Idea for the Mongols

I've always had a problem with the Mongols in RFC, if not civ in general. It's not that I don't think they're worthy of inclusion because I am in fact an avid Mongolist, but it's unfair to simply pretend a steppe empire had cities and agriculture because the engine can't handle it otherwise. Because let's face it, nothing about the Mongols in RFC is historical: they rarely conquer China, never get a foothold in the Middle East or the Pontic steppe and never collapse; becoming a Siberian superpower in the late game which is wildly ahistorical and impedes the proper growth of Russia and China. There were, after all, no true cities in outer Mongolia until the last century.

So my idea would be to stop trying to fit the Mongols into the "Rise and Fall" simulation Rhye devised for agricultural civilizations. Instead, spawn them with no settlers and in multiple locations on the edge of the Eurasian steppe: Mongolia, Central Asia and Russia. They would in effect be glorified barbs, but playable ones. Give them enough troops so that there's a decent chance they'll be able to take a few cities off China, Russia and whoever's occupying Persia unless those civs make a concerted effort to bolster their defences before the Mongols spawn. Then hopefully the AI will be able to build up a large empire quickly, as Genghis Khan did, but one that is very fragile; they shouldn't have enough troops to completely finish off any of their "victims" unless a clever human player makes an effort and so they should be vulnerable to attacks from these powers. Also, whichever conquered city becomes the capital will inevitably by a long way from the other two "theatres" which the AI will have to try to run as largely separate domains. The net effect should then be that you'll commonly see the Mongol empire collapsing fairly quickly or only lingering in one area, which is historically accurate, but you'll also have an interesting alt-history aspect in that the (possible) survival of either the Golden Horde, Ilkhanate or Yuan will have a big effect on the game. Even if empire completely collapses, leaving no remnants, some civs will have to reconquer the independents created which would have a lasting effect on the game.

Something to think about for a modmod or if Rhye decides to make major changes to RFC at some point down the line?

I like that idea.

I agree that this would be a good idea to try out, probably by a modder.

I find some problems with this:
1. All that good land up north will be wasted without settlers
2. The UHVs as stated currently will be impossible
3. I don't want Baotou as my flipped capital--maybe the Chinese settler map can be expanded towards Mongolia, but that's not historical. Another solution will be to allow proto-Mongol independent/barb cities to spring up north (just like the Chinese view), and the Mongol spawn will represent Genghis Khan's unification of all the tribes.
4. the previous barbs (Huns, Avars, whatever) will probably have razed a lot of the Persian cities so not much there to conquer
5. Once you conquer cities, it takes time to grow them back, enough to build settlers and infrastructure. You're talking late 1400's before you can really do some serious consolidation, and that's already past the Mongols' prime years.
6. Medieval troops (keshiks being the strongest of them) cannot survive the Russian winter and capture cities. (You need at least rifles and cavalry)
7. If you give the Mongols a lot of troops but no cities, unless you give them a lot of cash, desertions are bound to happen.

This is good idea. I think new mongolia UP could be free unit (becouse no cities mean no money) and UHV could be
1. raze 15city (can more/less)
2. raze at least on city from any 6 (or more/less) civ
3. don't know yet

Well they should be able to gain gold from capturing many cities (which is actually how they got their "gold")
I think if this change is implemented then any area controlled by the Mongols IRL should contain Indy's to let the Mongols capture, and ofc the UHV's should be changed (maybe instead of 12% of land it would be control southwest Asia by XAD)

BurnEmDown said:

Well they should be able to gain gold from capturing many cities (which is actually how they got their "gold")

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So UP could be gain about 300-400 gold for razing city and maybe for razing biger cites you could get even more gold.

As to

AnotherPacifist said:

4. the previous barbs (Huns, Avars, whatever) will probably have razed a lot of the Persian cities so not much there to conquer

Click to expand...

I was always displeased with the way Barbarians just burn every city they conquer. That's more so in RFC RAND. Why can't we simply deny Barbarians the ability to raze cities? What bad would it do? Normal Civs should still be able to raze cities, but not the Barbarians. Playing Rand or normal RFC in the Middle East, after the Barbarians have been there there's no stone on another. But this is not historical. The Parthians and the Sassanids fought off the Barbarians and in the instances, the Barbarians won they most often conquered the cities and established a new state (the Seljuqs, the Ghaznavids, the Usbeks, the Timurids). Same holds true for Egypt, another Barbarian favourite place to go. Egyptians cities weren't razed, only conquered and possibly renamed.
The problem for Middle age civs in the Middle East is that they basically have to build the region from scratch which takes time from fulfilling (one of) their historical roles: Troubling the European powers.

Why don't give them moving-camps like the gengis khan scenario in warlords?

@Perceval

The AI is too stupid to use them in an intelligent way. That's why the Mongol Player has to be a human player.

-Perceval- said:

Why don't give them moving-camps like the gengis khan scenario in warlords?

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that's great idea but when where should be much coding for AI to make them use camps smart

This reminds me of how the mongols are implemented in medieval total war 2, however I don't think it will really work that well in civ simply because you're altering the concepts too much. The best and most practical idea in my opinion is the camps.

