Mongolia completely overpowered?

Once again, Pikes will be good for absorbing shots (I haven't checked, but I'm assuming Keshik ranged attacks are less effective against them), but it seems horsemen are better for attacking.

I would never counter with pikes...Rather counter with own horsemen. So for my money pikes are just not good enough. And the AI can´t win a battle of logistics (which is why we win at even deity level at the moment).

As posted earlier the Mongols are good because they enhance a type of unit that is already very good. But for MP if you don´t win/gain advantage by the time horses are useless, you are left with a city state attacking bonus (which is utter useless), the general is still nice, but an opponent with 2 GG is just as mobile (in this 1up world).

I think the Mongols are just fine - they pack a mean punch in an era - but dont come close to the über nation of China - which bonusses last them the entire game.

Best counter for the mongul uu is the greek uu. just ride them down. CC are still the best overall unit in the game. Keshicks might be up for second place though.

Sir Sir said:

I would never counter with pikes...Rather counter with own horsemen.

I think the Mongols are just fine - they pack a mean punch in an era - but dont come close to the über nation of China - which bonusses last them the entire game.

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The horseman counter definitely sounds like the best. And the chu-ko-nu keeping its repeat fire ability after being upgraded is my candidate for most ridiculous oversight.

Just played a game with Mongolia. I conquered a couple civs with horsemen, upgraded them to kehiks (150 gold each, so pretty cheap) and they were a little bit OP. I killed most units (including pikemen and spearmen) in one shot, or two at the most. And I love khans, they move insanely fast so you don't have to wait forever for them to get to a battle scene like you do with regular GGs. I was only playing on King, so it was probably easier than it would've been.

lschnarch said:

They are the free DLC with which you should have been updated 2 hours ago, if you were online.

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I actually played as the Mongols last night around 8PM EST. I realized it a few hours into playing that they were the free DLC that Firaxis put out.

i tried them out on immortal/small/quick just now;

domination in 147 turns

killed a city state with 2 warriors

the medic promotion on khan seems as bugged as medic promotions

the big difference is you tech differently, through chiverly and military sience, instead of through lancer to rifelmen. i think its a good idea to open with farms and use a great sientist to proc civil service

you end up with a horseman/keshik mix which is amazingly powerful even vrs reniacence units

keshik effectivly has 7 range

on the whole i think they are very interesting, i cant wait to try them in multiplayer - if they ever fix it (misc whine about civ5, firaxis and steam being bugged and horrible)

Yeah, I didn't upgrade all my keshiks, just about 75% of them and it made capturing cities faster.

vmxa said:

Don't forget that Khan adds 1 movement to mounted units, so I guess that means Khesik are 6 moves. I we thought Champions cavs were tough. I have not gotten to that point yet.

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No offense but try the game out first. Testing the Mongols has revealed that Keshiks do not get 6 moves.. They have 5 movement.

chaunceymo said:

Mongols are NOT overpowered.

Why? Because combat is far and away the easiest part of the game. Are Keshik and Khans *cool*? Sure. Are they significantly more overpowered than knights? Maybe.

Doesn't change the fact that two knights, a swordsman and a trebuchet or two are more than sufficient to take out even the nastiest renaissance-era armies.

IMO the only civs that are really overpowered right now are ones that get significant economic advantages, since that's the only part of the game that's truly competitive with the AI. I think Arabia is OP, because they just make ICS even more broken with their bonus to trade route gold AND the bazaar gives you more luxury resources to sell. Civs with good cheap low-level buildings (China, Egypt) and gonzo economic UAs (Persia, Babylon, Siam) are the standouts imo.

I look at it this way: an overpowered military civ makes the game a tiny bit faster and possibly more fun. An overpowered economic civ might not make the game any more fun, but they can make it a LOT faster.

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Hold up... Did you say 2 knights, a swordsman, and a trebuchet? ...How many hammers is that, bro?

Louis XXIV said:

Exactly.



