[R&F] Mongolia First Look

[Victoria]

Yeah, the Mongols are going to be a real pain.

In my current game I am playing with Aztec Knights at +14 so its nothing new.
I still feel Aztecs are stronger all round.
The heal of Tomyris is pretty good also.

 

[Uberfrog]

What makes me wonder is that they changed the City names and Keshiq orthography. So I thought they would change it for the leader as well, but didn‘t. Nonetheless this got my hopes up that we will finally see Quecha City names for the Inka.
Chinggis spoken english gets close to the Mongolian pronunciation. Khan is harder though, since I think there is no similar sound to the Mongolisn Kh in english.

Is it the same sound as the Arabic kh (خ)? If so, the closest we get is the ch in the Scottish loanword loch or JS Bach. No real way to transcribe it, but it's not like English is phonetic anyway...

It would've been nice to hear a proper Chinggis, but "Genghis Khan" is the accepted English pronunciation, in the same way we have Julius Caesar and not "yulius kaiser".

 

[Siptah]

Is it the same sound as the Arabic kh (خ)? If so, the closest we get is the ch in the Scottish loanword loch or JS Bach. No real way to transcribe it, but it's not like English is phonetic anyway...

It would've been nice to hear a proper Chinggis, but "Genghis Khan" is the accepted English pronunciation, in the same way we have Julius Caesar and not "yulius kaiser".

I think Arabic kh has too much of a k in it. I'm no expert on it. Maybe if you pronounce a very soft loch or Bach, you get close. (my native language is german, so I know how to pronounce the latter).

 

[Victoria]

Well I personally get annoyed how different people in England can pronounce Victoria so differently.
Does one villify an American for pronouncing Tomato incorrectly?
I guess there will always be critics in this world but you will not be able to force people to pronounce things correctly.

 

[Cyberian]

I think Mongolia is insanely strong. And its not that all their benefits come mid game with stirrups and you absolutely MUST have horses. I think they should be pretty good for rushing early as well.
Don't do early settler only early scout and builder. You have to discover a second continent and improve three tiles for early civic boosts.
You can get mining, mine a resource for Eureka and get wheel and start spamming heavy chariots.
With those you can hopefully clear a barbarian outpost early to get military tradition boost with +100% cavalry production.

Meanwhile get your first trader out it should probably arrive once your chariots have arrived at your target city for conquering while you build more chariots with +100% cavalry production.
With +6 Strength chariot you are probably able to capture a nearby city state or weak Civ early for your second+ city.
This probably gives you enough room for more expansion and hopefully you capture some builders and such and get lots of XP on your chariots. The chariots can later be upgraded to Knights to complement the green Kashiiks you build.

So with +6 CS you can probably manage without horses with chariots. Normally chariots are bad but I would say +6 make a big difference. And the early rush hopefully enables you to secure Horses for the much better Horsemen or Iron to upgrade to Knights later. Sure you don't want to attack against hordes of Hoplites but there's hopefully more than one target close and you just pick on the weakest one first.

 

[KayAU]

In my current game I am playing with Aztec Knights at +14 so its nothing new.
I still feel Aztecs are stronger all round.
The heal of Tomyris is pretty good also.

The Mongols also get +3 from the leader ability. But yes, there are certainly other civs which are very powerful. The Aztecs get their bonus for all units, not just cavalry, and they have a pretty amazing peacetime bonus for district construction as well. Scythia reach their full combat potential earlier than the Mongols, and could overwhelm them if they spawn nearby.

I wrote my summary and assessment back on page 12, quoted below for convenience.

Here's my take:

Leader ability - Mongol Horde

• +3 combat strength to all cavalry class units
• Chance to capture defeated enemy cavalry class units

A very solid ability. The +3 combat strength isn't huge on its own, but it synergizes with everything else, adding even more pain to the pain the Mongols are already going to inflict. The unit capture is pretty great, and judging by the video, it looks like it is going be a pretty high chance. In the video, the number was 59%.


Unique ability - Örtöö

• Instantly creates a trading post when creating a trade route to a city
• Trading post increase diplomatic visibility with civilization
• +3 combat strength for each level of visibility

Very powerful ability. Getting at least one level of visibility for the first +3 is easy thanks to the trading post bonus, and once you get Printing, that's another +3. Once spies enter the game, another +3 is available for a small effort, using a spy mission which can not fail. Finally, the Great Person Mary Katherine Goddard, which is pretty useless for all other civs, is amazing for the Mongols, as she gives another +3.

