Mongols review

Now, must ''noob'' civ players look at my reviews, and tell me in their threads. so, im going to give you advice, don't play this civ, i'll tell you why later

Mongols start out with 50% trade from CAPTURED Cities, not the the free barbarain cities, so its a okay bonus

Now, the shiny one, the one that made this look SO good on paper, but thats about it. barbarians turn into cities, not settlers, cities.
The cities are garbage most of the time for a couple reasons
1. starts at lvl 1, only 1 tile to work with, you want to grow, or make an archer?
2. AWFUL locations, hills, no food, you name it

Next, we have +1 calvary speed, which is nice, but its not like +1 attack

+2 production from Mountains a good bonus, but it deals with the location of your barb cities

and Knowledge of Communism at the end is important, but it doesnt save this civ

Strategy: expand, get your barb cities to grow quickly

Why noobs shouldn't play it
1. Worst MP civ, its like giving cities to the other players
2. You have to micromanage and know what your doing
3. they suck

Endure, I would like to know why my reviews are ''so bad'' in your opinion, because, i don't think you have an argument

rating: 5 out of 10

GARBAGE!!!

Civoholic, your reviews aren't really all that bad, but they could be more in-depth. There's a lot more you can talk about when you review a civ, for example, what strategies can you use to make the most out of their abilities? There's more to each civ than just their starting bonus, and era bonuses. In your posts you very briefly say what you think each bonus is good for, which might be helpful to more inexperienced players, but there's more to the era bonuses that people might not see at first glance.

For example, even though I've only played the Mongols once, the ancient era bonus of Barb cities turning into cities for yourself, is not really all that amazing, and in my opinion is not the bonus that makes this civ really shine. While it certainly stands out, because no one else gets anything like this, it doesn't really make them shine.

My suggestion would be to only take advantage of this bonus when necessary. Mainly by not going too crazy and taking over as many barb villages as you can, because you can build much better cities on your own. Instead try to find more goody huts, and only take barb villages if you think there's potential for a good city (which sometimes there are actually great cities, they just start slow and need some work) or if that location could block off another civ.

The extra cavalry speed is so-so, it really helps if you go for conquering early on with horsemen and knights. That 1 extra movement just means you can attack earlier, fall back your wounded units and heal them faster, and it also gives you the ability to choose which terrain you want to attack/defend from with your cavalry.

The +2 production from mountains is great, it means that any mountain squares will automatically be just as productive as a hill square with a workshop. Once you get iron mines, you will have amazing production (6 I think, from one mountain). More production is great for both units and buildings.

Also, if you found more of your own cities, instead of having many barb cities, then your more likely to be able to use this bonus to your advantage. You really should settle some production cities near mountains, or even if a city is meant for gold/science, a mountain nearby never hurts to help make it a viable city for producing extra units during war-time.

Knowledge of Communism at the end helps make this civ even more dominant for war because you can pump out more units. This, along with the extra production from mountains, means you can produce more units than your enemies, and the greater your numbers, the better you will be able to conquer. Or use the extra production you receive from communism to build more wonders in the modern era. The modern era wonders are really powerful (relative to the ancient and medieval wonders), and with all the production you have, you should be able to build them in no time.

I've only played as the Mongols once, so I don't really know too much about them and what works best for them. There are other posts that discuss Mongol strategies though, and I'm sure there's lots of useful information there too.

My rating for the Mongols would be 6/10, although that will probably change the more I play them and test strategies.

Why noobs shouldn't play it
1. Worst MP civ, its like giving cities to the other players
2. You have to micromanage and know what your doing
3. they suck

"They suck" isn't really the best explanation of why someone shouldn't play as them. The point of a review is to explain why they suck.

when using the mongoloids, I usually skip any barbarian that i think the AI has no chance of getting, and build my own city ahead of it...then i go back and get it later for a nice boost once the front lines are established...

The Mongols play differently than every other civ. They are an entirely production based civilization that uses its early game production advantages to take out an opponent quickly. Even on Deity it is entirely possible to have an army of warriors formed by the time the AI has his first archer built. On any other difficulty you can take the opponent out without issue in about 10 turns.

The key to playing The Mongols is to have an early game production advantage, as stated previously. If you do not have this production advantage, you are sunk. Call it in, you did not play correctly. You should always put all of your citizens to hammers until you take over your first capital. You should have two armies of warriors by the time this happens as well as 3-4 cities. This is how the civ plays.

