Ideas on improving the Mongol UU

[Revolutionary]

Hello I notice that alot of the old useless UU like the english, french and a few others have been greatly improved but the Mongol UU is still pretty useless. The ability to ignore the movement point for mountains and hills is not really helpful at all. I would rather have the default unit which is the Knight since it does have better defence.

I mean come on the Mongols pillaged, rampaged and conquered their way across Asia and Europe. They should have a UU the reflects their power

The Mongols have weak traits they should atleast have a strong UU

So I decide to open this Thread to get your ideas on how to improve their UU's ability.

My sugestion on improving them is by giving there UU an extra movement point and blitz, increasing the cost to 70 and taking away the ignore movement point on mountains and hills.

 

[mitsho]

I think they have the blitz ability? They were improved for Conquest. Do you play with PTW?hmm ,strange. They already got blitz

mfg mitsho

 

[JazzToucan]

I don't think it's that bad at all. An overlooked trait is that you don't need iron to build which sometimes can come in handy given the lack of resources in Conquests. The cheap cost is also a plus, too.

Playing on a large map on Emporer, I used my GA to create a horde of these guys and pretty much locked up the game.

An additional movement point is probably in order, though. I have to admit the mountain/hills thing doesn't come in handy that often... although it does help when you're in hilly enemy terrain.

 

[Arathorn]

One of the keys to the keshik, too, is its lower cost. 60 shields vs. 70 shields is actually a reasonable difference. I seem to have a bunch of cities around 12 spt in the early medieval age. That's a knight every 6 turns or a keshik every 5. Numbers matter, too.

NOW, I still like the ansar warrior MUCH better, but I don't think the keshik is that bad, really. I can think of much worse UUs....

Arathorn

 

[thestonesfan]

I agree, it could be better. While I do think that ignoring hills and mountains is far from worthless, the fact is that Mongol Horsemen would have probably fared pretty poorly in hills and mountains. Their strength was in their ability to race across flat steppes and pretty much out-manuever anyone else.

But, it's still a good unit. 4-2-2 are good stats and a cost of 60 does make a difference. I would rate it about in the middle of the pack, as far as UU's go.

I left the A|D|M values the same, but game them blitz and defensive bombard. But maybe you're idea is better. 4-2-3 with blitz would be a VERY powerful unit.

 

[Revolutionary]

Originally posted by mitsho
I think they have the blitz ability? They were improved for Conquest. Do you play with PTW?hmm ,strange. They already got blitz

mfg mitsho

I play with C3C, I haven't play as the Mongols in C3C yet but in the edit and civilopedia it doesn't show them having blitz.

you might be thinking of the Russian UU

 

[Fanny Brice]

Refresh on the characteristics of the UU:

Keshik -- replaces Knight, shield cost 60, ADM: 4/2/2, requires Horses

Keshik can cross mountains as if they were grasslands.

I didn't see mention of the changes they made with C3C. Please post if you have the info.

 

[mitsho]

I'm sorry, I might have 'mislooked'. I roughly remember reading it somewhere. But it's probable that I am wrong, I haven't played the original game for long now (conquests ... )!

sorry mfG mitsho

 

[JazzToucan]

Cossacks have the extra blitz ability.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Just adding defensive bombardment should do the trick (2.0.1).

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Keshiks have a zone of control which is probably what people are confusing with blitz. So in summary, they lose a point of defense and gain zone of control, movement across mountains, lowered cost, and they don't require iron. Admittedly, each of those benefits is relatively small and perhaps situational, but it's 4 separate improvements to the unit. They certainly aren't one of the best unique units, but I don't think they suck either.

The trick, I think, is to use tactics that exploit the cheap movement through mountains to compensate for their decreased defense. A keshik can attack from the mountains and hide in the mountains more easily than a regular knight. If you use that to your advantage, then you have an agile unit with an effective defense of 4 compared with 3.

 

[robcheng]

I gave them defensive bombard in my UU rebalancer mod (link in my sig below)

 

[Revolutionary]

this UU's lower price is only good if your building large amounts of them but if you only want to build a counterstrike force then you'll be better off building knights.

and true you can eventually build more of them than knights but even for a massive invasion its better to have knights because atleast they have more survivability with there extra defense. I mean even the AI has a decent counterstrike even more so in the Higher difficulty level.

I usually don't incounter alot of mountain or hill terrain and most useful cities don't have enough of those terrain types to use tactics that exploit them effectively. I mean great I can out run them in the mountains and hills but if I attack them while they most likely are chase me with their knights and are on the near mountain or hill there defense will be 4 1/2 or 6 and I'm not taking that suicide run, which might be worth it but only if there was a city near by, and if I let them attack me on the hill they'd win most of the time and on the mountain its 50/50.

the ZOC is not that useful especally since with the UU low defence the enemy will more likely attack you then go past near you.

In C3C the not requiring iron factor is nice I can't argue with that

 

[devilzExcremNt]

try playing as china (which i think is pretty easy to say that they can be rivals with the mongols...) with riders and going up against the mongols' keshiks with riders-- especially when they keep retreating into the mountains!!! if you get lucky, there could be a range of mountains and hills separating you from the other civs, just like the AI in my game. (and yes, i completely wiped them out when i FINALLY got cavalry... hehe...)