Fair warning this is my first ranked game ever so apologies if the answer to this is obvious. Every time I tried to push the Rus i’d run in to mass springalds + chokes with forts. My seige never got a chance to set up due to the springalds and I could never kill the springals because… well, I guess I didn’t have springalds. But it seems like in order to take out such a position I would need seige other than springalds because my main army just melts trying to take down the fort.
Should I just counter springalds with springalds? I feel like Rus has the advantage in that scenario.
Well, best counter for springalds are springalds, but you can use also horsemen or knights.
I suggest you to try back doors. As mongol you need to disrupt his economy, and don’t let him take advantage positions using forts.
Rus can’t put stone walls, so you can try mix a few knights and mangudai, and just get villagers kills. If you manage to distract and get some kills you are fine.
Mongol is specially weaker vs keep abuse strategy, because it’s hard to fortify positions.
Don’t forget that keeps needs 800 stone, that is a lot of stone, so, have a look at the stone veins around the base and don’t let him collect stone.
I didn’t do enough early eco harass and that definitely doomed me. I had a very difficult time breaking late game fortified positions.
I just realized it couldn’t have been Rus then because they put up stone walls. It was the English actually. Oops.
I had a good economy going but once I got starved of gold I was pretty much doomed. They walled off a good chunk of the map and I was distracted by a tower rush.
Mostly was just shocked how much springalds alone turned the tides of every battle. I don’t wanna say they’re OP but they’re stronger than I gave them credit for.
They may seem OP because are solid and easy to play. I suspect by your words you are relatively new to the game.
Mongols are a hard civ to start, maybe you will be better understanding the game using french or english. HRE is also good if you like to play defensive.
As mongol vs english don’t make mangudai, you will notice mangudai doesn’t stand a chance versus english archers.
Use few knights to harass eco and do a solid army that can counter their units. Don’t forget to research upgraded siege engineering so you can build mangos and springalds in the battle.
The clue is get map control and attack his eco needs. For example, if you notice he’s spamming springalds he will be collecting a lot of wood, hunt their wood villagers.
Also don’t forget to constantly produce units and have enough barracks to outproduce your enemy.
As long as you can kill some villagers and get map control, you will start to get advantage and trap your enemy in his base. If he’s not able to get resources from the outside is done.
Dont play other civs in the start as they might be “easier”.
Mongol play so differently from others than it actually becomes detrimental when trying to adapt to mongol play especially when youre new.
Mongol is a solid civ. But its a civ that requires map controll and constant aggression.
My advice first and foremost:
Figure out effective means of applying early pressiure.
Avoid over-investing.
Learn how2use GER efficiently (avoid building pastures if you can.
Figure out effective unit compositions.
Why this?
Applying early pressiure helps slowing the enemie econ.
It also grants you the initiative and decide the tempo of the game.
Just make enough that will help you snipe a vill or two.
And burn down exposed camps.
Longer you can keep them away from gold in the early game.
Less gold they have to invest in late game as long as you keep your attacks coming and keep your losses at a minimum.
Learning how to use GER efficiently also doubles up learning how to gain map controll.
Going around gathering especially fish and then deer and perhaps even a boar gives you a massive food income in the early to mid fases of the game.
You also save a lot of wood from building pastures. Instead you use this wood to build towers instead.
These towers are the key to good mongol map controll.
They also double on protecting your villager out in the open harvesting food.
It allows you to see enemie movement early and react accordingly.
However it requires you to find that delicate balance
If the resourced require to much walk time, it might now be worth it.
And dont over dedicate villagers on a single resource.
No point sending more than 9 villagers on deer and boar. Any more and they will be idling waiting in line to access the resource.
And make sure you also keep a constant income.
You want to just enough vills sway without causing a “pause” in your production.
Now with good early pressiure, a solid economy what remains is finding good unit composition you can utilize.
If you going especially against english.
I find transitioning into MaA to be very effective.
