I've fought the Mongols a few time in M:TW1 as eastern civilizations, and I typically own the region they pop out at with 20,000 troops.  My strategy for dealing with them involves an army similar to HappyKitty's, but with a much cheaper strategem: Kill their Khan.

I don't know if its the same in M:TW2, but in the first game, if a faction's lord dies and there is no heir, the forces of that country turn into rebels. When the Golden Horde appears they're without a heir, meaning that if you can kill the Khan with a few turns you can render them virtually inert.

What I typically did is use an army that is at least half spearmen, with the rest divided between archers and medium to heavy cavalry. Find yourself a nice wooded hill and force the Mongols to charge up to you. If and when the Khan attacks (and given the game's AI, this was typically early), charge forward with any uninvolved wings of the spearmen forces while at the same time cutting off his retreat with your cavalry.

If all goes well you kill the Khan and rout the first 1000 troops of the 20,000 Horde, buying you enough time to withdraw and save your army. You'll be left with a region dominated by thousands of rebel armies who will occasionally launch raids of their own initiative, but the immediate danger is pass. If you're unable to whittle down the Mongol remnants you do run the risk of the faction re-emerging and regaining control (as well as just popping up randomly with some armies, but that goes for all factions), but generally they serve as a nice buffer force. In one instance, I even had the remnants go over to my faction after a few years for no discernible reason.

For normal battles I would follow HappyKitty's strategy, which is much more detailed that my "hit them with more infantry than they have arrows" strategy.

Much as I love this series I kinda wanna see the Mongols murder everyone.  I got hella love in me for those saucy old Mongols.

Well I've managed to borrow MTW2, no Kingdoms though. I was also over excited and started a game right away without patching it. I'm playing as the HRE on normal and I'm now at war with basicly every one of my neighbours except Venice. I'm excomunnicated for the 2nd time now. No one will make peace with me, despite the fact that I'm handily defeating the combined armies of europe. I don't want to wipe out any of the factions, I just want to go crusading, but any attempt at peace is met with a "ha, there shall be no peace untill you are wiped out!"

How did I get into this mess? It went like this:

Pope calls the first crusade, I start to form an army to help out.

Milan attacks me, despite having a small army and only 2 cities. I'm allied with Hungary and Venice, although they don't help out.

I'm forced to divert my would be crusader army to fight Milan. I take Genoa, Milan refuses peace. I take Milan and they are wiped out, but by now I have missed the crusade and the Pope hates me.

France, who is allied to the Papal state attacks me. Jerks. I take Bern and Metz from them and besiege Paris. Denmark then attacks me and takes my northenmost castle.

I fail to stop fighting with France when the Pope asks me to, France was refusing peace so I hadn't stopped my siege. I get excomunicated.

I recover my northen castle from Denmark and take Hamburg from them. Paris falls to me. Both Denmark and France laugh at my peace offers.

I destroy every large French and Danish armies visible to me, still they won't take peace. By now I have the largest army and the best Finaces and am the most advanced. I'm hopping between 1st and 2nd on population and production.

My king and the pope die on the same turn, so I'm un-excommed. Still France and Denmark refuse peace.

Sicily send an army up to hang out in northern Italy, they demand 170 gold or they'll attack. Not wanting another war I agree. They attack me anyway. I wipe out their army, march down to naples and take it from them. They demand another 200g or....they'll attack? We're already at war!  I send an army to Sicily and destroy another 2 armies there. No spare diplomats to offer peace, but I bet they'd refuse too.

The new pope tells me to stop fighting France. I stop, but France attacks me and I fail the misison (???) resulting in a new excomunication.

I notice my ally Hungary is massing an army near my city of Vienna, it has large stone walls so I'm not too worried about it, but I rush in some extra troops. Sure enough, next turn they attack me. I kill them all and take their capital shortly afterwards, big surprise, they refuse peace too.

Poland now attacks me  too, their missile cav are a pain, but they don't seem to have much of an army. I'm mopping them up and expect to take Krakow shortly.

Is this massive dogpile of suicidal AIs just a result of a buggy early build or does it still happen in the later versions? I've always hated strategy games where the AI's entire strategy is "All gang up on the player and never make peace", so I hope this isn't the norm.

Based on what you described, you ruined your rating with the Pope early, and as a result you are now in a downward spiral. Because the Pope hates you so much, Pope Friendly factions (who need to expand) naturally choose you as their target. Factions that want to get in good with the Pope also attack you, because it improves their rating. And of course, whenever you have the "nerve" to punish these Pope-friendly forces, that isn't going to make you more loved, it is going to make them all hate you (and fear you) more.

In general, you cannot consider the Pope's blessing to be a "nice to have". You simply must be one of the most loved factions. All of the factions want to expand- just like you. In general they will choose whoever is not loved by the pope.  That means, when someone attacks you and the pope calls for a crusade, you Crusade and try to hold things together at home. If someone attacks you and the pope says knock it off, knock it off. I know it sucks, and it seems unfair, but you need to consider that the Pope wants a strong West to counter the Muslim threat. He will not tolerate infighting. Nor does he want a single power dominating Europe.

Reputation is important in this game- not only the reputation with the pope, but your reputation in general. Sometimes it is enough to crush the enemy force, and give them a good settlement for peace- not extracting additional tribute from them. If you wipe out a faction, especially a christian one, you will take a big hit to your reputation (regardless of how justified you feel). The problem you are running up against is that you are considered evil. The pope (arbiter of morality) hates you, and every neighbor you have also hates you because you keep beating them up (never mind who started the fight). As a result, you now find yourself in a position where people think you are Satan incarnate, and feel that negotiating with you is making a deal with the devil.

