Nobles' Club 261: Genghis Khan of Mongolia

[AcaMetis]

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Genghis Khan of Mongolia, whom we last played in NC 188; we last played the Mongols under Kublai Khan in NC 245. The Mongols start with Hunting and The Wheel.

• Traits: Genghis Khan is Aggressive and Imperialistic. Aggressive gives all Melee and Gunpowder units a free Combat I promotion, and gives a +100% bonus to Barracks and Drydocks. Imperialistic adds +100% to Great General generation and +50% bonus to Settler production. Note that excess directly converted to won't benefit from this bonus.
  
• The UB: The Ger, a Stable with +4 xp added to Mounted units rather than +2. Generally not seen as useful for a Keshik rush since quantity is often better than quality in very early rushes, but later rushes can benefit more from the added bonus experience (Elepult can focus one or two cities on pumping out high quality War Elephants while the rest pump out catapults and other units, Cuirs/Cavalry rushes can build Gers in favor of details like obtaining Theology and spreading a religion to run Theocracy, etc.).
  
• The UU: The Keshik, a Horse Archer with +1 First Strike instead of FS immunity, and an innate ability to ignore any and all terrain movement costs. Target behind a forested hill located across a river? Keshiks don't care, they'll cross the river and climb the forested hill with one like it's nothing. Note that this ability is unique to the unit and not a free promotion (in fact Keshiks can't actually get the Mobility promotion at all, largely because it'd be completely useless to them), so the ability will not transfer over if the unit is upgraded.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Inland Sea, Tropical climate, medium sealevel, +1 AI to level the playing field.

Spoiler edits :

A few resource swaps were done to give AIs nearby strategic resources.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 261 Genghis Khan Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :

In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

Spoiler for players on Monarch or above :

You should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
6. Exit the worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.

Spoiler huts and events :

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

 

[AcaMetis]

Hmm...don't want to move away from the sheep, so the plains hill is out. Send the scout 1S->1SE to check as much of the river area as he can, determine from there whether moving any number of tiles east is worth it, and if not SIP? That's the best approach I can think of.

What do the experts think ?

 

[Imploding]

Move scout on hill NW. Would concidre moving for more food/greener land. Cap is ok. Great for settler prod. Just a bit low on food.

Can only see 2 resources.. a move might move away from copper/horses

If nothing interesting.. probably SiP.

 

[Gumbolt]

No one play this out? Strong UU. Shouldn't be too hard if you have horse. Maybe start too weak?

Save has 14 views so guess someone has?

 

[Gumbolt]

Interesting game.

Spoiler Up to 100bc. :

Pretty slow start. Move scout south and found wheat. Moved capital to get sheep, cow and wheat.

Initial techs Agriculture, AH, mining, BW, pottery writing, HBR and Archery.

Capital to size 3 and built 2 settlers.
Wheat/cows site first.
Sheep/wheat/gold site next.
Horse city to east. SIlk/wine/flood plain.

Touch challenging at one point as I ran out of good builds till I got chariots. Had to build a few cottages to push science a bit. Mixed with 1-2 scientists.

Justin got up to 7 cities.

Declared on Justin around 525bc. Justin was the tech leader at this point and bribed Germans and Hannibal on me. Never saw a single unit arrive from either. Took peace with Germans after killing 1-2 scouts. Hannibal waited much much later. Eventually offered me 10g for peace.

Lost 9 KK on taking down Justin 5 cities. Left him one and took 5-6 techs including monarchy, maths, sailing, poly and masonry. His capital had 4-5 units. He managed to get 1 WE on final city which was very frustrating. Left him with one weak city at 275bc.

At this point I was losing 40 gold a turn at 0% science. Lot of micro required to stay afloat. Hadn't even noticed how bad the economy was doing. Had been using capture gold to tech along.

Arabia was next. Had 10-11 KK most with flanking 2. Some C1-c2 too. He had been at war with Shaka for quite a while. Took down 2 cities including his capital till I saw more war elephants. He was down to 3 cities. Took Calendar for peace.

Since then Romans have taken his 3rd city. Justin is now a 1 city Chinese vassal. So no need for 8 tile borders.

