How deal with Mongols?

[planetfall]

I've started the same game 6 times and lost every time, now I'm about to lose number 7. I can't figure out how to hold back the Mongols.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

In current game, New World climate. I have a less than ideal start position. I have a river, but no grassland and much rainforest. I only have 2 iron and 1 horses. Mongols have more and grassland. They have 5 cities and I have 7, but my production is weak. I've had to bypass pottery to try to get some defense. No joy. I'm behind 11 techs and 50 in military. I have man-in-arms, archers, horseman, swords but here come man-in-arms, crossbows, keshig, and cats. Victor kind of helped but won't be enough. Not at a high difficulty, prince. In 3rd era, black. Because playing defense, no wonders, period. Sucks...

I tried settling cities further away, but that only gained me 40 turns. I'm totally frustrated and other than restart, don't know what else to try.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

If you have walls focus on destroying their ranged units: Catapults, Keshigs, Crossbowmen, in that order. I also play on Prince difficulty, and that's my strategy: if they have only melee units and your city has walls they'll simply retreat or die trying.

If you don't have walls focus on destroying their melee units. They'll be left with only ranged units and no matter how low on health your city is they won't be able to take it.

To solve the production issue you can trig your trade routes in a way so that your frontline cities have increased production (don't remember whether you have to send your tradere from those cities or to them). Alternatively, focus on international trade routes (on the other side of the continent, away from Mongolian hands) and with increased Gold don't hesitate to purchase units when you lose some and there is a long duration of turns before you more are produced don't hesitate to purchase a unit or two to replace them and keep the pressure on.

 

[planetfall]

Their consistent strategy was 2 horseman and 2-3 archers and spearman is no match, even with Victor w/ 2 promotions.

I've saved that game and decided to let it sit for a bit, and then start again at turn 1 and see if I can change outcome. Just need to get a win first after so many losses.

 

[reddishrecue]

You have to make a few more units to stop horsemen hordes.

 

[MrRadar]

If you have Mongols nearby, don't build a single cavalry. Genghis will soon turn smiley face, then sign a DoF with him, averting war until you're ready not to renew the DoF.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I tried settling cities further away, but that only gained me 40 turns. I'm totally frustrated and other than restart, don't know what else to try

This is not really possible to answer with so little information. Some screenshots or saves would be helpful. Any answer you will get will be very general only.

 

[Patine]

I've started the same game 6 times and lost every time, now I'm about to lose number 7. I can't figure out how to hold back the Mongols.
Any ideas would be appreciated.

In current game, New World climate. I have a less than ideal start position. I have a river, but no grassland and much rainforest. I only have 2 iron and 1 horses. Mongols have more and grassland. They have 5 cities and I have 7, but my production is weak. I've had to bypass pottery to try to get some defense. No joy. I'm behind 11 techs and 50 in military. I have man-in-arms, archers, horseman, swords but here come man-in-arms, crossbows, keshig, and cats. Victor kind of helped but won't be enough. Not at a high difficulty, prince. In 3rd era, black. Because playing defense, no wonders, period. Sucks...

I tried settling cities further away, but that only gained me 40 turns. I'm totally frustrated and other than restart, don't know what else to try.

Are you playing a TSL map as Chinese or Korean, or a random map? Because if the latter, they shouldn't CONSTANTLY be your neighbour. If the former, maybe consider the latter.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Are you playing a TSL map as Chinese or Korean, or a random map? Because if the latter, they shouldn't CONSTANTLY be your neighbour. If the former, maybe consider the latter.

I think he plays from turn 1 on a random map (reloading it), but this is just speculation. The post contains so little information that it's nigh impossible to help him. We need to know a lot more here, especially how far they are separated in terms of tiles, and when (after how many turns and in which era) Mongolia declares war. It's quite easy to manipulate the AI to pretty much never declare war, and beat them hard if they do.

 

[Futumch]

Are you playing a TSL map as Chinese or Korean, or a random map? Because if the latter, they shouldn't CONSTANTLY be your neighbour. If the former, maybe consider the latter.

I think the OP is playing from the same saved starting position (turn 1 I guess), so the Mongols are always going to be in a specific position.

 

[planetfall]

It's a habit I picked up from playing earlier versions of civ. I back up games every 5 to 10 turns, so if want to undo, just load a previous saved game. I was playing as Germany so a late blooming civ. Turn 1 is a random map of continents/islands; high seas, std resources, usually play std world, but this game was new world, and wet.