I disagree with Mongo who said that it is because you are #1. I've played several games as england, castille, france and denmark where I am far and away the largest empire in the mid game. Usually by this time, I have taken most of the Rebel settlements around me and own vast swaths of Asia Minor, Jerusalem and North Africa. And through all of this, I usually have 3 or 4 allies. (Indeed, the biggest hit to my reputation is that I must regularly cancel alliances because two allies are warring.)

But notice what I say above: Nowhere among my holdings are vast tracts of Europe. This is because it is more important for Catholics/Pope to like you than it is to get their settlements. With a good reputation, you will still get attacked by Catholics from time to time...Especially when your territory is in the way of their holdings (preventing their armies to move through- Constantinople is almost a curse). The only time I attack a European is in the rare case that they are Excommunicated. At that point, I immediately contact the pope, declare a crusade on their nearest big city and attack.

Fixing the situation you are in right now may be difficult or even impossible. But you can start by repairing things with the Pope.

1) If you are still excommunicated: In MTW you could take Rome and install your own pope. I think you can do that in MTWII, but never tried. Start there.

2) If you are not still excommunicated: Sit back. Send your diplomats around and have them trade map information. After 10 or 11 years, you will have some skilled up. (Remember that when they fail at a diplomatic effort, they may lose skills, so it is worthwhile to offer generous terms.) But remember that if they hate you enough, they won't accept much of any deal.

3) Do not take Catholic settlements. No more! You can take Muslim settlements, and in rare cases, Orthodox ones. But do not take Catholic settlements. If you are attacked, defeat his forces, but do not move into his territories. Sit back and let the war go on. Break blockades that he attempts, kill any units on your land, but do not violate enemy territory. That will just piss off the pope more.

4) Build Churches and lots of priests. As you convert populations in your area, kill heretics and build religious structures, you will gain rep with the Pope.

5) Leave a small (10 good units) army and general in reserve for a Crusade. Remember that you only need 6 units to "Form the Crusade". The instant the pope declares a crusade, create your army. That means get the army out of a fortress, open the General's stat-sheet and click the "Crusade" button in the lower left corner. At that point, you will be able to hire Crusade Units...They differ based on where you are, but if you start in Europe, that generally means Crusader Knights and Crusader Sergeants (spearmen) as well as some other units. These units remain extremely cheap so long as you are on the crusade. (Usually you recognize them as Crusaders because their picture has a cross on it somewhere)

6) Head straight for the Crusade city...do not stop, do not fight until you get there. Hire mercenary boats to cross water if needed. It is imperative that you are the first to lay siege so that you conquer the city. Over time, this will cause muslims to attack you (earning rep with the Pope) and you will get several good priests as you convert the Muslims to Catholicism (again, earning rep with the pope).

If you cannot get to the city first, that's ok. Hang out in the target province and just kill every muslim army you find. Shortly after the city falls, you should still be rewarded for helping- getting experience for your army. Then you can go to the nearest muslim city and capture it, starting the conversion-muslim-fighting Rep-engine for yourself.

Alt + right click makes archers attack.

Feudal Knights have a wicked charge, if I remember correctly. Did they hit you head on? or on the Flank?

Basically, any unit- even spears- that get hit by calvary will take massive damage. At the end of that, they will start dealing some damage to the enemy. But if the charge penetrates into their ranks, it may take them a few seconds to regain composure- and they may even route immediately, and lose guys. If they attack in a wedge formation, they can penetrate through the ranks, and then the unit is being attacked from both sides.

The problem with Feudal Knights compared to General's BG (at least with "huge armies" setting) is that they have a lot more units...Usually on the order of 80, compared to the typical 40 - 60 of GBG. So you may be used to your general doing moderate damage, but when the 2x - 3x Feudal knights hit, it does so much better damage.

As for the damage you do, charging is pretty hard in this game. If you are used to the original MTW, you could move your calvary up and immediately bend them in a direction and smash into the enemy. In MTWII, charges are more difficult. You have to get your cavalry lined up, start them trotting towards the enemy and then hit the attack, giving them enough room to get up to speed and lower their lances (and if you screw that up once or twice, they'll no longer have lances when they charge).

I've actually found that charging downhill (something I regularly do, given that the troops are often positioned on a hill) can screw up the horse's charge. I don't know if this is a bug, or a reflection of reality, but if the downhill slope is steep enough, you'll see your horses slowing up as they head down the hill, and they won't hit the enemy with full speed.

Finally, the AI knows how to make your charges less effective, so watch what he does. If the enemy army starts moving perpendicular to your charge at the right time, the act of adjusting to hit them may cause your charge to break. Also, in a standard line or square formation, if you don't hit the enemy unit square (i.e. you hit a corner first), the entire cavalry unit will then slow down as soon as you make your first impact...so your charge may only result in a single Knight hitting the poor corner bastard, and the rest of your knights just kinda trotting into the line of spears.

By the way- I said it earlier, but the schiltrom is almost overpowered in this game. It is almost impossible to hit them square, and the enemy cavalry almost never penetrates the front ranks.

Yeah I'd be up for that.

I'd be up for a Rome LP.

Thanks. Allright, I'll start a Rome thread to discuss factions and whatnot.

Could we try to keep this thread clear of general chat about the game. Chat about the game coming from something that's happened in the Let's Play! is fine, discussion, analysis, suggestions, whatever. But if you want to discuss the game or your campaigns in general use the game's original thread or even the Empire thread since there's little more about that as yet.

I'm going to delete everything non LP-relevant gradually (nothing from the last two pages, just early stuff) so as it goes on it has more of a flow to it, free of clutter.