Also, this. I didn't say the Mongols deserved to be overpowered, but it does make sense for them to get bonuses for military and especially mounted military. They're not suited for a peaceful game or cultural victory, for example.

It's why I asked about comparing the Keshik to the Camel Archer. I think the Keshik is better, but I think they're comparable. Also, the Arab Unique Building is better than the Khan, imo. Arabs aren't even considered the top tier of Civs for most people, from what I gather.

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Wtf chill.. Khans are insane.. Double medic?

I thought I was fairly calm for that post. I'll add a 8) next time

I didn't consider the Khaaaaaaaaan!!!!!!!! in my thought process - that's true. Still, only useful for wars, which you'd expect the Mongols to be good at.

I say no, I played the new mongolia scenario.

Took me like 30 minutes to finish it =/

From 4 horsemen and one keshik and a khan. my Final army was 2 pikeman/2 crossbowmen and ten horseman and six keshik including casualities i took. Plus three more great generals.

Only things that offered me real resistance was spearman/pikeman/knights on the map.

India had a large army but gandhi used it very poorily. Ten pikemen/four archers/ two knights and four elephants. Versus three horsemen and a great general reinforced by two pkemen running down south after they joined me after i took their city state.

I lost one horsemen to two knights he had. the majority of his army engaged me on the silk road and around Lhasa uh, i forgot name of the city state in middle of mountains and tundra at like center of the map. I think its lhasa.

Spearman has 100% boost meaning its str 7 will become str 14 vs str 12 horsemen and so you're fine.

Utilize terrain to your effect.

I've had a map where therewas like a split off of four rivers at where they started i settled a city there, surrounded by mountains on two sides with river aiding its defense, AI had hell of a time trying to manuver.

Sure, you will have trouble on wide flat plains, but that's what shock promo and settling troops in advance is for, and building a fort or two xD

So, in the end, a mongolian player will rate your spearman/knight/pikeman high priority to kill.

And you know it.

Pikemen is cheap to build, even so if you play as germany xD, just mass up warriors and then mass upgrade em to landkerschet.

Important things to always keep in mind is Terrain and your social policies.

I've noticed one thing, AI really really hate it when you pick tradition's oligarchy for 33% bonus and stay in your lands highly experienced troops fortifying away, and it becomes a artillery war.

Their abilites look nice but that won't slaughter me. Still won't change me away from playing japan for kewl looking samurai units.

Edit: Speak of the devil, i just started next to mongolia xD Well now to see if my talk smack is right or not or he starts with no horses lulz

Thoughtful Thug said:

A crossbowman with 5 movement points? I feel sorry for cities that have nothing but plains and grasslands surrounding it.

Just finished playing a 8 civ match while on King difficulty, and all I had to do was make 2 keshik and about 4 horseman. Too bad the AIs is still a pushover without having the mongols.

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Trying out Mongols here with my usual Emperor level small oval map (like Pangaea but more interesting with bays and water features) with the usual 6 civs. A quick recap to show how stunningly powerful this civ is for warmongers.

I start out on a penisula in a forest and looking at two fish I just build right there and beeline sailing for work boats rather than beelining HBR since I figured nothing much but CS near me. Soon I get optics for embarking to improve my exploring and there are a couplel penisulas with CS nearby. Certainly not the map for a Mongol HBR and only one of these CS (sort of behind my planned lands is Military while the rest are Maritime and Cultural (likely to become my BFF's in that order depending on happiness).

I then do my usual 5 city mini-REX-ICS and using Liberty SP rather than Honor since I don't expect to fight too soon and am not pressing up vs anyone's borders and the only real AI threat is Harun to my south and we seem compatable and with a quickish research agreement costing only 200 gold.

I start my roads, for trading and Meritocracy (1 happy per city roaded to capitol) and trade route income. This style of play is very nice when able to build up a bit and later I am getting a superb ROI on my roads from both trade income and movement ease.
Experience tell me that AI(s) get angry when I expand too much or war too much and I am careful to be friendly with a powerful Washington mid continent (I'm left) , No one else is a threat, but I know to beeline HBR now.

