# The Mongols Invade Westeros



## Island (Jul 25, 2014)

Game of Thrones is one series that I have yet to get into, but it's fairly popular around here.

The Mongol Empire under Kublai Khan (just after his conquest of Song China) invades Westeros circa the start of _A Song of Ice and Fire_.

The Mongols win if they can conquer (most) of Westeros in twenty years and lose if their invasion gets repelled. Everyone is IC. Knowledge is restricted to reputation.


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## Poxbox (Jul 28, 2014)

No Takers? I find the scenario interesting but feel unqualified to give an adequate answer.

Anyway here goes: The Mongols should be very successful in battle for the same reason they were successful in reality: High mobility advantage both in battle and in travel speed.
The heavily armored knights aren't bothered much by the Mongols small bows but their horses are. And unhorsed knights are relatively easy prey for the Mongol lancers.
The greater part of the Westerosi armies who are not as well armored will suffer heavy losses from the arrow rain in the beginning of the fight.

They will have issues storming the more massive castles in Westeros and staying stationary for a prolonged siege could prove fatal for the Mongols.

The Westerosi leaders will need quite some time to adapt to the Mongol tactics. But Westeros is not small and more remote regions like Dorne and the North should have enough time to prepare. The harsh conditions of both the North and Dorne would also make life hard for invading troops.

So my personal verdict for now is that they would be able to capture and hold a substantial part of the seven kingdoms but never the North or Dorne.
If they somewhat honor the Westerosi traditions they will reign for years until the Tagaryens are ready to claim their lands and Varys destroys the Khan and his legacy.

/e: Also there is no chance they are taking the Iron Islands with their own troops.


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## Gone (Jul 28, 2014)

Twenty years? Bloodraven solos.


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## Island (Jul 28, 2014)

Ah, good, some replies.



Poxbox said:


> They will have issues storming the more massive castles in Westeros and staying stationary for a prolonged siege could prove fatal for the Mongols.


This isn't as much of a problem as you might think. The Mongols took Baghdad and Hangzhou, the two most populated cities in the world, both having about a million people. They were also pushing for Constantinople, the third most populated, but the Byzantine Emperor realized it would end catastrophically for him and decided to pay tribute to the Mongols instead of fighting them directly. Admittedly, this is when Constantinople was at its weakest, just after the Fourth Crusade, but nevertheless, the Mongols took out the two largest cities in the world and were eyeing up the third largest (and most fortified) before their collapse.

If there are a lot of huge cities like there were in Central Europe, this might pose a problem, but no medieval city is too massive for the Mongols to conquer unless they dwarf real life ones.

I'm shooting kinda blind here. There isn't demographic information on Westeros, is there?



Ryjacork said:


> Twenty years? Bloodraven solos.


Who dis?


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## Poxbox (Jul 28, 2014)

I am aware that the mongols aren't inept at taking (fortified) cities but then again real life is not as insane as the Eyrie or has a location as fortunate as Riverrun or enchanted walls like Storm's End not to mention provisions that could last years.


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## Island (Jul 28, 2014)

Poxbox said:


> I am aware that the mongols aren't inept at taking (fortified) cities but then again real life is not as insane as the Eyrie or has a location as fortunate as Riverrun or enchanted walls like Storm's End not to mention provisions that could last years.


I have not read _A Song of Ice and Fire_ so you'd need to explain how these magical fortifications work and/or how common they are or why it'd be necessary for the Mongols to besiege these places and not just destroy everything else in the meantime.

I looked up Eyrie and Riverrun, and they don't look like anything the Mongols can't break down especially since the Mongols aren't going to blindly rush either of them. Especially the latter, manipulating river flow isn't something the Mongols are new to. They broke the dikes of the Tigris River during the Siege of Baghdad to surround and capture the Abbasid Army. In fact, they decimated Iraq doing exactly that. Mesopotamia never recovered from the damage the Mongols did to the canal system between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.

Also, look at , , and and , just to name a few. The latter is especially interesting because the Mongols used _trenches_ in response to Chinese gunpowder weapons, which they would go onto adapt shortly after this.

It's also worth mentioning that the reason the Black Plague was even an issue was because the Mongols were intentionally hurling infected corpses over city walls during the .

Their unconventional warfare is what gave them the edge, after all. Their affinity for total war tactics and psychological warfare works here too. This is IC, remember.


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## SSMG (Jul 28, 2014)

It took aegon the conquerer 100 years to bring dorne under his boot.. abd he had magical dragons that could solo armies.. i really dont see how the mongels will be abke to conquer the dornish lands.


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## Poxbox (Jul 28, 2014)

The Eyrie is an insane mountain fortress that can only be reached via a narrow (2m wide tops iirc) goat trail. Under normal circumstances this way takes half a day. All while exposed to attacks from above. There are three wayscastles that would have to be taken. And then there is the final ascent of 600 feet via handholds carved into the rock. But on the bright side the castle can easily be blocked off from outside help and all the lands are accessible without ever making the effort of trying to take the Eyrie.

According to asoiaf's lore in the place of Storm's End the first Storm King built 6 castles, each larger and stronger than the one before, and they were all destroyed by storms (he declared war on the gods for ruining a wedding).
Finally he built Storm's End (likely with the Help of the Children of the Forest) which stands for centuries with very little wear from the weather. The only actual feat of the spells is keeping Melisandres shadow magic out (or more precisely force her to pass beneath the walls before performing her shadow magic to harm someone inside).

A Clash of Kings describes the physical makeup of the walls as such
"Storm's End is surrounded by a massive outer curtain wall, one hundred feet high and forty feet thick on its thinnest side and nearly eighty feet thick on its seaward side. It is composed of a double course of stones with an inner core of sand and rubble. The wall is smooth and curving, the stones so well placed and so perfectly together that the wind can find no purchase. On the seaward side, there is a 150-foot drop below the wall into the sea."

There are no dikes and only one "canal" at Riverrun. The canal is opened during times of siege to make the castle into an island. Not exactly something that is easily destroyed or rerouted.

But since medicine is not all that great in Westeros, throwing diseased bodies over the walls would probably work to defeat any castle except the Eyrie.
As I said before the Eyrie does not matter much. and using the tactics they have already shown they could take out any castle in the friendlier parts of Westeros.

I still don't see Dorne or the North falling due to the cold and the Neck in the North and the deserts and Mountain passes of Dorne.

/e: The magical fortifications are unique to Storm's End. The only other magic wall I know of is The Wall in the North.


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## Gone (Jul 28, 2014)

There's no point in even mentioning magic in the walls of Storm's End because so far we have only rumors, and even if those are featless.


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## Island (Jul 28, 2014)

Poxbox said:


> The Eyrie is an insane mountain fortress that can only be reached via a narrow (2m wide tops iirc) goat trail. Under normal circumstances this way takes half a day. All while exposed to attacks from above. There are three wayscastles that would have to be taken. And then there is the final ascent of 600 feet via handholds carved into the rock. But on the bright side the castle can easily be blocked off from outside help and all the lands are accessible without ever making the effort of trying to take the Eyrie.
> 
> [...]
> 
> There are no dikes and only one "canal" at Riverrun. The canal is opened during times of siege to make the castle into an island. Not exactly something that is easily destroyed or rerouted.


That opens up an obvious alternative that you mentioned. Just don't besiege these places. Blockade them and starve them out. This is what both Napoleon and Franz Joseph did to Venice and what I'm sure many other leaders have done when faced with otherwise impenetrable fortresses.

Riverrun sounds like a floodgate to me, which were fairly common in China, at least common enough for the Mongols to recognize what it is through reconnaissance. It would then be a matter of letting Riverrun open this gate and then throwing things over the river until the city capitulates.

On an unrelated note, it seems like Riverrun would eventually fall to soembody doing exactly Alexander did at the .



Poxbox said:


> I still don't see Dorne or the North falling due to the cold and the Neck in the North and the deserts and Mountain passes of Dorne.
> 
> /e: The magical fortifications are unique to Storm's End. The only other magic wall I know of is The Wall in the North.


So then everything else is just normal fortifications, albeit some insanely well-placed fortifications?


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## Poxbox (Jul 28, 2014)

Island said:


> That opens up an obvious alternative that you mentioned. Just don't besiege these places. Blockade them and starve them out. This is what both Napoleon and Franz Joseph did to Venice and what I'm sure many other leaders have done when faced with otherwise impenetrable fortresses.
> 
> Riverrun sounds like a floodgate to me, which were fairly common in China, at least common enough for the Mongols to recognize what it is through reconnaissance. It would then be a matter of letting Riverrun open this gate and then throwing things over the river until the city capitulates.
> 
> ...


Since the (relevant parts) of the river and the entire canal are within range of the guards on the wall, working on a causeway might be a tad unpleasant.
I can agree with everything else but that gets back to my original point: Staying stationary in a prolonged siege or blockade would be very dangerous for the mongols. Especially at Riverrun where their forces would be split into three parts by the river fork.
This is where numbers become pretty important. I don't know the sizes of either the Westerosi armies or the invading Mongols.


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## Poxbox (Jul 28, 2014)

Ryjacork said:


> There's no point in even mentioning magic in the walls of Storm's End because so far we have only rumors, and even if those are featless.


We have a clear feat in Melisandres inability to magically penetrate the Walls. It lends at least some credibility to the castles origin story.
It is under constant abrasion by the local weather (it lies by shipbreaker bay in the stormlands) and it has also been besieged multiple times in recent history alone but still stands undamaged.
I am not suggesting that the walls are magically siege weapon-proof but I would also not dismiss it as entirely irrelevant either.


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## Gone (Jul 28, 2014)

Poxbox said:


> We have a clear feat in Melisandres inability to magically penetrate the Walls. It lends at least some credibility to the castles origin story.



So the Monguls cant send shadow demons through the walls. That feat (if you can call it that) is completely irrelevant in this context.


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## LoveLessNHK (Jul 28, 2014)

A Clash of Kings - Chapter 42



			
				Melisandre said:
			
		

> "There was no need," she said. "He was unprotected. But here . . . this Storm's End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place."




I don't know why I thought posting this helped, I swear I thought I read that somebody asked for when Melisandre said that the walls of Storm's End were protected from her magic.

In any case, he is saying that her words give credence to the origin of the walls of Storms End, which means they can survive storms that were strong enough to tear down normal castles.


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## Gone (Jul 28, 2014)

LoveLessNHK said:


> A Clash of Kings - Chapter 42
> 
> "There was no need," she said. "He was unprotected. But here . . . this Storm's End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass?ancient, forgotten, yet still in place."



I know, the use of the word penetrate threw me at first. My point still stands though, that only proves its possibly warded against certain types of magical attacks, which are kind of irrelevant here.


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## Tranquil Fury (Jul 29, 2014)

Why would the Mongols do better than the Dothraki?When one side has Tywin, Ned Stark, Tyrion, Tarly, Stannis and others with a unified Westeros no less I can see the Mongols doing well initially due to better mobility but once the Westerosi realise they are no better different than the Dothraki, they'd adjust eventually. Certainly better than the Dothraki at siege though.

They'll capture their share of places certainly but things like The Red Keep, places in the North, Dorne(the Targayens could'nt do it, Mongols can't either), Iron Islands, Lannisport and Eerie. Harrenhal would fall though arguably, too big and not properly manned.


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## Island (Jul 29, 2014)

Poxbox said:


> I can agree with everything else but that gets back to my original point: Staying stationary in a prolonged siege or blockade would be very dangerous for the mongols. Especially at Riverrun where their forces would be split into three parts by the river fork.


I don't think somebody like Kublai is going to put themselves in this situation, though. We're talking about one of the greatest military minds that ever existed.

The Mongols can and have done the inverse as well, diverting rivers away from cities for the purposes of depriving it of natural fortification, and, of course, depriving them of drinking water.



Poxbox said:


> This is where numbers become pretty important. I don't know the sizes of either the Westerosi armies or the invading Mongols.


The Mongols boast around ~150,00 man armies in single battles in every theater. You had Kublai marching through China with a couple hundred thousand men and Hulagu besieging Baghdad with another 150,000 men. Later, Kublai's invasion of Japan amounted to another 150,000 men. On top of this, you have the armies of the Golden Horde in Europe which were usually numbering in the tens of thousands, probably in total around a hundred thousand people.

At its height, the Mongol Empire was home to around 100 million people, about a quarter of the human population.

The usual figure for medieval armies around one percent of a nation's total population, which would be about a million people. The Mongols actually claimed that they could raise something even greater. For instance, the Ilkhanate claimed to have raised 1 in 10 able-bodied young men for the Siege of Baghdad.

The problem with these figures is that, for one, the Mongol conquests lasted for about a century, and two, the Mongol Empire after Genghis Khan's death was divided amongst his sons. Although it still functioned as a single unit, it didn't keep a centralized record of its army size, population, etc.

Roughly, each khanate should be putting out around 150,000 or so soldiers every decade, so figure something in the neighborhood of 600-750 thousand plus whatever the Mongols conscript into their own forces. With the 1% rule, you're looking at a million man army.



Tranquil Fury said:


> Why would the Mongols do better than the Dothraki? *When one side has Tywin, Ned Stark, Tyrion, Tarly, Stannis and others* with a unified Westeros no less I can see the Mongols doing well initially due to better mobility but once the Westerosi realise they are no better different than the Dothraki, they'd adjust eventually. Certainly better than the Dothraki at siege though.


