How I beat the Mongol Scenario on Deity

iggymnrr and mintcandy,

Thanks for the replies.

2nd army with 4 keshiks, horseman, trireme (or 2) and scout.

I have another question for you. How do I get a second army with 4 keshiks and a horseman built up by turn 7 to take Liaoyang? If I start the 1st army toward Russia, I have captured Uighur by turn 7 but have no money to buy anything to start the second arm with.


If I recall correctly, there is enough space on the southern tip of the Japanese main island to land four Keshiks without being overwhelmed by Samurai. If two of those Keshiks have Indirect Fire and Ranged, they should be able to shell Kyoto with assistance from a seaborne spotter.

If the other two Keshiks have Indirect Fire and Ranged, the combined fire from the four Keshiks should easily be able to take out 2 Samurai a turn.

There are three main uses for triremes in the Japanese assault.

1. To prevent Japanese triremes from smashing your embarked Keshiks to the main Japanese island.
2. To spot for your Keshiks shelling Kyoto.
3. To prevent Japanese triremes from killing an embarked Horseman/Pikeman/Swordsman/whatever attempting to seize Kyoto after your Keshiks batter it down to zero.

Good advice on using the triremes move effectively.


Personally, I'm not a big fan of attacking Japan before Jin and Green China have been finished off.

The experience garnered by assaulting Jin and Green China are downright necessary for the Keshik promotions to succeed in Japan.

I'll have to try going after Japan after I've finished off the China's so I have the upgrades.
 
I have another question for you. How do I get a second army with 4 keshiks and a horseman built up by turn 7 to take Liaoyang? If I start the 1st army toward Russia, I have captured Uighur by turn 7 but have no money to buy anything to start the second arm with.

If I were to guess HOW iggy has ANOTHER army of four Keshiks and a Horseman by turn 7, it would be by the following.

The bulk of the "second army" doesn't come from Karakorum.

Conquering Almaty and Western Xia provides two Horseman units each, for a grand total of 4. It's theoretically possible to conquer Almaty and Western Xia by turn 7, and gouge Jin and Green China for the money necessary to upgrade those Horseman units into Keshiks. By turn 7, I think it's possible for Karakorum to have pumped out a Horseman unit.

I do question how plausible it is to have 4 Keshiks and a Horseman within attack range of Liaoyang if you had already used the original Keshiks to seize faraway Almaty and Western Xia.

Which reminds me...I don't build Keshiks in Karakorum anymore. Instead, I build Horseman units in Karakorum, and immediately upgrade them into Keshiks.



Good advice on using the triremes move effectively.

One thing I forgot to add: go with the naval combat units that have the highest combat strength possible...

You want these escorts to last as long as possible. If that's the Caravel, don't even waste your time with Triremes. If that's the Frigate, don't even waste your time with Caravels.
 
mintcandy -

Thanks for the info and sorry for all the questions but this scenario is driving me nuts!!

When you wrote up your win you said:

Basically, I split my army in two right after I conquered Western Xia. My most experienced Keshiks were send east to take Beijing, while my reinforcement Keshiks from Karakorum massed in Western Xia, and harassed Xian and Chengdu. Meanwhile, I had workers connecting the Silk Road to Lhasa and India.

After this, it's much easier to detail what each army was doing.

Western Xia Force: Chengdu -> Lhasa -> Almaty -> Samarkand -> Persian Capital -> Vladimir -> northern Russian city -> Kiev -> outskirts of Byzantium

Beijing Force: Green China -> Varansi -> Delhi -> Lahore -> western most Indian city -> Persian cities south of the capital -> allied with Abbasids -> Arabia -> Byzantium

Is your opening to take Uighur then Western Xia then follow the above?

Do you recall your tech path? Do you just bee line to build the frigates or pick other techs to help manage the unhappiness issues?

What do you do with the captured cities? Raze or not?

This might be a basic question but when attacking a city with the Keshiks does it matter where they are positioned (like on a hill) or is any hex the same with regard to attacking a city? I ask because it seems to take me a really long time to take a city even with 4 Keshiks. For example, I am able to take Uighur at the end of 4 turns if I go right after them at the start of the game. Is this about right or am I doing something wrong with the positioning of my Keshiks when setting up to fire?

Thanks.
 
mintcandy -

Thanks for the info and sorry for all the questions but this scenario is driving me nuts!!

I can't speak for iggy, but I'm happy to help someone beat the scenario legitimately!



Is your opening to take Uighur then Western Xia then follow the above?

YUP.

