How I beat the Mongol Scenario on Deity

Is anyone encountering any bugs with this scenario?

The first time I tried, I ran out of time, but I didn't get the "Khaaaaaaan!" accomplishment and instead I got the victory screen. I got the victory accomplishment for beating it at the lowest level, I think.

I tried again last night, ran out of time, and won again. Didn't get the accomplishment for winning (which I didn't deserve anyway). I'm afraid of putting another 50 hours into these scenarios for nothing, because let's face it, I have a million other games/accomplishments to go after and not enough personal time to obsess over this scenario otherwise.

fryhtaning said:

Is anyone encountering any bugs with this scenario?

The first time I tried, I ran out of time, but I didn't get the "Khaaaaaaan!" accomplishment and instead I got the victory screen. I got the victory accomplishment for beating it at the lowest level, I think.

I tried again last night, ran out of time, and won again. Didn't get the accomplishment for winning (which I didn't deserve anyway). I'm afraid of putting another 50 hours into these scenarios for nothing, because let's face it, I have a million other games/accomplishments to go after and not enough personal time to obsess over this scenario otherwise.

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To get Khaaan! you need to actually lose by score, as well as running out of time. Load up a save near the end of your game and sell your cities to an AI.

If you run out of time with the highest score, you win although not by the correct victory condition, so you don't get the win achievement or the loss one.

This thread is a bit old, but still contains very good information.

Thanks to everyone posting tips on about Deity difficulty. I finally beaten it on Deity.
Basically there is quite a bit of luck involved. The most difficult civilization is probably Arabia. I had some failed attempts mostly stuck at Arabia, because they are the richest civilization after Chinese, they usually tech pretty fast too.

There is once I just can't quite take down Cairo's hp, I think Arabia had castle or something. The city had 45+ combat strength. All my elite keshiks were doing 1 damage only, even with the city damage upgrade. This was a failed attempt that I thought I could take down any city with 4 keshiks. Sometimes at later stage of the game, India will be similar as well. Just endless stream of units, and cities with high combat strength.

Most cities can be razed till 1 or 2 population. They will generate some good cash, producing very little unhappiness.

And money is so crucial. It is so important to cheat some gold before I declare war.
Like offer all my luxury resources and strategic resources and also money per turn to get the maximum lump sum. Then declare war to cancel it. What a cheater!

So here my run:
1. Choose the social policy which gives discount price for upgrading units. And send one horseman to meet Jin to cheat his money. This will enable me to upgrade 3 horsemen to keshik. Start production on heroic epic immediately, and science research of course. These need to be manually done otherwise you'll lose one turn of production.

(Heroic epic is kinda good to have for horseman, it preserve more hp in the horseman when capturing cities, thus reducing the number of horseman needed, especially with the 33% combat penalty from unhappiness that happen sometimes)

2. Head west immediate and capture the culturel CS, get 50% experience point. The worker captured here were immediately sent south to construct road to Lhasa, which guards the shortcut to India.
Then kill Western Xia for the 2 units. All but one horseman are all upgraded to keshik.

(Not sure why China made peace with Jin when I start attacking Beijing, it slowed me down a bit overall)

3. Took Beijing, Korea, Kaifeng, and Xi'an in order to finish off Jin at turn 26, then immediately cheat China's money and declare war. China offered a good amount of money (2000+) to stay in game. So I decided to give her peace when she had only her capital left. I left her capital unscathed because it is a city that will contribute huge unhappiness, so saved that for later.

4. Headed to India, took out Lhasa (cultural CS) en-route (turn 40). I find that Social Policies are great for balancing out unhappiness, this run I took the commercial route, heading straight for the +1 happiness for each luxury resources.

5. After India (turn 49), headed straight to Persia, the battle is actually easier than the silk road, the terrain made it easier for invaders, basically shooting down from hills, instead of shooting up from below.

6. Finished off Persia (turn 68), they did have a lot of pikemen, took sometime to clear them out. Then I took the last (apparently) cultural CS. And started the Arabia campaign. Now I have some gold to buy some courthouses and bribed Abassids.