And the other has Kublai Khan. Do these people have feats that make them comparable to the Great Khans because there's a pretty big difference between being a good tactician (even a great one) and being just about any of the Great Khans. Genghis isn't considered the greatest military mind in history for nothing, and Kublai was no slouch.

I'm aware that there is a faction in the series loosely based on the Mongols, but from what I've read, their military tactics don't compare to those of the Mongols in any capacity:



			
				Mongol Mobility said:
			
		

> Each Mongol soldier typically maintained 3 or 4 horses.[5] Changing horses often allowed them to travel at high speed for days without stopping or wearing out the animals. Their ability to live off the land, and in extreme situations off their animals (mare's milk especially), made their armies far less dependent on the traditional logistical apparatus of agrarian armies. In some cases, as during the invasion of Hungary in early 1241, *they covered up to 100 miles (160 km) per day*, which was unheard of by other armies of the time.
> 
> The mobility of individual soldiers made it possible to send them on successful scouting missions, gathering intelligence about routes and searching for terrain suited to the preferred combat tactics of the Mongols.
> 
> ...





			
				Mongols and Psychological Warfare said:
			
		

> The Mongols used psychological warfare successfully in many of their battles, especially in terms of spreading terror and fear to towns and cities. They often offered an opportunity for the enemy to surrender and pay tribute, instead of having their city ransacked and destroyed. They knew that sedentary populations were not free to flee danger as were nomad populations, and that the destruction of their cities was the worst loss a sedentary population could experience. When cities accepted the offer, they were spared, but were required to support the conquering Mongol army with manpower, supplies, and other services.
> 
> If the offer was refused, however, the Mongols would invade and destroy the city or town, but allow a few civilians to flee and spread terror by reporting their loss. These reports were an essential tool to incite fear in others. However, both sides often had a similar if differently motivated interest in overstating the enormity of the reported events: the Mongols' reputation would increase and the townspeople could use their reports of terror to raise an army. For that reason, specific data (e.g. casualty figures) given in contemporary sources needs to be evaluated carefully.
> 
> ...



In fact, you might as well read the whole page on . It's not exactly the most in-depth article and certainly not the most academic, but it gets the job done to describe how the Mongols did business.

Any European-minded individual is going to get brutalized by the Mongols, and almost every encounter with European-style armies ended exactly the way you think it did. The Mongols decimated European armies. I'm particularly interested if the series has anything similar to what the Mongols used, e.g. the use of flanking, feigned retreats, psychological warfare, never mind biological warfare.

Mongol military tactics were unlike anything seen during the Middle Ages, which brings up the question of how that compares to the armies of Westeros.


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## Hyperion1O1 (Jul 29, 2014)

^Mongols sound like Wildlings (I've only seen the GoT series so I'm speaking in terms of that) but far more organized


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## Extravlad (Jul 29, 2014)

Unless it take place 20 years before AGOT, the Mongols have no chance of winning because  either the others or Dany are gonna stomp them once they cross the narrow sea/climb the wall.


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## Red Angel (Jul 29, 2014)

Jaime Lannister solos


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## NightmareCinema (Jul 29, 2014)

Skarbrand said:


> Jaime Lannister solos



Jaime Lannister vs. Talos

No bolter for Talos, although he does get Aurum.

Fair match?


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## Island (Jul 29, 2014)

Extravlad said:


> Unless it take place 20 years before AGOT, the Mongols have no chance of winning because  either the others or Dany are gonna stomp them once they cross the narrow sea/climb the wall.


What happens then?


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## Tranquil Fury (Jul 29, 2014)

Island said:


> I'm particularly interested if the series has anything similar to what the Mongols used, e.g. *the use of flanking, feigned retreats, psychological warfare, never mind biological warfare*.
> 
> Mongol military tactics were unlike anything seen during the Middle Ages, which brings up the question of how that compares to the armies of Westeros.



Yes, plenty as deception and manipulation is a theme in the series. Tywin Lannister and Walder Frey's Red Wedding is them showing a willingness to violate even sacred laws in an era of superstition when Guest Right was something that must be respected else suffering the wrath of gods.

Robb Stark has used a tactical feint to draw Tywin Lannister away so he could kidnap Tywin's son, Robb is 15 by the time the series starts and while Tywin underestimated him, he learnt his stuff from his father Ned Stark.

Stannis Baratheon did flank Mance Rayder's group of wildlings, giants, mammoths and such. 

Since you've given 20 years then by A Storm of Sword era Stannis Baratheon via giving some of his life force to Red Priestess Melisandre(there are other Red Priests and Priestesses from a place called Asshai) to create an intangible shadow baby could be useful depending on the location.

Then there are the Faceless Men who have magical powers to steal identities and appearances. As said Faceless Men are patient, they will wait if they must to do it. Could take 10 years for some dude to think he's sleeping with a hot woman only to be revealed it was a faceless man who changed form multiple times over the years no doubt. They cost a lot of money but if all the lords pool their cash and resources together if they deem the Mongols that much a threat then yes, Kublai goes down within 20 years if he does'nt win.




> And the other has Kublai Khan. Do these people have feats that make them comparable to the Great Khans because there's a pretty big difference between being a good tactician (even a great one) and being just about any of the Great Khans. Genghis isn't considered the greatest military mind in history for nothing, and Kublai was no slouch.



The fact that most of them are amoral monsters who'd burn their own armies gladly or make faustian deals with supernatural forces says they'll go much farer than any Khan to win.

But thank you for the other text on Mongol warfare and I'll read up on the article you posted. The Mongols would indeed be a massive threat(Genghis alone dealt with larger numbers yet won) but Westeros is magical and as the books go on, magic keeps returning and growing stronger and people are not above taking advantage of that.


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## Tranquil Fury (Jul 29, 2014)

Island said:


> What happens then?



They get burnt by dragons or face an army of undead lead by ice elementals(that cannot be killed by conventional weaponary of Westeros atleast) who'll turn every dead force(including giants, mammoths, bears etc) into an undead and leave the world in frozen winter if not stopped.


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## Tranquil Fury (Jul 29, 2014)

The Mongols could win I suppose outside the really hard to breach places like The Eerie. But they have to do this before magic returns within a year or two and then starts picking up steam due to more magical stuff being introduced.

A Song of Ice And Fire is based on the era of Europe you're going with but then it's also different in other ways namely magical. Faceless Men are magical asassins that can be hired albeit very expensive, Balon Greyjoy was murdered by one on a rainy bridge to a point it looked like it was an accident.


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## Island (Jul 29, 2014)

Tranquil Fury said:


> Yes, plenty as deception and manipulation is a theme in the series. Tywin Lannister and Walder Frey's Red Wedding is them showing a willingness to violate even sacred laws in an era of superstition when Guest Right was something that must be respected else suffering the wrath of gods.
> 
> Robb Stark has used a tactical feint to draw Tywin Lannister away so he could kidnap Tywin's son, Robb is 15 by the time the series starts and while Tywin underestimated him, he learnt his stuff from his father Ned Stark.


These seem a lot more like good old fashion European diplomacy than psychological warfare. The scale here is entirely different. Where you're talking about manipulating individual people, the Mongols exterminated half of China, Persia, and Russia to scare the Old World into submitting.



Tranquil Fury said:


> Stannis Baratheon did flank Mance Rayder's group of wildlings, giants, mammoths and such.


With armies? Again, I think we're talking about a totally different scale here. It's one thing to get a band of hunters and flank an animal. It's something else entirely to coordinate an army of tens of thousands of people with the mobility and versatility of that the Mongols did. If Westeros does warfare anything like Europe, it gets crushed on the battlefield.



Tranquil Fury said:


> Since you've given 20 years then by A Storm of Sword era Stannis Baratheon via giving some of his life force to Red Priestess Melisandre(there are other Red Priests and Priestesses from a place called Asshai) to create an intangible shadow baby could be useful depending on the location.


This would require learning Mongolian, I'd imagine. There's a bit of a difference between infiltrating the guy down the street and infiltrating a society you know almost nothing about.



Tranquil Fury said:


> Then there are the Faceless Men who have magical powers to steal identities and appearances. As said Faceless Men are patient, they will wait if they must to do it. Could take 10 years for some dude to think he's sleeping with a hot woman only to be revealed it was a faceless man who changed form multiple times over the years no doubt. They cost a lot of money but *if all the lords pool their cash and resources* together if they deem the Mongols that much a threat then yes, Kublai goes down within 20 years if he does'nt win.


Isn't the whole point of these books that they all hate each other or something? It's unlikely that they'd all just unify against the Mongol threat, especially if any one lord thinks that they could benefit from the Mongol invasions, the same way that the Byzantines aligned with the Mongols so that the Arabs and Mongols could slaughter each other.

Would these people realistically group up to overcome the threat, putting aside whatever differences they have?



Tranquil Fury said:


> The fact that most of them are amoral monsters who'd burn their own armies gladly or make faustian deals with supernatural forces says they'll go much farer than any Khan to win.


China's population halved when Kublai was done with it. Pre-Mongol estimates put its population at 100+ million. There were about 50 million when the Mongols established the Yuan Dynasty

Baghdad was one of the largest cities in the world before the Mongols arrived, being one of three or four that boasted a population of over a million people. When the Mongols were finished about a week later, the city no longer existed. Western sources put casualties anywhere between 200 thousand to 800 thousand and Arab sources say that up to 2 million died. In _one week_.

To bring that point home, the damage that the Mongols did to Mesopotamia and Persia was so extensive that neither recovered for about six to seven hundred years after the fact. As in, Persia's population only recovered in the last few decades.

To take that one step further, consider this. If the Arab source concerning the Siege of Baghdad is correct and the Mongols were responsible for the death of 2 million people as a result of the Siege of Baghdad, they killed _half a percent_ of the human population in one week.

Similarly, the Mongols got into the habit of throwing infected corpses over city walls to break their enemies. Pretty brutal by itself, yeah? Well, the Golden Horde did this in Caffa circa 1346. Two years later, the Black Death swept across Europe and killed between 30% and 60% of its population.

There were several things the Mongols respected. Human life was not one of those things.



Tranquil Fury said:


> They get burnt by dragons or face an army of undead lead by ice elementals(that cannot be killed by conventional weaponary of Westeros atleast) who'll turn every dead force(including giants, mammoths, bears etc) into an undead and leave the world in frozen winter if not stopped.


Sounds pyrrhic.



Tranquil Fury said:


> The Mongols could win I suppose outside the really hard to breach places like The Eerie. But they have to do this before magic returns within a year or two and then starts picking up steam due to more magical stuff being introduced.
> 
> A Song of Ice And Fire is based on the era of Europe you're going with but then it's also different in other ways namely magical. Faceless Men are magical asassins that can be hired albeit very expensive, Balon Greyjoy was murdered by one on a rainy bridge to a point it looked like it was an accident.


That works out especially well then because without magic, it sounds like Westeros doesn't have a lot going for it other than some heavily fortified castles and a decent population. Also, is there anything in particular stopping the Mongols from hiring these Faceless Men? Rules in the OP are that everyone is IC and that knowledge is based on reputation.

The Khan of Khans should have enough money to buy himself some magic assassins, and the Khans were definitely superstitious enough to buy into magic. In fact, Genghis Khan is thought to have died because he ingested mercury,consuming a so-called elixir of life. A number of famous people have died doing this exact same thing, but I guess that's for another topic altogether.


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## Tranquil Fury (Jul 29, 2014)

Yes with armies and yes people manipulate armies and war for personal gain in this series. Yes Stannis flanked an army of giants, mammoths, wildings/savages and others and that's one example of flanking. Flanking armies is done in the story, you keep thinking A Song of Ice and Fire is actually like historical Europe and it's only loosely so and more than just Europe.

The magic of Westeros is still a threat, saying they are nothing without it means nothing to those who know and use magic or will take services of magical beings. It is still on the table and the books have only had 2-3 years timeskip at best so the 20 year quota does not favor the Mongols. An intangible shadow baby which is not a well known to modern Westeros killing Kublai under Stannis Baratheon/Melisandre is a possible thing as much as a faceless man.



> Sounds pyrrhic.



It does but then the Mongol side does not have the favor of Danny who will save some people to her side(Targaryen loyalists or anyone not Baratheon/Stark/Lannister) and rule. The Others is pyrrhic however.

EDIT This depends on her fate in the last book however considering it ends on a cliffhanger till the next book is out.



> Also, is there anything in particular stopping the Mongols from hiring these Faceless Men? Rules in the OP are that everyone is IC and that knowledge is based on reputation.



The fact they don't know about them?The knowledge is based on reputation but you've put them into a new setting and I assumed it would be based on reputation that would be given over time in universe as this progresses, hence why I did not take into account Westeros knowing the black plague tactic. Or do the Mongols magically know about everything in Westeros and Westeros know magically everything about the Mongols due to this reputation setting?. If the Black death tactic is known, they will counter that and burn bodies for example.