Against english i always open with stables, build a 4-6 horsemen in the dark age and immidietly apply pressiure on their gold resource and exposed buildings.
And try to force them into making spearmen.
Once they start making spearmen, i keep raiding but try to avoid their spears. If they turn to defensive, just abort and keep roaling around trying to pick off anything that runs out.
Meanwhile you focus on getting into castle age asap, research imp siege engineering and get 3-4 barracks up.
Start spamming man at arms and rush them.
Against english its also very important you always upgrade Range armor.
English has a tendency to make Longbow/spearman balls and MaA are cheap but also very effective in just plowing through.
Try also get a few mangudai up with range attack upgrade and use then to support your MaA by raiding their woodline and resources.
Locking down their econ and spreading their army.
Use the MaA to destroy any defensive towers and squishy buildings such as farms, houses and camps.
This cuts into their wood supply severly as they have to rebuild houses and farms especially.
Once you start gaining controll, start making rams/trebs to apply pressiure on any major buildings such as TC, Keeps and especially their production buildings.
If youre in a tramgame / already lategame you should always get imp. Shutterlocks and siege works.
Mongol springalds are the best springalds with the longest range and highest mobility with imp upgrades.
Always CTRL group springalds and manually use them against opponent siege.
Having 2 groups of 3 springalds will allow you to effectly deal with any siege they throw at you. Even culverins.
If you shoot and retreat and rotate between the 2 grouos so that you always have a shot rdy to deal with any enemie siege.
Also late game I like going for Horsemen + Crossbow/Handcannoneers.
Because most opponent tends to have anti heavy weapons, horsemen are cheap and good against crosdbows and siege. And being mobile and cheap ontop of it all.
As long as you keep them supported with firepower from crossbow/handcannons
They do pretty well when fully upgraded.
Also horsemen+mangudai combi is extremely good at backdoor raiding.
Use the horsemen to kill buildings and farms and swoop through villlager blobs with mangudai.
These are just few of many viable options to use as mongols.
Thanks, this is really helpful. I do want to learn how to play Mongols as their playstyle is my favorite in RTS games.
I’ve been slowly modifying my AOE2 opener build order with vils obviously gold is more important early game than in AOE2 so i’m having resource issues here and there.
I’lll put more focus on hunting and delay pasture production as late as possible. How many pastures do you end up with late game to keep vils busy with sheep?
Enough pastures to surround a oovoo should be enough. Or a half circle around the White stupa.
Should be sufficient to feed around 30 vills on food in late game with max harvesting upgrade.
If i go for Steppe redoubt, 10 vills should hold plenty. And if youre going for a fast imp you can add 5 or 10 more to that.
You want to aim going for the 8k gold veins and park the redoubt next to it. Due to its large size, youre vills line up nicely between the redoubt and the gold, causing them to have 0 walk time.
Another trick is when you go for castle age, you want to build the castle age builsing with 10 vills. Any more is wasted.
And ontop of that, these 10 vills go on gold after next to the redoubt. Especially usefull when youre TC is also next to gold. You only get the 50% gold increase from gold delivered to the redoubt.
I recommend to watch just a few top player mongol games.
Especially after the last patch, Mongol opening is unlike any other cic opening.
Such as you want to start all your vills on wood. Preferrably a straggler tree next to the TC deployment.
And 1 vil to build ovoo and on to food later.
Then after the straggler tree is empty that shud be 150 wood.
That you use to build stables/barracks. I prefer stables as i want to avoid tower rushing as its such a boring standard tactic that 99% of player base go for due to lack of creativity and willingness to tactically challange themselves.
Then switch then have 2 on gold and 1 on wood rest on food and unlock wheelbarrow asap.
Yes u stay in dark age longer but this is where early pressiure come in and youll later zoom through feudal into castle
I also like to explore around the starting position trying to see if there in any nearby deer so ican put my TC close to deer and wood/gold or just send the GER to deer and open with deers instead if possible.
