How I beat the Mongol Scenario on Deity

I found the Mongol Scenario very enjoyable, after several attempts here is what I did:

Turn 1: a horseman meets Jin, trade horses/open borders for gold then DOW. Another horseman meets Western Xia to collect 15 gold. Other 2 horsemen upgraded to keshiks. Set capital to production focus, a worker starts a mine, other starts a road to Jin's capital. Tech - beeline Construction to get coliseum. Production - keshik.

Next step: horseman that met Jin meets Uighur and Almaty for 45 more gold. 3 keshiks and 1 horse attack Jin's capital to get Great Wall. While taking Jin's capital, Western Xia DOWs me. After taking Jin's city to the right of his capital, Wu is attacking Jin - I leave a keshik and horseman to take Jin's next city when Wu weakens it enough while rest of army takes Western Xia to get 2 more horsemen. Those I upgrade to keshiks.

After finishing off Jin, I made a deal for Wu's gold then DOW her as she is right there. For production I am producing keshiks and buying circus and coliseum. 39 moves into the game I have taken Jin & Wu and have one army, 8 keshiks/ 2 horseman / 2 khan with keshiks getting sweet promotions. Other khans become golden ages. I make peace with Wu's allied CS as soon as Wu is done. I razed 3 of Wu's cities to avoid unhappiness but I didn't raze any of Jin's cities.

I take the silk road next and Persia doesn't have as many units as the previous time I played - he must have gone to war in the south. After taking 2 Persian cities, he gives me 2 more cities to make peace. I raze 2 of them. Then I take my army east to get India, 12 turns later I am back at war with Persia to take their last city. I only razed 1 Indian city and built a road - the trade routes are getting me a lot of gold, important to have trade routes.

Instead of attacking Abbaddiss (sp?) I give them 1000 gold from Persian victory to become allies, this helps my happiness with their luxury, saves me a few turns, and they have enough units to help blunt Arabia's army. I got over 600 gold from Arabia before DOW, so I only lost about 400 gold to save time and get 5 happiness. By now several of my keshiks have the double-tap promotion, the cities are falling faster.

Once Arabia falls I have enough gold to buy an army to take on Japan. Japan costs me a lot of units, I don't lose any units in my main army. The entire game I only had 2 armies, army #2 has the sole task of Japan and is bought not built. I only raze 1 Arabian city. I annex my city closest to Japan so I can ships and buy units there. First I take out Korea, because last failed attempt I allied them, and they stuck their units in places that prevented me from bombarding the 2 tile Japanese island. They give me 2 crossbows and I start buying longswordsman - as soon as Byzantine is done (only 2 cities, I have several 3 range double-tap keshiks) I have the tech for rifles, and I upgrade longswordsmen/crossbow units to 7 rifles to take on Japan with 3 keshiks and 5 triremes, all of which I am buying.

Hungary is allied with Russia so DOWs me when I DOW Russia, but I ignore them. Happiness isn't a problem until I get to Russia, I don't want to raze more cities because I want a higher Civ score at the end. Japan falls before Russia, Russia falls on move 93. There was more to the game than this, but those were some of the highlights.

This is the order of conquering:

Start Jin
Western Xia (CS)
Finish Jin
Wu
Perisa start
India while peace with Persia
Persia finish
Abbaddis (CS) buy off as ally
Arabia
Korea (CS)
start on Japan
Byzantine
finish Japan
Russia

Thanks! I would like to hear if others took a different order of conquering.

Going for a second deity Mongol victory. Took Jin, Western Xia and Wu in 33 turns this time - getting more efficient with Keshik movement and combat. So far this appears to best order to take Wu's cities:
Xianyang
Tanzhou
Guangzou
Hangzou
Chendgu

I also got an RA with Japan, so I should get rifles quicker than last time and invade Japan earlier. Perhaps I should be sending a scout east to get RA from Russia also.

NOTE: Persia going golden-age unexpectantly is a huge danger, faster moving pikemen out of nowhere in the hills throw a wrench in tactical keshik setups.

(I did reload: when taking Jin's CS ally, Western Xia, after I took Jin, everybody denounced me - I guess I was supposed to offer peace after Jin was gone. Second time, took Western Xia then Jin's last city, AI didn't get HOSTILE at me for taking Western Xia. This reload enabled Japan to RA with me.)