7. Not sure when did Russia declared war on me, but Almaty (to the east of Persian city Samarkand) was an ally of Russia. I split the army a bit, 2 level 8 or 9 keshiks from my main army, and 1 rookie keshik easily took down Almaty. The two elite keshiks then head all the way back to China.

8. Now I have two war front, Arabia with about 4 elite keshiks, 1-2 rookies, and China with 2 elite and 3-4 rookies. I allied Abbassids to have it distracting Arabian's army, and took out Arabian cities from north to south (starting from turn 71). Bought some lancers in the middle. For China, I used a long sword man to capture it.

9. I sent two elite keshiks and 2 rookies at China to go straight to Korea and start bombarding the Japan islands. At this time I had rifling technology from conquering China, I sent in 3 rifleman (1 with amphibious) and start the Japan conquest (turn 77). Also bought a few caravels to clear way for the sea route.

10. Arabia got conquered (turn 85), and now I got enough money to buy a number of keshiks and lancers to split into 3 army. I sent 1-2 elite keshiks and 3-4 rookies across black sea to start attacking Russia. The rest (about 4 with "long range" + "indirect shot") headed to Byzantium.

11. Byzantium had a lot of units behind Constantinople, but they didn't matter, as I just bombarded the 2 cities, and quickly captured them. His units were useless. Hungary and Russia were more advanced though, they had riflemen, so I attacked Russia from two front, focused fire on cities. Unhappiness seems to jump over 20 as the conquest went too fast. It is solved by buying some courthouses, and lots of scouts for garrison. So I can still continue fighting with full army strength.

12. Japan was a piece of cake with 2-3 rifleman, backed with 4 keshiks. Similar to Byzantium, I don't need to kill all the units as they were stuck behind. I actually finished off Japan 1 turn before Russia. Russia was finally conquered at turn 98.


So the civilization order: Jin->China (made peace afterward for 2000+ cash)->India->Persia->Arabia->China (while Arabia still going)->Japan->Byzantium->Russia.

With the help of all the great posts in at least 3 Mongol threads I managed to get all 8 AI's handled. I want to thank Silverfuturist and Martinoguy in particular for their help. I'm sure I gained from many others as well and offer them a as well.

I made a real job of it by typing in a play by play record on my laptop word pad as I played the game on my desktop. Russia fell last on T-98. I feel I made a blunder by not killing Persia before making a deal with him. If anyone would like to see the play by play text, let me know.

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread... but I have only just discovered the Mongol scenario... and am loving it!

However, I have a question! I have been dragging Khan around like a bad smell as I read he is supposed to endow nearby units with experience/health, but he seems to make no difference what so ever!!!!

Do I have to position him in some special way to get the benefit??

I have been reading here of people completing ROTM on Deity Level, I am on Level 3 and still haven't killed Wu after > 60 moves

I have killed Jin and x3 CS but don't think I'm going to succeed (on my 3rd attempt!).

So, any thought on Khan please?

GrumpyFlumps said:

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread... but I have only just discovered the Mongol scenario... and am loving it!

However, I have a question! I have been dragging Khan around like a bad smell as I read he is supposed to endow nearby units with experience/health, but he seems to make no difference what so ever!!!!

Do I have to position him in some special way to get the benefit??

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Khan is a Great General. He gives units on the tile and within 2 tiles a 15% "Near Great General" combat bonus. In addition, he is supposed to provide an extra 2 points of healing to units in his tile and next to it.

I have been reading here of people completing ROTM on Deity Level, I am on Level 3 and still haven't killed Wu after > 60 moves

I have killed Jin and x3 CS but don't think I'm going to succeed (on my 3rd attempt!).

So, any thought on Khan please?

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The key to killing Wu, is letting Wu and Jin fight amongst each other and kill each other's units.

Early on, Wu will declare war on Jin. I like to then start by taking Beijing and the Great Wall. Let the two of them fight awhile and then take both of them out. (For Wu, I like to go straight south, taking the 2 or 3 cities. Eventually that leaves just the Eastern and the Western city - you can take them out in either order, but on higher levels, you might want to take out the Eastern city first, because it better positions your units for your next target).

Also, the MAJOR key to winning this scenario is understanding how to use Keshiks. So you might need to practice with that as well. You want to begin the game by upgrading some of your Horsemen into Keshiks (I personally prefer grabbing Professional Army since it saves you enough gold to get an extra Keshik).