To play The Mongols is to play a psuedo ICS while having the ability to do a true ICS or to expand properly. Your capital should be used solely as a settler pumper once you have control of your first capital (again, you can take one of your opponents capitals faster than any other civ with these guys; it works on deity as well) to either go ICS or to expand properly. You'll play more than enough catchup by having map control and an army to defend it all.

I truly do not understand the argument that Barbarian cities are bad. They're not. They are there for early game army creation and nothing more. Who cares if your opponent gets it after its past prime - it's not going to be doing anything for you or for them.

The Mongols are easily one of the better military civs out there. You have a pretty much guaranteed enemy capital in the early game, Keshiks which are really good (use leonardo's to change your hordes of keshiks into tanks), and more than enough cities (both good and bad) to simply control more land than your opponent.

I don't know how many other ways I can say superior map control is what they are about.

I must agree with CrimsonEdge... the Mongols do not suck and they are very superior for controlling the land grab phase. I personally do not go for all out production (but will try it out later) but find that the early expansion capabilities make it very easy to out tech/ out produce your opponents. The barb cities might not always be great but in the early game it is usually not too hard to defend your cities, if you get a production city up quick... now they do have a problem with generating gold early (due to no gold from barbs), but if you get a couple of your captured cities producing gold, you should get your free settler in no time. I think the Mongols are one of the funner civs to play with, because their early rapid expansion can lead to a number of advantages early in the game and opens up virtually all victory conditions (except maybe cultural).

barbs are normally on a resource liek silk, oxen, oil, wheat, etc. and those cities don't utilies them. i don't often use horseen or knights, but the last two really make it shine. +2 prod. from mountains make those city investments worthwhile and communsim brings factorys to 134 if you get it first (more than likey!!) and half that if u switch to communism!!

Why are your reviews bad? They seem really rushed. The presentation isn't good. They're very short. You list the bonuses, say what they are again, and rarely really talk about them:

Mongols start out with 50% trade from CAPTURED Cities, not the the free barbarain cities, so its a okay bonus

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The bonus is, +50% trade from captured cities. you mention this does not count for barb hut cities, which is nice. Oh, and you say it's okay. Fantastic. This prevails through all your reviews. And it looks like they've been thrown together in 12 seconds.

Whereas Aden's review, probably written mainly to make yours look even worse (I'd have done the same ), is well structured, LOOKS good, and though in content is more similar to yours than you may care to notice, it's decent.

Personally, I feel the Mongol's attributes work against themselves. +50% trade from cpatured cities makes early rushhes to set up large science and gold cities MUCH more tempting, yet the free Communism and super productive mountains make it seem like you should take a production approach. Thoguh one could say you can shift into this late game, if you have cities with large economic boosts, you can just BUY armies quicker than you can produce in almost all cases.

The capturing Barb cities also works against this. One of the fundamental things you msut consider is that if you take barb huts as cities- and there's no choice- you don't get that spy/caravan or the lump sum of gold. This means you can't rush things early game and you don't get the free settler until later unless you neglect early research entirely.

In single player, Mongolia excels though. If you can capture about 8 barb cities (you often can as the AI seems to neglect them) you will have a massive jump on even the Deity AI and will likely breeze to victory if you can hold your gains.

How to keep your new cities is another thing that hurts the Mongols. Instead of expanding at a steady pace with defenders you expand VERY rapidly, and any competent human or lucky AI will get you- a farmers gambit does NOT work in CivRev. The cities are size 1, so it will take 5 turns to get a defender unless you want t slow your quest for more huts. If the Zulu didn't get your capital, they will surely claim some of your new, rubbish gains. Indded, they ARE free cities for your opponents.

I haven't actually played Mongolia in multiplayer yet, but theorising: Mongolia will likely do very good in head to head matches if you're lucky enough not to start next to the human. Just capture lots of cities, tech up to Feudalism and rule the world with extra fast Knights. With enough Knight Armies and clever use of roads (something every player needs to learn) you could take down a civ of 9 cities in 3 turns. Civ3 always war players will be salivating at the road micromanagement prospects that open up with 3 mvoe horses.

