Mongols/Liberty/Domination problem

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the Civ series and must say, I do love it. I've been working my way up the difficulty ranks (now on Prince) and trying different civs/victory conditions. Lately, I've been trying to win a liberty domination with the mongols. Most say it should be fairly simple and straight forward, I've tried following guides like this one and this one, but I can't seem to find luck early on. I tend to get to, and complete, Chivalry by about t120 or so. This seems very late from what I can tell.

I've tried beelining it to the NC, getting my library and going from there but that doesn't seem to help much. How does everyone get a great early start? I plan on being nice to my neighbours until I get my Keshiks and then going crazy from there, but the challenge is getting there without being so far behind.

Should I try getting RAs ASAP with any civ that'll allow it?

>Chivalry by about t120 or so. This seems very late from what I can tell.
Not really on average starts t120 is pretty good, I've never played on Prince but t120 Keshiks are good on at least immortal what normally do is get chariots leveled up and then promote them to Keshiks so they've already got a good jump on logistics, you can farm on barb camps and a city state but don't take the CS nor DOW multiple CS. Settle a city close to the CS and work it and come back and heal.

>I've tried following guides like this one and this one.

The first is out of date and was for Vanilla Civ the second is a good guide BUT 1. is mainly for a Civ that is going to use a different tech path 2. Is on deity rather than prince, you aren't going to be able to take advantage of many of the bonuses given to the AI. 3. You don't need to pillage and repair so you don't need pyramids.

>I've tried beelining it to the NC

If you do this you'll be ahead of prince AI anyway

>How does everyone get a great early start?
Are you working unimproved tiles? Are you focusing on growth?

>I plan on being nice to my neighbours until I get my Keshiks
You could maybe pick one AI and use chariots and horsemen to fleece him for workers and pillaging tiles while you build up your XP on your units.

>Should I try getting RAs ASAP with any civ that'll allow it?
I don't think RAs are worth it on any difficulty below deity, why sign a research agreement when you could buy another Keshik?

Do you know about the Hit and Run tactic with the keshiks (sorry my question mark key broke)

It literally makes keshiks some of the best units in the game

Resipsa said:

>Chivalry by about t120 or so. This seems very late from what I can tell.
Not really on average starts t120 is pretty good, I've never played on Prince but t120 Keshiks are good on at least immortal what normally do is get chariots leveled up and then promote them to Keshiks so they've already got a good jump on logistics, you can farm on barb camps and a city state but don't take the CS nor DOW multiple CS. Settle a city close to the CS and work it and come back and heal.

Click to expand...

Yeah, last game I took a CS and had 5 AIs DOW on me. I held my own, but for a good 40 turns or so I was playing defence on 3 sides. It was a hell of a good time, but not really helpful. I guess all is fine so long as I don't actually take the city?

>I've tried following guides like this one and this one.

The first is out of date and was for Vanilla Civ the second is a good guide BUT 1. is mainly for a Civ that is going to use a different tech path 2. Is on deity rather than prince, you aren't going to be able to take advantage of many of the bonuses given to the AI. 3. You don't need to pillage and repair so you don't need pyramids.

Click to expand...

1. How so? How would the tech path differ?
2. Wouldn't being on Prince just make things easier overall?
3. Okay

>I've tried beelining it to the NC

If you do this you'll be ahead of prince AI anyway

Click to expand...

Noted. Should I quite literally ignore everything beyond mining/husbandy and go right to the NC, then work on the other tech line to getting my Keshiks?

>How does everyone get a great early start?
Are you working unimproved tiles? Are you focusing on growth?

Click to expand...

I tend to work the valuable resources first (lux), then put my boys on auto. I assume they work the tiles.

>I plan on being nice to my neighbours until I get my Keshiks
You could maybe pick one AI and use chariots and horsemen to fleece him for workers and pillaging tiles while you build up your XP on your units.

Click to expand...

AI or CS? I assume it matters, no?

