I have decided to do a review on each CIV. My intention is to encourage debate and hopefully to help others (and myself) in their game play.

The Mongols

Have you ever wanted see Bismark humbled, Catherine beg for mercy, and even Caesar himself paying tribute gold for fear of his life? Is there a streak of the tyrant in you, a desire to wreak havoc and throttle all those that stand in your way? Is your vision of the perfect empire a vision of, “…a boot stamping on a human face – forever”? If you answered yes there is a solution to your desires – the Mongols. The very name of the CIV itself conjures up images of huge empires, horseback warriors, and feared rulers.

Expansionist and Militaristic, the Mongol traits are tailor made for the warmonger. The access to scout units gives the Mongol a large advantage in locating crucial resources and luxuries. On average the Mongol will locate and map-out his rival CIVs at an accelerated pace. Added to this are the expansionist advantages with goody huts. A typical Mongol game will see you with an early tech lead and possibly even a free settler. This early tech lead translates out to giving the Mongol a variety of early strategies unavailable to many CIVs. Along with this, the Mongol-starting tech of Pottery gives him instant access to granaries and the resulting benefits of faster settler creation. The Mongol is very commonly the largest and most sprawling of the Ancient Age empires. The Mongol CIV is also good for getting Wonders. No, you don’t build them – you take them from others! For governments, no need to haggle with congress and such, straight Monarchy followed by a switch to Fascism/Communism is always a good strategy with this CIV.

The expansionist trait works on the militaristic trait by allowing that CIV an early cushion in research, superior terrain knowledge, and the faster creation of new towns. This in turn allows the Mongol to create an effective military force far faster than most of his rivals. The early access to cheap barracks and archers gives the Mongol the option of launching an ultra early archer rush on his nearest neighbor. The Mongol can alternate his early settler creation with early wars, thus expanding his empire both internally and at the expense of his neighbors. A quick beeline to horseback riding may give the Mongol an early mobile force that few CIVs can withstand at such an early stage of the game. God forbid the Mongol pulls off 3 or 4 early MGLs! You may find yourself with a domination or conquest win in record time! Those cheap early barracks allow a steady stream of veteran combat units – usually pouring out from a steady stream of newly created/conquered towns that are far more numerous than all the other Civs. You really can re-create a huge sprawling Middle Age empire that mirrors their actual history!

On the downside is what I consider to be mediocre UU. The Keshik is a 60 shield 4-2-2 knight level UU, with 'zero' range bombard and also has a terrain advantage on hills and mountains. Of all the Knight level UUs available with Chivalry, the Keshik is the weakest. Barring an unusually mountainous map, the unit simply does not have the same impact as the Arab Ansar or Chinese Rider. Even the Indian War Elephant with its extra hp and no resource advantage is a better deal. That said, the unit is 10 shields cheaper than the standard knight, and the terrain bonus can be handy at times. It can still be used quite effectively. The second downside is the most obvious. The Mongol traits are totally geared towards speed and war; their infrastructure building is slow and expensive. I suppose if you’re enough of a masochist, you could use this CIV for a builder strategy, but why bother. Those players that enjoy a more flexible approach in their games are better served elsewhere. The Mongol is for the serious warmonger.

So how do the Mongols fare with C3C? After playing a few games with Mongols again, I have come to the following conclusions:

The expansionist trait is more valuable now, that combined with the greater power of armies accentuate the warmonger traits of the Mongol even more. Among Civs to warmonger with, the Mongols are certainly a top tier choice. Better than most, but outclassed by many. The superior UUs of many of the other CIVs used for warmongering are a minus for the Mongols. Also, most of the better warmonger CIVs lend themselves more easily to a builder/peaceful style if need be. The Mongols are far more constrained in their options.

Summary; The Mongols are a solid warmongers Civ with great appeal to the historically minded. However, while a top tier CIV for warmongering, they are on the bottom end of that tier. This combined with their poor performance as a builder/peaceful Civ choice places them among the bottom 10 (3rd tier) in overall performance.

Below is the link to my other reviews:

other CIV Reviews by Ision (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87014)

Lol the Mongols rock! Their UU is pretty unimpressive, but they fare well against pikemen at least :p If you have a mountain blocking access to places on your continent, they can be a semi-help, though.

I just tried the Mongols on an emporer level game and I have to say the Keshiks are great. They fared pretty good even against musketmen. I used my GA to belt out several dozen and thanks to their upgradeability to cavalry, at 1800 AD I'm just about ten or so turns away from domination victory. The best part about the Keshik is their low cost.

