(9-027a) Alternative Mongolia Nerfs

[azum4roll]

Counterproposal to:

Thread '(9-027) Mongolia Nerfs'

Jan 1, 2026

Motivation
Mongols are probably the strongest civ when played by humans (the AI is terrible as they don't know to focus on building skirmishers) and their UA with double attack skirmishers is particularly problematic especially when combined with Ordos full movement restore. It allows them to do an incredible amount of damage while often not being exposed to any significant counter attack. The tribute portion of their UA is also very strong and generates Food/Culture/Faith which don't really seem that aligned with how Mongolia is meant to be played early game.

Approach:

• ...

• redrum68
• Replies: 29
• Forum: Passed Proposals

• 

Proposal:

Current UA:
Mongol Terror: Skirmisher Units have an extra Attack. Gain All Yields equal to 20% of the Gold from bullying City-States.

Proposed UA:
Mongol Terror: Skirmisher Units start with the Envelopment and Great General II Promotions. Gain Food and Science equal to 30% of the Gold from bullying City-States.

Pre-5.34 UA, for reference:
Mongol Terror: Mounted Ranged Units benefit from Flanking when attacking and gain a +10% Flanking bonus. +100% Tribute Yields from City-State bullying.

These were the reasons given for the change to the current UA:

• The Mongol UA needs to convert a ranged support unit into a mainline damage dealer. The current bonus is not sufficient for the task
• +1 attack makes skirmishers capable of more direct damage, but is not unfair because of the skirmisher line's low base RCS
• The bonus is more straightforward, easier to use
• Double attacks means more XP from combat, which means more Khans. The Mongols do not currently have an ability that assists them in generating GGeneral points faster, and +1 attack can do that
• The +1 attack can stack with logistics for 3 attacks on a unit, but this is not recommended. 3 attacks as -30% RCS is barely any more damage than 2 full strength attacks, but costs more moves.

+1 attack to the whole unit line for one civ is not balanceable. Giving skirmishers a base attack malus only shifts the strength to later in the game when all units have more promotions, due to the additive nature of combat modifiers.
Envelopment is a reversion to the previous version. It was considered "not sufficient for the task" without actual proof - Mongolia AI has always hated making skirmishers. IMO the promotion is really powerful with a horde of skirmishers.
Great Generals II is more effective at generating more Khans than double attack.
Instant food is given instead of instant production that can be timed to rush wonders.

Current Ordo:

• Claims adjacent tiles when built
• +50% tile defense
• Units moving onto it have all movement points restored
• Contains Canal and Fortifications

Proposed Ordo:

• Claims adjacent tiles when built
• +50% tile defense
• Units moving onto it have all movement points restored, once per turn per Unit
• Contains Canal and Fortifications

This was deemed to be hard to implement, but is it? All we need is to store a set of owned unit IDs (or unit pointers) that have passed a plot to the plot object, and only required when the plot has an improvement with this ability. The additional memory consumption is only at most (number of plots with Ordo) * (number of owned units in range). As long as you don't fill the whole map with Ordos, there shouldn't be a problem.
Someone may even be able to make the pathfinder handle this (= tactical AI compatibility). Not necessary for the implementation as this isn't an existing capability.

 

[Recursive]

This was deemed to be hard to implement, but is it?

I like your proposal in general, but the main implementation difficulty I see is the Tactical AI being able to understand the new Ordo.

 

[azum4roll]

I like your proposal in general, but the main implementation difficulty I see is the Tactical AI being able to understand the new Ordo.

They don't understand the current Ordo, so it's sidegrade for the AI.

I'm not sure how exactly the path finder was implemented (Google AI is very confused), but here's my idea to find the shortest path from A₀ to B:

1. Find all tiles that can restore moves within reach (A₁, A₂, ...)
   • Will need to do this recursively since you can use each of them once
2. Find the shortest path from each A_i to B, without considering move restores.
3. Get the one with the lowest cost (A_n to B). Our desired path should be A₀ → A_n → B.

 

[Brackenspore]

And again, a food bonus that doesn't fit with the historical Mongol way of life (nomadic herding): the vast expanses of land didn't allow for tribute in the form of food, which would spoil by the time it reached its destination. This was discussed in the thread where the counterproposal was put forward. On the other hand, prisoners of war acted as slaves (a kind of population bonus). If only there were some kind of code: a population increase from tribute. That would be more interesting and profound. Great General Points could also be used instead of food.

 

[Brackenspore]

And if we go even further, the tribute bonus is absolutely not about the Mongols! What the hell is bullying of City-States? The Mongols destroyed large countries, and suddenly, bullying of City-States. Bullying is a non-aggressive form of dominance in the game. This bonus is suitable for the USA of Theodore Roosevelt (the big stick policy) or Donald Trump (although for Trump it is debatable).

