannon towers.
I used the English archers with their stakes, on the defending side of the bridge, artillery flanking the bridge, and a few heavy infantry. This force them into a narrow path as they try to overpower the infantry hit them with about 4-5 archer units and artillery strikes, and if they manage to break through they get impaled on the stakes. Then you have 2 cavlary to clean up the mess.
If you play as Egypt and face the Mongols early – before you have a citadel/cannon tower or have access to gunpowder units –
When the towers/rams reach your walls/gates, pull your men back to the second set of walls, where the rest of your army waits. place your 6-7 spearmen (dismounted arab cav. or saracens) in 2 lines in a semi-circle around the inner side of the gate, but not too close to the gate, so that you leave enough room for many units to get inside. Have 3 catapults set on exploding shots close behind your spearmen – so that it is closer to the enemy i.e. more accurate, plus its too close to your own troops to shoot them in the back. Fire into the most crowded section. You can get 30-40 units with a single shot, the general usually goes up in flames by the second round. A couple of them will miss, but on this close range they are very accurate. Next to the catapults, you can put afghan javeliners (mercenaries), they do plenty of damage from afar, and very good in melee too if it comes to that. Have 1-2 cavalry to kill routers, in fact, if you use desert cavalry, you can combine the javelins with the cavalry 
Your Naffatun will keep throwing their bombs, and in 30 seconds all you will see is that your spearmen are fighting waist-deep in burnt enemy units 
Dont forget to cease fire with catapults and naffatun when the enemy are few, just owerwhelm with the spearmen.
Good thing with bridges is that only 3 separate armies can attack you at the same time. Its important, because you may run out of projectiles if theres any more.
best is if you can get them to attack you at one of your fortresses. Have 2-3 desert archers on the 1st set of walls, let them use fire arrows, and fire into the most crowded part of the formation. Also, place again 2-3 naffatun next to the archers and just watch the explosions
If the situation gets dire, keep the enemy busy with 1-2 units while you pull everyone back to the central square. There they will not rout, but fight to the death, and chances are that the enemy will give up and flee.
Its the same if you are attacked in a city, only you will have to count with siege towers too, but if you have naffatun or afghan javelinmen on the walls next to the archers, they will take care of that.
Im not sure that the sally that I read earlier would work on the patched version, as they pull away from the walls when they are being shot at.
On bridges I usually have a suicide unit, that pins the enemy just as they would come off the bridge. Have more desert archers and mamluk archers, and again naffatun and catapults do miracles, but have 3-4 spearmen that these can hide behind. Try for the bridge outside Aleppo. If you are attacked from the East, you have higher ground too
To add something to the bridge strategy: be sure to position your general near your defending spearmen or they will run.
i disagree with firearms i murked the mongols in open battle
Can someone tell me why when the game clearly states the mongol faction has been destroyed (by me) it just turns up again 4 turns later for the hell of it? FFS!
My preferred strategy for beating the Mongols and Timurids, when playing as the English, is this:
- Position your armies on bridges/causeways (ie between Edessa & Aleppo).
- Ensure you have plenty of spearmen, knights, a few units of archers and some light cavalry (for mopping up).
– In deployment, place your archers at the end of the bridge and deploy their stakes (I like to use a V shape at the end of the bridge).
- Keep your spears & knights back from the bridge (and their arrows!).
- Move your archers back and to the flank, set loose, fire arrows on.
- Start the battle.
- When they charge, wait until they almost reach the stakes and rush your spearmen forward. The stakes will wipe out the majority of their cavalry (even Generals!) and your spears will mop up.
Your spears will be able to deal with the majority of the mongol army from here, but i’d recommend pulling them back after a while and engaging with your knights. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it’s likely that enemy reinforcements have arrived, so it’s best to pull back your spearmen to rest so that you can do this all over again. Secondly, the shock of your knights hitting them has a good chance of causing a rout.
Have fun trying this out!