Nother Good essay Ision i really enjoy these whose up next?

I decided to go to the other extreme of the Mongols -

next up to bat - The Babylonians

Ision

Originally posted by Ision
Is your vision of the perfect empire a vision of, “…a boot stamping on a human face – forever”? If you answered yes there is a solution to your desires – the Mongols. The very name of the CIV itself conjures up images of huge empires, horseback warriors, and feared rulers.



Yes! 1984 by George Orwell!

I thought the 1984 reference sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't remember where it was from.

I think you underestimate the Keshik a little, Ision. They can move over hills as well as mountains, now, and hills and mountains are all over the place. Because you can attack straight after moving onto one, the defensive bonus means you're less vulnerable to counterattack, meaning a higher survival rate and more Keshiks. On open desert or plains, someone has usually already built roads, so its really only cities surrounded by jungle that you have to be careful of - but cities surrounded by jungle are usually crap anyway. And their lower cost makes up for it. Plus, anyone moving past them gets peppered with arrows thanks to their zone of control attribute.

WOW great review, thanks isoin!!!!

Heck ya!! 1984 was a great book!! And I agree the mongols are great and were the first PTW civ I ever used.

Chariot rush-horse rush-keshik rush- Speed of attack from the get go- the mongols are better then third tier in my opinion. That keshik is cheap and effective (and i didn't know it had defensive bombard - that would make historical sense and would be a great improvement if it is true...)that bombard thing did wonders for the babylonian bowmen-but at any rate the Keshik is easy to mass in that age loaded with knight UU's-and quantity of one's UU is always a good thing to have. (Perhaps japan would be a real nemisis to the Mongols-on vanilla the Samarii was hands down the best UU (it was a feeling on my part but i also read an early review in Civ Fanatics and some guy broke down uu stats in some way and reached the same conclusion which i thought interesting-although someone else came up with the Hoplite based on different criterea- but i could see that as well..that hoplite is a great UU) The Expansionist Trait should get some mention of making the game a bit more fun at the beginning. Once again being a non Naval power doesn't really hurt but it should.(Emperor/huge/Continent)

Genghis and The Mongol Horde is a formidable enemy coz they're always demanding tribute - even with their puny armed forces :lol:

I must agree with Hornhelp and troytheface. The Keshik sounds like it would gives a lot of bang for the buck... "sounds" because I'm still playing Vanilla Civ 3 and am quite jealous of all the new civs everyone keeps mentioning. This is a little off-topic, but I don't like the sound of the new leader rules. The only way I've been able to compete with the AI on Deity is to be at war most of the time so that I can win battles and crank out leaders, which is the only way I can build any wonders. If I have to be first in tech to get a leader that can build the Great Library, I'm in trouble.

And I thought that the Keshik would get a zero range bombard with a strength of 2. Why don't they have such ability? Maybe because they're not meant for defensive purposes, same thing as Iroquois Mounted Warriors, and Egyptian War Chariot.

Genghis and The Mongol Horde is a formidable enemy coz they're always demanding tribute - even with their puny armed forces :lol:

Mongols demanding tribute= Me :hammer: Mongols ;) :D .

If someone reads this, explain something to me:

When the defensive bombard first was introduced, I said "Give the keshik the defensive bombard ability". This was a long time ago. Other people here seemed to like the idea and made a "patch request" about this. In my version, the keshik still doesn't have that ability, but something many people don't know is that keshik is the FIRST unit with ZOC.

Ision underestimates the good UU's and overestimates the crappy UU's. And also he describes the effects of the traits in every review... This is getting tedious -.-

By the way. The Keshik doesn't have defensive bombard.

Ision underestimates the good UU's and overestimates the crappy UU's. I have to disagree. I think most players overestimate the "good" UU's and underestimate the "bad" ones. I think almost all the UU's have enough good qualities to be useful in the hands of a good player (by good I mean a player patient enough to learn how to use the unit's capabilities).
Certainly all UU's are not equal but I don't think the differences are as large as a lot of people seem to think.

also he describes the effects of the traits in every review... This is getting tedious -.-


Tedious or not - I will continue to do so. My reviews will always assume that the reader has chosen a review that is the first he has ever read.

Ision

Ision underestimates the good UU's and overestimates the crappy UU's. And also he describes the effects of the traits in every review... This is getting tedious -.-

By the way. The Keshik doesn't have defensive bombard.