LOL..as soon as my the researcg agreement Harun asked me for pays off, that bugger DOW's me. The fool with only Mecca and Medina (burn baby burn) dies horribly to horsemen that mostly become kesheks (once he DOW I beelined chivalry) .. keep at least one a horseman so you can take cities. 5 movement per turn means that even if you play with 5 thumbs per hand you rarely lose units to the AI. So easy to attack anything you want and then run for cover and finally my Khan is born and WOW he is nice for healing and for keeping up with a blitzkreig of horse units.

OK Harun dies easily and please tell him that I took good care of his peacocks. They were fattened up for two weeks and made for a great victory party combined with an I Love the King Day. So...the entire 3rd of the landmass is mine and as we know it is game over.

So.. lets see how really powerful Mongols are. That military CS behind me will be a bother if an enemy bribes it into war later so lets add it as a puppet. A couple Kesheks with the 30% CS attack bonus make short work of a couple of pikes (clever AI to expect my horses to ravage him) and Almaty is now puppeted.

OK now who to attack? Washington is clearly the number two civ but we're buds so lets head east and nail Siam and use our gold for more CS bro's to help our cultural causes and to feed us. 4 Kesh and 1 Horseman and 1 Khan crush the Siamese colony on the mainland side of the bay barely taking a hit and then roll into his mainland area without loss of a unit. A major Siamese city falls and he is crying for mercy and paying for it so I raze the 2 garbage cities he gives me and he has nothing left but his capitol. I was too unhappy to want to simply finish him and puppet his cap.

Now...I wait at least 50-60 turns while growing and dealing with my happiness and teching and preparing to make filler cities for my ICS on what looks like 3/8 of the landmass.

Hmm... 50+ turns have passed and Siam is griping about by nearby units (4 Kesh 1 Khan and 1 Horse) and Monty has built three garbage cities near them. Monty will be a bother if unchecked no matter what so I tell Siam to chill and DOW Monty. Losing no units inspite of a bit of his ICS city fire I raze those three cities and then offer him peace for gold and a lux I needed.

Along the Patronage SP line I but the last CS near Siam as a BF and DOW Siam and his now two cities (at least 60 turns after I could have crushed him with my 5 untis and Khan) fall easily and w/out me losing a unit. (New Khans made for nice Golden Ages and the helpful Forbidden Palace wonder and another very happy wonder)

Anyhow...the Mongol horse attack is super strong and if I replay this game as a beeline for HBR/Chiv and war SP it will be a quick romp. Imagine Honor and it's bonuses for war combined with Mongols and we have LOL.

Yeah I need to play this civ on Immortal or Deity but the same can be said for almost any civ and for almost anyone who posts here commonly.

Mongols are a warmonger's dream come true and like better than Songhai for this ... neilkaz ...

Since the Mongols are my favourite Civ and I was curious if the patch improved the game any, I started a Small pangaea world game on Prince. I proceeded to steamroller the AI consisting of the French, English, Romans, Japanese and Iroquois without losing even a single unit the entire game! I also never bothered to use the instant heal promotion either.

I think I won the game by conquest in 520 AD but I could have won it earlier except I wanted to explore the whole world first. That plus the Khan's healing ability doesn't work. Seems to be some kind of bug.

I only allied with 2 city states the entire game and I smashed one just for the heck of it. I completed the whole honour tree and that was it for social policies.

All in all, not that exciting as it was so darn easy. I will concede it was on Prince but not losing a single unit for the entire game as a warmonger seems a bit odd.

I am little disappointed that they didn't use new city graphics for the Mongols. The music was average I think.

Anyway, I'd have to say the Mongols are pretty powerful. Not overpowered but good for Warmongering Civilization 5.

Blitz47 said:

Keshik is nice, but I couldn't take over cities with it. I still had to build a swordsman to take over enemy city. They are quite powerful and fun, but you are a warmonger, you should've been attacking with horseman already, it takes a while to get keshik in comparison and once it's out, ouch for the enemy.