***********************UPDATED POST*******************************

Final result: 81 turn victory! What saved me time:
* Taking India before Persia (then went after Persia)
* After taking 2 Persian cities, and Persia giving me 2 more for peace, I split army:
** 5 Keshiks with best promotions went Arabia (gave me city for peace), Byzantine, finish Arabia, finish last Persian City
** 5 Keshiks with worst promotions took Russia, finish at same time as first army
*Built 3rd army for Japan earlier, finished Japan 1 turn before Russia!
** Took Korea before DOWing Japan
** Took 2 tile Japan island before rifles
** Didn't take main island until rifles, that was a costly attack.

I think I can do it under 80 turns, now that my technique is getting refined!

I hope they create more scenarios like this, when I first tried on King I thought Deity would be impossible... I don't think you can solve Deity on the first try, knowing where things are is so key.

Hi appreciate the help you gave on the scenario. I spent hours trying it my way and running out of time on the Arabian civ or totally getting deadlocked with Wu... id like to know how u deal with the Chinese, I generally end up spending so much time fighting their army the game is over i do use the Keshik's pretty efficiently, making sure all attack the same units or cities in a hit and run motion avoiding any damage... haven't yet had a chance of invading the Chinese cities in the order u posted, will try it see how it goes... cheers

Hi Rafe_Shankar,

The Chinese will go to war against Jin while you are fighting Jin - the time to DoW China is when their units are wounded and scattered while they fight Jin. I like to wait until China has just about captured a Jin city, take the Jin city myself, then DoW China and their units will be 1/2 strength or less. Because I took Jin's capital first city, the Great Wall means that China's units can only move 1 hex in my territory.

If you take Jin's southern cities before taking the capital, then you will be facing a full fresh Chinese army which will really slow you down. Must take capital first, if China doesn't send units after Jin she will send them after you!

cheers guv ill try that once this patch comes out, turn 15 got all of jins land and my game crashes on the same turn every time...

If you got all of Jins land and you took out all of Jins army while China watched, then you have to take out all of China's army by yourself. Faster to let Jin and China destroy each other's units, which is why I took out Western Xia (to get the 2 free horsemen) which gave China time to DoW Jin.

hm yeah taking jin so early was a bad move, next time i tried i let them fight it out a bit longer, took the Chinese cities as they were weak... i think a certain amount of luck is needed to win the mongol scenario on deity, every civilization i faced they had an endless supply of units... not hard to defeat just so time consuming to get through them all to invade a city. around 30 turns left i was still trying to get my second Persian city... try it a 3rd time tomorrow... you must be the only person to have completed it on deity, i looked on the steam achievements... 0.0% have completed the scenario on deity... testament to its difficulty i suppose

It was challenging, it took me many tries to win. But once I figured out the formula I won again the next game - it is important to be familiar with the map and how the AI handle each other.

There are 2 more threads about beating Mongol on Deity:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=403806
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=399721

Having the AI fight each other is very important, I had the same problem the first few times, the Chinese and Persians had way too many units. If you get to a civ with too many units, bribe another civ to Dow to distract units. Also, paying the $ to ally with Abbaddis was important, they absorb Arabian units. Byzantine will also invade Arabia in the game.

Having the Keshiks get the double hit promotion is essential - I let the cities hit my keshiks for exp once the dangerous units are gone. I also bought a second army to speed things up.

Also - if you haven't worked your way up 5,6,7,8 civs - do that first, at least win Immortal first.

finally did it... lol, wont be doing that again... i genuinely think a massive part of it was freak luck... every time i tried before they had armies tht could hold me up big time... this time i did it everything seemed open but im not complaining... can consider myself one of the elite now, lol

I don't get it. I am playing on Emperor, and when I attack Beijing, my Keshiks on average do 2 damage. Beijing heals 4. As starting gold is 200, I can only afford to upgrade 1 horseman to Keshik. Hence, Beijing becomes unassailable. My normal horseman can barely scratch Beijing, listing Costly Attacks. The only way I can see beating Beijing is with at least 3 keshiks, but I have no idea how to get them that quickly. Also, what is your first capital build? Heroic Epic?

