Medieval II Total War: Best Strategy Against the Mongols

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 ?

1. 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.
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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 ?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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
7. 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.

Having a couple of trebuchets parked in cities that they like to besiege will make your defense more effective. In Medieval II, trebuchets have enough range to batter them when they're sitting out of arrow range. Cannon and Ballista towers are great, just sit back and watch the Mongols being rained with lead and flaming arrows. Cannon towers will often disable a ram right off the bat. If you don't have them in your border settlements, then you can send a suicide unit out to engage the soldiers who are operating the ram. By the time your suicide unit is dead, a siege tower or ladders will be at your walls and the Mongols will forget about their ram.