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I just took over 5 towns with two Keshiks and 1 swordsman. I Keshiks are epic hit-'n-run units. You move into position, fire, and return to a safe location. Then when you're ready, move the swordsman into position, move both keshiks and raze that town!

My arch enemy since I purchases this game was Ceasar, so guess who lost 5 towns' Darn I hate that guy.

Thormodr, why do you think the Mongol music is average? Personally I think it's among the top 2 most beautiful leader themes. It's very moving and harmonic, imo. Certainly less clunky-sounding than Civ 4's Genghis theme, which was based on the Mongolian national anthem. To be fair though, they only really get good around the 3 minute mark, for both peace and war.

Out of curiosity, I emailed Geoff Knorr yesterday about Mongolia's music. He said he composed it, and that it's based on a traditional Mongolian long song.

And yes, the Khan does seem to be bugged. I'd agree Mongolia isn't OP. At the moment I'd say the real problem is just cavalry in general, and how they stomp things or get stomped in ONE HIT (or close to) most of the time, just like how infantry insta-kill archers when they attack, which I think is to make up for the fact that archers can do substantial damage from range. A bit clunky, and it can lead to unbalanced battles. :S

The main thing about Mongolia which is powerful in 5 is the Keshik, as it gains double XP by default and generates Khans at double the usual rate, in addition to having uber movement. The UA actually kinda sucks imo--an early city-state captured is nice, but really only helps if you're serving a hostile CS that wanted that CS eliminated. And even then this only helps a little bit, as the CSes might all turn on you for warmongering.

Screw it, quit the map, Mongolia rexxed super fast with no happiness penalties whatsoever. I'm tired of AI being able to rex like mad and get metropolises everywhere.

Morningcalm said:

Thormodr, why do you think the Mongol music is average? Personally I think it's among the top 2 most beautiful leader themes. It's very moving and harmonic, imo. Certainly less clunky-sounding than Civ 4's Genghis theme, which was based on the Mongolian national anthem. To be fair though, they only really get good around the 3 minute mark, for both peace and war.

Out of curiosity, I emailed Geoff Knorr yesterday about Mongolia's music. He said he composed it, and that it's based on a traditional Mongolian long song.

And yes, the Khan does seem to be bugged. I'd agree Mongolia isn't OP. At the moment I'd say the real problem is just cavalry in general, and how they stomp things or get stomped in ONE HIT (or close to) most of the time, just like how infantry insta-kill archers when they attack, which I think is to make up for the fact that archers can do substantial damage from range. A bit clunky, and it can lead to unbalanced battles. :S

The main thing about Mongolia which is powerful in 5 is the Keshik, as it gains double XP by default and generates Khans at double the usual rate, in addition to having uber movement. The UA actually kinda sucks imo--an early city-state captured is nice, but really only helps if you're serving a hostile CS that wanted that CS eliminated. And even then this only helps a little bit, as the CSes might all turn on you for warmongering.

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I just found the Mongol music to be average. Hearing some beautiful music when I was in Mongolia and hearing a private concert from the most famous morin khuur (Horsehead fiddle) player in Mongolia (He can sure play for being over 80 years old) I was hoping to recapture that magical feeling somewhat.

The music was by no means bad but it didn't do much for me. For the record, I quite like the other music in the game.

I just found the Mongol music to be average. Hearing some beautiful music when I was in Mongolia and hearing a private concert from the most famous morin khuur (Horsehead fiddle) player in Mongolia (He can sure play for being over 80 years old) I was hoping to recapture that magical feeling somewhat.

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Well, the Civ 5 version lacks vocals. What else did you feel was missing? Out of curiosity. I looked up "Mongolian long song" on youtube just today and was astounded by what I found. :O

I also think the Civ 5 version is based on the Silk Road exhibit at the Institute of Chicago, also on YouTube. Just a guess.