Tech wise no one yet has aesthetics. Chinese have feudalism. Hannibal has COL.

I have a lot of diplomacy issues. Shaka at pleased but needs friendly to stay in good books.

Need to decide if I finish off Arabia. Those WE will eat up my KK. However I too have ivory.

 

[Gumbolt]

Keshik. Mongol unique unit. Go the flanking route and super medic route with the great general.

 

[umass_dude]

Keshik. Mongol unique unit. Go the flanking route and super medic route with the great general.

Thanks
What difficulty level are you playing?
How many cities did you have before you attacked?
How does flanking work?
Sorry for all the questions!

 

[Gumbolt]

Immortal. On this game 4 cities. I only use flanking for Keshik as they start with a greater withdrawal odd. So with flanking 2 your looking at 50% withdrawal odds. Which is why you want the super medic unit with all 3 medic upgrades to heal stacks quickly.

Don't know mechanics behind it but when you attack game normally shows you retreat odds. Quite a few units live because of this. The movement bonus for Keshik is another reason why it's one of the best unit. Especially if you know how to use it.

 

[Qactus]

...
Don't know mechanics behind it but when you attack game normally shows you retreat odds. Quite a few units live because of this.
...

The combat is first rolled normally. In case your unit dies, the withdrawal chance is rolled. If successful, only the last round of damage (i.e. the round that would have killed it) will be restored. That's why survivors usually have so little health left.

 

[Gumbolt]

Which is why the super medic is so important. As after first attack your wounded will take 2-3 turns to heal. If you start with enough Keshik it shouldn't matter. If imperialist it's not a big issue.

 

[umass_dude]

Which is why the super medic is so important. As after first attack your wounded will take 2-3 turns to heal. If you start with enough Keshik it shouldn't matter. If imperialist it's not a big issue.

I love the super medic! I tried your strategy but didn't quite work as I think I left it too late to attack. I annihilated the Byzantines but the Germans became too strong.

 

[Gumbolt]

Germans are not that dangerous. What level did you play at? It's not the strongest commerce start but great for hammers.

Key to these games is land. Once you have 10 or so cities things should start to go well. I need to continue this game just lack time.

 

[umass_dude]

Germans are not that dangerous. What level did you play at? It's not the strongest commerce start but great for hammers.

Key to these games is land. Once you have 10 or so cities things should start to go well. I need to continue this game just lack time.

Playing Monarchy level. I only win 50% of the time, I should try a shadow game to try and improve.

 

[Gumbolt]

You should be beating monarch here. Your tech costs are slightly cheaper than immortal level. Just need to ensure you get some cottages up. With some warring I was close to 10-15 cities.

 

[Gumbolt]

I have played this on a bit.

Spoiler Update 840ad :

My early wars had not helped diplomacy. I did take out Arabia soon after my last save. I couldn't resfuse Shaka's war request.

Up to 15 cities.

I have managed to get Shaka to friendly. Both him and Hannibal are in war mode. Not sure if Shaka went war mode before I got him to friendly. I have a chariot monitoring his stack.

Romans have massed a 20-25 strong stack near my border with Shaka. He made a demand for music which I accepted. If this peace deal ends I will beg gold. I have 16 or so units near his border. With 10 or so near German border.

I have almost completed edu. GS ready to bulb final 1k. Need compass/lib/mt and Gunpowder for cuirs. I will have a GS for Lib in a few turns. GP seems biggest tech left.

AI have engineering but cuirs should still do job. Plenty of cities and units to upgrade here and no AI stack can really reach me in time to ruin the party.

Never ignore diplomacy unless you have an army to fight off neighbours.

 

[Gumbolt]

All done 1460ad. Probably could of finished quicker if I capitulated final ai quicker,

Spoiler To the end :

Took a while to reach cuirs. Cost of my army was not really helping. 28 gold a turn. No real choice with so many big stacks lurking. Plus the decision early on to kick diplomacy out the back door. managed some decent gold from fail gold and trading resources to AI.

Soon after 840ad Hannibal did arrive with a stack of 10-12 units. With about 7-8 follow up units. Naturally he had phants.