Ravellion said:

I don't get it. I am playing on Emperor, and when I attack Beijing, my Keshiks on average do 2 damage. Beijing heals 4. As starting gold is 200, I can only afford to upgrade 1 horseman to Keshik. Hence, Beijing becomes unassailable. My normal horseman can barely scratch Beijing, listing Costly Attacks. The only way I can see beating Beijing is with at least 3 keshiks, but I have no idea how to get them that quickly. Also, what is your first capital build? Heroic Epic?

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In my Deity game China asked for peace and gave all his gold and cities to me. I used that 10 turns to attack to the south.

Somebody sold conquered city-state to China for the gold.

I usually bought stuff from the capital, but never could build much there.

Ravellion said:

I don't get it. I am playing on Emperor, and when I attack Beijing, my Keshiks on average do 2 damage. Beijing heals 4. As starting gold is 200, I can only afford to upgrade 1 horseman to Keshik. Hence, Beijing becomes unassailable. My normal horseman can barely scratch Beijing, listing Costly Attacks. The only way I can see beating Beijing is with at least 3 keshiks, but I have no idea how to get them that quickly. Also, what is your first capital build? Heroic Epic?

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On turn 1 when you meet Jin trade your 3 unused horses for gold then DoW. Send one of your horseman to meet Western Xia to get 15 gold, this will give you enough gold to immediately upgrade 2 Keshiks - 3 Keshiks are needed to take Beijing. The horseman that met Western Xia I send east to meet 2 more CS for 75 extra gold.

My first build was a Keshik, I didn't want to wait. My next 2 Keshiks came from taking Western Xia (after they DoW me - DoW them gets a CS diplo hit) as the 2 horseman I got were upgraded to Keshiks. 6 Keshiks early with that plan.

Silverfuturist said:

On turn 1 when you meet Jin trade your 3 unused horses for gold then DoW. Send one of your horseman to meet Western Xia to get 15 gold, this will give you enough gold to immediately upgrade 2 Keshiks - 3 Keshiks are needed to take Beijing. The horseman that met Western Xia I send east to meet 2 more CS for 75 extra gold.

My first build was a Keshik, I didn't want to wait. My next 2 Keshiks came from taking Western Xia (after they DoW me - DoW them gets a CS diplo hit) as the 2 horseman I got were upgraded to Keshiks. 6 Keshiks early with that plan.

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Ah, that will do it. Thanks!

Who is Jin?
I have explored the whole map and I cannot see anyone named Jin.

Never mind. I see them.
OK, I have attacked him a few times with ALL the units I start with, and he destroys me.
This is on SETTLER difficulty setting.
What on earth am I doing wrong?

gtsecc said:

Never mind. I see them.
OK, I have attacked him a few times with ALL the units I start with, and he destroys me.
This is on SETTLER difficulty setting.
What on earth am I doing wrong?

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Only use your horsemen to finish cities off. All the rest of your work is done by Keshiks. Advance, Shoot and retreat out of missile range. Again and again. Never let yourself be shot at. Learn to avoid the slowest terrain.

Okay, going to give this strategy a shot....I can't even get close to winning on Prince...takes me 20-30 turns to get a CITY, much less a CIV.

joehempel said:

Okay, going to give this strategy a shot....I can't even get close to winning on Prince...takes me 20-30 turns to get a CITY, much less a CIV.

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The start is slow until your Keshiks get those sweet promotions. The first few civs take the longest, until those Keshiks get those unstoppable promotions:
1. Siege +25% vs cities
2. March, heal every turn even when fighting or moving
3. logistics, shoot twice the same turn
4. range(?) shoot 3 tiles away

A key point to getting those promotions is to let the Keshiks get hit by wimpy attacks, such as cities or archers. They also must be nimble, and not in range of being attacked by strong units. Be very sure there is not a pikeman or something that has not been revealed yet! With Persia I don't take chances with Keshiks, a sudden golden age means Persia will get extra movement.

Conquering a Civ gives you a lot of gold, meaning you can buy more keshiks and possibly start 2 armies as well, I have won with 1 big Keshik army and 2 smaller Keshik armies, but I have always had to create a swordsman upgraded to riflemen force to take Japan.

Silverfuturist said:

Turn 1: (...) a worker starts a mine, other starts a road to Jin's capital

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Why a road? I was thinking build a mine + chop a tree to get that first keshik out faster.

If found going straight for the Logistics promotion very useful. Yes it delays the city attack for a while but a double attack also means double experience points so it really speeds up getting the later promotions too.