Not really. Most of the UUs are better than the normal unit they're based off. Also you more or less have to describe each civs traits for the reason above. The trait combo often interacts with the UU or playstyle of the civ as well- its effectively different in each game even with civs that share the same traits, Pesia/Ottoman, Greece/Korea, Mongols/Zulu.

Most of the UUs are better than the normal unit they're based off. One would hope so! ;)

I find that the biggest influence of UUs seems to be triggering GAs. The UU's characteristics may interact with the trait combo to create differences between, say, Persia and the Ottomans, but this may have as much or more to do with the timing of the respective GAs than the actual UU characteristics.

However, I tend to lean toward peaceful builder strategies, and keep the peace with combined arms SoDs :D, which probably means I'm losing out on some of the subtle differences, especially between different mounted UUs.

I have to say, GREAT articles. They're inspiring me to try random civs and maps to try different play styles and conquer my Persia addiction. :lol: I'm in the middle of a pretty decent game with Portugal, on a Pangea even. :eek: I'm looking forward to THAT review for sure.

I normally play as Mongols on larger maps, while playing as Zulus on smaller maps for some reasons. Mongols needed larger territories, and resources to build Keshik quicker to trigger well-timed GA to trash any neighbors you want to push them around ASAP so they're be forced to give cheap gold and technology in exchange for peace treaty. Zululand on the other hand, use Impis to plan an aggresive strategy to link up with their horsemen to pillage their closest neighbors and possibly trigger domination or conquest victory before BC date ends on tiny or smaller maps.

I agree with your conclusion, Ision, that the Mongols make a decent warmongering civilisation (at least in the hands of a human). I disagree however, on what makes them so. You consider the Keshik poor. I do not. Lowering the defensive value of an offensive unit, does not in my view diminish the unit significantly. On the other hand, the reduced cost is significant. 60 shields instead of 70 shields for your main stike weapon in the early MA means 16.6% more units for the same shields. What is more, it is much easier to optimise shield production for 60 shields owing to the fact that 60 has many more divisors than 70.

As a warmonger who prefers higher difficulty levels, I find fast attack units overwhelmingly preferable to other forms of units for mounting successful campaigns. Thus, an improved knight replacement unit makes for a good UU, and by virtue of being cheaper, the Keshik is 'improved'. I certainly agree that the mountain movement bonus is fairly weak - I would take move three over that any day. As for defence, well I like to use an offensive defence ie kill all incoming units with my fast offensive units. BUt if you really need defence, then 30 shield pikes give the same '3' defence that you get from 70 shield knights, so why waste the much more expensive unit?

As to the value of the traits, expansionist is generally considered the weakest of traits by most players at the higher end of the difficulty levels, AFAIK. At higher difficulties the likelihood of getting something useful out of a GH drops markedly, reducing the scout to little more than an early game explorer, and even then not that useful unless on a large pangea. Any civ can use curraghs instead on other types of landmasses for exploration purposes - not as good for locating resources, perhaps, but almost as good for locating other civs. The value of the trait is short lived at best.

Militaristic is a little better than expansionist. However, it is still not great. Unless you wish to go for a high risk early rush on an opponent, the benefit of a cheap barracks is negligible versus the cost of a sizeable military, even though you may want barracks in many of your productive cities. The other main benefit of the trait is the greater MGL generation. To me this means a slightly earlier first army, and a short period during early to mid MA where maybe you will end up with an extra army over a non-militant civ. By the time the military academy is built, the non-military civ can cash rush armies to catch up, and if anything you will start having too many armies to usefully use your leaders this way. So the trait has some value yes, but I would prefer other traits.

Nice review..but I think the rating of the Keshik is a bit unfair...

For starters, since the Mongols are unlikely to be builder types, even average size cities can churn Keshiks out pretty fast, esp so during the GA.

One thing I have noticed is that Civs which have a UU in the Early-Middle Medieval Period can best maximise the use of that UU, without falling too far behind tech and infrastructure. The WE and Keshik are even better at this because of lesser resources required and fewer shields respectively. Assuming that the Human player has approx 13-14 cities( I am not very exapnsionist while playing so the figure could be much higher with a civ like the Mongols), with 3-4 High production, 5-6 average and the rest producing little (again this is relative to what a player defines as "high" or "low", but I am going by a mean curve), by the time he hits Keshik and a GA, the average production cities will also start to produce high number of units and low production cities will not seem so low production in a GA.

