Mongolia, the worst synergy state? Help!

[atma6]

Hello I've shadowed these boards from way back in the CIV3 days, and I've finally decided to join and start posting.

Here is my question. How do I effectively leverage the traits of the Mongols. I usually play on Monarch and am trying to improve my warmongering for higher levels.

In the last couple of games I've started playing the Mongols, I have so far not been able to start a successful early war with them. Ok so I want to use the Keshik (sp?), and on paper it synergizes really well with the Ger, but here is the problem, spearmen. Now I know its a given that spearmen will trump horsemen, but thats not my problem. I really should say that time seems to be the problem for Mongolia. HR is an expensive trait and Archery is usually skipped, now this alone doesn't hugely effect early warmongering, hell I've used Numidian Cavalry effectively, but there is more.

The problem seems inherant with how Mongolia synergizes. For now lets ignore creative and imperialistic, and focus on aggressive, the shared trait for the leaders. Aggressive is a very useful trait, which allows you to get more important upgrades directly out of the barracks, but it doesn't work with horsemen. All of a sudden Mongolia is given a boost towards non-mounted units. Its UB the Ger balances this however giving a significant boost to mounted units, at the same time its UU is a pretty good HA.

The UB and UU don't really synergize at all practically, HAs can't stand up to the spear, therefore they are either raiders or you have to seriously rush them before the enemy can mount a successful spearwall. As a rule raiders don't need a lot of upgrades, they really only pick off stray units and steal workers/pillage land. Therefore a Ger doesn't hugely benefit them. However by building a Ger you end up costing you a speed advantage which allows a much better spear defense to be built. I've wipped and chopped an army as fast as I could and I can never get both a Ger and an invading force of Keshiks before spears rear their ugly faces. Now nobody can argue against the Ger's use for Knights and Cavalry, but it seems to cripple their UU.

Ok so they have Agressive so lets use mixed forces. Unfortunately this even further dilutes the usefulness of the Keshik. By mixing forces you are spending less on (preferably Ger upgraded) HAs, but it seems to be the most effective strategy. Infact only one or two non Ger upgraded Keshiks with a primarily footsoldier based army seems to work better with the Mongolians. Sure this is effective, but all it leverages is the Aggressive trait (and minorly the Keshik in a raiding capacity). The Ger will be useful later so its not as important if you don't use that. Truely it always seems more effective to just ignore HR until you need knights then break out the Ger.

I can't for the life of me find proper way to leverage the traits of the Mongols, their UU seems to be useless without Ger support (aside from raiding, but I can raid with anyother unit just as effectively) and their traits, aggressive, only push you away from using it.

Does anyone have advice for how best to utilize an early warmongering Mongol state that desperately wants to use their UU?

 

[madscientist]

The mighty Kahn in my signature is an example of Ghengis Kahn in war.

My opinion id Ghengis Kahn is the best war monger.
1) Imperialistic. Fast settling. Lot's of GGs which can either be settled or attached to units.
2) Agressive. combat I to melee units. Means with a barracks you are punching out shock or cover promoted units.
3) UB; Ger. The only UB that offers extra XP to an offensive unit (Sitting Bull's Totem is a defensive help). With one settled GG, and theocracy or vassalage Ghengis (or Kublai) can push out combat II, shock keshiks which have an edge over even combat II spears.
4) Keshiks. It's about mobility. They can attack, win take damage and then retreat far enough away to avoid a counter attack. This let's you accumulate ALOT of XPs. The bulk of the Mongol army is the melee units Keshiks are hit and run units for pillaging resources and roads although well promoted ones do a very nice job on weakened city defenders.

Variety in attack is a plus, as you can defend you stack against alot more AI defensive units.

 

[DaveMcW]

Keshiks are the ultimate "bully" unit. They will wreck a civ using archers, but will not make progress against a prepared opponent.

So pick on enemies who don't have copper/iron.

If you are forced to war against a civ with spearmen, make sure you disconnect all copper/iron in the first few turns of the war.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I like Kublai Khan a lot - my highest score is with him. Creative is great for early warmongering - culture just happens so you can use your first whips in a captured city for more troops. You can skip all the early buildings and just go straight to military in most cities.

Keshiks are for long distance warring. Send them in first to cripple an enemy before you send in your main city raiders. You can even declare war just to economically drain a long distance rival that you have no intention of trying to capture cities in.

Don't use Keshiks to attack cities - your Keshik army should like off the land, paying for themselves with pillage income. Take out all metal sources early and use your mobility to stay away from spears.

Then when they cower in their cities and build nothing but archers slowly, your aggressive swords with the cover promotion can take down their cities one by one. Meanwhile the Keshiks can be raiding the next victim.