I hit Uighur first because I want to finish out the Honor tree as quickly as possible, so I can start earning gold for kills as quickly as possible.


However,

Do you recall your tech path? Do you just bee line to build the frigates or pick other techs to help manage the unhappiness issues?

I partly remember it. I remember that the first tech I bulbed from finishing off Jin was Engineering, which is EXTREMELY useful in the river heavy terrain of Green China.

I'm kind of fuzzy what I did after that, though.

What do you do with the captured cities? Raze or not?

Well, obviously, I kept capitals, ha.

I tended to raze cities unless the city yielded some luxury I didn't have or had some strategic position I wanted. I remember keeping Varansi to give my Keshiks a safe harbor from Indian Knights and Horsemen and keeping Vladimir for the same reason.

There were only two cities that I annexed on my Deity accomplishment: the Green Chinese capital (so that I could build/buy naval escorts for the Japanese invasion) and some city in the Persian theater...either the Persian capital or Almaty, to shorten my supply lines.

This might be a basic question but when attacking a city with the Keshiks does it matter where they are positioned (like on a hill) or is any hex the same with regard to attacking a city?

Not quite sure what you are asking here, but....

I ask because it seems to take me a really long time to take a city even with 4 Keshiks. For example, I am able to take Uighur at the end of 4 turns if I go right after them at the start of the game.


How many Keshiks are you hitting Uighur with? I'm able to bring Uighur down in two turns, but I'm using four Keshiks.

How am I able to have four Keshiks that early? Simple, I take Professional Army at the start of the scenario to reduce the cost of upgrading the Horseman units into Keshiks.

If you have the Mongols (Keshik) discover Western Xia on the first turn, you should have enough money to convert three of your beginning Horseman units into Keshiks on the first turn. DO NOT CONVERT YOUR LAST HORSEMAN INTO A KESHIK...you need something to capture Uighur and Western Xia with. :p

Is this about right or am I doing something wrong with the positioning of my Keshiks when setting up to fire?

Thanks.

I think it's more that you aren't bringing enough Keshiks to the party. :p

Something else you haven't asked about...Keshik promotion order.

Prioritize Logistics. Yes, prioritize Logistics over Range. Yes, prioritize Logistics over Indirect Fire. Yes, even prioritize Logistics over Siege. Frequency of attacks deals more damage than pure damage output AND having more attacks increases the rate at which Keshiks can gain promotions.

Siege is actually one of the last promotions I get. Simply put, Siege only increases the damage of attacks...while Indirect Fire allows you to hit any visible target in range and Range increases attack range by one hex. It's your choice, but the latter two promotions made my Keshiks far more deadly than Siege ever did.
 
Conquering Almaty and Western Xia provides two Horseman units each, for a grand total of 4. It's theoretically possible to conquer Almaty and Western Xia by turn 7, and gouge Jin and Green China for the money necessary to upgrade those Horseman units into Keshiks. By turn 7, I think it's possible for Karakorum to have pumped out a Horseman unit.
I use one of the 2 starting workers to chop out more horseman. 5 horse units at start + 4 from Almaty and 2 chopped yield 11 units for 1st 2 Armies. Getting 3rd Army operational is the hardest. I will sell silver to Jin right away but may not get to Liaoyang until ~turn 10-12 when going for Russia first. If a person can get on the main island of Japan in the early 20's Kyoto falls quickly, the last city may take longer. (A captured worked can chop a forest to keep 4 keshiks busy with the last city.) I don't recall too much early cash from Green China. There's not much to trade, but the 5 iron from Liaoyang may be used to scare up cash from Japan before making its way to Green China.
 
I only get 2 horses when I conquer Almaty. Where do I get the other 2 from?

He was adding in the 2 Western Xia Horseman units to that 4 units from Almaty.


I'm not familiar with what it means to use a worker to "chop out a horseman". Can you explain?

No problem.

Whenever a Worker chops down a Forest tile down to Grasslands/Plains/Tundra and the tile belongs to civilization that the Worker belongs to, the closest city to the formerly Forested tile gets a small one time bonus of 15-20 hammers.

There are three or so forest tiles on the eastern border of Karakorum that can be chopped down by your Workers to speed up Horseman production.
 
mintcandy,

Thanks for more good advice and pointers.

Not quite sure what you are asking here, but....

For example, when a keshik is firing on an archer and the keshiks is on a hill there is a -10% terrain modifier against the archer. I was wondering if there is a similar adjustment when on a hill and attacking a city? Nothing shows up in the attack window listing all the modifiers but I thought I would ask in case I was missing something to do with the positioning of my attacking units to help me take a city faster.