Nothing you've mentioned is new to Westeros outside the Black plague tactic. People like Tywin Lannister, Lord Walder, Euron Greyjoy and many others would happily do everything you mentioned even the Black plague tactic once they discover the Mongols doing it. Westeros has individual and large scale manipulation. Psychological warfare is also a thing in universe.

EDIT If both get faceless men then it comes down to who gets offed by the magical asassin first.


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## Island (Jul 29, 2014)

Tranquil Fury said:


> Yes with armies and yes people manipulate armies and war for personal gain in this series. Yes Stannis flanked an army of giants, mammoths, wildings/savages and others and that's one example of flanking. Flanking armies is done in the story [...]


Well, yes. Flanking has always been done. All it really involves is attacking somebody from the side, but I don't think you understand how much the Mongols abused their mobility advantage. Their strategies were largely centered on repeatedly flanking the enemy over and over with cavalry archers until their army collapsed then charging the fleeing soldiers with their lancers. You can read about this in the link I posted, and hopefully you'll see the difference here. This isn't a matter of using flanking as a tactic. It's a matter of using it to break your opponent at any and all opportunities.


Tranquil Fury said:


> [...] you keep thinking A Song of Ice and Fire is actually like historical Europe and it's only loosely so and more than just Europe.


We assume normality. It's logical to assume that a medieval army with the same equipment and mindset as Europe is going to fight the same way that Europeans did unless shown others. It's your job to provide specific feats.

It's anachronistic to assume that medieval people are going to know the same things that we know, which, again, brings us back to assuming normality. If we have a medieval people, we're going to assume that they're roughly equivalent real world medieval people until shown otherwise.

Also, I don't believe you know what "more than just Europe" entails. Beyond Europe, China is using gunpowder weapons, including flamethrowers, land mines, and naval mines which the Mongols would adopt. I know I don't know a lot about this series, but I certainly haven't heard about Westeros using anything like that.

On that topic, I'm interested to know how Westeros fairs against Mongol gunpowder weapons. The fact that the Mongols have dedicated artillery units, i.e. with cannons, presents a bit of a problem.



Tranquil Fury said:


> The fact they don't know about them?The knowledge is based on reputation but you've put them into a new setting and I assumed it would be based on reputation that would be given over time in universe as this progresses [...]


No, this isn't what reputation means. Reputation means that you start with knowledge that your average person would know about a particular person or group. Meaning, any common knowledge is automatically assumed to be known. The Mongols are going to have basic knowledge on Westeros, basically anything that somebody might learn about through word of mouth and reputation. Likewise, Westeros is going to have an idea of what the Mongols are all about, pretty much anything Europe knew about the Mongols, amounting to who the Khan was, what he wanted, and some general stuff like the Mongols being nomadic steppe warriors who were known for their brutality.



Tranquil Fury said:


> [...] hence why I did not take into account Westeros knowing the black plague tactic.


That's not reputation because your average person isn't going to know that they do that. In fact, the Mongols didn't really know that they did that. They just figured that it made sense to throw diseased bodies at people and hope that those people catch the same disease. Again, reputation is based on general knowledge and what your average (fairly educated) individual is going to know about something.

Also, it wasn't a plague tactic specifically. It just happened that they had diseased corpses and that those corpses happened to have the plague. Granted the plague came from the steppes, it was a fairly large string of coincidences that led to the plague devastating Europe, and the Mongols are only to blame because they thought it would be cool to throw plague-infested corpses over city walls and hope that the people inside somehow caught the plague.



Tranquil Fury said:


> If the Black death tactic is known, they will counter that and burn bodies for example.


This statement is wrong for a number of reasons. Firstly, see above for what it wan't a tactic that utilized the plague specifically or a tactic at all. Secondly, reputation wouldn't encompass having a cure for diseases carried or spread except in some very limited circumstances. Third, burning the bodies doesn't actually stop the plague. It just gets rid of the bodies. The plague is spread through fleas and rodents, and _rarely_ between people. Burning the bodies would do nothing except maybe kill any fleas and stop some rodents from getting infected from contact with the corpses.

You'd literally need to be rubbing yourself all over a plague victim to contract the plague from them.



Tranquil Fury said:


> People like Tywin Lannister, Lord Walder, Euron Greyjoy and many others would happily do everything you mentioned


Burden of proof is on you. There's a huge jump between "ruthless general and/or heartless jackass" and "exterminating entire peoples".



Tranquil Fury said:


> [...] even the Black plague tactic once they discover the Mongols doing it.


That doesn't work for the very reason the Mongols never actually caught the  plague. The plague is spread through fleas and rodents. You need to be living in a cesspool for the plague to actually become a problem. This is a non-issue for the Mongols who were almost constantly on the move.



Tranquil Fury said:


> Westeros has individual and large scale manipulation. Psychological warfare is also a thing in universe.


Burden of proof is on you to provide examples, which is incidentally one of the reasons I made this thread. Responding with "Yes, they have this too!" doesn't tell me anything except that you probably don't know much about the Mongols. Specific examples, please. Again, the difference between "Wow, this guy is a manipulative cunt!" and "These guys just killed a fraction of a percent of _everybody in the world_!" is pretty big. You're not going to justify that big of a gap by giving examples of how people betrayed each other or burned their own soldiers.

Nobody has shared anything with me to say that outside of magic, these armies operate any differently than European armies at the time, and, again, normality and all that.


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## Gone (Jul 29, 2014)

To be fair, I don't think the Others or Daenerys and her dragons make a difference at this point.

If the Mongols attack right at the start of AGOT, then there's a decent chance that Robert never would have sent an assassin after her child, in which case Drogo wouldn't have declared to invaded Westeros when he did, might not have died... you see where I'm going with this.

Even if the dragons do hatch, Daenerys isn't in Westeros. The fans assume that she's heading there eventually, but until we actually see it happen I don't think we can assume that she's going to haul ass over there with the purpose of crisping the Mongols.

Similar argument for the Others. The fans assume eventually they're going to make it through the Wall, but as of yet it hasn't happened, and as far as we know they are warded against being able to cross into Westeros proper.

We can only make arguments for events that have happened up to the events of ADWD. Anything after that is speculation.



Island said:


> Burden of proof is on you. There's a huge jump between "ruthless general and/or heartless jackass" and "exterminating entire peoples".



A personality trait built over multiple books isn't something you can express in a single quote or feat. Any one of those people, and others besides, would be more than happy to sacrifice entire peoples for their goals. Tywin set the Riverlands on fire just to protect his family's reputation after Catelyn Stark captures Tyrion. Lady Stoneheart murders anybody she can find, including children, that just happen to be born Freys or Lannisters. Cersei spoke casually about half the kingdom starving to death during the winter as though it were nothing. Areys V was willing to burn King's Landing to the ground before letting his enemies take the city, and Joffrey is worse than he was.



> That's not reputation because your average person isn't going to know that they do that. In fact, the Mongols didn't really know that they did that. They just figured that it made sense to throw diseased bodies at people and hope that those people catch the same disease. Again, reputation is based on general knowledge and what your average (fairly educated) individual is going to know about something.



During the siege of Meereen, diseased bodies infected with the Pale Mare were being catapulted into the city, and Barristan Selmy seemed to know exactly what the reason for this was. If nothing else it won't appear an entirely new tactic.


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## Poxbox (Jul 29, 2014)

Neither the Wildlings nor the Dothraki are anything like the Mongols. The Dothraki are only superficially similar in that they are a nomadic people that relies heavily on lightly armored cavalry. But they do not adapt and they do not move anywhere near as fast outside of combat.
I don't even know where the comparison to the Wildlings came from. They are slow moving, undisciplined, very poorly equipped and almost entirely on foot.

Reducing the Faceless Men to "magic assassins" does not do them justice especially because of the way they set their prices. The price they demand is always a steep one for the one who asks. As an example: The first man to ever hire a Faceless Man was a slave who wanted his owner killed. He had to give his own life (in servitude) in return. This makes it likely that both sides would find the price they ask too steep.

Both the army with dragons and the Others taking back Westeros is currently fanfic. Right now the dragons are split up and Daenerys is only starting to learn to control one of them. The Others are on the wrong side of the gigantic and magically protected wall that is not showing signs of falling anytime soon even though the Others are approaching it.


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## Gone (Jul 29, 2014)

Poxbox said:


> Neither the Wildlings nor the Dothraki are anything like the Mongols. The Dothraki are only superficially similar in that they are a nomadic people that relies heavily on lightly armored cavalry. But they do not adapt and they do not move anywhere near as fast outside of combat.



To be fair, GRRM actually based the Dothraki in part on the Mongols.


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## Island (Jul 29, 2014)

Ryjacork said:


> To be fair, I don't think the Others or Daenerys and her dragons make a difference at this point.
> 
> If the Mongols attack right at the start of AGOT, then there's a decent chance that Robert never would have sent an assassin after her child, in which case Drogo wouldn't have declared to invaded Westeros when he did, might not have died... you see where I'm going with this.
> 
> ...


I think we can assume anything unsubstantiated or unproven and/or featless can be left out.



Ryjacork said:


> A personality trait built over multiple books isn't something you can express in a single quote or feat. Any one of those people, and others besides, would be more than happy to sacrifice entire peoples for their goals. Tywin set the Riverlands on fire just to protect his family's reputation after Catelyn Stark captures Tyrion. Lady Stoneheart murders anybody she can find, including children, that just happen to be born Freys or Lannisters. Cersei spoke casually about half the kingdom starving to death during the winter as though it were nothing. Areys V was willing to burn King's Landing to the ground before letting his enemies take the city, and Joffrey is worse than he was.


Yeah, none of that compares. This is some weird no-limits fallacy for personality right here. Just because you haven't seen the extent of somebody's cruelty (or whatever) doesn't mean there isn't is one. You need proof here.

Let's take the King's Landing example. The Game of Thrones Wiki puts it at 500 thousand. Okay, burn the city to the ground, etc, etc. That's still child's play compared to what the Mongols did to Baghdad which was at least double the size. The Mongols not only refused surrender of any kind, but when they marched into the city, they _specifically_ set out to murder every single person in the city. Based on historical sources, that's anywhere from a million people up to two million, and most people say that the Mongols resulted in the death of almost everyone in that city. Still doesn't sound like all that much? Baghdad was the center of Arab civilization and one of (if not the) largest city in the world. It _never_ recovered from the devastation the Mongols did to it. Mesopotamia never did either. The Mongols purposefully and intently destroyed it so utterly that the reason Iraq is the way it is _today_ can be accredited to the Mongols.

Now paint this mindset across the entirety of Eurasia over the course of about a century. All you're giving me is some specific examples whereas the Mongols did things almost exactly like this for the next hundred years of their empire's existence.

There's also a difference between letting your kingdom starve and purposefully depriving them of food. Fundamentally, there's also a difference between letting your kingdom starve and letting something as big as China starve. Again, you're looking at the demographic collapse of China from about 100 million people to around 50 million people. That's leaps and bounds greater than anything you've mentioned.

Scale is important. To my (again, admittedly limited) knowledge, there isn't anything that compares to what the Mongols were all about. You need some specific proof to compare to something like this because we're talking at least an order of magnitude difference in scale. So, again, burden of proof and all that. Nothing anyone has mentioned even comes close in comparison to the scale of destruction that the Mongol eagerly create.

Though, not even sure how this got started. Who is more brutal isn't exactly relevant, so I'd understand if you want to drop this part of discussion for the sake of not drifting _too_ far off-topic.



Ryjacork said:


> During the siege of Meereen, diseased bodies infected with the Pale Mare were being catapulted into the city, and Barristan Selmy seemed to know exactly what the reason for this was. If nothing else it won't appear an entirely new tactic.


That's actually really cool.


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## Gone (Jul 29, 2014)

Island said:


> I think we can assume anything unsubstantiated or unproven and/or featless can be left out.



The Others/Dragons are none of those. They're just unlikely to come into play in the situation you've described.



> Yeah, none of that compares. This is some weird no-limits fallacy for personality right here. Just because you haven't seen the extent of somebody's cruelty (or whatever) doesn't mean there isn't is one. You need proof here.
> 
> Let's take the King's Landing example. The Game of Thrones Wiki puts it at 500 thousand. Okay, burn the city to the ground, etc, etc. That's still child's play compared to what the Mongols did to Baghdad which was at least double the size. The Mongols not only refused surrender of any kind, but when they marched into the city, they specifically set out to murder every single person in the city. Based on historical sources, that's anywhere from a million people up to two million, and most people say that the Mongols resulted in the death of almost everyone in that city. Still doesn't sound like all that much? Baghdad was the center of Arab civilization and one of (if not the) largest city in the world. It never recovered from the devastation the Mongols did to it. Mesopotamia never did either. The Mongols purposefully and intently destroyed it so utterly that the reason Iraq is the way it is today can be accredited to the Mongols.



You've admitted that you haven't read ASOIAF, and yet you refuse to listen to what people who have read the series are telling you.

First of all, yes burning down a city of 500,000 people and slaughtering a city of 1 million people are more or less in the same league. Second, this numbers game you are trying to play has no bearing on what the actual debate in question hinges on, which is mindset. You keep asking for a feat that displays some leader slaughtering people on the same scale that the Mongols did, but that isn't there. That doesn't mean that there aren't characters that would do such a thing should the opportunity present itself.