Met Mongols in turn 11.
Mongols attacked: turns 45, 44,44, 62, 64, 97

Attaching some files. Mongols have 1 horses in city and 2 iron off to SW.There's 1 horse to SE and 2 iron to NW. Just too many of my units blown away in a turn or two and it takes too long to get new units. Normally I'll hole up in a walled city and add archers/horses for defense. But that method fails vs Mongols.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It's a habit I picked up from playing earlier versions of civ. I back up games every 5 to 10 turns, so if want to undo, just load a previous saved game. I was playing as Germany so a late blooming civ. Turn 1 is a random map of continents/islands; high seas, std resources, usually play std world, but this game was new world, and wet.

Met Mongols in turn 11.
Mongols attacked: turns 45, 44,44, 62, 64, 97

Attaching some files. Mongols have 1 horses in city and 2 iron off to SW.There's 1 horse to SE and 2 iron to NW. Just too many of my units blown away in a turn or two and it takes too long to get new units. Normally I'll hole up in a walled city and add archers/horses for defense. But that method fails vs Mongols.

Looks like there was definitely trading going on between you two. They gain additional combat strength against you if you have a trading post established by them.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Thanks for providing pictures and more information.

I see several things that you can do to improve, I'll try to post it tomorrow when I have time.

 

[planetfall]

Ah, did not know about trading. That explains why they set trade routes, I trade with other civs very very little

 

[reddishrecue]

Ah, did not know about trading. That explains why they set trade routes, I trade with other civs very very little

Trading with other civs is such a mistake sometimes since they can cut your trade route and declare war.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Allright, this will be a rather long post because there are so many things that you can do.
To start, first some general tips:

1. Your opening strategy is probably out of whack. By turn 90, you should have many more cities settled, or be actively engaged in a war to take more cities by force. If your first picture is anything to go by (around turn 44?), it seems that you have only one extra city settled (Cologne). I suggest opening up with a settler after you built your first unit (scout, slinger or warrior, typically). I do this on Deity even, and there is even less reason for you not to mass settle on Prince. You need to grab land, because this lets your snowball.
2. I see that you have a Stonehenge built, and that is typically a big commitment in resources just for a religion. Why do you want a religion that bad (I'm not saying it's wrong, but you need to have a clear sense of purpose behind it). Also see point 1. If you do build Stonehenge, it takes away from other things you could be doing (like settling).
3. I see that you have several other things built (or building) that you don't actively need as well. Why does your capital have walls? Unless there is a big threat to it (which Mongolia isnt, he is only a threat to your border cities), don't bother with walls. I also see that you are building Hansa. You need to get your science up to stay relevant in the game, building Hansa is way too early. I also see that you are building Encampments. This district should pretty much never be built (probably controversial, but I stand by it), as it takes up a valuable district slot and offers pretty much nothing apart from a defensive bonus that you can do without.
4. Speaking of Hansa, your science is too low. At turn 90 you should have way more than 19 science. At least build a few campuses or try to get science elsewhere, 30 or more should be a minimum at this stage. Build Hansa only after you have gotten some more science up, as Hansa is a pretty low priority district early on (and especially when invaded).
5. The civ AI and its decision to go to war is (largely) based on the relative difference in army value between their and your army. I see that you have leader tabs enabled in the upper right corner, so you can check for this value yourself. Usually the AI will attack you (depending on leader) when they have an army value that is around twice or higher than yours (sometimes as much as 5 times higher). This value can go up and down depending on other factors as well, namely which leader you are facing (Mongolia likes to declare war in the lower scale of relative army value difference), distance between you and him (as you say, you "gained" 40 turns by settling in the other direction in one of your playthroughs), and whether or not he likes you.
6. I see that you have units doing nothing in your home cities (capital and city close to it). Why is there a warrior and archer fortifying there? You need those units near Mongolia, because you're getting invaded. Ignore the barbarian threat, they cannot raze your capital anyway, and with walls they are pretty much unable to even dent your city.
7. Always try to get at least one unit with the newest tech as possible. City combat strength scales off of the combat strength of your strongest unit. Meaning that once you upgrade a warrior to your first swordsman, your cities will become fortresses that his usual units will have a very hard time attacking. Almost to the point of letting you ignore his threat. A golden rule is that when your cities have a combat strength equal or higher to his units, you're pretty damn safe. Meaning that when he has horsemen (36 combat strength), adding a swordsman to your army shoots that all your city combat strength to roughly the same level as his units.