Mongolia is really a civ that's packed full of awesome bonuses- after playing them and thinking about it, too many bonuses spoil the whole world domination broth.

okay, the reviews you people are making, are OVERCOMPLICATED, you don't have to detail every little part, to get the point across.
Remember, these are for new players, its not supposed to be complicated

I think there okay for sp, but for multiplayer there garbage, one game, i played with a friend who is really good, got destroyed playing as the mongols, because his cities weren't strong enough to make enough units to defend the city

and im sorry that a didn't put the strategy for using the mongols, i'll put that up now

with MY reviews, i like having a short one, that makes a simple point on a civ, so people who play the game, or are new and might be buying the game could understand

I haven't tried Mongols yet, but here's an idea. Take over barbarians on other islands so you don't have to wait to build settlers. All you need is one galley and one warrior, and you will get a lot of free cities on islands. Meanwhile, wage a land war on the main continent as a decoy to turn your opponents' attention away from the island cities.

with MY reviews, i like having a short one, that makes a simple point on a civ, so people who play the game, or are new and might be buying the game could understand

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If that is the goal of your reviews, then you accomplish that, but there's still room for improvement. Its perfectly fine to make a short review that makes simple points on a civ, but you really need to explain why you think X's bonus is garbage. Simply saying things like:

and Knowledge of Communism at the end is important, but it doesnt save this civ

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does nothing to help even new players. All they will do is ask why? And if they have to ask why your saying these things, then your review could probably use a little bit more depth.

Now, you don't need a long or intense review, but atleast briefly stating why you chose the rating, and why the era bonuses are good or not, could really help...

When other people have said your reviews are awful, I think thats because, in general, they expect them to be more detailed. They don't have to be, and your review meets your goal of being simple and for new players. But more experienced players will want reviews that provide lots of depth and strategy behind it.

If you really want to do an excellent review than what you could do, is split it up. Have the beginning of your review be brief, and outline the rest of the review, with simple points. Then on the second half, go into a lot more detail and provide different strategies and synergies for using abilities etc. That way new players can read the beginning to get the simple points, and if you want more detail then you have the content readily available for reading.

Oh and making a review more indepth or longer is not overcomplicating, even for new players. Just make sure you have good format, and explain things in a way thats easy to understand. Also, detailing every little part, will help new players just as well, because they will learn more. They will say "Oh, I never though about using X bonus in X way," and that will make them a better player. Mainly because it will get them thinking of new ways to use abilities, or new strategies.

One last thing, and this may sound kind of harsh but, when you make simple points about a civ, your points are not always true / correct (or there's more to the bonuses that you don't cover). All your reviews are is simply a one sentence opinion about each era's bonus for a civ. Granted, every review is someone's opinion about a topic, but most of the time you give facts/evidence/proof to back up what you say, and by doing so you try to convince people that what your saying is true. Sometimes in your reviews I find that there are things you say that are not 100% true, or things that may not always work in every game you play. There are also things you neglect to mention that might be important. If anything, this is more detrimental to your review, because it's not really helping new players at all.

For instance, at the end of your review when you say that this civ just simply "sucks," all you are doing is stating your opinion. Do the Mongols really suck? In my own opinion, I don't think any civ sucks. If a civ sucked, then it wouldn't have made it to the game. Just because you have a hard time with a civ, or can never win with them, does not mean it sucks. Maybe you just had bad luck, or maybe you are not playing them as well as you could. There are different strategies to use for every civ. It all depends on a person's play style. Mongols are great for domination, heck, I would argue you can even go for cultural victory (all that production means more wonders, and spies to steal great people. All those spies are also good for slowing down your enemies from reaching their victories as well).

I didn't do that great with the Mongols and have only played one game as them. On diety I know there are a handful of civs I really like and can win with easily. Right now I'm trying to beat the game with every civ, and my strategy from game to game can change drastically based on a number of things (not just the civ itself).

I-am-a-panda said:

barbs are normally on a resource liek silk, oxen, oil, wheat, etc. and those cities don't utilies them. i don't often use horseen or knights, but the last two really make it shine. +2 prod. from mountains make those city investments worthwhile and communsim brings factorys to 134 if you get it first (more than likey!!) and half that if u switch to communism!!

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The resource thing is not an issue. It eliminates the resource from the map and ensures no one can get it while, at the same time, giving you an extra city.

So it's kind of like this:

1. I found a new city near a destroyed barbarian city, effectively wasting a pop out of my main city.

2. Oh my. Here comes a stack of armies for my freshly built city.

3. Crap. Wasted pop plus he has a city next to resources.

Or:

1. Cool. I got this city sooner without the used pop. Maybe I can use this pop to build a city elsewhere or use that pop to pump another city. Maybe I can use the city growth in this city to pump out settlers for a more important city.