That gives you some insane early food income but you have to be quick to determine if its close enough or to far. You dont want to spend half the dark age just trying to position your TC.
ok i was prioritizing food in early dark age so i’ll adjust my strategy.
i’m not a tower rush type of player and i don’t panic under those kinds of situations (i’m used to these kinds of “cheese” strats in RTS) so i’m ok if my opponent does it - in fact my opponent did it in the game i posted about but i was able to deal with it when appropriate and he didn’t get much out of the tactic tbh.
i like the redoubt a lot as the gold bonus seems much stronger than the other building that heals troops.
Do you pair gers with towers to garrison for raids? I feel like I get pretty spread out as Mongols.
Having econ spread out i find adventageous as mongols. Makes it a harder for the enemie to effectivly raid you and your econ dosnt go in to complete stop either.
I build outposts next to where i place a ger preferrably inside nearby stealth forest if there is one.
This is what i meant by focusing on deer, fish and occational berry patches around the map and build towers to protect your vills. Youll also be passivly gaining map controls through those towers afterwards.
You dont always need to build 2 towers. Build accordingly to your econ.
Also the fact you get yam network from it that helps boosting econ and movement speed.
If you only have 1 tower but 8-10 vills on that food patch garrisoning them and use the remaining vills to kite around the tower instead.
Make sure u have textiles upgrade. Varies abit when i upgrade it. But i try to get it as early as possible depending how aggresive the opponent is / how safe the food patch is located.
I like watching aussie drongo gamecasts so i dont really have any fav.
Just those who go unusual tactics and tries to break the current meta.
I really enjoy those who go for silver tree or any trade for that matter.
I prefer going traders myself whenever i can depending on map.
Especially in teamgames. This also makes kurultai much more viable.
And the kurutai is immensly fun to use at it makes your springalds and trebs pretty insane.
Due to 25% more damage and the passive healing.
And it also effects teammates so a friendly Strelskie blob or Nest of bees with ZN protection becomes absolutely insane. Especially if you throw attack speed arrow ontop of it, or armor arrow when a knight blob tries to push through.
It becomes almost hilariously OP in chokepoints, and is their ultimate counter towards castle creeping.
8 trebs with kurultai buff should pretty much 1 hit KO any keeps. With imp geomtry you can have even as little as 6 trebs.
I prefwr trebs over bombards as i use then reactivly and just build them on the spot whenever i need em.
Just played a Rus who killed every single wild animal on the map for the buffs, was pleasantly surprised to notice that animals don’t seem to decay food when they are carcasses unlike AOE2 lol. Won that game though thanks to your advice was KOTH map and did not let him take the high ground and kept map control/visibility with gers and small mangudai patrol.
had 4 springalds late game to keep seige supremacy and it worked out like a charm with focus fire.
I use armor arrow a lot in big engagements.
For landmarks i usually go Deer Stones>Steppe Redoubt>Khaganate Palace
I like the khaganate palace and i really wish they could make it better or similar to wynguard allowing you to choose. but tbh, its not worth it. The steppe redoubt is just overall much better. Allows you to double produce siege and units quite easily if you have steppe redoubt + ovoo on big stone.
So you’re getting “free units” through that, but free units of choise.
yeah, i’ve tried using the khaganate palace alot, but its simply just not really efficient, nor flexible enough.
You get a group of random units every 90 seconds. speed dosnt increase under ovoo influence.
While its good at building up a mass during peace time, once that mass is lost, it dosn’t provide enough during prolonged combat and attrition.
the 240 stone gives you an alternative to also go for double production of infantry, especially spearmen which at situation where you get hard pressed from cavalry blobs, becomes essential to get you out of a pickle.
4 barracks double producing spearmen is 8 spearment every 11s, that is quite a lot of units, much quicker than what the khaganate palace can provide you.
Not to mention you will easily obtain the stone for Imp-upgrades that is otehrwise quite expensive.
Imp shutterlock, greased wheels and siege works are essential to give you siege superiority.
and imp bloodlines / imp military acedemy makes your units much more stronger in the late game.