The Mongols, on the other hand, were active aggressors. The Mongols first built up their large (here is a potential bonus) and fairly skilled army (we already have this bonus – the first part of the existing one). Then they stormed into the cities: killing, plundering, burning, raping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Western_Xia). Note: during the conquest of Xi Xia, the Mongols brought back many prisoners – including artisans and military specialists, who helped the Mongols master the techniques of taking fortified cities. Before completely conquering a state, the Mongols conducted initial raids to seize loot. Accordingly, their second part of the UA should be built around Creating a Large Army or Pillaging Tiles or Conquest, and/or Razing Cities. For example, Razing Cities doesn't generate unhappiness, but rather, it boosts happiness. Or a happiness bonus for each captured city. Some kind of boost from Pillaging Tiles, etc.

Spoiler :

A typical scene: a feast where tables rest on the bodies of still-living captives after the territory has been conquered. The food certainly doesn't come from tribute, but from conquest, and it's most likely the same WLTKD with a food bonus .

The Mongols converted conquered states into vassals. Therefore, we could have a Tribute bonus specifically for Vassalage. This is much closer to history. And Vassalage in the game is an active form of aggression. You first conquer many cities of a state, and then suck the yields out of it like a spider.

 

[Chinag]

City-states are suppose to represent a large set of nations, both small and big that simply aren't a civ in the game. Whether they're truly a single city like Sparta or a bigger culture group like Ireland. I assume the bullying CS part of Mongolia is based on them sparing cities that surrendered over those that fought. It's an uncommon enough tactic in warfare, but Mongolia's more infamous for their razing of non-compliant states.

I'll disagree on adding a vassalage bonus to UA, more simply because the current Vassalage system is kinda weird to play with atm. It only unlocks if you reach Medieval era, so if you add a bonus to the Vassalage mechanic then the "optimal" way to play Mongolia would be to not do too well on your ancient/classical warfare as you don't want to wipe out the enemy Civ. You probably want to stay in war the entire time too just to keep the 100 Warscore for capitulation. It gets kinda gamey unless you give Mongolia early way to vassalize someone. Vassalage can be disabled in the advanced options so you have to make an alternative UA for that scenario too.

 

[Brackenspore]

City-states are suppose to represent a large set of nations, both small and big that simply aren't a civ in the game. Whether they're truly a single city like Sparta or a bigger culture group like Ireland. I assume the bullying CS part of Mongolia is based on them sparing cities that surrendered over those that fought. It's an uncommon enough tactic in warfare, but Mongolia's more infamous for their razing of non-compliant states.

I'll disagree on adding a vassalage bonus to UA, more simply because the current Vassalage system is kinda weird to play with atm. It only unlocks if you reach Medieval era, so if you add a bonus to the Vassalage mechanic then the "optimal" way to play Mongolia would be to not do too well on your ancient/classical warfare as you don't want to wipe out the enemy Civ. You probably want to stay in war the entire time too just to keep the 100 Warscore for capitulation. It gets kinda gamey unless you give Mongolia early way to vassalize someone. Vassalage can be disabled in the advanced options so you have to make an alternative UA for that scenario too.

Regarding vassalage, this is another example of mod designers misunderstanding the meaning of terms. What we present as vassalage isn't vassalage. It's called "governance of conquered territories/states" (it's hard to say what to call it briefly, perhaps "colonial policy"). And this phenomenon (conquering other tribes/states and governing their territories) has been known since the dawn of humanity. Vassalage is a hierarchical nesting doll of landowners in (inside, internal policy) a state (this emerged in the Middle Ages). Therefore, if what is called vassalage were available from the start of the game (as it should be), it would be a different story. It's also unclear why the Vasalage mechanic exists as an on/off option. But that's all a different story. I simply gave the Vassalage example as one of those variant that relates to the history of the Mongols. It's kind of like "Variations on a Theme...". The current game mechanics, unfortunately, put a spoke in the wheel of this variant.

 

[FPXI]

And if we go even further, the tribute bonus is absolutely not about the Mongols! What the hell is bullying of City-States? The Mongols destroyed large countries, and suddenly, bullying of City-States. Bullying is a non-aggressive form of dominance in the game. This bonus is suitable for the USA of Theodore Roosevelt (the big stick policy) or Donald Trump (although for Trump it is debatable).

The Mongols, on the other hand, were active aggressors. The Mongols first built up their large (here is a potential bonus) and fairly skilled army (we already have this bonus – the first part of the existing one). Then they stormed into the cities: killing, plundering, burning, raping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Western_Xia). Note: during the conquest of Xi Xia, the Mongols brought back many prisoners – including artisans and military specialists, who helped the Mongols master the techniques of taking fortified cities. Before completely conquering a state, the Mongols conducted initial raids to seize loot. Accordingly, their second part of the UA should be built around Creating a Large Army or Pillaging Tiles or Conquest, and/or Razing Cities. For example, Razing Cities doesn't generate unhappiness, but rather, it boosts happiness. Or a happiness bonus for each captured city. Some kind of boost from Pillaging Tiles, etc.