More than the Indians, I feel that the Mongols are in a better position to make use of the GA to churn out a truly awesome army of Keshiks to end up all set to win by conquest or domination. Of course, my experience with Mongols is limited ( I have played them only once, didn't finish the game though), and players with more experience would be in a better position to explain how to use the KEshik well.

because I am dedicated to combined arms warring, i love the Keshik and think it is much better than knights for two particular reasons which combine to a very useful strategy with this civ:

-stack trebs, pikes, keshiks

-plan attack near mountain / hill

-move SoD to mountain / hill

-once this is accomplished, the keshik can immediately attack because of the terrain advantage, some veterans may get promoted to elite thanks to militaristic trait

-counterattacks will be made against the veteran pikes, not the elite keshiks

-next attack pound away with trebs before using keshiks again

allows the use of less units in some cases, in other cases, the lower defensive value alone just helps to protect them because the veteran pikes will cover the elite keshiks so that offfensive units do not face attack. granted the hill / mountain thing cannot be used in every battle, but i bet it can be uesd several times in each game with a little planning and can also be used to keep approaching AI units of your mountains / hills

but that is just my $.02

I'd like to chime in on the value of Keshiks as well. The real value of Mountain and Hill movement bonuses is somewhat situational, but then again, so is 3 movement. In a Mountainous/Hill environment, 3 movement isn't really much different from what a Keshik can do, and the Keshik is cheaper and has ZOC. For the most part, I feel that the movement capability of Keshiks using Mountains and Hills mostly to travel significantly makes up for the defensive downgrade, and the lower shield cost and ZOC makes them excellent for scouting and holding positions. Thing is, you really can't use them the same way you'd use Knights.

For the most part, Riders, Ansars, Knights, and Cavalry share similar niches and are used mostly the same, but the Keshik isn't. He prefers to travel along Hills and Mountains. So much so, in fact, that he should rightly avoid any other terrain type. While it is possible that you may have to mount an offensive in an area that doesn't have mountains at all, in those areas at least, you can use SOD with Trebuchets and Longbowmen and the usual MIs. While Knights and Riders can act as fast shock troops and direct support for that, the Keshik provides power where the SOD cannot really go - Mountains and Hilly areas. Finally, it isn't as if the Keshik were inferior to the Knight in attack power and movement - the Knight's most important traits.

For what it's worth, an all Keshik force can beeline for Mountainous and Hilly areas, Pillage or control the roads to make counterattack and chasing impossible for the enemy, and then enforce ZOC effects and sorties against any who would challenge the approach of your SOD. In fairness, I don't believe that having the Keshiks actually ignore defensive bonuses that their targets receive from Mountains and Hills would be too powerful, so I can't say that I think they're an uber unit, either, but they're really not that bad.

I've been playing PTW for a few months now, so I need some guidence on the Mongols. I've been playing Chieftain level, maybe Warlord.
What size of map would be best with the Mongols?
What should be your starting strategy? How fast would you develop Settlers? How fast would you develop Bowmen? What order of units do you develop? What techs should you develop first?
Should you try to stretch your empire as far as it can go, or build your cities closer to each other? When does the Mongols get a Golden Age?
Thanks.

I've been playing PTW for a few months now, so I need some guidence on the Mongols. I've been playing Chieftain level, maybe Warlord.
What size of map would be best with the Mongols?
What should be your starting strategy? How fast would you develop Settlers? How fast would you develop Bowmen? What order of units do you develop? What techs should you develop first?
Should you try to stretch your empire as far as it can go, or build your cities closer to each other? When does the Mongols get a Golden Age?
Thanks.

before i begin, i am sure several players will disagree with some of my comments & others might even offer other perspectives, but here are my thoughts on playing as the mongols:

(also, i play conquests, not sure how different the mongols are in PTW)

To start - get off chieftain / warlord level, dont worry about not being ready, you're not going to learn anything strategy wise on those levels and they should prolly only be played while your trying to understand the basic mechanics of the game. if you are ready to play a competitive game start at regent & dont worry if you get creamed a few times

Next, the mongols are expansionistic, a Pangea world is best for them, barbs at restless or raging. i would reccomend starting with a standard size map

first off, build 2-3 scouts, the number depending on map size.