How many Keshiks are you hitting Uighur with? I'm able to bring Uighur down in two turns, but I'm using four Keshiks.

I replayed my opening and it took 2 turns to get to Uighur and 2 turns to capture it using the first 4 keshiks plus the horsemen using your advice. So I had Uighur all wrapped up by end of turn 4. So I guess I'm at least starting off properly. :D
 
He was adding in the 2 Western Xia Horseman units to that 4 units from Almaty.

Ah got it.

Whenever a Worker chops down a Forest tile down to Grasslands/Plains/Tundra and the tile belongs to civilization that the Worker belongs to, the closest city to the formerly Forested tile gets a small one time bonus of 15-20 hammers.

There are three or so forest tiles on the eastern border of Karakorum that can be chopped down by your Workers to speed up Horseman production.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess I've been too busy playing to read that part of the instruction manual. :lol:
 
Thought I'd do a quick demo on an early Japanese invasion. Note: it is not necessary to attack Japan early as two early armies will do fine. However, going after Japan early makes a person anxious to get a third army going sooner. A third army isn't really needed but will speed things up as it will get India tackled sooner.
Spoiler :
The AI doesn't seem to want to shoot units in the water so the scout is safe. A keshik on shore provides a target for the enemy city.



This run through was weird in that Japan, not Jin, allied with Korea. The war with Japan had to be started sooner. It got Oda to put a couple of units in the water earlier, but it slowed things down a bit. The healthy horseman was landed first to to provide a target but Oda decided to put another unit in the water to retake the island city which was being razed. It disappeared in the in-between turn. Oda's trireme has been located so caution was in order. (It wasn't with the island city.)



Again, the AI won't attack a unit in the water. Kyoto will fall this turn. (The scout is in front of the horseman in case another trireme appears.)

As this demo ends, 3rd Army is in full operation against Green China, Russia is about to fall and Japan is on the ropes. Lux from Persia from the Almaty sale and 2 luxes from Jin from a peace treaty were used to speed up conquest and to grow the capitol to pop 6 and help ease production hits from too many units. One captured worker was deleted, Liaoyang has both a scout and warrior down to 1 turn in the queue while a circus is under construction. (Avoiding production hits to get 3rd Army going.) Lastly, OB from Jin (peace treaty) are being used in the Green China war. I'll probably accept a peace treaty from Green China when Chengdu falls to go after Lhasa/India so that 2nd Army can return from Japan to reopen the war with Jin.
I only get 2 horses when I conquer Almaty. Where do I get the other 2 from?
Sorry I didn't explain that better. Western Xia and Almaty will provide 4 horsemen. Also, after selling Almaty, Kiev (?) and Liaoyang will supply 3rd Army with Hungary being gravy and the 2nd cultural CS that will be captured. Lhasa will make a 3rd cultural CS to get the happiness policy in liberty unlocked. (Useful in the late game.)
 

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I replayed my opening and it took 2 turns to get to Uighur and 2 turns to capture it using the first 4 keshiks plus the horsemen using your advice. So I had Uighur all wrapped up by end of turn 4. So I guess I'm at least starting off properly
Great going. This last time I delayed Western Xia by a turn and took it on turn 5 instead of 4. Mainly, this was to allow a keshik to discover Almaty on the sly (avoiding Persian contact) and enable me to DOW Uighur to get Almaty to auto DOW before finishing Western Xia off. (If an auto DOW is desired, contact with a 3rd living CS seems to be necessary.) Persia will pay a good price for Almaty at either neutral or friendly.
 
For example, when a keshik is firing on an archer and the keshiks is on a hill there is a -10% terrain modifier against the archer.


That sounds suspiciously like a bonus for flanking, not for what terrain the target occupies. Except that flanking increases the offensive unit's strength by 10% instead of decreasing the defensive unit's strength by 10%.

:: shrugs ::

I was wondering if there is a similar adjustment when on a hill and attacking a city? Nothing shows up in the attack window listing all the modifiers but I thought I would ask in case I was missing something to do with the positioning of my attacking units to help me take a city faster.

Let me restate what I THINK you are asking.

Is there a terrain type that gives a positive ranged combat modifier to an attacker or penalizes the ranged combat value of the unit the ranged unit is attacking?

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such terrain that bequeaths offensive bonuses.

A Keshik does the same amount of damage to a city regardless of whatever terrain the Keshik is in when it makes the attack.

The amount of damage done to a UNIT by a Keshik can vary, but it is based on the terrain the UNIT is in, not what terrain the Keshik is operating in.