Spoiler :

View attachment 753846
A typical scene: a feast where tables rest on the bodies of still-living captives after the territory has been conquered. The food certainly doesn't come from tribute, but from conquest, and it's most likely the same WLTKD with a food bonus .

The Mongols converted conquered states into vassals. Therefore, we could have a Tribute bonus specifically for Vassalage. This is much closer to history. And Vassalage in the game is an active form of aggression. You first conquer many cities of a state, and then suck the yields out of it like a spider.

Vassalage comes on too late, is too jank, and it's too narrow of design space.

Other options that come to mind are giving them the part of the current Roman UA that gives yields of conquered city states. That fits the mongols much better than the Romans, but the ability itself is still heavily spawn dependent--sometimes broken, sometime useless. So not really a good fix. Stealing tech on conquest would be good (the later mongols armies were very good at integrating new technologies they got from settled subjects), but that niche belongs to Assyria.

Giving a chunk of yields for Razing cities seems a very good fit...but it'd be pretty hard to balance.

 

[Brackenspore]

Vassalage comes on too late, is too jank, and it's too narrow of design space.

Other options that come to mind are giving them the part of the current Roman UA that gives yields of conquered city states. That fits the mongols much better than the Romans, but the ability itself is still heavily spawn dependent--sometimes broken, sometime useless. So not really a good fix. Stealing tech on conquest would be good (the later mongols armies were very good at integrating new technologies they got from settled subjects), but that niche belongs to Assyria.

Giving a chunk of yields for Razing cities seems a very good fit...but it'd be pretty hard to balance.

That's true. I'm just seeing a second proposal that revolves around the yields of bullying CS. To me, it's like the saying "Can't see the forest for the trees": getting caught up in the minutiae while missing the deeper problem (though, of course, that's only a problem for history freaks like me). I just hope someone brave enough will come up with a second half of the Mongols' UA that doesn't involve bullying CS at all.

 

[FPXI]

That's true. I'm just seeing a second proposal that revolves around the yields of bullying CS. To me, it's like the saying "Can't see the forest for the trees": getting caught up in the minutiae while missing the deeper problem (though, of course, that's only a problem for history freaks like me). I just hope someone brave enough will come up with a second half of the Mongols' UA that doesn't involve bullying CS at all.

I'm generally against using narrow historical specificity to limit game design all the time. It's enough for me if Mongolia's ability is effective and encourages their proper game-loop, but it really is a bad fit. And I'm just not how to make razing viable because the payoff would have to be worth destroying a city for, and getting that amount of value in a short window is almost certainly broken. Something like "[x] gold for Razing cities scaling era. Each city razed increases [some calculation to increase enemy war weariness gain based on total number of cities razed]."

 

[Brackenspore]

I'm generally against using narrow historical specificity to limit game design all the time. It's enough for me if Mongolia's ability is effective and encourages their proper game-loop, but it really is a bad fit. And I'm jus tnot how to make razing viable because the payoff would have to be worth destroying a city for, and getting that amount of value in a short window is almost certainly broken.

Both options are undesirable: A) Historical boundaries (which aren't always narrow, mind you) limit game design; B) Game design can easily run counter to historical boundaries (in my opinion, most players and mod designers adhere to this point of view). There needs to be a golden mean. My personal opinion: if game mechanics can be tied to history (in a way that doesn't completely break the game mechanics), then it's better to do so. For example, allowing only Greeks to build the Temple of Artemis, the Oracle, and the Colossus would be very historically accurate, but would completely break the WW mechanics. At the same time, the original elements of Civilization (including the UA) are built on historicism. You won't find the Sunwell (World of Warcraft game) as a WW here. There will never be a baseline Mongol UA with a bonus to Uranium or Universities. At the same time, every player can lead Mongolia to a peaceful, scholarly empire.

 

[redrum68]

I like it probably more than my proposal though its a bigger change. Looks like we have 2 good options now that I think are both much better than what we have now!

 

[Stalker0]

This is the right way to nerf the skirmishers imo. If the extra attack is just too good...than remove it. Trying to fix it with logistics and such doesn't work, we did the skimrisher math on it a long time ago when we tried to fix this before and in many cases the skirmishers actually do LESS damage than they would with one attack. So this is a better solution.

But....why the other changes? This is meant to be a nerf plain and simple, we all agree mongel needs a nerf. So why the buff to bullying? Nerf the UA....and be done with it. We don't need this two steps forward one step back approach.

EDIT: I misread this, it is actually a nerf to Mongol bullying.