This is a potentially devastating ability. It is also very cool thematically. I like it a lot.


Unique Infrastructure - Ordu

• All cavalry class units trained in city gain +1 movement

Pretty straight forward, good ability. Synergizes well with everything else.


Unique Unit - Keshig

• 30 melee
• 40 ranged
• 5 movement (6 if trained with Ordu)?
• 2 range
• Shares speed with unit in formation
• Available at Stirrups, doesn't replace Knight

Because the Mongols were not already terrifying enough, they are given a great UU as well. This unit is extremely mobile, and has strength and range like a Crossbowman, plus a few boosts from the other Mongol abilities. I am rarely excited by UUs, but I will make an exception for this one, because it combines mobility, range, and strength. It is available early enough to make a difference, and it even has a utility purpose outside war, as it can lend its speed to other units. I might even consider keeping some of these around in later eras, just to help move civilians around faster.


I am usually not excited about war-focused civs, but I have to admit, this one both looks and sounds great. All abilities are strong, thematically appropriate, and synergize very well. In terms of power, I am not sure if they are stronger than Scythia, but they are certainly a worthy rival in the same domain, and that is saying something. Scythia does get full use of their abilities earlier, but by the time Printing and Stirrups are invented, the Mongols are going to be tough to deal with.

If these guys spawn close to me, they will probably be an early target.

One possible weakness of the Mongols, is that they are a one-note civ. They are vulnerable to anti-cavalry, being denied access to horses, and of course, the AIs tactical stupidity.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Is it the same sound as the Arabic kh (خ)? If so, the closest we get is the ch in the Scottish loanword loch or JS Bach. No real way to transcribe it, but it's not like English is phonetic anyway...

It would've been nice to hear a proper Chinggis, but "Genghis Khan" is the accepted English pronunciation, in the same way we have Julius Caesar and not "yulius kaiser".

I think Arabic kh has too much of a k in it. I'm no expert on it. Maybe if you pronounce a very soft loch or Bach, you get close. (my native language is german, so I know how to pronounce the latter).

The Arabic خ is a "ch" pronounced more from the throat and is not the same. Based on (regional) Turkisch pronounciation (close to Mongolian) of some words as "kara" (=black) like in Karakorum I expect it is really a "kh" sound.

 

[Uberfrog]

The Arabic خ is a "ch" pronounced more from the throat and is not the same. Based on (regional) Turkisch pronounciation (close to Mongolian) of some words as "kara" (=black) like in Karakorum I expect it is really a "kh" sound.

It's just that "khan" is transcribed as "خان" in Arabic and as "хаан" in modern Mongolian with the Cyrillic alphabet, and those two sounds are closer to the throaty "ch" sound I described above.

 

[Once Momias]

Santa, you know what you will have to bring me this Xmas.

 

[Siptah]

It's just that "khan" is transcribed as "خان" in Arabic and as "хаан" in modern Mongolian with the Cyrillic alphabet, and those two sounds are closer to the throaty "ch" sound I described above.

The Arabic خ is a "ch" pronounced more from the throat and is not the same. Based on (regional) Turkisch pronounciation (close to Mongolian) of some words as "kara" (=black) like in Karakorum I expect it is really a "kh" sound.

I'm sure the voice actor will pronounce it Mongolian, so we'll hear it soon. And as long as we all agree that it isn't pronounced as in James Caan...

 

[Phoenix1595]

I'm sure the voice actor will pronounce it Mongolian, so we'll hear it soon. And as long as we all agree that it isn't pronounced as in James Caan...

The voice actor may get it right, but poor ol' Sean Bean will butcher it like a pig in a chophouse.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I'm sure the voice actor will pronounce it Mongolian, so we'll hear it soon. And as long as we all agree that it isn't pronounced as in James Caan...

It's just that "khan" is transcribed as "خان" in Arabic and as "хаан" in modern Mongolian with the Cyrillic alphabet, and those two sounds are closer to the throaty "ch" sound I described above.

I found a video about Mongol pronounciation. Apparently the "x" has different sound for masculine and feminine words (at 7:22). It is not similar to what I thought. The masculine form is indeed similar to خ, but the femine form is a soft "ch".

 

[PhilBowles]

What makes me wonder is that they changed the City names and Keshiq orthography. So I thought they would change it for the leader as well, but didn‘t. Nonetheless this got my hopes up that we will finally see Quechua City names for the Inka.
Chinggis spoken english gets close to the Mongolian pronunciation. Khan is harder though, since I think there is no similar sound to the Mongolian Kh in english.