That said, positioning can make a huge difference in how quickly Keshiks batter a city down to zero hit points.

I'm sure you are well aware that the Keshik hit and run is ESSENTIAL to beating this scenario.

True success for this scenario means placing Keshiks as close as possible to enemy cities when ending the turn of a Keshik without putting the Keshik in a situation where a lone Horseman, Knight or Pikeman can kill it.

One of the best examples is how I start the assault on Jin. My objective is Beijing, or more accurately, the city that controls the Great Wall, which reduces how many movement points my Keshiks have in Jin territory.

There are four tiles to the north of Beijing where it is impossible for Jin units to counterattack, which also happen to be adjacent to tiles that my Keshiks can shell Beijing from. 4 Keshiks have more than enough movement points to move into an attack position, hit Beijing once, and fade back to safety.


Hope this helps.
 
Here's a screen cap of what I was talking about.

When I hover over the spearman, in the Ranged Attack window on the lower left under THEIR STRENGTH is a -10% terrain modifier. So I was wondering if there was a similar modifier when attacking a city but you answered that below.

Spoiler :


Is there a terrain type that gives a positive ranged combat modifier to an attacker or penalizes the ranged combat value of the unit the ranged unit is attacking?

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such terrain that bequeaths offensive bonuses.

Yes that's what I was asking. Thanks.

I'm sure you are well aware that the Keshik hit and run is ESSENTIAL to beating this scenario.

True success for this scenario means placing Keshiks as close as possible to enemy cities when ending the turn of a Keshik without putting the Keshik in a situation where a lone Horseman, Knight or Pikeman can kill it.

One of the best examples is how I start the assault on Jin. My objective is Beijing, or more accurately, the city that controls the Great Wall, which reduces how many movement points my Keshiks have in Jin territory.

There are four tiles to the north of Beijing where it is impossible for Jin units to counterattack, which also happen to be adjacent to tiles that my Keshiks can shell Beijing from. 4 Keshiks have more than enough movement points to move into an attack position, hit Beijing once, and fade back to safety.

Hope this helps.

Yes this helps a lot.

One more question comes to mind.

If a Keshisk has taken damage and I don't yet have the "heal and move the same turn" promotion, is it better to keep attacking even with a "damaged unit" or better to let it heal a turn or two and then attack when at full strength?

My guess would be that given there is a time constraint it's better to always attack every turn if possible unless the unit is in danger of being killed with a "minor" attack then let it heal a bit.
 

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If a Keshisk has taken damage and I don't yet have the "heal and move the same turn" promotion, is it better to keep attacking even with a "damaged unit" or better to let it heal a turn or two and then attack when at full strength?

My guess would be that given there is a time constraint it's better to always attack every turn if possible unless the unit is in danger of being killed with a "minor" attack then let it heal a bit.
Good guess. I've had some keshiks that never fully healed until they've finally got that "heal while moving" promotion. This may be a long time. Shoot early. Shoot often. Keep on shooting.
 
One more question comes to mind.

If a Keshisk has taken damage and I don't yet have the "heal and move the same turn" promotion, is it better to keep attacking even with a "damaged unit" or better to let it heal a turn or two and then attack when at full strength?

Hmmm.....


My guess would be that given there is a time constraint it's better to always attack every turn if possible unless the unit is in danger of being killed with a "minor" attack then let it heal a bit.

Hit the nail on the head. That would be my answer. :D

In a related topic, don't worry what the HP is of your Horseman units that capture cities. As long as your Keshiks batter city defenses down to zero, your Horseman could be at 1 HP, and it would still capture the city in question.

It also depends on how hurt we are talking about.

If we're only talking about 7-9 HP in vanilla or 70-90 HP in Gods and Kings, I would keep attacking. If the Keshik in question is down to 1-2 vanilla HP or 10-20 Gods and Kings HP, I might think about resting them instead.
 
I'm struggling with this on Deity, even though I was able to easily cap 8 civs (by just. one. more. turn) on Immortal.

The main, huge difference, is that the AI have cannons, etc. such so much earlier, and grow their cities so much bigger. The same strategy that takes all 8 in Immortal will fail on Deity. It just takes too long to chew through the cannons that India can spam at turn 50 or so. I guess it's all about attacking super-super early?