 

[redrum68]

This is the right way to nerf the skirmishers imo. If the extra attack is just too good...than remove it. Trying to fix it with logistics and such doesn't work, we did the skimrisher math on it a long time ago when we tried to fix this before and in many cases the skirmishers actually do LESS damage than they would with one attack. So this is a better solution.

But....why the other changes? This is meant to be a nerf plain and simple, we all agree mongel needs a nerf. So why the buff to bullying? Nerf the UA....and be done with it. We don't need this two steps forward one step back approach.

Its a nerf to bullying...

 

[Stalker0]

Its a nerf to bullying...

It is indeed, I withdraw my objection.

 

[Legen]

And if we go even further, the tribute bonus is absolutely not about the Mongols! What the hell is bullying of City-States? The Mongols destroyed large countries, and suddenly, bullying of City-States. Bullying is a non-aggressive form of dominance in the game. This bonus is suitable for the USA of Theodore Roosevelt (the big stick policy) or Donald Trump (although for Trump it is debatable).

The Mongols, on the other hand, were active aggressors. The Mongols first built up their large (here is a potential bonus) and fairly skilled army (we already have this bonus – the first part of the existing one). Then they stormed into the cities: killing, plundering, burning, raping (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_Western_Xia). Note: during the conquest of Xi Xia, the Mongols brought back many prisoners – including artisans and military specialists, who helped the Mongols master the techniques of taking fortified cities. Before completely conquering a state, the Mongols conducted initial raids to seize loot. Accordingly, their second part of the UA should be built around Creating a Large Army or Pillaging Tiles or Conquest, and/or Razing Cities. For example, Razing Cities doesn't generate unhappiness, but rather, it boosts happiness. Or a happiness bonus for each captured city. Some kind of boost from Pillaging Tiles, etc.

Spoiler :

View attachment 753846
A typical scene: a feast where tables rest on the bodies of still-living captives after the territory has been conquered. The food certainly doesn't come from tribute, but from conquest, and it's most likely the same WLTKD with a food bonus .

The Mongols converted conquered states into vassals. Therefore, we could have a Tribute bonus specifically for Vassalage. This is much closer to history. And Vassalage in the game is an active form of aggression. You first conquer many cities of a state, and then suck the yields out of it like a spider.

The whole city-state thing derives from vanilla civ 5, in which the Mongol UA was as follows:

---

Mongol Terror
Combat Strength +30% when fighting City-State units or attacking a City-State itself. All mounted units have +1 Movement.

Source: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Mongolian_(Civ5)

---

Which also means our Current Rome UA is in essence vanilla Mongols.

At some point, VP experimented with the Mongols being able to annex a city-state through heavy tribute. The current tribute part of The Mongols' UA is a toned down version of that tribute ability.

You could probably have a Mongol UA that captures what you want if you are willing to move parts of UA of other civs to the Mongols, such as the Hunnic UA's yields on attacking Cities, or Songhai's triple gold on plundering Cities.

 

[Brackenspore]

The whole city-state thing derives from vanilla civ 5, in which the Mongol UA was as follows:

---

Mongol Terror
Combat Strength +30% when fighting City-State units or attacking a City-State itself. All mounted units have +1 Movement.

Source: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Mongolian_(Civ5)

---

Which also means our Current Rome UA is in essence vanilla Mongols.

That's right, the original version specifically bonuses fighting (CONQUESTING) CS, which underscores the Mongols' core identity. The bonus makes sense.

At some point, VP experimented with the Mongols being able to annex a city-state through heavy tribute.

If the experiment had been carried through to its conclusion, it would have been equally logical, because the idea of "annexation" was once again present.

The current tribute part of The Mongols' UA is a toned down version of that tribute ability.

It was precisely this softening that became a mistake, leading to the loss of historical justification. It turns out that the experimenters, in the course of their experiment, turned Genghis Khan into Theodore Roosevelt, threatening everyone with his big stick and receiving profits for it. Cool! (Of course not). Thanks for at least explaining where some of these strange decisions come from.

 

[Stalker0]

You could probably have a Mongol UA that captures what you want if you are willing to move parts of UA of other civs to the Mongols, such as the Hunnic UA's yields on attacking Cities, or Songhai's triple gold on plundering Cities.

and then you have to remake those civs....so its just kicking the can. All of this civs are ramping, pillaging, mounted civs.....so yeah there is a lot of overlap in theme. No reason to break other civs to fix mongols.

 

[hokath]

Should probably mention in the text that the Food goes to the Capital.

 

[FPXI]

and then you have to remake those civs....so its just kicking the can. All of this civs are ramping, pillaging, mounted civs.....so yeah there is a lot of overlap in theme. No reason to break other civs to fix mongols.

I agree with this. Totally opposed to breaking other civs just to fix Mongonlia (especially Songhai, which is among the best kit designs we have).