2. Oh my. Here comes a stack of armies for my freshly captured city.

3. Crap. At least I didn't waste a pop and gave a resource to my enemy.

In reality, you'll only ever safely utilize one or two of those barbarian cities resources. The rest of the time they end up in the hands of your enemies. It's better to deny them the resource all together than to attempt to take and hold it.

Also, those resources are highly over rated in this game. They don't really become highly useful until the mid to late game and are completely irrelevant to the Mongol idea that quantity>quality, which is very true in the world of Civ Rev. Now, if you needed oil for tanks, then yes, resources would be infinitely valuable and The Mongs would be at a severe disadvantage... but this is simply not the case.

There is a lack of upkeep requirement for units and cities, so having tons of low quality cities (similar to Civ 3) is highly viable and has no penalties. This is why having all those barbarian cities is amazing in the early game. You can pump out tons of keshiks from all of those crappy cities and take over more valuable cities. It's not like the AI remembers the wars you have with them. If they have a city you like, take it over. It's that simple.

Once the game turns into the mid game, you should, if you played right, have map control.

civoholic said:

Why noobs shouldn't play it
3. they suck

GARBAGE!!!

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I am in awe. You have enlightened me. Your mastery of the Caps Lock key, combined with the added emphasis of extra exclamation points has solidified the viewpoint in my mind that the Mongols, indeed, do poorly as a civilization.

Jerrymander said:

I am in awe. You have enlightened me. Your mastery of the Caps Lock key, combined with the added emphasis of extra exclamation points has solidified the viewpoint in my mind that the Mongols, indeed, do poorly as a civilization.

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CAPS LOCK IS MY FAVORITE KEY, AND I WANTED TO EMPHASIZE HOW BAD THEY SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

civoholic said:

CAPS LOCK IS MY FAVORITE KEY, AND I WANTED TO EMPHASIZE HOW BAD THEY SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Well, you certainly made your point.

These reviews are great, not because of the actual review, which is so undetailed that not even a beginner could glean much from it, but because all of the responses fill in the gaps.

If played right the Mongols are overpower for SP.

My easiest Deity victory yet came as the Mongols.

I was in Fundamentalism ever since reaching medieval, and I still out teched the AI by a good margin. I must admit that apart from 1 city spawning gold and two cities producing units all others was devoted to science, but still out teching the AI on Deity in fundamentalism is just plain ez way to victory.

(My two prod cities had 3 mountains each to work + forest and and a 1-2 hills). (ps! AI capitals are nice science boosters )

I just got a SP deity cultural victory with the Mongols because I captured 5 barb cities settled another city and found the Artifact that gives every city a temple. I probably controlled almost the whole top third of the map. That left the other four civs all fighting each other for small bits of turf. I had oodles of mountains in my region and one city had 108 hammers per turn (without communism - just lots of mountains and an Iron Mine and factory). Wonder spamming commenced. I finished Oxford University, Samurai Castle, Magna Carta, Statue of Liberty, Internet, Manhattan Project, Taj Mahal, Military Industrial Complex, Shakespeare's Theater, Hollywood, Sydney Opera House.

It was a lot of fun. And I stuck with Democracy the whole game after learning that tech.

Killer Moogle said:

Wonder spamming commenced. I finished Oxford University, Samurai Castle, Magna Carta, Statue of Liberty, Internet, Manhattan Project, Taj Mahal, Military Industrial Complex, Shakespeare's Theater, Hollywood, Sydney Opera House.

It was a lot of fun. And I stuck with Democracy the whole game after learning that tech.

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Which wonder packs do you have, several of these mentioned here are available in civ4, but not in the standard edition of revolution and not the first wonder pack either:

Statue of Liberty, Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House are not common wonders, so just wondered where you got them from and what they do in Civ Rev.

The Mongols can become very powerful with any early bonus that applies to all cities.

For example, as Killer Moogle pointed out the Ark of the Covenant gives a temple to all cities. If you've Mongol-ed up on 5-6 barbarian huts and a capital and get this, its HUGE. If I find this first, I usually change tactics temporarily and ICS out 3-4 more cities just to get the extra bonus. Bee-lining for irrigation is an option too, because if you get it first, extra population x all those cities is also huge. I've had the occasional great humanitarian in addition to these, giving another +1 pop to every city. With this, you can basically build an enormous size empire in the early ancient era: ~10 cities at population 3-6 all with temples. Add Stonehenge to this (the cheapest wonder, 50 prod.) and you're quickly drowning in great people. Your competitors will be lucky to have 2 cities at population 3 at that point. Game over.