For people recommending lots of gold with razed cities: the AI will surely not raze any cities (at least when they're not barbarian) so they will probably not use the suggested UP.

Free or much reduced unit maintenance is actually a good suggestion which will allow them to maintain lots of units. (no need for pacifism for the Mongols ) What is really missing is the HORDE part of the Mongolian horde. Even then I'm pessimistic about the AI using them to capture lots of cities.

Would making the core area for the Mongols much bigger make the AI more prone to expand more? Also, the mongols did not ferociously destroy every city they captured, maybe some, but they also assimilated the cities they captured. Once they captured the land to form their massive empire, they ruled in the captured cities. The only thing you can argue is that they did not build cities to begin with, in which case a solution is to start them off with one city, a massive amount of keshiks, and the inability to make settlers.

Simple suggestion for UP, need counter-arguements: no upkeep for mounted units. Also change Stable UB of the Mongolians (forgot the name) to same bonuses as stable but with +50% (or maybe less if it's too high) for recruiting mounted units (or just Keshiks). Also, reduce the strength of the Keshik to that of a normal knight, for balancing.
This would let the Mongols recruit tons of Keshiks without having to pay for their upkeep, which will allow them to expand faster, without making them too powerful due to the UU being weakened.

I don't think the camps would be necessary, and other people have mentioned the AI problems. If you give the AI a stack of units, no cities, and force it to declare war on its neighbours it's certain to attack.

AnotherPacifist said:

I find some problems with this:
1. All that good land up north will be wasted without settlers
2. The UHVs as stated currently will be impossible
3. I don't want Baotou as my flipped capital--maybe the Chinese settler map can be expanded towards Mongolia, but that's not historical. Another solution will be to allow proto-Mongol independent/barb cities to spring up north (just like the Chinese view), and the Mongol spawn will represent Genghis Khan's unification of all the tribes.
4. the previous barbs (Huns, Avars, whatever) will probably have razed a lot of the Persian cities so not much there to conquer
5. Once you conquer cities, it takes time to grow them back, enough to build settlers and infrastructure. You're talking late 1400's before you can really do some serious consolidation, and that's already past the Mongols' prime years.
6. Medieval troops (keshiks being the strongest of them) cannot survive the Russian winter and capture cities. (You need at least rifles and cavalry)
7. If you give the Mongols a lot of troops but no cities, unless you give them a lot of cash, desertions are bound to happen.

Click to expand...

You raise good points, but:

1. That's kind of the point. It's not historical for cities to be in inner Asia/Siberia until the very late game. It would be nice if civ had a mechanism for representing non-urban people (other than blindly aggressive barb units ) but it doesn't, so as far as RFC-history is concerned that entire area is "uninhabited" until the Russians start founding cities there in modern times.
2. Yeah with such a radical change I think you'd have to overhaul the Mongol civ completely.
3. I wouldn't give them any flips - that way there's unpredictability where the capital will be based on which city is conquered first.
4. Not always, and not in the 600AD start though IIRC. If they do then that just means the Mongols will attack the fertile crescent and possibly India which I think is an acceptable alt-history scenario.
5. & 6. I don't know how to solve.
7. Give them a lot of cash then =P

I would just be happy if the mongols captured China at least 50% of the time. ive never played as the mongols myself but it seems that whenever i meet them they use all their keshiks to escort their settlers around the silk road and into siberia leaving little to nothing for their war with china. ive even seen games where china captured karakorum within the first 20 turns of the mongol spawn.

BurnEmDown said:

Simple suggestion for UP, need counter-arguements: no upkeep for mounted units. Also change Stable UB of the Mongolians (forgot the name) to same bonuses as stable but with +50% (or maybe less if it's too high) for recruiting mounted units (or just Keshiks). Also, reduce the strength of the Keshik to that of a normal knight, for balancing.
This would let the Mongols recruit tons of Keshiks without having to pay for their upkeep, which will allow them to expand faster, without making them too powerful due to the UU being weakened.

Click to expand...

I actually like this a lot: it frees up a lot of the economy to build up units en masse to represent the Horde as well as being more practical and doable than the more radical proposals being offered.

And again I do see the AI Mongols go into Persia and sometimes even India, especially if they're controlled by barbs, it just occurs late in the game far beyond when the Mongols did so historically. I think the AI, and this is a similar problem IMO why AI Persia and AI Rome don't expand as aggressively as they should is the AI doesn't see a logical reason why it should make its economy and stability "scream" by expanding too much too soon. If there was a way to offset the economic penalties for this it might have an affect with making AI-Mongolia more aggressive.

I think it's worth a shot.

his is a similar problem IMO why AI Persia and AI Rome don't expand as aggressively as they should is the AI doesn't see a logical reason why it should make its economy and stability "scream" by expanding too much too soon.

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AI Persia and AI Rome do not expand much because there's too little time for them to do so before the barbies kick in.

I like this although I would be tempted to give them one settler to settle Karakorum.

As people mentioned they might not attack why not force the mongols to start at war with everyone (like the barbarians) and have to make peace ?

Although they might give techs/gold away to make peace.

You could change it so they cant make peace till kubali is in charge or make Ghengis even more of a nutter.