Fairly early on, you'll also want to take that City State that is allied to Wu, since it gives you two extra Horsemen. *However*, my experience is to wait a little bit. Don't waste a DoW on the City State - when you declare on Wu, it will attack you on its own. Also, doing it too early means you have to deal with the unhappiness penalties, so I like to wait a bit before taking it.

Another important factor to the game is figuring out which cities to keep and which cities to raze. Generally, you'll want to keep an eye out for cities with luxuries and strategic resources (specifically horses). Some players decide to ignore happiness and are okay with spending most of the game with a -33% unhappiness combat penalty. In my playthroughs (I did win Deity) I actually did concentrate on managing unhappiness, so I never had to deal with the penalty.

I like to go Uighur first.
Doing so, I can complete Honor(some more early golds) and upgrade 3 horsemen to Keshiks. then Western xia then Beijing...

Using some CSes for 'Training ground' for Keshiks was helpful for getting logistics Keshiks fast at mid-game. With enough Keshiks I was able to conquer multiple Civs at once.

Finally Japan, no problem with mass Frigates.

@Halcyan2 & ggmoyang,

Brilliant! Thanks for the replies. I am going to play out my current game (for training) and then give it another go.

Cheers!

GrumpyFlumps said:

@Halcyan2 & ggmoyang,

Brilliant! Thanks for the replies. I am going to play out my current game (for training) and then give it another go.

Cheers!

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Just beat it on Emperor at T92, moving on to Immortal, but a couple of notes.

Your horde should always be moving (and preferably fighting). If your horde isn't moving every turn, you're probably going to run out of time. In addition, every turn you don't have them attacking something is lost experience for your troops. Even if you don't want to take a city that turn (a situation I found myself in a few times where I was waiting for a city to raze down so my happiness would get back under control), find something else to fight. In those situations, I'd just beat the city I was working on down to nothing (but not take it), and leave 1-2 keshiks with logistics to keep it beat down (along with a horse to eventually take it), while the rest of my horde moved on to the next target.

By the end of the game, I had 9 elite Keshiks (with at least Logistics, 5 were level 9+ with 3 range and indirect fire, which made taking Arabia and Byzantium a walk in the park - Keshiks that can shoot over hills/forests from 3 hexes away are stupendously powerful), and 2 "cannon fodder" Keshiks (the poor sods on the front lines who spotted for my artillery Keshiks), though you need to take reasonably good care of them too (I think I lost 2-3 spotter Keshiks over the game). Most of the time, you can advance safely into unknown territory by just saving that one last movement point for a hasty retreat (i.e. never move that final hex into fog-of-war, especially near the front lines of any war), but every now and then (especially around Persia/India) the guy in front of the horde is going to get eaten by a Knight even when you take every precaution...so keep your most promoted Keshiks at the rear of your formation.

Beeline a second happiness policy after filling out honor (and, as others say above, the upgrade reduction cost policy is a really good first choice, lets you save your cash for other things, like rushing courthouses/colliseums).

Burn down any city you can that doesn't give you a unique luxury. It'll help manage happiness a lot - though don't be afraid to continue rampaging even when your empire is unhappy (first 40-50 turns I spent mostly unhappy, bouncing between -5 and -15) until I had my second happiness policy in place (I went Liberty/Meritocracy). Micromanaging cities is especially important - I didn't let any city except for my capitol go above 4 population (and even my capitol I kept at 5 until happiness wasn't a problem anymore) - any puppet that went higher than that was my next candidate for annexing/courthouse, whereupon I'd raze (or starve in the case of captured CS's or capitols) it back down to control unhappiness.

Prebuilding roads over ugly terrain is a great time saver, especially if you're going for India after the Chinas - I picked the Lhasa route, and I started building my road from the India side because it makes it easy for the horde to pour out of the pass and immediately take a city as a beachhead into India - if I had started from my side of Lhasa, they wouldn't have quite finished the last few hexes of the pass, and India's elephants would have made my life miserable as I tried to trickle out 1-2 keshiks each turn from the pass.