You've been told multiple times that there are people in ASOIAF that are capable of this, but you keep asking for feats showing it's happened. The argument is if they would be capable, not if they have already done it.

We've never seen Carnage commit genocide, but anybody who has read Spiderman stories about him know he's capable of it. There's no one feat that shows any of these characters willing to do such a thing, it's just something you pick up reading the series and getting to know their personalities. There is pretty much a consensus on that here among people who have actually read ASOIAF. If you just don't want to listen then that's your problem.


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## Rivers (Jul 29, 2014)

Dont have time other than to skim through this thread atm, but can someone do a breakdown of  how many soldiers in the Mongol army is invading Westeros here? How many light, heavy, and cavalry archers there are? How many canons, men at arms etc.?


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## Rivers (Jul 29, 2014)

Island said:


> The Mongols boast around ~150,00 man armies in single battles in every theater. You had Kublai marching through China with a couple hundred thousand men and Hulagu besieging Baghdad with another 150,000 men. Later, Kublai's invasion of Japan amounted to another 150,000 men. On top of this, you have the armies of the Golden Horde in Europe which were usually numbering in the tens of thousands, probably in total around a hundred thousand people.



So where do the Mongols start invading exactly in Westeros? Do they just appear in front of Riverrun? Do they start on a particular shore?

There isn't really any open desertion between the Kingdoms of Westeros at the beginning of AGOT. A foreign threat such as the Mongols will put aside the legitimacy issues of Robert Baratheon's heirs, and quickly unify the Kingdoms similarly to the way the Greyjoy Rebellion did. 

It's really about where the Mongols arrive in Westeros, which Kingdom they will meet first, and the terrain where they will face the _*combined armies of Westeros*_. Especially  if the likes of Robert / Stannis Baratheon, Ned Stark and Tywin Lannister command the Westeros armies together.



Island said:


> With armies? Again, I think we're talking about a totally different scale here. It's one thing to get a band of hunters and flank an animal. It's something else entirely to coordinate an army of tens of thousands of people with the mobility and versatility of that the Mongols did. If Westeros does warfare anything like Europe, it gets crushed on the battlefield.



The Wildlings numbered up to 100 thousand. These included at least hundreds of 12-foot Giants and even bigger Mammoths, having groups of archers on them, or even the Giants themselves as riders. Stannis with only a mere fraction of those numbers did legitimately, effectively out-maneuver and break them, forcing them to scatter.

Not to mention, pre-AGOT he was the Naval Commander of the Royal Fleet and lured in the Greyjoy's Iron Fleet into a trap, smashing their blockade and allowed the rest of Westeros' armies to land and besiege the Ironborn's Islands. Stannis has shown numerous times to lead his men (that is an army and not just a band of hunters) to victory, through sound strategy and against a larger numbered force. 



> Isn't the whole point of these books that they all hate each other or something? It's unlikely that they'd all just unify against the Mongol threat, especially if any one lord thinks that they could benefit from the Mongol invasions, the same way that the Byzantines aligned with the Mongols so that the Arabs and Mongols could slaughter each other.
> 
> _*Would these people realistically group up to overcome the threat, putting aside whatever differences they have?*_



They already have done this pre-AGOT. Lords follow their Warden (actual Kings pre-Targaryen Conquest), they in turn follow the Iron Throne (Robert Baratheon at the beginning of AGOT).

Ned Stark (and the North), Tullys (and the Riverlands) will follow Robert's command, Tywin Lannister (and the West) will follow Robert, seeing as half the Royal Family is Lannister blood anyway. Stormlands will follow Stannis / Renly Baratheon who would follow their older brother and King. The Tyrells (and the Reach) leading the largest population of Westeros, won't rebel against a legitimate King, especially someone like Robert who would like nothing more than open war to assert his dominance again. 

The only really iffy Kingdoms are the Vale (the East / Eyrie because of Lysa Tully) and Dorne (the South) since their Kingdoms / Lands are usually secluded from the ravages of warring armies. Ironborn...meh Idk, probably won't participate initially but their main strength is there ships anyway...so stuff them if they want to stay on their Islands.

*EDIT: * Winter Is Coming. It'll be less than 5 years before Winter (lasting 4+ years) actually grips Westeros again, and armies will need shelter and provisions to sustain them.


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## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

Ryjacork said:


> You've admitted that you haven't read ASOIAF, and yet you refuse to listen to what people who have read the series are telling you.


I ask for feats. You give me none. I ask again. You give me feats that don't compare. It doesn't matter if I don't have knowledge on the series just as it doesn't matter if you and Tranquil don't know much about the Mongols, i.e. you obviously don't. You give me your feats. I give you mine. That's how threads where both parties don't know about both series work. The fact that your feats don't compare to the ones I"m presenting you with doesn't work.

The rest of your post is just conjecture. You haven't shown me any feats that make anyone nearly as brutal as the Mongols. Again, result in the death of tens of millions of people worldwide, and we'll have this discussion again.

Actually, I'll tell you what. I'm going to find you a quote describing Mongol brutality, and then you find me one to match it. You don't seem to know a whole lot about the Mongols, and I don't know much about _A Song of Ice and Fire_.



			
				Destruction under the Mongol Empire said:
			
		

> Ancient sources described Genghis Khan's conquests as wholesale destruction on an unprecedented scale in certain geographical regions, causing great demographic changes in Asia. *According to the works of the Iranian historian Rashid al-Din (12471318), the Mongols killed more than 700,000 people in Merv and more than a million in Nishapur. The total population of Persia may have dropped from 2,500,000 to 250,000 as a result of mass extermination and famine.* Population exchanges did also in some cases occur but depends as of when.
> 
> China reportedly suffered a drastic decline in population during the 13th and 14th centuries. Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest was completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people. The most likely is that in fact up to and around 30 million outstanding was posted outside in the army levies. The 92 Chinese cities destroyed by Mongols would not appear to account for this population fall, it might account for loss of 45 million people. While it is tempting to attribute this major decline solely to Mongol ferocity, scholars today have mixed sentiments regarding this subject. The South Chinese might likely account for some 40 million unregistered who, without passports, would not have appeared in the census. Entire peasant populations joining or enlisted for labour can result in a large population reduction due to food shortage problems. Scholars such as Frederick W. Mote argue that the wide drop in numbers reflects an administrative failure to record rather than a de facto decrease whilst others such as Timothy Brook argue that the Mongols created a system of enserfment among a huge portion of the Chinese populace causing many to disappear from the census altogether. Other historians like William McNeill and David Morgan argue that the Bubonic Plague was the main factor behind the demographic decline during this period.
> 
> ...


You're ignoring the hilarious difference in scale here, literally an order of magnitude larger and covering it by saying "You haven't read." The burden of proof is on you, not me, so, have at it. Give me something that provides proof that the characters in the book would (or have) done anything even remotely comparable to this.



Rivers said:


> So where do the Mongols start invading exactly in Westeros? Do they just appear in front of Riverrun? Do they start on a particular shore?


Most versus threads like this don't really specify, but I think it's safe to assume that it would be a neutral shore where they can freely set up an invasion.



Rivers said:


> [Snip]


Yeah, like I said, I never really specified a landing point, but I'd be interested to hear how landing in different kingdoms would change the course of the invasion.



Rivers said:


> The Wildlings numbered up to 100 thousand. These included at least hundreds of 12-foot Giants and even bigger Mammoths, having groups of archers on them, or even the Giants themselves as riders. Stannis with only a mere fraction of those numbers did legitimately, effectively out-maneuver and break them, forcing them to scatter.


Somebody mentioned the Wildings before, and the comparison doesn't quite sit right with me. The Mongols aren't quite ordinarily horsemen. It's safe to assume that both are nomadic, barbarian-esque armies, but historically, we're looking at forces like those of the Goths and the Vandals and then those of the Huns and the Mongols. Entirely different styles of warfare, the same way you'd look at armies of the _ancien regime_ and those fielded by Napoleon and lump them together because they both use muskets.

Unless, of course, you're only bringing this up to discuss Giants and Mammoths, in which case, that's really cool. Would the Wildlings be willing to fight alongside the Mongols, or would that be unrealistic?



Rivers said:


> Not to mention, pre-AGOT he was the Naval Commander of the Royal Fleet and lured in the Greyjoy's Iron Fleet into a trap, smashing their blockade and allowed the rest of Westeros' armies to land and besiege the Ironborn's Islands. Stannis has shown numerous times to lead his men (that is an army and not just a band of hunters) to victory, through sound strategy and against a larger numbered force.


The Mongol Fleet did similar things to the Song. Their wars in China were hilariously lopsided, so much so that despite every reason why the Song should have won, they were winning battles on both land and sea, outnumbered as high as 10 to 1. It should be noted here that the Mongols (and China) utilized flamethrowers, cannons, and miscellaneous gunpowder weapons at this time, including land and naval mines.  



Rivers said:


> *EDIT: * Winter Is Coming. It'll be less than 5 years before Winter (lasting 4+ years) actually grips Westeros again, and armies will need shelter and provisions to sustain them.


That's actually a funny coincidence. If the Winter is similar to anything in the real world, this works out hilariously well for the Mongols. The stereotype that nobody should invade Russia in the winter has one notable exception throughout the entirety of its history: the Mongols.



> In 1236, Chinggis Khan's *[Genghis Khan's]* grandson Batu led a Mongol force of upwards of 120,000 cavalrymen into the Russian heartlands. From 1237 to 1238 and later in 1240, these "Tartars," as the Russian peoples called them, carried out the only successful winter invasions in Russian history. In fact, the Mongols preferred to fight in the winter. The frozen earth provided good footing for their horses and frozen rivers gave them access rather than blocking the way to their enemies. One after another, the Mongol armies defeated the often much larger forces of local nomadic groups and the Russian princes. Cities such as Rizan, Moscow, and Vladimir, which resisted the Mongol command to surrender, were razed to the ground; their inhabitants were slaughtered or led into slavery.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Salvation yielded to further disasters when the Mongols returned in force in the winter of 1240. In this second campaign, even the great walled city of Kiev, which had reached a population of over 100,000 by the end of the 12th century, fell. Enraged by Kievan resistance -its ruler had ordered the Mongol envoys thrown from the city walls -the Mongols reduced the greatest city in Russia to a smoldering ruin.



.

The Mongols preferred the winter over any other season for the reasons described above and also because attacking then would deny their enemies the opportunity to fight back for the same reasons that armies didn't fight in the winter, no food, no supplies, coldness, etc.

Unfortunately, we don't have reliable records for how big their invasion forces of these cities were, but that's because _none of the defenders survived_.



Rivers said:


> Don't have time other than to skim through this thread atm, but can someone do a breakdown of  how many soldiers in the Mongol army is invading Westeros here? How many light, heavy, and cavalry archers there are? How many cannons, men at arms etc.?





			
				Mongol War Tactics and Organization said:
			
		

> *Six of every ten Mongol troopers were light cavalry horse archers; the remaining four were more heavily armored and armed lancers.* Mongol light cavalry were extremely light troops compared to contemporary standards, allowing them to execute tactics and maneuvers that would have been impractical for a heavier enemy (such as European knights). Most of the remaining troops were heavier cavalry with lances for close combat after the archers had brought the enemy into disarray. Soldiers usually carried scimitars or battle axes as well.


The Mongol Empire circa 1275 looks something like . Each of the four khanates could probably raise around 150,000 to 200,000 men, give or take. This would put the combined Mongol invasion at around 650,000 to 800,000 men plus whoever the Mongols conscript from Westeros to fight for them, mostly peasants and anyone else who willingly surrenders.

We've never seen the Mongol Empire conscript to the level that most other wartime medieval kingdoms/empires did, however. Most medieval kingdoms/empires could conscript about 1% of their total population, so considering that, you'd be looking at upwards to a million men, assuming the Mongols dedicated everything to the cause.

The Mongol Empire is almost exclusively cavalry except in instances of sieges where they will bring more specialized armies. The Mongols didn't build traditional siege weapons and then trek them to their destination. They brought the engineers to the battlefield and then built whatever they needed, including cannons.

I don't have numbers for cannons though.


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## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

I hit the character limit, so I had to chop a few things out. Sorry about that.

Regarding the last thing, there aren't numbers for cannons, partly because the Mongols finally defeated the Song when their empire was approaching its height but also because they never needed to use them because only the Song had countermeasures to traditional warfare. On top of that, records simply didn't survive. We have confirmed the existence of Mongol hand cannons and miscellaneous gunpowder weapons but how often they were used is entirely unknown. Again, records simply didn't survive.


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## Rivers (Jul 30, 2014)

Island said:


> Most versus threads like this don't really specify, but I think it's safe to assume that it would be a neutral shore where they can freely set up an invasion.
> 
> Yeah, like I said, I never really specified a landing point, but I'd be interested to hear how landing in different kingdoms would change the course of the invasion.



It's pretty important here actually. A lot of the Kingdoms have important and legendary choke points and strangle holds. Used to hold off and push back numerous invading armies over the course Westeros' 10,000 years+ history. Some have never been known to be conquered at all. 