 

[Gliese 581]

I don't see how any other unit in the game can be as effective in pillaging and harassing the enemy as the Keshik, after all they all behave as if they have commando, moving on to a mine and pillaging it the same turn is awesome. I think you need to rethink your strategy a bit, the Keshik needs to be used in other ways than just straight attacks, use them to outsmart your enemy. Pillage his resources and destroy his communications. Also don't forget that you can give flanking 1 & 2 when forced to attack a spearman to injure him and still have a better than 50% chance of survival, then hit him with shock promoted riders. Mainly though, you should rely on your speed and commando trait to avoid spearmen, destroy their roads and they're helpless! Just don't mess with Shaka

 

[Melon Head]

It also might be worth not building a Ger before the Keshik rush; instead getting them for a knight-based offense a little later, when you have more production

 

[Philo_Beddoe]

lol, i find genghis particular to be weak in that you must be constantly warring to leverage his traits

the problem is the ger +4 xp is worthless, as other civs get the same number of promos when built as the ger + barraks as ger + stables

i modded teh ger to give a free flanking 1 promo and +2 xp as this givese 3 promo instead of 2 like everyone else, this also accuratly reflects the mongols battle tactics as they were the masters movement and loved to bait enemies into traps

i also modded keshiks to replace knights with 1 first strike and no terrain movement cost to accurate reflect the time they were dominant, the middle ages, also if you read up on keskiks they were not just horse archers, but a combined group of horse archers heavy and light calvalry with lances

i am currently playing the mongols to test this mod out, cause compared to other warmongers i have played (cyrus, boudica, augustu, monty), genghis is extremely weak imo

 

[Philo_Beddoe]

i also find its useful to build a stack of the slow moving infantry and seige weapons to take cities and then build keskiks exclusviely reinforce that intial stack, since they move so quickly

 

[atma6]

Thanks for the responses.

So it does look like I will be using them for raiding and not shock attacks, but truthfully is it worth Ger(ing) them, or building them at all. Sure raiding is useful, but is it worth the beakers. On lower levels of course the answer is yes, but I'm concerned with higher levels (play like its deity makes it easier to get to deity). HR takes quite a bit of time, and though you do get the best raiders of the time, is raiding worth it. With BtS I've noticed the AI mixes its stacks very often. Picking an AI that doesn't have copper connected could very well conect itself to copper before you get HR (although with raiding tactics you can outrun spearmen and pillage the copper).

Really I should ask for raiding tactics. If I raid its usually a worker grab or a resource/town pillage. To me it seems the hammers and beakers would be better spend on a city taking army rather than a harrassing army, but thats probably because I don't know how to best use raiders.

In what situations is raiding preferable? And of course the main question, are Keshiks really worth the cost?

 

[Gliese 581]

If you play as Kublai then go ahead and build gers for the extra promotion. If you're playing Genghis you can probably just use settled GGs. With Kublai gers with Genghis monuments, I prefer Kublai but I'm sure both are pretty good if used right.

Edit: I think Keshiks are at their best when you're fighting over a relatively large area because the more you can move them around the more the enemy has to split his forces. You can either use the Keshiks as diversion to draw the enemy troops away from your infantrys target city or you can move an infantry SoD up to a spot and just use it as a sponge to force the enemy to fortify troops in the area. The Keshiks should then encounter less resistance as they move around pillaging.
I'd say use the first tactic when the enemy is weaker and the second when the enemy is stronger generally speaking. Remember to always use their mobility to your advantage, hit one area then move on to the next, you don't have to clean up every bit of cottaged land in one area first, leave it for later. I find the best tactic for pillaging is removing strategic resources, then happiness resources and production improvements (mines, quarries). If you can cripple the enemy's production it wont matter if they get a tech lead on you, even if they manage to produce a couple of expensive better troops they will be outproduced and overwhelmed.

 

[futurehermit]

Don't forget that gers benefit war elephants, knights, cavalry--all powerful units.

As has been said if your opponent doesn't have metals or if you pillage them right away after declaring war, you can easily overwhelm your opponent with enough keshiks. I'm not a big fan of pillaging when I want the empire for myself. At levels below emperor you should be able to overwhelm your opponent with keshiks.

And remember that aggressive lasts all game long so you have aggressive rifles, infantry, etc. Basically, mongols have an insanely strong army. Aggressive for all melee/gunpowder units and the ger + experienced/upgraded keshiks for horse-based units.

My highest score ever was with kublai khan--a domination victory 1600AD normal speed.

 

[vb1]

Just look at tactics that Mongols used in warfare. Their most brilliant surprise tactic was to send an unit of horsemen ahead of their main army. The enemy would then assume that this unit of horsemen is the actual Mongol force and engage them. The horsemen would then turn around and flee, enemies would pursue them, and run into the main Mongol army, obviously totally unprepared.
The Keshik in CivIV replicates this tactic almost perfectly.

 

[Diamondeye]

Mongols are awesome in warfare, Genghis may be the best leader at all...
And Keshiks can be used for super-early rush, just make sure the enemy is not Mayan!