Have a plan - on the tight timeline in this scenario, especially with the distances involved, you should know where you're going next, preferably from the beginning of the game. For emperor, I went Uighur, Jin, W Xia (after Wu DOW), Wu, Lhasa, India, Persia, Arabia, Byzantium. It REALLY helped me having a save game from my "Khaaan" loss where I took the 100 turns fully exploring the entire map.

I actually missed an opportunity to take Cathy out right after Persia (I knew I didn't need her, as I had already decided to go Arabia then a short jaunt up to Byzantium) but she DOWd me right after I finished with Persia, forcing me to split my army to deal with her troops - since my troops in Arabia were doing just fine on their own, I could easily have taken advantage of the fact I had just liquidated her army and rolled her instead of Byzantium. It wouldn't have saved any time though, as my Arabia army was already knocking on Mecca's door when I finished her troops off, but it would have been fairly easy to knock off Russia and Byzantium simultaneously (given the tight isthmus Constantinople is on, I think 5 or so elite keshiks + a horse to take the city is all you really want there anyway) - that'll be my plan on Immortal, and while I'm doing that I'll see if I can put together a navy + amphib assault force in China without wrecking my economy or happiness (to see if I'm ready for the Deity challenge).

Anyway, good luck beating the scenario - it's a ton of fun once you get into the horde mentality and just go rampage.

SDEngineer said:

Beeline a second happiness policy after filling out honor (and, as others say above, the upgrade reduction cost policy is a really good first choice, lets you save your cash for other things, like rushing courthouses/colliseums).

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It's been over a year since I played, but after filling out honor, I think I recall taking both Libertry - Meritocracy & Piety - Organized Religion for happiness help. And for the final stretch, I even took the Order opener.

Prebuilding roads over ugly terrain is a great time saver, especially if you're going for India after the Chinas - I picked the Lhasa route, and I started building my road from the India side because it makes it easy for the horde to pour out of the pass and immediately take a city as a beachhead into India - if I had started from my side of Lhasa, they wouldn't have quite finished the last few hexes of the pass, and India's elephants would have made my life miserable as I tried to trickle out 1-2 keshiks each turn from the pass.

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Nice to hear someone else who likes the Lhasa route. Most of the reviews I've read had people going through the southern jungles, whereas I have always felt that Lhasa is a lot faster, especially when you can pre-build roads. I actually only built roads from my end (while I was still finishing up China) but I like your idea of building from the India end.

Have a plan - on the tight timeline in this scenario, especially with the distances involved, you should know where you're going next, preferably from the beginning of the game. For emperor, I went Uighur, Jin, W Xia (after Wu DOW), Wu, Lhasa, India, Persia, Arabia, Byzantium. It REALLY helped me having a save game from my "Khaaan" loss where I took the 100 turns fully exploring the entire map.

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If I recall, I went:

Jin, W Xia (after Wu DoW), Wu, Japan & India, Persia, Uighur & Lhasa somewhere around here, Arabia & Russia, that cultural CS near Arabia, Byzantium.

After taking out Jin and Wu, I sent half of my forces to Japan (took out Japan around Turn 50-ish, which was pretty easy and didn't give him the chance to build up) and the second half to India. Wrapped up Japan and India around the same time for a pincer attack on Persia. Then sent half my forces to Arabia and the other half to Russia (though Arabia took longer than expected). Both groups met up for the final assault on Constantinople.

Another key thing is to try and get the other civs to war with each other as much as possible. The early Jin vs Wu war is crucial, but I also convinced Persia and India to fight, and later Persia and Arabia. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I delayed killing the cultural CS' until later, so that I would have fewer diplomatic penalties (funny coming from Mongolia).

Don't forget you really need to Ally with Abbadsidis before taking on Arabia.

You should do A LOT of razing.

However, you should be cautious about taking out city states (the diplomacy thing is minor, the main thing is that you can't raze them so a lot of the time, the unhappiness penalty isn't worth it).

Western Xia is crucial for the two Horsemen. Later on, I like the three Cultural CS as well.