Pop culture is a hard phenomenon to resist, especially in games. Karakorum and 'keshik' are not high in the popular consciousness, but the name "Genghis Khan" is well-known, as is its usual pronunciation.

Similarly we might see Quechua names for Inca cities (but don't count on it. Civ VI's Khmer city list seems to be an improvement over Civ IV's, but still uses names for archaeological sites in most cases rather than the contemporary Khmer names), but the spelling will remain Inca rather than Inka.

I'm sure the voice actor will pronounce it Mongolian, so we'll hear it soon. And as long as we all agree that it isn't pronounced as in James Caan...

They got around that in Civ V by having the voice actor say 'Temujin' instead of using the title.

 

[Meluhhan]

Defender of the faith founder belief can provide some defence against them.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

https://m.facebook.com/civ/posts/10155828508765359

Here is the solutions to the Monday teaser.

 

[Cyberian]

Defender of the faith can provide some defence against them.

Can you explain?

 

[Uberfrog]

https://m.facebook.com/civ/posts/10155828508765359

Here is the solutions to the Monday teaser.

But of course the Fanatics here got 100%. Excellent work, guys

 

[Uberfrog]

I would guess Subotai

I'm surprised they didn't pick him to begin with to be honest, as he is explicitly a general (or noyan) rather than a leader more broadly. And they must have surely been expecting to add Genghis Khan all along.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I would guess Subotai

I'll guess Tamerlane

 

[Wingednosering]

I think people are too hasty to look at the Scythian and Aztec bonuses and dismiss the Mongols in comparison. I think this needs a bit more examination.

1. Speed. Neither the Aztecs or Scythia can compete in terms of mobility once the unique stable comes into play. The aztec equivalent is an ED building that grants faith and a GG point. Scythia gets their terrible faith-based UI. Personally I'd say the army mobility completely trumps the Aztec and Scythian UIs.

2. Conversion. Scythians can't convert anything, but heal with kills and get double cavalry units. Eagle Warriors can provide a couple early game workers if you're lucky. The cav conversion for the mongols will be relevant the entire game and probably lets you steal cav UUs, which are typically quite powerful (Sakas and Mamluks spring to mind). Scythia gets the edge here, with the Mongols in a close second.

3. Combat strength. Scythia gets a +5 wounded unit bonus. The Aztecs are more complicated. While they theoretically have a higher cap than Genghis' horde, it's important to see when and how these bonuses are applied.

Aztecs: Their CS is tied to luxuries, which means +4 per continent they control, esentially. Since continents (and therefore, luxuries) increase with map size, the Aztec actually have a lower cap on smaller maps and a larger cap on larger maps.

Mongols: Their CS boost will be pretty easily a +3 right out of the gate for all non-cav and +6 for cav, making them superior to the Aztecs in the Ancient/Classical eras. In the ren era, they add printing, bringing the minimum CS boost to +6/+9, the equivalent of two conquered continents for the Aztecs. If the Mongols get Goddard, then they boost up to an insane +9/+12. This is equivalent to three continents for the Aztecs.

Scythia wins in the Ancient/Classical. Aztecs win towards the end of the game. Mongols rule the middle.

4. Visibility. Mongols can see into enemy territory as far as their trade routes have traveled. Scythia and Aztecs have no equivalent. Useless for AI players.

5. UUs. The Keshig comes later than either of the other two UUs and can't maintain promotions. However, they are much, much more powerful, can speed up units in formation and stay relevant loger than either of the others. The Aztecs are definitely the losers of this comparison. Scythia and Mongols are pretty close.

6. Economy. Mongols are forced to focus on trade. They can get trade envoys easily and can instantly improve trade route gold with instant trading posts. Aztecs and Scythia get faith from their UIs.

7. Amenities. Aztecs get extra amenities to help combat war weariness and maintain occupied cities. Mongols and Scythia have no equivalent.

8. R&F. Scythia and/or the Aztecs might have changes in R&F. Rushing eurekas may leave Mongols in a better position for a golden medieval era, which would be insane. Aztecs won't have a golden age with their UU. Scythia might. Without knowing the effectiveness of Dom golden ages, its tough to say how Scythia will be affected.

TL;DR: Mongols are absolutely in the running with Scythia and the Aztecs. I'd actually say these three are reasonably balanced against one another. The probem is that Scyhia and the Aztecs are two of the strongest civs in the game, so the Mongols being balanced with them means they are similarly overpowered compared to the rest of the roster.