Now for the decision you have to make. Do you want war with Genghis, or do you want to play peacefully? Either choice is fine, because you can actually beat Mongolia if you desire to, but you may also want to play peacefully for all I know:

1. If you want to play peacefully and avoid a war: Try to be on his good side if you can. Once you meet him its important that you send him a delegation on the very first turn you meet him, as he will usually decline afterwards. That gives you a small positive modifier. Also Genghis hates if you settle too close and especially if you build cavalry type units, so focusing on melee and archer units is fine. So avoid settling on his doorstep, and keep a relatively big army at hand (ideally one third his size or more), moving your units to your border against Genghis to deter an attack.
2. Keep walls up only in your border cities (those that Mongolia will invade first). And keep building infrastructure (campuses, commercial hubs and hansa, generally in that order) behind it, you don't want to overdo your defensive commitment because that only sets you behind and invites a later invasion. The goal is to have enough units to deter an invasion, and keep expanding (settling, improving tiles and building peaceful infrastructure) behind it.

1. If you want to have a war with Mongolia: As above, move your army down south and keep making units behind it because you want to invade him afterwards. The trick is to bleed him dry of units, and then counterattack once you get his army value down to less than yours.
2. Here is the biggest single tip you can implement for a defensive war: Do not get Victor. Get Moksha, and promote him to "Laying of hands". This promotion lets your units heal back to 100% if they fortified the turn before, and makes any invasion a true nightmare to deal with for the attacker (assuming you have strong defensive units, like swordsmen and men at arms)
3. Position your units in a way that makes sense. In your screenshot, you have fortified your units on friendly terrain (which is a good thing), but you have done so in bad spots. What you want to do is to keep your strongest units in the best positions they can do, because Mongolia (as with any civ AI) will be attacking the first units that they can. Meaning that you need to seek out defensive positions with rough terrain (hills, jungle or forest, ideally jungle/forest on hills), and fortify there. If you can get a swordsman (35 combat strength) to a hill and fortify there, you add another 3 combat strength from the hill, as well as 3 combat strength from fortification. Add in another turn and you can add another 3 combat strength to your fortification (for a total of 6). If you fortify on a hill with jungle or forest on it, thats another 3 combat strength as well. Meaning that in an ideal scenario, your swordsman gets +6 from double fortification (two turns of fortification) and another +3/6 from rough terrain. That makes for a grand total of your swordsman having 44/47 combat strength, which is equal or better than a man at arms!
4. Add in as many combat modifiers that you can. Oligarchy is another +4 for your melee units, and will stack with the other defensive bonuses, and should be your government of choice. Do not get classical republic or autocracy, those are bad choices (especially in this case with Mongolia invading).
5. Since you do have a religion, be purposeful on the beliefs that you get, because a religion can add even more combat strength to your units. If you get Crusade (one of the best beliefs in the game), you get another +10 combat strength (!!!) when fighting within his borders. This is great for when you want to invade him, because it gives your swordsmen the same combat strength as men at arms for essentially "free", whereas your men at arms become as strong as musketmen from that belief. Or you can get "Defender of the faith" as a belief, which adds another +5 combat strength within your borders (not his). Note that these bonuses only kick in if your religion is the majority in the city where the fighting takes place, but both of them are very powerful. Crusade is a top pick on Deity for this exact reason, because it lets you invade a target that is superior to you due to how much combat strength you gain from it.
6. Do not position your units on flat terrain, and especially not on marshes. Marshes subtract combat strength (-3 iirc), and for an archer that is already weak in terms of combat strength (you have an archer exposed on marsh), you're asking for your unit to get oneshot. Archers should always be behind your strongest melee units (that ideally are fortifying on rough terrain), or behind or inside a city. Your goal is for him to be on flat terrain on marshes, where he attempts to attack into your strongest units (which will heal back to 100% health the next turn if you got Moksha), and shoot back at him from safety to whittle him down.

This was a rather long post, but it's hard to pinpoint an exact reason to why your game is going south. All of these things are important, but some are strategic (as in the first section, concerning with what you do before a war), whereas the last section is more tactical (winning an already ongoing war). My biggest single tip here is to use Moksha and fortify with your swordsmen/men at arms, and move your archers to safety. That alone can (probably) win you the war almost immediately. But do look into the other issues as well, because these all add up. As you get better at the game, these things are important to learn because they will let you climb the difficulties to the point where even Deity becomes rather easy (eventually).

