The Most Broken Thing in Medieval 2 Total War 

Yes, in campaign map Mongolian armies have highly experienced cavalry archers, foot archers. But, if you spam these archers with sharpened stakes in defensive battles on choke points and have a bigger missile advantage, winning Mongols is not that impossible.

Foot archers, regardless of their position, are always at an advantage against mounted archers in M2TW. They absolutely mince horsearchers due to the horses' larger hitbox, which means that cavalry is a poor choice when under threat of ranged fire in any circumstance.

​@@curtiswong7280 Fair point, but you might want to minimize the amount of casualties as the Mongols/Timurids often come in multiple waves and you might need to fight a series of battles with the same armies. And don't forget that they also have excellent foot archers of their own. Jannisary recruitment pools take a long time to replenish, so it might be unsustainable in the long run. Of course, if you have the armies available to take them out right away then this is less of an issue.

The real thing you have to keep in mind is artillery.

Sometimes AI charges them with all speed. I wonder if AI will avoid them in next mtw3.

It's the way using least amont of archers to cover all sides with stakes fully in an open field. If you defeat Mongols in open field, you can win them everywhere else haha.

Castles' two level defences, gates are really effective. Add this how naffatun can decimate even the most armed enemy troops, break their morale makes it work. It's a nice tactic.

Naffatuns are also cheesy. They can decimate any melee enemy by throwing medieval grenades from behind of a cheap line of infantry.

And Ottoman archery was ahead of western one those times due to better built composite bows. They had better range and releasing speed compared to others.

Historically Janissary Archers should have had Mongol tier close combat skills too. They were the most elite soldiers of one of the strongest nations in medieval times.

@@GOGPlays one of my best online matches had my Janissary archers beating back low tier french troops on the walls. Badass men I'd say.

Well every army is defeatable. Mamluks defeated Mongols in Battle of Ain Jalut I remember.

Lithuanian archers, Welsh longbow mercenaries have it too.

Even Polish archers can stack.

@@satyakisil9711 Yes Lithuanian archers belong to Poland in vanilla game.

@@GOGPlays indeed.

in your butt@@satyakisil9711

Yep, they had swift horse archers with superb composite bows like Huns. But, in this game janissary archers defeat those horse archers already. Infantry archers generally have better range, missile attack and more numbers per unit.

Exactly, but if the enemy is on defence, it won't work. You will wait till the end of the time lol.

Nope, they stay there. Elephants can break them though.

Ottomans had lighter armour compared to Europeans at that age. Historically, Janissaries wore a red unform with little to no armour. It was red to camouflage blood and wounds from enemy.

@@GOGPlays 难以置信，没有盔甲的士兵如何与同时期的欧洲穿着盔甲的士兵作战的。

You can easily avoid them if you are fighting against AI.

@@GOGPlays That was my own spike BTW lol It was a massive battle and I was pursuing routed infantry with my generals. I forgot I planted those spikes there and I was too busy with dealing with the enemy reinforcements to notice what happened I only found out when I started looking for my cavalry and I was genuinely confused why they basically ceased to exist. They were pursuing routed archers running away from battle. How the hell did they die? I found their corpses and I was in literal shock. Dumbest shit to ever happen to me in the game lol.

Haha I see, this sounds funny. Tbh, I didn't use them so much in battles since I try to rush with cavalry generally.

Yep, I saw that, it must be a glitch. That cavalry died after passing though stakes.

AoE is a pure RTS I remember. This mechaniccs need more momentary battle field. In AoE series you are always busy with villagers, buildings etc. too.

Mongol cavalry would crush musketeers in seconds without stakes.

Jesus Christ, why is it so hard for people to understand what a demonstration of tactic is? It's just a showcase of an idea, ofc you combine it with other troops and tactics in practice. It's like saying running/weight training is pointless because you can't beat a ufc fighter with it.

Well, in a campaign battle I still would spam these Janissary archers and add some cheaper military infantry like halberdiers. I would still set up those sharpened stakes. Those janissary archers would still have much higher missile attack power than Mongol cavalry archers, infantry and eventually artillery. If you can protect archers/crossbowmen from direct cavalry charges, they make enemy suffer till they engage melee combat. This tactic wins against even the hardest AI in campaign.