> If the Winter is similar to anything in the real world, this works out hilariously well for the Mongols. The stereotype that nobody should invade Russia in the winter has one notable exception throughout the entirety of its history: the Mongols.
> 
> The Mongols preferred the winter over any other season for the reasons described above and also because attacking then would deny their enemies the opportunity to fight back for the same reasons that armies didn't fight in the winter, no food, no supplies, coldness, etc.
> 
> Unfortunately, we don't have reliable records for how big their invasion forces of these cities were, but that's because _none of the defenders survived_.



Winters in Westeros don't last several months though, they last at least a few years non-stop. Castles that know the Winter have provisions behind their walls that can last upto 5 years. E.g. the Boltons in their Dreadfort which held out for almost 5 years before being starved to surrender by the Starks.



> The Mongol Empire circa 1275 looks something like . Each of the four khanates could probably raise around 150,000 to 200,000 men, give or take. This would put the combined Mongol invasion at around 650,000 to 800,000 men plus whoever the Mongols conscript from Westeros to fight for them, mostly peasants and anyone else who willingly surrenders.



That's the thing though, the Mongol's Empire were all connected by land and terrain of sorts. Westeros as a continent is surrounded by seas. Logistically, no way is 800,000 men is just going to land in Westeros at the same time. Even half or even quarter that is going to be very difficult, unless you have details of the Mongols navy transporting that many men at once?



> We've never seen the Mongol Empire conscript to the level that most other wartime medieval kingdoms/empires did, however. Most medieval kingdoms/empires could conscript about 1% of their total population, so considering that, you'd be looking at upwards to a million men, assuming the Mongols dedicated everything to the cause.



A million men need enormous provisions to sustain them. Mongols would certainly have had to battle and secure parts of Westeros before even 100,000 men set foot on Westeros. Since you know a lot about the Mongols, can you estimate how many men can the Mongol's navy initially transport to foreign shore? So its not so much the entire number of the Mongol's army - who would certainly need their full Empire's resources behind them, but how many Cavalry can their Navy carry to the initial landing and how effective would they be as the vanguard in holding land for the rest of their following army.

Baratheon, Lannister and Reach fleets confronting the Mongol navy is an interesting prospect as well. As they supply and transport more Mongol Cavalry onto Westeros shore. This way even Ironborn might be interested in joining the action. 

 

The Seven Kingdoms and even the Targaryens throughout history had to consider and navigate through the different choke points of Westeros, either winning or losing battles because of them. The Mongols would need to do the same. Maybe someone who's got the time can post up a map of Westeros and suggest a neutral landing zone for the Mongol Invasion. Where they start is important in how quickly a mobilized army clashes with them.


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## Gone (Jul 30, 2014)

Rivers said:


> The Wildlings numbered up to 100 thousand. These included at least hundreds of 12-foot Giants and even bigger Mammoths, having groups of archers on them, or even the Giants themselves as riders. Stannis with only a mere fraction of those numbers did legitimately, effectively out-maneuver and break them, forcing them to scatter.



Unless I'm mistaken only like 20-30,000 of the wildling host consisted of actual fighters.



Island said:


> I ask for feats. You give me none.



As I explained, it's not something that can be described in a single feat. It's something you learn getting to know the character over the course of the series.

There are leaders in Westeros that are sadists and sociopaths. The one currently holding Winterfell likes to hunt women through the woods with a pack of dogs, then rape them and skin them alive once he catches them. Tywin Lannister wiped out two entire family lines for defying him. Areys V was willing to blow up King's Landing with wildfire and kill half a million of his own people just to kill the besieging Lannister army.



> You give me feats that don't compare.



This is how I know that you're being deliberately stubborn. You keep listing arbitrary numbers as if we just don't get how vicious the Mongols were. Your first response to me was that the feat with King's Landing doesn't compare with what the Mongols did in Baghdad. 

Do you really think that Areys had no problem murdering 500,000 people, but if the population of the city was 1 million he would have stopped and said, "okay, this is too much now, I surrender." Would Hitler have stopped at killing 10 million Jews? The point is, you have people willing to murder large numbers of people to get what they want. You trying to act like the Mongols killing more puts them on a different level is pointless.

The fact that the Mongols, over their history, killed more people than anybody we have seen in ASOIAF (besides possibly the Others during the events of the Long Night) is immaterial. The argument is about willingness, which is a character trait you pick up by learning about the character, not in any one feat.



> The burden of proof is on you, not me, so, have at it.
> 
> So, again, burden of proof and all that.
> 
> ...



Stop saying that. As I keep telling you, it's not something you can display with a single feat. 

Let me ask you a question, do you think that we're lying to shift the victory to ASOIAF, or just that we're wrong about what these characters are willing to do?


----------



## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

Rivers said:


> It's pretty important here actually. A lot of the Kingdoms have important and legendary choke points and strangle holds. Used to hold off and push back numerous invading armies over the course Westeros' 10,000 years+ history. Some have never been known to be conquered at all.


It's logical to assume that Kublai would try to take advantage of these choke points. If reputation encompasses having (at least a rough) map of the continent, he would logically choose a landing point that he thinks he can exploit the most.



Rivers said:


> IWinters in Westeros don't last several months though, they last at least a few years non-stop. Castles that know the Winter have provisions behind their walls that can last upto 5 years. E.g. the Boltons in their Dreadfort which held out for almost 5 years before being starved to surrender by the Starks.


The Mongols preferred to fight in the winter. Unless the winter is something that puts Siberia to shame, this shouldn't be a problem.

The Mongols don't use supply lines and keep provisions the same way that traditional armies do. They're not agrarian people. They didnt rely on agriculture. Instead, they are nomadic people and carry anything and everything they need with them. When they need supplies, they either make them or take them. Probably the most notable example is that they built their siege machines en route rather than building it before.



			
				Mongol Military Tactics and Organization said:
			
		

> The Mongol armies traveled very light, and were able to live largely off the land. Their equipment included fish hooks and other tools meant to make each warrior independent of any fixed supply source. The most common travel food of the Mongols was dried and ground meat "Borts", which is still common in the Mongolian cuisine today. Borts is light and easy to transport, and can be cooked with water similarly to a modern "instant soup".
> 
> To ensure they would always have fresh horses, each trooper usually had 3 or 4 mounts. And since most of the Mongols' mounts were mares, they could live off their horses' milk or milk products when needed. In dire straits, the Mongol warrior could drink some of the blood from his string of remounts. They could survive a whole month only by drinking mare's milk combined with mare's blood.
> 
> Heavier equipment was brought up by well organized supply trains. Wagons and carts carried, amongst other things, large stockpiles of arrows. The main logistical factor limiting their advance was finding enough food and water for their animals. In all campaigns, the soldiers took their families along with them.


Again, unless we're talking about something more brutal than Russian winters, the Mongols won't have a problem.



Rivers said:


> That's the thing though, the Mongol's Empire were all connected by land and terrain of sorts. Westeros as a continent is surrounded by seas. Logistically, no way is 800,000 men is just going to land in Westeros at the same time. Even half or even quarter that is going to be very difficult, unless you have details of the Mongols navy transporting that many men at once?


The Yuan transported about 150,000 soldiers in its attempted invasion of Japan. Under the assumption that all four khanates are capable of doing this, that's your 650,000 to 800,000 soldiers.



Rivers said:


> A million men need enormous provisions to sustain them. Mongols would certainly have had to battle and secure parts of Westeros before even 100,000 men set foot on Westeros.


The provisions thing is explained above. Even with an army that large, the Mongols don't need supply chains.



Rivers said:


> Since you know a lot about the Mongols, can you estimate how many men can the Mongol's navy initially transport to foreign shore?


The Mongol invasion of Japan was 150,000 men from Korea to Japan.



Rivers said:


> Baratheon, Lannister and Reach fleets confronting the Mongol navy is an interesting prospect as well. As they supply and transport more Mongol Cavalry onto Westeros shore. This way even Ironborn might be interested in joining the action.


What are their navies like? The thing with the Mongols is that they took their shipbuilding skills from the Chinese, which were hilariously more advanced than anything else in the world. You might look at the Mongol Empire and think that the don't have much a navy, but in contrast, their navy was the best in the world.

We don't know a whole lot about it, at least we didn't until we _found_ a Mongol ship off the coast of Japan:



			
				Mongol Warships said:
			
		

> Broken into fragments and scattered by the storm that wrecked it, the ship has already yielded thousands of artifacts, many remarkably well preserved by centuries of burial in silt. As amazing as the artifacts is the ship itself. The hull, made of iron-fastened planks with a large keel that has just started to emerge from the sea floor, had watertight compartments. Although the Japanese archaeologists caution that they have not yet completed excavation of the site, the warship appears to have been about 230 feet in length, twice as big as contemporary European ones. The huge anchor, indicative of the vessel's size, is a massive wood-and-stone assembly weighing more than a ton. Its red oak stock, now broken, was 23 feet long. Analysis of the wood and the granite used in the anchor shows that they originated in China's Fujian Province, site of a major trading port and a marshaling point for the fleet that attacked Japan in 1281. As subjects of the Mongols, China's Sung *[Song]* Dynasty provided most of the fleet--4,400 ships according to Chinese records--and many of the troops for the invasion.



Chinese (and by, extension, Mongol) warships put European-style ships to shame. To my limited knowledge, the Ironborn use ships similar to Viking longboats, right?

These would get decimated by Chinese/Mongol warships which are not only larger and sturdier but also equipped with early cannons. The Mongols are also make use of fire, especially utilizing fire ships to ignite and down enemy ships. If they believe that somebody might use these tactics against them, both the Chinese and the Mongols have caked their ships in fire resistant mud to prevent fire from spreading.



Rivers said:


> The Seven Kingdoms and even the Targaryens throughout history had to consider and navigate through the different choke points of Westeros, either winning or losing battles because of them. The Mongols would need to do the same. Maybe someone who's got the time can post up a map of Westeros and suggest a neutral landing zone for the Mongol Invasion. Where they start is important in how quickly a mobilized army clashes with them.


I agree.



Ryjacork said:


> [...]
> 
> Let me ask you a question, do you think that we're lying to shift the victory to ASOIAF, or just that we're wrong about what these characters are willing to do?


The latter. These are different orders of magnitude. There's a difference to letting a city fall to invasion and its inhabitants die and _intently and purposefully_, going out of your way to murder a city's inhabitants.

It's a pointless argument, and I'm going to say it again. Burden of proof is yours and yours alone. Come up with something comparable, or you're just making conjecture.


----------



## Lord Stark (Jul 30, 2014)

800,000 Mongols

Well:
Crownlands:
15-20,000
The North: 40,000
Iron Islands: 20-25,000
Riverlands: 45,000
Vale: 45,000
Westerlands: 60-75,000
The Reach: 100,000-120,000
Dorne: 20-25,000
Total: 345-395,000

Westeros takes this.  Why?  Fortresses.  As Tywin says.  "A million men could assault Harrenhal and a million men would be beaten back."  If the Monguls try and take Storm's End, Winterfell, Casterly Rock, Harrenhal, or hell even the Dreadfort they will take _massive_ losses.  Also an invasion of Dorne and the North will cost them dearly.  Storming Moat Cailin alone would likely be nigh impossible with 20,000 defenders.


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## Gone (Jul 30, 2014)

Island said:


> The latter. These are different orders of magnitude. *There's a difference to letting a city fall to invasion and its inhabitants die* and _intently and purposefully_, going out of your way to murder a city's inhabitants.
> 
> It's a pointless argument, and I'm going to say it again. Burden of proof is yours and yours alone. Come up with something comparable, or you're just making conjecture.



That is not what Areys did. he hid caches of Wildfire beneath the city, and when the Lannister forces invaded, his plan was to blow it up and kill everybody, including 500,000 of his own people.

And way to ignore the rest of my post. I'll say again:

Do you really think that Areys had no problem murdering 500,000 people, but if the population of the city was 1 million he would have stopped and said, "okay, this is too much now, I surrender." Would Hitler have stopped at killing 10 million Jews? The point is, you have people willing to murder large numbers of people to get what they want. You trying to act like the Mongols killing more puts them on a different level is pointless.


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## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

Okay then I'll take it sentence by sentence since you insist that this is an issue that needs to be discussed:



Ryjacork said:


> Do you really think that Areys had no problem murdering 500,000 people, but if the population of the city was 1 million he would have stopped and said, "okay, this is too much now, I surrender."


Did he go out of his way to willingly and eagerly kill every single one of them? That was the point I was making. The Mongols didn't just let these people die. They could have captured the city and moved on. Instead, they spent the next week murdering each and every single person they encountered.



Ryjacork said:


> Would Hitler have stopped at killing 10 million Jews?


His intent was clearly to commit genocide, so this point is moot.



Ryjacork said:


> The point is, you have people willing to murder [...]


No,  you're not getting it. The Mongols go out of their way to murder people. As in, a city doesn't surrender. They attack. It surrenders. They kill everyone because they didn't submit. Multiply this by tens of millions.

The Mongols didn't do any of this out of necessity. They did this because they _wanted_ to. The difference here is "I'm willing to sacrifice my city so I can continue to be glorious!" and "These millions of people aren't obeying me. I'm going to kill them all."



Ryjacork said:


> [...] large numbers of people to get what they want. You trying to act like the Mongols killing more puts them on a different level is pointless.


"Willing to murder."

Again, the difference here is "willing to murder" and "readily murdered", and, again, multiplied by a couple degrees of magnitude.