I lost lots of knights by engaing them near my own deployed spears. how do i stop this from happening
choke points and siege battles are the best way to deal with the mongol/timurid threat, plenty of saracen militia/h. jan. inf. make short work of their cavalry, just remember that it’s sometimes better to defend your town centre (when a city is besieged) with flanking spearmen, rather than facing a besieging army at the walls. This is especially true if your playing against a timurid army with bombards, as they wont hesitate to punch several large holes in your cities walls.
p.s. dont forget your javalinmen and archers (with flaming arrow turned on) when facing their war elephants, there’s nothing more destructive than a disgruntled elephant with an arrow up its arse.
lol i am Playing as Egypt and have 3 armies at the Bridge near Mosul i have Survived 3 attacks from the Mongols but killed the Grand Khan so more have come
and are coming to kill my best general who is Valiantly holding his ground with my once powerful army this is not the best time to run out of Money
bored medieval
just played a skirmish 2v1 me being the one on the river po against the mongols which are a royal pain in the ***. me being a french armie with scots guard and arquebusiers works well with a basilisk and a volugie on front line with best infantry and cav to fill the rest they had 2000 units i had 1000 i lost 478
I REALLY WISH I READ THIS BEFORE I ENGAGED THEM. I had the good sense not to fight them in open combat, and i was able to destroy two of their armies before they overwhelmed one of my cities (and killed my faction leader). I have an intense assasin organization, and i killed pretty much the whole family of the Mongols, but i made the foolish mistake of killing their faction leader. right now im trying to fight 2 hordes
i have another strategy for the open field battle:
a lot of archers ( the best longbowmen, if you are england), loose formation, and hit their packed troops, also their horse archers will fall on the long term, when they are forced to attack by the casualties you need to charge your second line ( heavy infantry mixed with spearmen) at them, when they clash, go around the battle with cavalry and counter attack flank attackers and attack the mongol army in its back, with these positions you got a very good chance of destroying the mongol army because you can kill all the routers with cavalry.
I always send a spy tot the mongol hordes, to check out the path they are going, usually i choose then, some forsets to lay ambush and above all, bridges: with a lot of archers and spearmen, you can defeat multiple armies
( I love the bridge battles)
Something to try that I’ve done which actually increased my odds considerably against the Hordes was to pick out individual, worthless units and then separate them so you have a bunch of individual units out on the campaign map. Then, surround the Mongol horde with these individual units and retreat them when they get attacked. This way, the Mongols will be force to fight them to go forward and as they force your individual, worthless units to retreat, their armies get separated. Once they get separated from each other, use your generals and armies to pick off the individual armies until the entire Horde is destroyed. Its really an effective use of game strategy and helped me defeat the Hordes on multiple occasions.
I have a situation where I (as the Turks) am trying to wipe out the Mongols before they ever have a chance of settling down. I\’ve managed to destroy 2 hordes (horde = four groups of high star generals w/ full armies) the only problem is… THEY KEEP COMING!! another horde already appeared on the map and i\’m basically getting tired of these mofos. Are the mongols programmed to annoy the hell outta you by never dying out until they have a \”new homeland\”?
the mongols in history were quite the racists but yet kept stability throughout the central asian region
The Mongols are very annoying, sadly there is no one clear method of defeating them, as every game is different. By this I mean, you can play two games side by side as the same country and everything will be different, right from the diplomacy to the outcome of wars. You have to be cunning and defeat them on many leve
Diplomacy with the mongols will not work, I smashed the first horde to appear with a mass army (England) led by my King. It mostly consisted of Spearmen & Dismounted Knights with some Archers. I suffered alot of casualties and retreated back to Jerusalem to replenish my numbers and two more hordes appeared near Baghdad.
Sometimes the AI will utilise the Mongols Horse Archers and attack your troops from afar, retreating whenever you get close, another occassions they all charged, it’s completely random, the Mongols don’t find the same way twice. I was fortunate that I formed a defensive line, first deplyoing my Archers on the front with stakes, when the game starts retreat the Archers behind the Spearmen, bring the Spearmen forward inline with the stakes, so when the Mongol Army charged the line, they met a wall of Spears and Stakes, it was catastrophic for them, as my Archers rained arrows on them whilst the attacked and retreated.