 

[madscientist]

Well I am playing a game with Kublai Kahn. Up to macemen age and never had horses until recently. The power of popping cultural borders and aggressive trait have been enough to humble both Sitting Bull and ALexnader. Both are now weekened enough where I pick them off before they get Fuedalsim and I now have captured a horse resource from Bull. Also the cheap libraries allowed me to build them fats and get a SE going while slowly building the commerce.

Mongols are a great warring civilization.

 

[kcmarkwell]

Here is the short version of how to deal with the spear vs keshik problem... Build 10 times more keshiks than they have spears. Most AI will build stacks of lots of units, not just spears. If you build 40 keshiks, it really wont matter that he has 5 spears guarding.

 

[Innawerkz]

Just look at tactics that Mongols used in warfare. Their most brilliant surprise tactic was to send an unit of horsemen ahead of their main army. The enemy would then assume that this unit of horsemen is the actual Mongol force and engage them. The horsemen would then turn around and flee, enemies would pursue them, and run into the main Mongol army, obviously totally unprepared.
The Keshik in CivIV replicates this tactic almost perfectly.

A friend and I have this down to a near-science in Multi-player, only we reverse your concept. Make a deliberate and obvious approach to a border city with a well-rounded, respectable sized stack of troops to apply pressure and threaten. This will typically draw heavy reinforcements from some of the rear and nearby cities.

Once it is obvious that he has committed his troops to that city, whoever is Genghis will have his Keshik-stack working his way as close as possible to the opponents borders, unseen, and strike deep into enemy territory. One or two Keshiks break off to snip the metals and the rest of the stack continues to the softest cities. This works in Single-player, too - albeit a little slower to get off the ground.

The most synergistic thing about Genghis is: The more he wars, the stronger he gets. Barracks + Ger + Settled Great General = 3 Promotions on your mounted units or Triple-Upgraded melee units (including the Combat 1)

Imperialistic-fuelled expansion toward your likeliest target(s) while teching Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry, Archery & Horse Archers. Build Aggressive-reduced Barracks while chopping & whipping a mixed Aggressive-enhanced foot-army supported by Keshiks to start the wars. Build Gers in your production cities (they don't need to be everywhere) once the initial invasion kicks off and start building a second stack of better promoted units for a follow-up.

Add any Imperialistic-fuelled Great Generals to your High-Production Ger cities and you are now producing the most elite HA's & Elephants in the World. Aggressive Axemen, Triple Upgraded Elephants and some catapults make a near impregnable city sieging stack with a support stack of Triple Upgraded Keshiks (re: Combat 1 & 2 + Shock vs. Spearmen) to pick off their reinforcements as the arrive and hit weak cities or divide their defences.

Genghis FTW.

 

[Murky]

You can just use swords/axes for early conquest. The Keshiks take a longer time to research and build. They're advantage of moving faster only works on certain maps.

 

[Innawerkz]

You can just use swords/axes for early conquest. The Keshiks take a longer time to research and build.

You can just build axes to conquer early. Why wait for swords? Iron Working is slow to research. Tech Bronze. Warrior to scout opponent. Worker / Chop 2nd Worker / Chop Settler. Chop & whip axes - about 10 or 12 and attack. Repeat, if necessary.

They're advantage of moving faster only works on certain maps.

The advantage of moving faster only works on certain maps? Only valuable about 90% of the time. Faster response for O or D, faster conquering, joins your point army faster, better scouting, better pillaging. That small bonus of killing units & multiple catapults simultaneously doesn't hurt either.

 

[Murky]

You can just build axes to conquer early. Why wait for swords? Iron Working is slow to research. Tech Bronze. Warrior to scout opponent. Worker / Chop 2nd Worker / Chop Settler. Chop & whip axes - about 10 or 12 and attack. Repeat, if necessary.

You probably would tech IW if you don't have copper. Swords also work better against archers than axes do.

The advantage of moving faster only works on certain maps? Only valuable about 90% of the time. Faster response for O or D, faster conquering, joins your point army faster, better scouting, better pillaging. That small bonus of killing units & multiple catapults simultaneously doesn't hurt either.

It's still more expensive to research. While you're doing all that R&D your rivals are connecting their copper/iron/horses and are building defenses.

I suppose one approach would be to start out with chariots then switch to Keshiks later. This way you could use the chariots as pillagers to prevent them from getting spearmen.

 

[madscientist]

One thing I am a little unclear of, why does everyone say HB is expensive? It is the same price as Mathematics, and cheaper than most other techs. It is a little more than IW. Granted I will not tech it early, but once I have 4 cities with maybe a few libraries for scientists I don't see it taking long to tech.

I love the warring Mongols, but their UU and UB are not what I can early rushing things. Bets to use teh agressive trait for that and bash heads early. THe UU and UB is really for the nest stage in war.

As far as Keshiks being map dependent, yeah they cannot swim, otherwise they are map independant. That's what makes them a UU.