I usually have both Chinas finished off by turn 44, but like I said, by the time I get to India, they have cannons... I'm starting to think a lot of the posters on this thread giving out tips are talking about non-Deity runs. :p

Oh well, I'm gonna try the Japan first, three-army approach, but honestly, I never have any problem with Japan. I put an armory in southern china's capital, spit out 8 triremes, wait until Navigation, upgrade 6 of the triremes, and nuke all three cities without attacking a single land unit. Use the triremes as spotters once the frigates have range. This will own Japan in roughly 12 turns. The key is to cap both of his last two cities at the same time. His army just disappears, so he can't recapture either city. So, honestly, I don't see the point in attacking Japan early, as he is the easiest to kill late.

But I am going to try three armies, using Almaty and Western Xia to generate more keshiks earlier. Also, someone made a good point about building horsemen and upgrading. Good call!

EDIT: Ok, capping Almaty, Western Xia and Korea made all the difference. I had always been reluctant to capture cities with no happiness resources that couldn't be razed, but the value of having three full armies early *far* outweighs the cost. 3 armies of 4 keshik and one horseman each demolishes this map. Instead of having the 2 Chinas down by turn 45, I have 4 civs down to just their capital. My dilemma is now just managing happiness. I might have to annex and starve down some of my cities. But, it looks like I'm gonna win this time. Still leaving Japan for later, but thanks for the 3-army idea!
 
I'm struggling with this on Deity, even though I was able to easily cap 8 civs (by just. one. more. turn) on Immortal.
....

I usually have both Chinas finished off by turn 44, but like I said, by the time I get to India, they have cannons... I'm starting to think a lot of the posters on this thread giving out tips are talking about non-Deity runs. :p

!!!!

Cannon in India? Yeah, that's not typical in my games, although I suppose it's possible if you're first hitting India at turn 45 or so.

The biggest problems I have with India are the mounted units the AI loves to keep out of visual range that one shot my Keshiks.

Maybe I'm lucky though...I don't remember seeing that many Cannon when I did this on Deity. There might have been a few in Byzantium and/or Arabia, but not enough to make me complain about them.

Even so, I don't worry too much about siege weaponry like Cannon. My Keshiks can usually get out of the attack range of a siege weapon quite easily...certainly easier than it is to get out of the attack range of a mounted unit, ha.
 
Thanks to all the tips in this thread and especially mintcandy and iggymnrr's recent help, I was able to finally earn a deity victory in 92 turns!

I roughly followed mintcandy's approach in post #91 of this thread.

I did notice this time when I meet Persia they were friendly and had nowhere near the number of units they had in previous tries. I think I got to them a bit sooner than before plus I think I lucked out with the randomness of the game.

Building a road into India at the very start helped a lot too. I was able to finish India with the one army as the other was getting to the Persian city on the western edge of India. This allowed the army to split again to go after Russia.

Also Persia went to war with Arabia while I was fighting them and that helped trim down the number of units on both sides.

I razed any city that I could that did not have horses and ran a -20ish happiness almost the whole time. Lots a rebel outbreaks but I garrisoned archers in the cities with horse resources to keep them from pillaging the resource.

After I finished Russia, I pulled off the 2 best Keshiks units and headed to Japan. This was around turn 75. I had enough horse resources by then to make two more keshiks units and joined up with them on the way to Japan. As soon as I had 4 frigates I started a war with Japan and just picked off units to soften them up before my ground units got there.

Saved most of my money from conquering to buy Frigates. I used 2 for Greece and the rest in Japan. Bought them all.

I ended up with 17 Keshiks, 5 Horsemen and 11 Frigates at the end. Most of the Keshiks were idle after I finished off Greece around turn 85, since I only had 4 on Japan. But at that point it didn't matter since it was just a matter of time before Japan fell.

I glad that win is finally over! Now back to the deity level Wonders of the Ancient World that I got frustrated with and lead me to switch scenarios and play this one.

mintcandy and iggymnrr thanks again and any good pointers for that scenario on deity? :lol:
 
Thanks to all the tips in this thread and especially mintcandy and iggymnrr's recent help, I was able to finally earn a deity victory in 92 turns!

Congratulations!

I ended up with 17 Keshiks, 5 Horsemen and 11 Frigates at the end.

Wow, that's quite a bit more Horseman units and Frigates than I ran with.

For my Deity victory, I think I had 13 Keshiks, 2 Horsemen, 2 Longswordmen, 6-7 Frigates, and 2 Caravels.

I glad that win is finally over! Now back to the deity level Wonders of the Ancient World that I got frustrated with and lead me to switch scenarios and play this one.

mintcandy and iggymnrr thanks again and any good pointers for that scenario on deity? :lol:

Sorry, I don't have that scenario. Can't help you out. :p
 
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