>Should I try getting RAs ASAP with any civ that'll allow it?
I don't think RAs are worth it on any difficulty below deity, why sign a research agreement when you could buy another Keshik?

Click to expand...

You know, even after reading the topic in War Academy on RAs, I still don't really understand them. Then again, most of my previous games went for a science win anyways so RAs were never really beneficial after t100.

Doctor Doom said:

Do you know about the Hit and Run tactic with the keshiks (sorry my question mark key broke)

It literally makes keshiks some of the best units in the game

Click to expand...

Yeah I try to. I thought I could do a range attack then melee, but apparently not. Either way, the hit and run is very helpful.

Try this:

Scout, monument, scout, shrine/granary.

Get three cities (total). Might get four if the happiness is abundant, or you know how to manage happiness well. Three is usually enough to get there by 1AD. Get luxury techs as needed (calendar, masonry, trapping or mining).

Make sure you also get the wheel as this enables you to build chariot archers. Train them on barbs. They are upgradable to Keshiks/Camel archers.

Make sure you discover animal husbandry early so you will settle your cities next to horses. You can always exchange some/ally a city state with horses in case of emergency.

Go for philosophy and build an early NC. (sub t.80)

Then, straight for chivalry through currency.

All you need to build in your cities: library, granary (in this order), market, chariot archers, couple horsemen. Make sure you don't upgrade horsemen, when chivalry is discovered. They can keep pace with keshiks.

Use liberty finisher great scientist to bulb chivalry, or, settle him, if you get to finish liberty very early.

Consider detour to sailing if there is a good opportunity for a second trade route.

Consider gifting cities, selling cities or razing cities on your way, so that you won't have to wait until your happiness stabilizes. Keshik blitzkrieg for the win.

Fight well.

>I guess all is fine so long as I don't actually take the city?
Right, you can even citadel bomb the lux they have if your city is close enough
>1. How so? How would the tech path differ?
You are pushing for Chivalry ASAP they(other civs) are push for Machinery or Artillery
>2. Wouldn't being on Prince just make things easier overall?
In someways yes but you can't worker steal on Prince early on nor can you get +4 bpt from Trade routes
>Noted. Should I quite literally ignore everything beyond mining/husbandy and go right to the NC, then work on the other tech line to getting my Keshiks?
Get your LUX tech and AH nothing else really matters
>I tend to work the valuable resources first (lux), then put my boys on auto. I assume they work the tiles.
Work food, food and more food, early on make sure you are building farms, chop forests adjacent to rivers
>AI or CS? I assume it matters, no?
Work them on CS first and then sue for peace with thew CS and then work on the AI I mean you can also work barb camps too the important thing is to keep them busy

One city - Tradition - NC -Chevalry - 3 or 4 Keshiks - Raze every city - Keep capitals - Buy courthouse - Build Keshiks.

Don't go to Education before Chevalry. Save money to rush buy. Keep one or two horseman for conquer city. Othewise you'll have Pikemen who are slow.

When you'll start war, the main problem is to keep an unit which have as movement as Keshiks to keep the tempo. Still build Keshiks until you have horses or enough gpt.
I think in Prince, Keshiks are useful to T 300, after AI begin to have technologies to annoy you. I think it's really hard to have Chevalry before T120.

TwistedEdge said:

1. How so? How would the tech path differ?
2. Wouldn't being on Prince just make things easier overall?
3. Okay

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1. Most civs don't rely on knights like the Mongols do on the UU replacement. Other civs, for domination, are going to want crossbows, but you get a better faster ranged unit to take cities, and, even better, they should never even be touched by the enemy, meaning no burning your (soon to be) improvements for health.

A general guide for liberty domination is ok and can help, but Mongolia just plays differently from most other civs.

2. Overall, yes. But there are things that are very different and can hurt. For instance, you are likely to find your tech rate a bit slower on prince, because sending a caravan to that nearby civ will give you few, if any, beakers. Conquering in prince is easier, but you won't be getting as many or as well developed cities.

That also means you're less likely to steal a good wonder.