 

[Tobizi]

One thing I'd like to add is the river defence bonus (+3 I think) you get in Berlin (2nd and 3rd screenshot) compared to Cologne (1st screenshot).
And forward settling is a risky business. It calls for war and it's harder to get replenishment from your capital (e.g. Trier in the latter screenshots is so far away from Aachen that you need 7 turns to get a new unit down there). (I guess the question behind that is if the horse tile of Trier is that important? I would say no 'cause you have iron.)

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Here is the biggest single tip you can implement for a defensive war: Do not get Victor. Get Moksha, and promote him to "Laying of hands". This promotion lets your units heal back to 100% if they fortified the turn before, and makes any invasion a true nightmare to deal with for the attacker (assuming you have strong defensive units, like swordsmen and men at arms)

Thanks for this I never get Moksha, and never knew until now he had this ability

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

To give you some tactical advice on your cities. In picture 2 and 3, it's clear that your city of Trier is extremely vulnerable. It is placed on flat land and surrounded by flat land and marshes towards Mongolia.
This makes it so much more difficult to hold for defensive purposes, and its definitely going to make him so pissed off that you're asking for a war.
And these are just the tactical issues, the question is also why you would want this city for strategic purposes.
As mentioned it's making you more vulnerable, it has terrible tiles to work, and no fresh water.
This is about as bad a city as you can get, even if you ignore the Mongolian invasion.
Heck, it can't even reach the sea for a Harbour, and without freshwater an expensive aqueduct is pretty much mandatory.
Settling it towards the coast would have given you better tiles to work, a better defensive location, a harbour spot and probably would have made Mongolia less hostile as well.

Your good city is Berlin.
Berlin has access to a forest tile close to Mongolia's borders, and has access to another hill tile right by it if you purchase that tile.
It is also located on a river (which is more of a benefit to the defender than the attacker), and strong defensive spots for archers to shoot from.
If you do place your men at arms or swordsmen there (on the forest and hill near his border, especially with Moksha in place), Mongolia will almost certainly throw his entire army away on two units fortifying there, because if he doesnt oneshot them on the same turn, they will heal back up to 100% while his units will be severely hurt.
This benefits you immensely as the defender, and once he's bled dry you can in turn invade him (just bring some catapults or at least battering rams along).
Bonus points if you have crusade as a belief, then it should be pretty easy to take his cities once you cross into his territory.
The benefit of having Moksha then would be that you can run right back to your neighbouring city and heal up any damage on one turn, before continuing your onslaught.

The only thing you need to worry about if you run the Moksha strategy, is to make sure that your individual units never die on one single turn.
If you do fortify on rough terrain (and he doesnt have enough units that can all attack your unit in one turn), this is where Moksha becomes seriously OP for defensive purposes.
If they die in one turn however, Moksha is near useless, so do keep that in mind.
Fortifying on rough terrain (ideally within your borders) is essentially what lets you beat the civ 6 AI so hard, because it's extremely dumb in taking such bad fights.

 

[UWHabs]

My gut based on the pictures if that you're also too aggressively settling. Like in the last picture, a city like Trier I see makes no sense to have settled, when you have a decent coastal city in the middle of your empire with lots of chopping available and much better terrain. Especially if the O2 means that it was the second city you settled, that just looks like a terrible location with no good nearby resources. I guess it looks like you have that pinned as horses, but honestly that's not a good enough city to settle just for horses that early. And as mentioned above, you don't want horsemen against Mongolia anyways

You also have 5 cities in that last picture, but virtually no improves resources. You should make sure to at least get your luxury resources hooked up. Even if you don't desperately need them, you can often sell them to the AI (who also doesn't need them) for like 10+ gpt. That can help buy builders and the like.

And yeah, don't take Victor. You're going to be in much better shape to have Pingala with 2-3 promotions to get your science/culture going than wasting time with Victor.

And otherwise, jungle is fine for chopping. Getting Magnus in a city between Berlin and Aachen you could chop out a ton of stuff with all that jungle/forest.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

And yeah, don't take Victor. You're going to be in much better shape to have Pingala with 2-3 promotions to get your science/culture going than wasting time with Victor.

Yeah you should pretty much never get Victor, except for extremely rare circumstances or occasionally when you play domination and need extra loyalty in the general area.
But even then he's generally a bad choice, since any strategic foresight tends to nullify the need for area wide loyalty.
Pingala and Moksha are pretty much my only go-to governors in the game, with an honourable mention to Magnus (if I need to chop stuff out fast), or rarely, some Amani shenanigans for quick era score or super important suzerainty bonuses (Nan Madol on water map for instance).