The war with Germany was complicated as he had SoZ which was giving me 10 unhappiness in some cities. Mixed in with issue of Roman AP build. (Took cease fires on turn of the votes or capitulation.) Germany war started with killing 20-30 lurking units.Even with cuirs in open field RNG is a pain. A final stack from Hannibal also arrive 20+ turns after his inital stack so I took a ceasefire with him..

Wanted to fully take Germans out but so much easier to capitulate due to volume of units. Carthage was a bit easier. His stack was off fighting Shaka (Who I bribed into war).Both had 30-40 strong stacks. Looking at power graphs I think Hannibal smashed his stack. I had an HA scouting up north.

Romans I fully wiped out otherwise it would mean taking out Shaka too. I bribed Shaka into that war. His 20-30 strong stack on my border headed towards Shaka. I eventually killed it with Cuirs anyway.

Chinese decided to attack Shaka turn before I had to make a choice on who to attack. He had grenadiers. Fortunately most of these were in his 15-17 strong stack heading towards Shaka. Shaka had 2-3 stacks roaming his land. Hannibal had a 15-20 strong stack that sat outside a border city.

Overall Shaka was a useful tool this game. Kept bribing him to attack ai and he did so with large stacks that ultimately only ever took 1 chinese city. He attacked China of his own free will. AI love of bombarding with trebs is a big weakness. Castles just stop AI in their tracks.

Fun game and not too over powered at start with weak commerce.

Lost 114 mounted units. Killed about 400 units.

 

[Jorenftw]

This is indeed a fun one! Challenging in the beginning with the commerce, surprised that not more people have played it. I'm playing it on Immortal and it seems I'll get the job done.

Spoiler :

1270 AD, teched to cuirs and took out the remainder of Justins cities after a too late Keshik rush. Should be able to get Germany capitulated as well, but I think that the rest of the AI will catch up and I'll have to go further down the tech tree

 

[Henrik75]

Late to the show but I am playing this map on deity

Spoiler :

slow start, i proritized commerce tiles pretty heavily, and frustrated i built a lot of units ending up costing more but the barbarians were pretty dangerous, even had spearmen come in.
Reached Aesthetics by 700BC and traded for Math, alpha, mysticism, poly. self teching masonry and going to give great library a shot, hopefully can get by 300BC.
Looking at getting several scientists out and bulbing to lib and cuirs rushing neighbours. Have to see who ends up where in tech.
Will be posting the gameplay on my youtube channel later.

 

[konata_LS]

While looking for maps to practise warring with mounted units, I found this one which seemed to be fun and challenging. Though a little late for playing this.

Prince level, normal speed.

Spoiler :

SIP. Tech AH-mining-pottery-archery-BW. I did not do keshiks rush, as on Prince level with a Imp leader, I could peacefully expand to at least 9 cities. Diplomacy was quite simple in this map, as there were only two neighbours and both of them converted to Buddhism. Saladin and Shaka hindu, I gifted some ressources or techs to keep them at cautious. Qin found Confu, was wonder-whoring while Hanni often fought with AC (finally AC cap to Hanni in 1802). Unfortunately I had no Ivory, so I could only build some keshiks and knights then updated to Cuirs.

Took my first vassal Biz in 1410, as shown in the event log:


But things became a little complicated after I took Sal and Justy with Cuirs. Shaka was near Rifling and already had Cuirs. So I decided to build cannons, Grens and Rifles, combined with Cuirs before declare on Shaka. After Shaka's capitulation, I sent Rifles + Grens+Cannons+Cav to attack Qin, Inf.+ Artillery+MG+Cav for the final war with Hanni and his vassal AC. Took my final vassal AC in 1876, and next turn Conquest.


Built many units, razed some cities and lost many units as well . Lost 55 Cuirs <-- I'm really clumsy at wars :

IMHO, this is a very good map for the players on Intermediate levels (from Prince to Emperor) to practise the early expansion, research and recovery after wars. Thanks for providing this map .

Looking forward to seeing high level players like Henrik post their gameplay.

 

[krikav]

I frequently play old NC games. It's never "late".