However, I tend to leave the other CS alone - not worth the trouble. The other Militaristic ones give you crappy units (Crossbowmen, Pikemen) and the gold from Maritime isn't worth it IMHO.

rw42 said:

With the help of all the great posts in at least 3 Mongol threads I managed to get all 8 AI's handled. I want to thank Silverfuturist and Martinoguy in particular for their help. I'm sure I gained from many others as well and offer them a as well.

I made a real job of it by typing in a play by play record on my laptop word pad as I played the game on my desktop. Russia fell last on T-98. I feel I made a blunder by not killing Persia before making a deal with him. If anyone would like to see the play by play text, let me know.

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Sorry to bump a somewhat old thread but I still can't beat the scenario on deity.

rw42, I would like to see the play by play if it is still available. If so, how can I get a copy?

Thanks.

Someone should make a YouTube Let's Play of the Mongol scenario on Deity. Unfortunately, the highest level video of that scenario is on Emperor by Sidor (http://youtube.com/sidor1982), which is his first Let's Play on Civ V (and it is an old video). Given that it is Emperor difficulty, Russia and Japan are not shown, and thus not helpful for those wanting to play the scenario on Immortal or Deity.

MadDjinn (or others), are you up to the challenge?

So, I've been lurking this thread for quite a while, and I'm proud to report that I'm about to beat this scenario on Immortal with about 10 turns to spare.

My order of conquest: Uighur, Western Xia, Jin, China, Lhasa, India, Persia, Arabia, Byzantium, mopping up Russia. I'm also at war with Japan to see how feasible it is to pull off a Deity victory.

I always prioritize Jin (more specifically, Beijing) as the first Civ to take down, because the Great Wall is a serious impediment to my progress. Conversely, it is hugely beneficial for me to take it as early as possible. I can't emphasize how important it is to take Beijing and its Great Wall is to success in this scenario.

For me, the biggest timesaver was streamlining my assault of India by sending units through the southern most jungle route bordered by Lhasa/Dali AND rush buying buildings instead of more units.

Also, I've adopted a tactic that I use when playing the Mongols in standard games: using melee meat shields to stymie enemy movement so that my Keshiks can continually advance without worrying about enemy counterattack. I found that using a melee meat shield to be particularly useful against countering that stupid Persian 3 tile movement.

I also allied with the Abbadsidis before taking on Arabia, and I think that saves significant time as well, given how many rivers are in that City State.

Similarly, I allied with Almaty before taking on Persia, because I just didn't want to worry about them when taking on that stupid Persian 3 tile movement in that hilly area around that eastern most Persian city. In hindsight, it may have been worth it to conquer Almaty, so that Almaty would gain the benefits of the Great Wall.

Finally, I made a habit of razing the majority of cities I conquered...I just didn't want to have to deal with rebels later on.

As far as social policies went, I emphasized those that provided happiness. I chose:

Professional Army, Military Tradition (free Uighur policy), Liberty opener, Citizenship, Meritocracy (free Lhasa policy), Piety, Organized Religion.

That's enough for now.

I might have to try the idea of tackling Japan early to see how well it works. I've never minded the unhappiness problem since it doesn't seem to impair XPs. It may take more keshiks but 10 keshiks by turn 30 all shooting every turn ... Usually a person can get unhappiness under control by the time the big army divides for Arabia & Russia. Of course if a person is at -20 consistently, might as well make it -120 or more.

iggymnrr said:

Usually a person can get unhappiness under control by the time the big army divides for Arabia & Russia..

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Actually, I tend to split my forces up long before I get that far west.

The first "split" is when I send my original Keshiks to take Beijing, because the units that I build in Karakorum are massed on the Jin/China border closest to the Silk Road, not to reinforce the army that took Beijing. I use my Beijing Keshiks and my Keshiks massing in Western Xia to pincer the the three or so cities in between. However, both forces eventually meet up, so I don't consider this a true split.

The permanent split happens when I take on Persia and India simultaneously. Both invasions start off in environments that limit the amount of Keshiks that can effectively participate in one turn. The northern Persian Keshiks will move onto Russia once they take the first Persian city and the capital, while the southern Indian Keshiks will move onto the rest of the Persian cities, Arabia, and Byzantium once they finish off India.

I've been wondering about when the best time to attack Japan is. Most of the strategies I've seen for taking Japan make reference to Rifleman and Frigate units, but I've been able to take Japan earlier with Keshiks and Triemes. Hmmm....