You're comparing letting a city die and lighting armies on fire to a military force that literally killed so many people . You're also comparing letting some armies die to people who regularly committed mass murder.

I'll even give you a direct quote from the man himself:



> "There is something indescribably revolting in the cold savagery with which the Mongols carried out their massacres. The inhabitants of a doomed town were obliged to assemble in a plain outside the walls, and each Mongol trooper, armed with a battle-axe, was told to kill so many people, ten, twenty or fifty. As proof that orders had been properly obeyed, the killers were sometimes required to cut off an ear from each victim, collect the ears in sacks, and bring them to their officers to be counted. A few days after the massacre, troops were sent back into the ruined city to search for any poor wretches who might be hiding in holes or cellars; these were dragged out and slain". *The Mongols’ first leader, Genghis Khan, offered this reflection on the pleasures of life: “The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms.”*



Also, yes, murdering magnitudes more does make the difference. You kill a couple people. You're not comparing to somebody who murdered millions. You kill a hundred people. You're still not comparing. Keep going. We're talking different magnitudes here, and you've presented nothing that says that any of these people are anywhere near as brutal. Kill millions of people, and you compare with people who killed millions, yeah.

They didn't kill because they had to or even because they wanted to but because they _loved_ to.


----------



## Gone (Jul 30, 2014)

Island said:


> The Mongols go out of their way to murder people. As in, a city doesn't surrender. They attack. It surrenders. They kill everyone because they didn't submit. Multiply this by tens of millions.



Okay I kind of see how we're not coming to terms now. Setting aside, for the moment, the argument of whether or not the leaders of Westeros are this vicious for a moment. Explain to me how this kind of mindless savagery is an advantage for the Mongols? As Tywin puts it "When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you."

Going out of their way to murder everyone in the city who surrenders would just guarantee that every city they come across after that will fight to the last man before surrendering.


----------



## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

Ryjacork said:


> Okay I kind of see how we're not coming to terms now. Setting aside, for the moment, the argument of whether or not the leaders of Westeros are this vicious for a moment. Explain to me how this kind of mindless savagery is an advantage for the Mongols? As Tywin puts it "When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you."
> 
> Going out of their way to murder everyone in the city who surrenders would just guarantee that every city they come across after that will fight to the last man before surrendering.


You would think, but the exact opposite happened.

Many of their enemies _did_ just surrender. For example, Novgorod and Pskov did exactly that when the Mongols entered Russia. Likewise, the Byzantines and the Franks began paying tribute to the Mongols out of fear that they would invade. Even cities that were in the process of being attacked, e.g. Baghdad, still tried to surrender.

The Mongols got defecting generals and nobles in almost every invasion they led.

In fact, most places (except China) surrendered after their neighbors got sacked like what the Mongols did to Baghdad.

On top of that, we refer to the period of time that the Mongol Empire was at its height as , or the Mongol Peace. Under Pax Mongolica, the Silk Road reopened for the first time since the fall of Rome, and the Mongols established the first postal system between the East and the West.

What the Mongols did was hilariously effective at forcing defections and then maintaining their empire.


----------



## Rivers (Jul 30, 2014)

Lord Stark said:


> 800,000 Mongols
> 
> Well:
> Crownlands:
> ...



Quentyn Martell states to Daenerys that Dorne has 50,000 spears waiting for her cause. Not sure if he's exaggerating, but then Daenerys is an ally and not enemy so... 

Still, I would think it difficult for the Mongols to build siege weapons on the battlefield, with surrounding kingdoms amassing armies as they surround and besiege castles here and there, who would have provisions of a year or more.


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## Gone (Jul 30, 2014)

Lord Stark said:


> 800,000 Mongols
> 
> Well:
> Crownlands:
> ...



I'm a little curious where you got these numbers. Robb Stark managed to gather 20,000 men from the North, not 40,000. Renly estimated that with the North and the Riverlands, he had 40,000 men, but Cat tell us that he had much less than that. Additionally the Riverlands is a much smaller territory than the North. You also either forgot the Stormlands, or lumped them in with the Reach. And as Rivers mentioned, Dorne is stated to have 50,000 fighting men.


----------



## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

Rivers said:


> Still, I would think it difficult for the Mongols to build siege weapons on the battlefield, with surrounding kingdoms amassing armies as they surround and besiege castles here and there, who would have provisions of a year or more.


Not an issue. They did this to China, in which they besieged somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred cities while simultaneously fighting its armies, which, over the course of their entire campaign, faced around 3 million soldiers from all three dynasties.

Most likely, they'd destroy the armies first and then besiege the castles.


----------



## Gone (Jul 30, 2014)

Bloodraven still solos


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## LoveLessNHK (Jul 30, 2014)

I'm very interested in knowing the whats/hows/whys/whens of the Mongols' eventual defeat.


Would it really be best if all the Mongols got dropped at one spot, or would it be better for the 4 groups of 150k-200k to drop off at different points so they conquer faster? I understand this weakens them a bit, but it also makes some things easier. Let's face it, for nomadic people, once you run out of food and stuff, trying to feed that many people on the move is going to be impossible, especially after winter hits.


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 30, 2014)

Tranquil Fury said:


> Why would the Mongols do better than the Dothraki?d.



Well for starters they have brains but beyond that, they are better armored, better equiped, better trained, have way more experience and their numbers piss on anything seen in the novels so far? Oh and unlike the Dothraki they were capable of pulling off shit like this



> ]The succession of Mongke Khan was to prove the death of the Abbasids. In 1257 the hungry Khan sent his brother, Hulegu to Iran. He sent an ultimatum to the caliph: If he does not assist Hulegu with the destruction of the Nizaris(better known to many as the Hashasheen or Assassins, an Isma’ili sect centered around the fortress of Alamut in Iran), he will attack Baghdad and destroy it outright. It was obvious that this was the prelude to war, so the Caliph relented and when Hulegu moved against the Nizaris, he refused the demand of the Mongol commander.
> 
> This was to be the fatal decision of the Caliph. The caliph, one Musta’sim, was not a man of great political skill or power, nor was he a military genius like Jalal ad-din or Baibars. Instead of preparing his forces, he believed that they could easily strike down the forces of Hulegu at the walls of Baghdad. Here the record becomes muddled as to the aspirations and ideas of the Caliph; such an irrational behavior must have had some explanation, but it is lost to time.
> 
> ...



The level of destruction that was visited on the middle east speaks of an almost industrialized warfare that with the fall of the Mongols wouldn't really be seen until the American Civil War ..

This is a fair amount beyond what the Dothraki are able to do..


Island said:


> I have not read _A Song of Ice and Fire_ so you'd need to explain how these magical fortifications work and/or how common they are or why it'd be necessary for the Mongols to besiege these places and not just destroy everything else in the meantime.
> 
> I looked up Eyrie and Riverrun, and they don't look like anything the Mongols can't break down especially since the Mongols aren't going to blindly rush either of them.



Oh no, they can't do a damn thing to destroy the Erye, but they don't have too really. Kublai isn't so stupid as to challenge what essentially amounts to a fusion of the Sears tower and Fort Nox, or to rush the blood gate only to see droves of his men be slaughtered. 

Naw what he'll do is butcher everyone in the Vale, salt the earth, level entire cities, make mountains of corpses and divert rivers. Hell he'd probably even start catapulting disease ridden corpses into the fortifications.

He'd starve them out and reshape the face of the Vale Lords territory until they either starve to death or surrender out of horror.

This is another thing people forget, these guys weren't dumbass barbarians. Courtesy of Subutai and Genghis, the Mongols have a truly modern military in terms of how rapidly communication happens, how well they have logistics masters and how merit oriented it is. That A Mongol general isn't just some lord but a battle hardened highly trained commander with a cadre of experts in various fields of warfare (from logistics to siege based warfare) a "generals staff'" to aid him..in the field they can change their strategies and communicate in almost real time, something I don't recall Westerosi armies doing.

So the seven Kingdoms is facing an enemy that can trade bodies with them..is known for being incredibly adaptive (and has no qualms about adopting local technologies) is ruthless to the point of being unmatched even by the more twisted mad kings...is fully capable of adopting total warfare on a level Westeros hasn't seen since Aeagon the first  and is commanded by Generals who absolutely know what the fuck they're doing.

I'll take it a step further, once the brutality dies down and the Septons notice that not only is their religion tolerated but protected? The fact that conscripted smallfolk might actually be able to make something of themselves?

\This might go steadily worse for them..especially if the Mongols play up the "we're only destroying your cities because your greedy lords are stupid enough to act dishonorable towards us..side with us and we will welcome you as brothers" aspect of  psychological warfare and the magical fortresses just stop mattering.


SSMG said:


> It took aegon the conquerer 100 years to bring dorne under his boot.. abd he had magical dragons that could solo armies.. i really dont see how the mongels will be abke to conquer the dornish lands.



Aegon the Dragon had zero experience with desert warfare and wasn';t willing to eradicate the entire culture and population if they failed to resist.

The Mongols both have extensive experience in dealing with such cultures and well..the middle east is still fucked up because of the shit they pulled there when people got uppity. 



Poxbox said:


> A Clash of Kings describes the physical makeup of the walls as such
> "Storm's End is surrounded by a massive outer curtain wall, one hundred feet high and forty feet thick on its thinnest side and nearly eighty feet thick on its seaward side. It is composed of a double course of stones with an inner core of sand and rubble. The wall is smooth and curving, the stones so well placed and so perfectly together that the wind can find no purchase. On the seaward side, there is a 150-foot drop below the wall into the sea."
> .



The Mongol fleet and its armies locking Storms End up in a siege will probably be what happens.

Let's also not forget that these guys learned siege craft retardedly fast and became masters at it.

While they don't have the guns that broke Byzantium..they do have access to gunpowder and are veterans at siege craft 


Hyperion1O1 said:


> ^Mongols sound like Wildlings (I've only seen the GoT series so I'm speaking in terms of that) but far more organized



They sound like the Wildlings, if the Wildlings were a highly trained army using revolutionary tactics that were capable of doing so much damage to the north that a thousand years later its still feeling its affects..sure...

There's no comparing a bunch of refugees to one of the greatest military powers in our species history.


----------



## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 30, 2014)

Tranquil Fury said:


> Yes with armies and yes people manipulate armies and war for personal gain in this series. Yes Stannis flanked an army of giants, mammoths, wildings/savages and others and that's one example of flanking. Flanking armies is done in the story, you keep thinking A Song of Ice and Fire is actually like historical Europe and it's only loosely so and more than just Europe..



To be fair, Stannis flanked the giants and Mammoths..who proceeded to ignore that shit and punch a hole through his lines like some unstoppable juggernauts.



Stannis won because Stannis being probably one of the best field commanders in the entire world was smart enough to send well trained and experienced soldiers against an army of ass backwards crazy refugees who were looking to cross the wall to survive.

His defeat of overwhelming numbers is staggering and its impressive..and Stannis is a god damn badass the Mongols will respect but he wasn't exactly charging an army of Reach soldiers of comparable number there..well fed, well armed and well equipped.

It's one thing to jump a mob of women and children and furious desperate men..its another thing entirely to hit a hundred and fifty thousand well trained soldiers who have fought all over the world and have experience on a level no army in Westeros has seen since the dance.


also fuck'n character limit man

edit- also Tywin Lannister and his entire family are going to be erased from existence..the moment he pulls his usual overcompensating dickery. But I can see the Tyrells surviving and thriving..maybe even reaching out/.

Randyl Tarly and Stannis, Ned and Robert himself are all going to earn huge levels of props from the Horde, but they're all a little bit out of their league.


----------



## Island (Jul 30, 2014)

LoveLessNHK said:


> I'm very interested in knowing the whats/hows/whys/whens of the Mongols' eventual defeat.


In real life?

The first time the Mongols were defeated was at . The Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt raised an army of slave-soldiers _specifically_ to fight the Mongols. The Mamluks used light and heavy cavalry similar to Mongol horse archers and utilized the same tactics that they saw the Mongols use in Iraq and Iran. They also used the same technology against them, specifically the hand cannon which they copied and used to frighten Mongol horses.

None of this should have been a problem, however. The problem came when the Great Khan passed away, and a succession crisis broke out within the Empire. Thus, the majority of the Mongol leadership returned to Mongolia to settle the crisis before it erupted into a full-blown civil war. This left the Mongol army under the command of a Turkish Christian rather than an ethnic Mongol general. When the Mongols marched through the Levant, they expected to be joined by their Frankish allies but then were betrayed and to advance on their own.

Poetically, the Mamluks won at a place called Goliath Springs.

Replicating this to any capacity would be next to impossible, however, since it would require restructuring your army from the ground up, converting the entirety of it to horse archers and then adapting tactics and technology to those of the Mongols which was something that was difficult to do since they didn't leave any survivors. Plus, it would require replicating their tactics and being _better_ at them. Had events not gone exactly the way they did, the Mongols would have sacked Cairo and Alexandria and conquered Egypt.