A crusade was called and every country including my enemies flooded the middle east, I was able to utilise their strengh and weaken the Mongols enough to smash them, sadly another Horde has just been picked up.
Like I said, no two battles are the same, although a Siege, the Mongols can be defeated with a little tact as explained above.
If your a European country, utilise your Allies and Neutrals, their hatred for Muslims and enough money will bring them in on the fight, if the Mongols manage to take a city/castle, go to the Pope and request a Crusade.
When the second Horde appeared and took Baghdad from the Turks, because I was in great favour with the Pope (which if your a European country, it’s always a good idea to obey the Pope and stay in his favour, I plan to sieze power at the very end from the Pope
Along the way you can try to bribe the armies of the Mongols, if you have experienced assasins, then use them, kill the generals before they meet you on the field.
If u r so lazy to face the army of the mongols, I’ve find out an alternative way to wipe out the mongols without even fighting them.
I’ve destroyed the mongols by assassinate all their family members, faction leaders and also faction heir. I’m using turks in that game thus i’ve prepared my assasins earlier before turn 65. It is kinda hard to kill the mongol general since most of them have 7-10 stars ( 17% chance – 20% chance). Things u need:
i) 2-3 full star assassins : i usually train them by killing rebel captains since they can be killed repeatedly until ur assassin is lvl up.
ii) luck : although u have trained master assassins, u need to save ( ctrl + s) and load (ctrl + l) few times before u can kill the mongol generals.
iii) good luck!! =)
My solution to beating Mongols,
Breaking Up The Bunch:
____________________
———————————–
* Equale number of armies as Mongols,
* All Armies should be cavalary.
* March all of them togather Until you reach close to the Mongols.
* Position them close enough that brown circle comes up around armies.
* Engage Their One Army, due to presence of ur armies, that one army will retreat.
* Move ur armies close to the retreated army until brown cirlce comes up, then attack it. And the Army will have to fight you.
Positioning For That One Army:
=================
* Position Your generals unit, in middle of ur rectangle near the red boundary line. See the diagram.
* Seperate your army into two small armies,
* Position A1 army at the left flank other on A2 right flank, but facing centre of the map, and they should be concealed so mongols dont spot them when they move to attack G*G unit,
Also group the two armies, and use them as two groups attacking one place at a time.
|……………M.A…………|
|……………………………|
|[A1}______v________.|
|.................v............. |
|.................v.........{A2]|
|……………..v……………|
|————(G*G)————-|
Mongolian Army {M.A} will pretty much fallow the middle course indicated by v to attack the Genrals guard, cause thats the only unit avaliable on their radar.
Battle Begins:
===========
* Mongols will move in to attack GGU, intercept by showing the A2 to their army, and move GGU behind A2
* When the Mongols see A2 and GGU they will readjust their formation, to face A2
* Attack their rear with A1, and when A1 clashes with M.A, they will turn to battle them, then plunge your A2 right in their rear.
Now you have tactical advantage over them, and if u dd the position of ur armies right, you should have atleast one reinforcement comming ur way, but by the time they reach, u should be just ready for the mopping up push, so dont mop up. let the reinforcement do that,
Repeat it for all the armies, you should win,
|________MA________|
|=================|
|[A1}______v_________|
|__________v________|
|__________v_____{A2]|
|__________v________||
|________[G*G)______||
I’ve realized that the best way of defeating an enemy army is to use terrain, especially on mountains. I’ve also managed to defeat 9 mongol armies with only 1 army (byzantine cavalry and lancers), by placing them in top of the mountain. That is even better than siege battle ( in stainless steel you loose your mens while they are under siege. Archers can use all of their potential, enemy gets tired and they often have only one way to get to the top of the hill.
i think a good way to beat timirud eles is to the your horse archers on skirmrish mod and tag your units away from it dont use spearmen in schiltrons because the elephants will batter through so use spearmen to lure them and take 2 squads to flank them and will make the living monsters of medival warfare rout as far as possible!
Siege battle and terrain would work for defeating the mongols, but if possible, always fight in the rain. The mongols use a composite bow that deteriorates when wet in real life and they lose a lot of killing power in the game for it.