Look in the war academy & find the article about settler factories, learn to use them, then if you can operate either a 4 or 6 turn factory on regent you will do well in expansion. scouts are especially useful to block AI expansion if you rush 3 of them at your nearest neighbor.

by bowmen, i assume you mean archers. find a good site for a high shield city, some BG's would be good, for a 2nd or 3rd city. found the city, build a worker out of it first & hopefully borrow a worker from your capitol to also improve the terrain. then build a barracks, then start building archers. if you are planning to warmonger, which is what the mongols are made for (exp, mil) set up more cities like this.

your scouts will find your neighbors quickly & help you scope out the terrain. as soon as you have 3-5 archers, go declare war on your nearest neighbor. this should be early in the REX phase & you'll find them at a big disadvantage. keep churning out archers, dont worry about building spears, use warriors for MPs. if you have the luxury of building some cats you might consider that also. this is called an archer rush.

concerning research (PTW does not give bonus tech for philosophy, IIRC, if i am wrong here then my suggestions for research are a little off) Mongols start with pottery & warrior code. research alphabet, writing, philosophy, literature, currency & use those techs to trade for others. additionally, your scouts should help you out by popping techs. you want the wheel & iron working to spot horses / iron. if you can get horses go with them since the Mongols have a knight uu, but if iron is closer it is not it wont hurt to use swords & cats. do nothing but warmonger.

build granaries / barracks / markets / libraries, dont build temples. dont build any wonders, if there is a wonder you want, wait for another civ to bild it then go take it. keep an eye on F7 & if you are at war with a civ & they are building a wonder, wait until it is finished then take that city.

build cites about 3-4 tiles apart, expand as much as you can as long as you can defend you territory while you warmonger, be wary of long borders, try to utilize chokepoints which your scouts will find if they are available.

the mongols have a UU at chivalry, the Keshik, which will give you a GA.

i think that answers most of your questions

the mongols are THE most misreprestented civ

they created the greatest land empire ever and the second largest empire overall ever (RULE BRITANIA)

the problem is the keshik, which in history was a terror to all who saw it

i think the keshik should have been a 50 shield 4-1-2 unit with that mountain ability

this would represent the fact that these things would bear down on an army in unimaginable numbers and tht they were almost always atacking and rarely defending

Off Topic :

Actually, no. The Keshik was the "day guard" of the Mongol generals. They actually did quite a bit of defense, and they were kept in relatively small numbers because they represented only the most elite of the Mongol soldiers. Making them WORSE than a standard knight makes no sense historically. I would have made them more expensive and given them a bonus attack as well as the movement bonus, or, to more accurately represent the Mongols ceaseless assaults, the blitz ability.

The Mongols were OUTNUMBERED by at least a 2 to 1 margin, sometimes a 50 to 1 margin, but outnumbered significantly in almost every battle they fought. The idea that they were a huge horde has absolutely no basis in fact. "Unimaginable Numbers?" No. A fraction of the size of the armies they bested? Yes.

In the game however, they are just slightly above being one of the worst civs in the game. They can't do anything except war well.

I guess that the Chinese rider in vanilla was supposed to be the Mongolian cavalry, that's why they have a movement of 3. In vanilla there is no Mongols, and when Chinese leaders appear, you see they are Genghis Khan and Kubla Khan. Ok, this is not wrong, since historically Mongol was a part of China. Today the "inner Mongol" is a district of autonomy of China, and the "outer Mongol" is the republic of Mongol. However, when they added Mongols in PTW, things became funny. Now it looks ridiculous that China has a faster cavalry than Mongol's! Historically the majority of Chinese (the Han people) had fine cavalry, -- the stirrup was invented by them. But of course it were the nomads who made use of stirrup to its fullest! In this sense, the UU of Chinese (Han people) should be some kind of mechanical crossbow, which were used to shoot cavalry.

I would have made them more expensive and given them a bonus attack as well as the movement bonus, or, to more accurately represent the Mongols ceaseless assaults, the blitz ability.

I wouldnt make them more expensive, i mean these guys wouldnt have had a lot of armour or expensive gear on them compared to the knight, so they should still be cheaper or the same as a knight

ive looked up the mongols more and your right their on the numbers thing, my previous sources were obviously wrong, and giving them the blitz ability would probably do the keshik more justice,

since historically Mongol was a part of China.

exactly when in history do you mean, for nearly a century northern china was part of mongolia

In the Yuan dynasty (founded by Kubla Khan), the whole China was governed by Mongolians. After nearly a century, the Han people rose up and chased the Mongolian back, and they made the Ming dynasty. Then after about 3 centuries, the Man people (another nomad group) allied the Mongolian and conquered the Han people again, making the last dynasty of ancient China, -- Qing. In 1911, the nationalist revolution broke out, and China became a republic, then all these groups became equal in law.