As for the Mongol Empire itself, it dissolved after the death of Kublai Khan since power was delegated away from the Great Khan and to the khans and their khanates. The Yuan Empire was eventually overthrown by the Chinese and the Golden Horde was eventually repulsed by the Russians. The Ilkhanate and the Chagatai Khanate eventually fell under control of a man named Timur who proceeded to exterminate about _five percent of the human population_ during his military campaigns. Timur's own empire suffered the same fate as the Mongol Empire and got divided among his sons and grandsons after his death. The "core" of his empire went onto become the Mughal Empire which is responsible for the construction of the Taj Mahal and lasted until the 19th century when the British ripped it apart with their boomsticks.

So, long story short, the Mongol Empire was never destroyed in the traditional sense. It just got continuously divided up until it was destroyed by locals rebelling against Mongol rule.


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 30, 2014)

Island said:


> Poetically, the Mamluks won at a place called Goliath Springs.]



at great cost and as you noted, political strife.

I'd also point out the utter ass kicking the Kamakura shouguns took. That a Mongol scouting force completely shattered the forces of a local Damiyo and when he hurled reserves at them..again it resulted in an epic ass kicking. and again and again..with the smaller Mongol force turning it into a route with them chasing the army back to a city and only deciding not to press the advantage and sack the city because they overestimated the Japanese forces and thought a fresh army was there.

The fact that the Kamakura era shoguns *won* against a crippled fleet..and then the sheer effort and money they had to throw at the Mongols resulted in their government collapsing and being replaced by the Ashikaga Shoguns..is telling in just how well trained and equipped their army is.


Now what Westeros has going for them is that Polish Knights and various other western European armies were able to route and smash up Mongol invasion forces..largely because the bulk of their military was occupied with kicking the fucking hell out of all of Asia (and making parts of Eastern Europe their bitch).

So while Westerosi Knights do have historical precedent going for them being able to kick Mongol ass, they have the misfortune of dealing with the Mongol Empire in its entirety..which means their ability to kill smaller armies..isn't really going to amount to much.

Despite their issue with armored western Knights..the Mongols still did things like let one of their generals take "a vacation" which essentially amounted to him and one of his buddies dividing up a small army and having a friendly competition about who could kick more ass...and that's how a bunch of countries in Eastern Europe don't exist any more..



Oh and while I think Ned can survive Mongol occupation and preserve his people if he say, fights them in the south then come winter pulls off a fighting retreat into the North then hunkers down for an incredibly risky "let them fight me in the cold" strategy (Re this could blow up in his face real bad or he could get lucky and Roose loses control of Ramsay who  flays a Mongol and sends his balls to Kublai as a warning in which case Ned can probably do a little politicking and get on the Mongols good side with "this is a despicable outrage Khan of the horde,  they have been a traitorous bunch for eight thousand years please let us unite to end them!" ) Which I think will end with Kublai ordering his forces out of the North once he realizes Winter lasts years and then turning his focus on Dorne.


Another thing Island, is that several major powers in the seven kingdoms are known for being incredibly ruthless and self obsessed. Tywin Lannister the lord of Casterly Rock (whose mines produce nearly all the gold used in Westeros) destroyed a few renegade noble houses for disrespecting his image. One of those, he did by diverting a river to flood said nobles castle and drown him out. He started a war and allowed all manner of atrocities to be conducted when his son was taken. Tywin mind you, isn't stupid..and I can't see him staying loyal to Robert long..once it becomes clear that this..may not be an invasion they can repel. But if he Reynes a Mongol held town?

Then you have the Iron Born which are essentially Cthulu wroshipping Vikings which are known for raping and murdering, massacring slaving..they'd likely try and raid and burn down the Mongol fleet, and would be hitting them in their rear if Kublai focuses on the south. 

In both cases and the case of the Boltons who are a family of psychotic torturers you can bet all three of these lords will be doing things like pulling intrigue and assassinations, likely brutalizing captured Mongols and maiming diplomats.

They turned the middle east into a post apocalyptic wasteland the last time someone pulled a "Ramsay snow sends Balon Greyjoy his sons penis in an attempt to intimidate" trick when the victims in question were mere diplomats.

If they pull this with any members of Kublai's family? i can't even fathom the level of retaliation they'd pull in a response to that.

Island can add to this if he feels inclined to do so. But the general point is any intrigue that involves shenanigans like that - is opening a can of worms Westeros again hasn't seen since the days of Aegon or hell even the days of the age of heroes.


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## Rivers (Jul 31, 2014)

So where would be a good place for the Mongol Fleet to land? How much shore do they need to anchor their fleet? IIRC, the Golden Company sailed to Westeros uncontested but were somewhat scattered upon arrival because of terrain.



What are the sizes of the of Mongol landing/scouting parties? Seeing as they will be the first ones to meet the Westorosi populace. 

As mentioned before, there would probably sea conflicts occurring as well as land battles. How well would the Lannister, Baratheon and Redwyne Fleets do at blockading the what, 800,000 men loaded Mongol ships from setting anchor? How many standard Mongol ships does it take to transport 800,000 men and their horses?


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## LoveLessNHK (Jul 31, 2014)

So, would everybody be completely unprepared? I recall Tyrion having some pretty cool battle plan regarding f'ing up a bunch of enemy ships with a chain or some such thing.

I can't remember the details, it's been awhile.

I think there was also wildfire involved.

I believe this happened in the same battle that claimed his nose, can't really remember though.


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## Island (Jul 31, 2014)

Rivers said:


> [Snip]


I'll let Watchdog answer this, but I there should be some fleet information somewhere in this thread.



LoveLessNHK said:


> So, would everybody be completely unprepared?


There is no prep time, if that's what you're asking.



LoveLessNHK said:


> I recall Tyrion having some pretty cool battle plan regarding f'ing up a bunch of enemy ships with a chain or some such thing.


George R.R. Martin is a knowledgeable man. This tactic is actually something the Chinese did a lot throughout their history, and there is actually an example of the Chinese chaining their fleet together and confronting the Mongols:



			
				Battle of Yamen said:
			
		

> Zhang Shijie *[The Chinese commander]*ordered about 1000 warships to be chained together, forming a long string within the bay, and placed Emperor Huaizong's boat in the center of his fleet. This was done to prevent individual Song *[The Chinese]* ships from fleeing the battle. The Yuan *[The Mongols]* forces steered fire ships into the Song formation, but the Song ships were prepared for such an attack: all Song ships had been painted with fire-resistant mud. The Yuan navy then blockaded the bay, while the Yuan army cut off Song's fresh water and wood sources on land. The Song side, with many non-combatants, soon ran out of supplies. The Song soldiers were forced to eat dry foods and drink sea water, causing nausea and vomiting. Zhang Hongfan *[The Mongol commander]* even kidnapped Zhang Shijie's nephew, asking Zhang Shijie to surrender on three occasions, to no avail.
> 
> In the afternoon of 18 March Zhang Hongfan prepared for a massive assault. The employment of cannons was turned down because Hongfan felt that cannons could break the chains of the formation too effectively, making it easy for the Song ships to retreat. The next day Zhang Hongfan split his naval forces into four parts: one each of the Song's east, north, and south sides, while Hongfan led the remaining faction to about a li away from the Song forces.
> 
> ...


The Mongols have dealt with this exact tactic before, to which the answer is either to light the enemy fleet on fire by ramming fire ships into it, blockade the fleet with superior numbers and starve it out, or divide and conquer.

The fact that the Mongols have cannons, flamethrowers, and naval mines gives them the edge here. They're fielding a lot of equipment that the rest of the world wouldn't have for at least another century or two.


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## Rivers (Jul 31, 2014)

LoveLessNHK said:


> So, would everybody be completely unprepared? I recall Tyrion having some pretty cool battle plan regarding f'ing up a bunch of enemy ships with a chain or some such thing.
> 
> I can't remember the details, it's been awhile.
> 
> ...



King's Landing knew Stannis would eventually bring in a fleet because he declared himself the rightful King, spending time taking Renly's Stormland's men, and then hiring Pirates. 

I believe there are always reserves of Wildfire but a lot was made specifically for the War of Five Kings. 

Wildfire can certainly be made over the course of the Mongol Invasion even if there is only a limited amount initially.


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 31, 2014)

Honestly I'd wanna land at either Lannisport or Old town, or maybe divide my forces in half and go for both. For the simple reason that it would make conquering the continent so much easier if Kublai was able to control both the gold that backs the economy and the food production centers I'd be in a hell of a good position with everything else.

If I had to choose between the two, It would be an easier time fighting the Rock than the Reach - due to the reaches numbers.


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## Rivers (Jul 31, 2014)

The Immortal WatchDog said:


> Honestly I'd wanna land at either Lannisport or Old town, or maybe divide my forces in half and go for both. For the simple reason that it would make conquering the continent so much easier if Kublai was able to control both the gold that backs the economy and the food production centers I'd be in a hell of a good position with everything else.
> 
> If I had to choose between the two, It would be an easier time fighting the Rock than the Reach - due to the reaches numbers.



So you think the Mongol Fleet could take out the Lannisters and/or the Redwyne Fleet (close to the Arbor) in one battle?


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 31, 2014)

Rivers said:


> So you think the Mongol Fleet could take out the Lannisters and/or the Redwyne Fleet (close to the Arbor) in one battle?



assuming they don't get a starting point and thus enough ships to carry eight hundred thousand Mongols and their equipment are hand waved to exist and  show up? Even if they suffer what happened to the fleet that hit Japan full of crappy commanders who hated their guts..they'd still drown them in numbers.

But IIRC Chinese ships of the period were truly massive..larger than the one Columbus brought to the new world and commanded by people with experience..so there shouldn't be too much of a gap between commanders even assuming the worse.


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## Island (Jul 31, 2014)

The Immortal WatchDog said:


> assuming they don't get a starting point and thus enough ships to carry eight hundred thousand Mongols and their equipment are hand waved to exist and  show up? Even if they suffer what happened to the fleet that hit Japan full of crappy commanders who hated their guts..they'd still drown them in numbers.


I think that we can assume for the sake of the matchup that the Mongols land safely without anything catastrophic happening. Otherwise, it'd come down to a battle of logistics and whether or not they could feasibly land a fleet on another continent rather than army versus army and navy versus navy.



The Immortal WatchDog said:


> But IIRC Chinese ships of the period were truly massive..larger than the one Columbus brought to the new world and commanded by people with experience..so there shouldn't be too much of a gap between commanders even assuming the worse.



That's Zheng He's treasure ship and Colombus's own ship side-by-side.


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 31, 2014)

Island said:


> That's Zheng He's treasure ship and Colombus's own ship side-by-side.



What would the total size of their Navy be? For some reason I've got it in my head that they're smaller than what the powers of the west used by comparison,. Just much larger?



Can anyone with book access post the size of the Lannister and Redwyne fleets? So we can do a comparison?


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## Rivers (Jul 31, 2014)

The Immortal WatchDog said:


> Honestly I'd wanna land at either Lannisport or Old town, or maybe divide my forces in half and go for both. For the simple reason that it would make conquering the continent so much easier if Kublai was able to control both the gold that backs the economy and the food production centers I'd be in a hell of a good position with everything else.



That's a pretty interesting strat. High risk, high reward. Provisions and treasure is what the Mongols will find there. Though at the same time, they would be facing head on, the most populated and most well-armed of Westeros' armies. 

The Reach and the Westerland Kingdoms being side by side, they probably wont stay idle if either is invaded initially. Seeing as how their territories / peoples would be most affected by the imminent battles to come. 

Taking on the Tyrells, the Tarlys, the Lannisters and the Redwynes to establish your first foothold in Westeros...daring indeed. 





Island said:


> That's Zheng He's treasure ship and Colombus's own ship side-by-side.



Having a quick read about that, it seems those larger ships could carry 500-1000 passengers plus cargo. The cargo in this case I'd assume is the 3-4 horses per soldier, provisions and possibly siege weapons? 

How do the Mongols deploy naval mines in ship to ship confrontations? Or are they mainly defensive? Do they have onboard canons for offensive ship maneuvers?

I know some of the larger Westerosi ships have scorpions and catapults on deck.


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 31, 2014)

Rivers said:


> That's a pretty interesting strat. High risk, high reward. Provisions and treasure is what the Mongols will find there. Though at the same time, they would be facing head on, the most populated and most well-armed of Westeros' armies. ]



High risk yes, but with an incredibly mobile, army that can communicate and move itself faster than the Westerosi? One that is very capable of blitzing? Within a month Kublai can bring the two most important regions under control and in stopping the flow of the rock gold, royally fuck up an economy that by this time is still recovering from a civil war, and is embarking on its journey into destitution and debt.

Not to mention there's a chance of the Khans using the Florents as a tool to further screw up the Tyrells already shaky hold on the Reach. 


Rivers said:


> The Reach and the Westerland Kingdoms being side by side, they probably wont stay idle if either is invaded initially. Seeing as how their territories / peoples would be most affected by the imminent battles to come.



That's why I'd drop two fleets made up say seventy thousand each on their doorsteps at relatively the same time..or as close as you could get to simultaneous attacks (and both sides should be real good at this any way given both have some impressive means of coordination ) then reinforce the initial army with another forty or fifty thousand troops. Hit them hard, and then keep hitting them, keep the pressure up while gathering enough intel on the local structure to try and bring some of the lords over to their side.