I've been wondering about when the best time to attack Japan is. Most of the strategies I've seen for taking Japan make reference to Rifleman and Frigate units, but I've been able to take Japan earlier with Keshiks and Triemes. Hmmm....

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I've never tried to get Japan early. On immortal and below, Japan can be skipped. On deity, Japan isn't going anywhere so a slow build up is plenty fast.

Edit: I have experimented with Uighur and Almaty before going after W. Xia and the Chinas. Can't remember if Almaty is the other CS that gives horsemen. But a person can star building an army there earlier.

iggymnrr said:

I've never tried to get Japan early. On immortal and below, Japan can be skipped. On deity, Japan isn't going anywhere so a slow build up is plenty fast.

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Japan might not be going anywhere, but when I've gone after Japan right after China and Jin, I could land Keshiks on the Japanese main island without too much difficulty after taking the small southern island.

However, I'm trying to invade Japan in my current game right when I discovered Navigation and I'm wrapping up the Russians. It seems like there are way more units defending the Japanese islands late in the game than there were in the early game.
:: shrugs ::

I suppose it really doesn't matter if Japan successfully kills some of my units as long as I manage to eventually wipe them out, but that attitude is so contrary to the stingy behavior necessary to wipe out the other civs.

iggymnrr said:

Edit: I have experimented with Uighur and Almaty before going after W. Xia and the Chinas. Can't remember if Almaty is the other CS that gives horsemen. But a person can star building an army there earlier.

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Western Xia and Almaty give horsemen, Korea gives crossbowmen, and Dali gives pikemen. I think Crusader States is a Military City State, but I have no idea what they give when conquered.

Western Xia and Almaty give horsemen, Korea gives crossbowmen, and Dali gives pikemen. I think Crusader States is a Military City State, but I have no idea what they give when conquered.

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Thanks. I started a game now and, well, I might DoW Persia ~turn 10. (Might go west from Almaty. Might DoW Lhasa to get Western Xia to DoW me. Might ... Let's see where this goes.)

Well, my game got off to a rapid start:

Turn 0: Discover Jin, sold him silver
Turn 4 : Captured Uighar, sold Persia some spare horse
Turn 9: Captured Almaty, got 2 horsemen
Turn 10: Discovered Lhasa and DoWed, W Xia DoWs me in response, got 2nd Khan
Turn 13: Captured W Xia, got 2 horseman, DoWed Jin, Korea DoWs me
Turn 17: Captured Samarkand and raze, unhappiness -18
Turn 18: Gandhi is sneak attacking somebody or a barb camp, DoW him
Turn 19: Capitol finishes 3rd horse unit, 2 armies each w/5 keshiks and 1 horsemen
Turn 20: China discovers me, unhappiness back to -9
Turn 21: Capture Beijing w/colosseum, garrison scout in capitol, unhappiness -9, get 3rd Khan

Now it is time to get serious. I've only got 5 wars: 3 with AI and 2 with CSes.

iggymnrr said:

Well, my game got off to a rapid start:

Turn 0: Discover Jin, sold him silver
Turn 4 : Captured Uighar, sold Persia some spare horse
Turn 9: Captured Almaty, got 2 horsemen
Turn 10: Discovered Lhasa and DoWed, W Xia DoWs me in response, got 2nd Khan
Turn 13: Captured W Xia, got 2 horseman, DoWed Jin, Korea DoWs me
Turn 17: Captured Samarkand and raze, unhappiness -18
Turn 18: Gandhi is sneak attacking somebody or a barb camp, DoW him
Turn 19: Capitol finishes 3rd horse unit, 2 armies each w/5 keshiks and 1 horsemen
Turn 20: China discovers me, unhappiness back to -9
Turn 21: Capture Beijing w/colosseum, garrison scout in capitol, unhappiness -9, get 3rd Khan

Now it is time to get serious. I've only got 5 wars: 3 with AI and 2 with CSes.

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Hmmm....that seems to be spreading yourself quite thinly. I prefer finishing off nations before I start warring with another one so I can get that 1000 gold bounty for finishing off a civilization as soon as possible.