Religion will also come around more slowly. While religion can be a wild card, you're likely to be losing out on at least a little production or happiness on prince that you would have on deity. At worst, it may be the difference between holy warriors spreading to you or not (though the AI seems to really hate that belief).

3. Just to make sure you understand, you don't need to pillage as the mongols because your horsies can attack and move, meaning, as I said in 1, they should never get touched. This is one of the major differences in Mongolian domination.

Is it opening Liberty that is important to you? You are gimping your self right off the top with Mongolia/Liberty.

Here is the strat I use for Mongolia, and I typically clear a standard size Immortal map in less than 160 turns with it.

Tech order: animal husbandry, pottery, writing/lux tech phylo, bee line to chivalry, taking the Wheel first then to currency. Grab BW once it takes 1 or 2 turns to research - you want some spears to upgrade to pikes for cannon fodder.
Policies: Tradition to Monarchy (lots of gold and happiness), full Honor right side first.
BO: monument, scout, library/granary, get a settler out at 4 pop, then get the NC and Oracle (take oracle first if you will not finish by T85 if you build it after the NC - you must get this wonder). Build as little infrastructure as possible, the only 3 buildings you really want are library, granary, and stable (can often skip in cap). Get a second scout out early too.

You need at least 10, preferably more than 14 horses, and you want them from a total of 2 cities. tradition will let you settle a second city with a 2 or 3 ring luxury provided you do not grow the cap over 6 pop until you connect the lux.
Settle another city if you must to get more horses, but try to do it with just 2 cities even if the expo is pretty far away.

In your expo, build Library, granary, stable (it is ok to hammer down at 2 or 3 pop to get these out), then build 4 to 6 horse archer and go farm barb camps, then just start cranking out horsemen (do not use the horsemen, and do not build a barracks til you research chivalry).

With 2 cities and 14 horses, the timing is almost perfect to hit chivalry with a few turns of finishing your last horsemen, delay chivalry if you need to. Horses upgrade for 65gold, and horsearchers for ~90 gold, so you need to save 440 to 700 gold, which is pretty easy to do (you will spend your gold stack buying tiles with liberty) if you scout well and clear barbs camps as they spawn.

Keep between 2 and 4 horses un-upgraded depending on how many horses you have. Ideally you want 2 armies, each with 2 horses, and 5 or more Keshiks.

Now go conquer, and conquer hard. Do not let up, do not stop, raze anything that is not a cap. try to make a wonder whore with horses your first target. Once your army is on the move, get the barracks and National Epic up and make another army of Keshiks to defend the Homeland and conquer in anther direction.

This strat is a total fail with Liberty. You get no early happiness or gold from Liberty, and you get no border growth. So you have to waste gold buying tiles, and you struggle to stay happy, and you have less culture to get through Honor in a timely fashion - you need the cheap upgrades quickly, and you will need the gold from kills during the push.

This start will even work on Deity if you do a hard science focus to education once your army is off conquering and bee line to Artillery. Arty should come online about the time Keshiks are no longer viable.

So much complicated advice for a prince player when the answer is in their text: Don't automate workers or citizens, and spend a game or two learning how to use them well. Simples.

So much complicated advice for a prince player when the answer is in their text: Don't automate workers or citizens, and spend a game or two learning how to use them well. Simples.

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This.

sp and tech pathes arent really as important as doing basic stuff like city, worker and unit management good.

Or trading, or ...

Yeah, it's probably not necessary or even helpful to try to follow an optimal SP/tech/build path if you aren't even micro-managing workers and tiles. However, it certainly makes the game more forgiving if you do. Like everyone else says, focus on the basics. If you follow Moriarte's advice, you can get Chivalry on t100, possibly sooner.

To really get a fast finish time you really do have to start leveling Chariot Archers ASAP. Keshik promote quickly enough on their own, sure, but ideally you've got Logistics by the time you get them. I've never actually managed it, but Logistics Keshiks on t100 would be game-breaking.