While Tywin has wealth, I'd be much more concerned about Mace's army..the Reach is kinda the only realm out of the seven that trade corpses with the Mongols (and even then they'd suffer attrition quicker due to all the demolition the Mongols will be doing).

A smart move would be to make sure the Measters and the High Sparrow know that not only will the horde respect their religions but that it'll also ask for an exchange of knowledge and maybe even request Measters as a show of respect and good faith.

Leave Oldtown and places like the isle of the faces intact but..I don't see the Rock fairing as well, I kinda can't see Tywin not doing something incredibly dickish eventually..or Gregor herps a derp and literally skull fucks a Mongol prisoner of high rank..which would end horribly for Tywin.




Rivers said:


> Taking on the Tyrells, the Tarlys, the Lannisters and the Redwynes to establish your first foothold in Westeros...daring indeed.



It's a very Mongol thing to do, it fits in with their obsession with psychological warfare and their shrewdness and smarts. Take out two very powerful lords and do so in such a staggeringly sudden and brutal way as possible then start using their advantages as leverage? 

sends a hell of a message. And if they say wipe out the Tyrells and support the Florents or something? make overtures to Randyl to make sure Horn Hill is marching with them against the River lords?

it would be worth the insane risk if pulled off it could hand them the seven kingdoms on a silver platter. If it fails? they can lose a hundred and fifty thousand men..if their deaths buys them a Reach so devastated and ruined that it can't feed the rest of Westeros..if the Rocks gold mines are blasted shut and its high lord boiling in gold? If the Westerlands are burning and crippled and neither side would be so fucked up they couldn't join the war for years?

Yeah I could them willing to take the risk...given even a failure means they likely cripple their enemies.


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## LoveLessNHK (Jul 31, 2014)

So, basically, Mongols OP, GG nubs, bttr luk nxt tiem.

Awesome.

Mongols/10.

Would it be possible to pause the rape for a little while to consider giving the Westerosi a fighting chance since apparently sending 800 million (my bad, thousand) Mongols at them is a stomp? I think that stomp has been clearly explained and backed even, so there, a win is a win. But perhaps it'd be more fun to discuss a somewhat more even battle than to constantly reiterate just how brilliant and psychotic the Mongols were?

I remember the OP saying they attacked places with 150k people. So maybe have them send their 800k in waves. Like 150k people get sent over per x years or something. Even 150k people is extremely sizable compared to the westerosi armies.

Idk, whatevs. I just feel like there is no real discussion here. It's like discussing with new debaters Naruto versus the Hulk, which, not ironically, is the first debate I joined where I met IDW.


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## Rivers (Jul 31, 2014)

LoveLessNHK said:


> Would it be possible to pause the rape for a little while to consider giving the Westerosi a fighting chance since apparently sending 800 million (my bad, thousand) Mongols at them is a stomp?



800k of any decent medieval military reaches OP territory by itself. And it is pretty lolwtf to just drop 800,000 Mongols in the heart of Westeros. But we've moved on from discussing that actually.



> I remember the OP saying they attacked places with 150k people. So maybe have them send their 800k in waves. Like 150k people get sent over per x years or something. Even 150k people is extremely sizable compared to the westerosi armies.



Exactly, by Mongol Fleet. That's why the theatre of Naval warfare has been brought up, and the possible landing zones. 150k by ship is a good discussion point if there is precedence of Mongol Fleets carrying that many at a time. 

OP says knowledge is from Rep, so its reasonable I think for Mongols to have a general idea of the major ports / cities of Westeros. Though the detailed political histories of the various Lords and family houses maybe a bit beyond rep knowledge from those foreign to Westeros. So it's probably something they'll have to acquire on their own when they arrive and not before.

The Western shore has numerous look outs and beacons used to spot and warn of Ironborn raids (who would have expert knowledge of the shoreline). I dont see it unreasonable for them to spot a fleet of 70-150k of Mongols travelling up their shores. This would give Lannisport, Shield Isles and Old Town some time to get their shit in gear before landfall. Baratheon and Redwyne fleets would be employed to form some sort of counter-attack on the naval front. Planning to engage either Mongol ships at anchor or blockading further incoming Mongol ships hoping to bolster the initial wave.

As IWD said, stats and numbers on the opposing fleets would be good to know since that would determine the extent at which the Mongol army would engage Westeros at a time.

*Side thought:* How well would Harren the Black and a fully fortified Harrenhal do against the Mongol Horde? Or perhaps a prime Westeros with legendary Targaryens on the Iron Throne?


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## Island (Jul 31, 2014)

Rivers said:


> How do the Mongols deploy naval mines in ship to ship confrontations? Or are they mainly defensive?


There's not much information on this, but:



> The sea?mine called the 'submarine dragon?king' is made of wrought iron, and carried on a (submerged) wooden board, [appropriately weighted with stones]. The (mine) is enclosed in an ox-bladder. It subtlety lies in the fact that a thin incense(?stick) is arranged (to float) above the mine in a container. The (burning) of this joss stick determines the time at which the fuse is ignited, but without air its glowing would of course go out, so the container is connected with the mine by a (long) piece of goat's intestine (through which passes the fuse). At the upper end the (joss stick in the container) is kept floating by (an arrangement of) goose and wild?duck feathers, so that it moves up and down with the ripples of the water. On a dark (night) the mine is sent downstream (towards the enemy's ships), and when the joss stick has burnt down to the fuse, there is a great explosion.





Rivers said:


> Do they have onboard cannons for offensive ship maneuvers?


There's also not much information here, but most sources describe an unspecified number and combination of counterweight trebuchets and cannons. It's funny because the former is one of the only advantages that Europe had over China at this time was their more advanced trebuchets, but the Mongols borrowed this technology from Persia for the purposes of beating the China.



LoveLessNHK said:


> So, basically, Mongols OP, GG nubs, bttr luk nxt tiem.
> 
> Awesome.
> 
> Mongols/10.


Well, the Mongols are easily the greatest pre-Renaissance military force in existence and have people considered to be among the greatest commanders in our history. It's not a coincidence I chose them to invade Westeros instead of, say, Spain or something.

It's not saying much to lose to them.

On the other hand, I think Westeros would dominate most other pre-Renaissance civilizations. None of them are as large or as unorthodox as the Mongol Horde. The Ottomans circa 1500 might be a decent matchup if they could muster up a large enough military, but again, they aren't nearly as numerous as the absolutely gigantic Mongol Horde.



LoveLessNHK said:


> Idk, whatevs. I just feel like there is no real discussion here. It's like discussing with new debaters Naruto versus the Hulk, which, not ironically, is the first debate I joined where I met IDW.


Yeah, I didn't quite know how this would turn out.


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 31, 2014)

Rivers said:


> *Side thought:* How well would Harren the Black and a fully fortified Harrenhal do against the Mongol Horde? Or perhaps a prime Westeros with legendary Targaryens on the Iron Throne?



Very well so long as they don't actually have to take Harenhall but lock it up in a siege/fuck up their food supplies beyond repair and just wait until Haren dies of starvation. If they actually have to take it? I have no idea they prolly fail spectacularly.,...these guys are good at siege but I don't think there is any real life comparison to Harenhall, much less one Mongols took.



Rivers said:


> 800k of any decent medieval military reaches OP territory by itself. And it is pretty lolwtf to just drop 800,000 Mongols in the heart of Westeros. But we've moved on from discussing that actually.



Also I'd hate to command that many men in one huge army, even for the Mongols that'd be a nightmarish endeavor and really is only possible with the advent of something like the telegraph or really..radio, since you don't really see regularly those numbers until the first world wars and even then more common in the second.

it'd be a gigantic moving clusterfuck doing more harm to everyone and anything itself included than anything else. Also unless the Mongols have access to their home territory, unless they take the reach and start having horde/reach babies..that eight hundred thousand will inevitably suffer attrition.

Naw their best bet is to break up the army use their mobility and superior logistics and training to move fast and hit hard and keep pushing while taking and solidifying as much territory as possible.

Hence my "grab the reach and the westerlands" ploy..it puts them in a position where it forces Robert to the table..any peace is going to be temporary while the stag lives(and really no leader can ignore a hostile power essentially holding their entire realm hostage by holding their economy *and* food)..but any peace gives them breathing room and providing they don't do too much damage to the reach they should be in a position to recover faster..and if they play their cards right...they can get the reach lords to support them.



LoveLessNHK said:


> Idk, whatevs. I just feel like there is no real discussion here. It's like discussing with new debaters Naruto versus the Hulk, which, not ironically, is the first debate I joined where I met IDW.




IWD* and really? I don't remember that?\

Also again noting- armored Knights did historically give the mongols problems, more IIRC than they ever faced in Asia from troops.



Island said:


> It's not saying much to lose to them.
> .




They're fighting what amounts to a medieval army is set up, run by and even communicates and handles logistics like an army from the end of the nineteenth to early twentieth century.

it's that right mix of common sense and schizo tech that made the Mongols so dangerous historically. Mind you, people who think they know about them historically,,..like Raigen will fucking argue they can curbstomp anything short of an American civil war era army...which is a huge load of masturbation and bullshit and its up there with "ZOMG SAMURAI SOLOS ALL!!" (and they'll even powerscale the mongols off their bullshit tank soloing fanfiction). So whatever finding people to debate topics like this who actually know enough to not make a topic like this a cancerous abomination is rare


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## Island (Jul 31, 2014)

The Immortal WatchDog said:


> Also I'd hate to command that many men in one huge army, even for the Mongols that'd be a nightmarish endeavor and really is only possible with the advent of something like the telegraph or really..radio, since you don't really see regularly those numbers until the first world wars and even then more common in the second.


The 800 thousand figure is based on the combined might of all four khanates, so it'd be logical to assume they'd be acting with a degree of autonomy.

Most likely, the bulk of the force would be under Kublai and then rest under the command of the other three khans. You can imagine the armies would then be subdivided and then led by various Mongol generals like Bayan, Zhang Hongfan, just to name a couple.

But yeah, I agree. It'd be silly to assume they'd be moving almost a million soldiers in one large bulk.



The Immortal WatchDog said:


> it's that right mix of common sense and schizo tech that made the Mongols so dangerous historically. Mind you, people who think they know about them historically,,..*like Raigen will fucking argue they can curbstomp anything short of an American civil war era army*...which is a huge load of masturbation and bullshit and its up there with "ZOMG SAMURAI SOLOS ALL!!" (and they'll even powerscale the mongols off their bullshit tank soloing fanfiction). So whatever finding people to debate topics like this who actually know enough to not make a topic like this a cancerous abomination is rare


What the hell? He thinks that the Mongols put down Gustav, Frederick, Napoleon...?

There's no fucking way.

Like I said, I'd put the Mongols anything pre-Renaissance, but after that, they're not getting far. Suleiman probably puts them down. There's just no way the Mongols are beating Janissaries.

Like, seriously? He thinks they can beat Napoleon? The Mongols get curbstomped by a Napoleonic square.

Reactions: Winner 1


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## The Immortal WatchDog (Jul 31, 2014)

Island said:


> The 800 thousand figure is based on the combined might of all four khanates, so it'd be logical to assume they'd be acting with a degree of autonomy.
> 
> Most likely, the bulk of the force would be under Kublai and then rest under the command of the other three khans. You can imagine the armies would then be subdivided and then led by various Mongol generals like Bayan, Zhang Hongfan, just to name a couple.]



If they're smart they'll play intrigue in the reach and hit the Westerlands hard. Let Kublai and his forces handle the Tyrells, while the rest focus on the westerlands and the riverlands. 

taking and holding two important Kingdoms and the one realm everyone has to go through to get anywhere should give them time to settle, to breathe and move at a pace they can control





Island said:


> What the hell? He thinks that the Mongols put down Gustav, Frederick, Napoleon...?
> 
> There's no fucking way.



a three million man army, with some of the most advanced training, canons and equipment of that era..cannot repel the Mongols..according to some people yeah.






Island said:


> Like I said, I'd put the Mongols anything pre-Renaissance, but after that, they're not getting far. Suleiman probably puts them down. There's just no way the Mongols are beating Janissaries.]



Ottoman guns are also pretty terrible. For example while I doubt The Khans can breach harrenhall

the two monsters Mehmet used to shatter the walls of Constantinople? They probably could 




Island said:


> Like, seriously? He thinks they can beat Napoleon? The Mongols get curbstomped by a Napoleonic square.



We got back almost six years now right? Since MFG? I've been debating him three years longer than that..for nearly a decade now he's repeated the same "Mongols shatter anything short of an early tank brigade" - and yeah he's included world war one era troops in that

I don't even think the Targs during the time of the dance could handle the Naopoleonic armies or hell even the armies of the seven years war..and they had in totality something like a dozen Dragons they could use in combat..

Dragons who don't matter if your armies are shot to pieces before they can get to the battle field..Dragons who would be facing thousands of canons and rifles..sure they'd break a great deal of engagements until the generals got used to the idea of flying monsters and started spamming canons.

The Khans could probably take Danny's dragons, Tyroshi sailors managed to take one down and others were wounded in battles as well..three Dragons..relatively inexperienced.

but all of them? including a two hundred year old one who fought in hundreds of battles? no..

but an army of the seventeen hundreds? or Boneparts? Or fuck it Grant? yeah..yeah they could.

but they can't handle Mongols according to some would be historians


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