Playing As The Mongols

[Roblord]

I'm about to start a game as The Mongols. I've never used them on BNW and to be honest I'm not that great a player. I'm using a Pangea map, King level, standard number of civs and city states, and Marathon speed. obviously, I'm going to beeline to Keshiks, but my questions are the trip there...

1) What sort of starting setup should I be looking at?

2) SP: I thought about Honor, but I'm thinking a Tradition start is the best. Thoughts?

3) Should I just head straight to Chivalry or are there any suggested pit stops on the way?

4) Should I bother with Religion, Culture or Tourism? I'm thinking no...as I'm going to conquer the map.

 

[Moriarte]

Try liberty 3-4 cities. You have some interesting choices what to do with great person from the finisher.

1. GE for national college
2. GS to bulb chivalry
3. GE for Machu Picchu.

Pre build 7-8 chariots, 2 horses, couple melee, upgrade and go. Raze cities or gift them to other AI's so the happiness won't stop you from conquests.

You can, of course, go with some in tradition + honor, or some in liberty + honor, yet, i'm pretty sure the full liberty way is the fastest. Oh, yes, don't bother with upper techs (except for writing), go straight to chivalry.

Good luck.

 

[Milith]

In lower difficulty settings I think the easiest way is to go for a 2 city tradition build, using your second city to secure a horse site.

Going tradition on King should secure you the Great Library without crippling your opening too much, which you can use to bulb Philosophy and get a really fast National College. Once your research is up and running, get 4-5 chariot archers and start target practicing/pillaging on city states (that's where your UA comes in handy), while beelining Chivalry. Grabbing Machu Pichu is really nice too.

Bulb Chivalry, upgrade your experienced Chariots with your pillaging gold and transition into conquering al the other civs with your unstoppable horde of seasoned Keshiks. Your focus for the rest of the game should be on maintaining happiness. Grab Notre Dame if you can, raze every city where there isn't a Luxury you don't already possess, and it should be really easy to get a sub 200 Conquest on Pangaea.

I don't think you should bother building the Statue of Zeus yourself, just make sure you take out the guy who built it early enough to reap the benefits.

 

[joshua43214]

I just finished an Immortal game in 151 turns with Keshiks.

Here is the set up;
Standard size/speed
Great Plains map

Tech order: Animal husbandry, Pottery, Writing, mining/calendar, bee line to chivalry

Take 3 policies in tradition to Monarchy, then full honor going right side first.

BO: monument, scout, granary/worker, anything til 5 pop, settler, horsemen...

settle your second city so that you get a unique lux and as many horses as possible, it does not matter if you settle a river or a flat, you just want a ton of horses. Ideally you get 16, but 12 will do just fine.

Crank out horsemen until you run out of horses - delay chivalry if you need to. It times out just about perfectly so that you get the last policy on the right side of honor about the time you run out of horses. It will cost 65 gold each to upgrade to keshiks.

make two armies with 5-6 keshiks and 1-2 horsemen, and go conquer.

 

[funkymunky]

Well, I generally don't beeline to GL when warmongering. I'd rather choose Statue of Zeus to GL for them. That extra city attack bonus, plus a Khan unit means much stronger attacks on cities + healing afterwards, which means you can choose more melee to catapults. If you build your capital up, & build plain libraries, you can catch up science and the turns you save means you can build more units.

I tend to find opening Honor is good if you find a few barb camps nearby. A couple of those kills can get you a new SP in 5 turns or so, and then you can take Tradition. Tradition + Honor seems like a good combo for Mongols, I think. Also, I find getting a religion to be helpful if you can do it, and then go Piety for more faith. If you do that, you should try to get holy warriors to buy units, so you can then instead focus city production to buildings and use faith to buy units. Tithes or religious property is also good to give you extra gold to support your armies too, as caravans may not be as viable while your eliminating players. Use that to support larger armies, and that can make up for being behind in tech, and when you get spies (if you don't win before then) you can use them to catch up. However, I don't think tech gap is as big a deal when fighting until you start getting past Ind Age. Plus, if you fight a lot, the promotions you'll get help them match somewhat higher tech units. And the way Keshiks work, it's really easy to get them promoted, as they can attack and then run away, keeping them from being exposed to counters. Additionally, I think Warrior Code is the SP that gives faster promotion, so you might want to look to get that too. Oh, and if you can befriend military CS's, you get more free units and again can focus cities on buildings.

Now, while you want to get Keshiks as soon as you can, I wouldn't beeline it at expense of other things. You can't ignore infrastructure. Last game I played with Mongols, I made sure to build up a core of 5 cities. Capture some city states early that have luxes and make them part of that core, because you get bonus against them so it's easy to do. Once you get a solid 5-6 cities with markets, libraries, happiness & food buildings & connected roads, you can use them to fund your war efforts. Then start razing enemy cities, except capitals or cities with luxes or wonders. You don't need to wait for Keshiks to start warring, but they are pretty awesome once you do get them. Their hit-and-run abilities just bring cities to their knees, and then use a few swordsmen or pikemen to mop up. With promoted Keshiks, you probably won't even need catapults/trebs or even archers. Oh, and finally, you probably want to eventually get meritocracy after capturing a dozen or so cities, because you'll get lots of happiness from that.

 

[Sammydakid]

just go psycho with the Mongols. full honor rush mathematics for catapults, begin conquering city state after city state. make sure you beat as much tribute as you can out of them before destroying them.

If you are playing with more than map size default city state count, the viability of the Mongols increases.

 

[arand86]

Something I'm surprised that no one has mentioned yet:

Crank out early chariot archers with barracks; then barbhunt across the map with them while you're waiting on chivalry. That way, you can have a high EXP start-point on your Keshik, and hit march really fast and really get going. In addition, keep a couple horsemen as city-takers so you don't need to march a bunch of pikes from town to town.

 

[Acken]

I'm about to start a game as The Mongols. I've never used them on BNW and to be honest I'm not that great a player. I'm using a Pangea map, King level, standard number of civs and city states, and Marathon speed. obviously, I'm going to beeline to Keshiks, but my questions are the trip there...

1) What sort of starting setup should I be looking at?

2) SP: I thought about Honor, but I'm thinking a Tradition start is the best. Thoughts?

3) Should I just head straight to Chivalry or are there any suggested pit stops on the way?

4) Should I bother with Religion, Culture or Tourism? I'm thinking no...as I'm going to conquer the map.

1) Any decent start will do. Some hills, some lux, preferably no jungle. Obviously you also need horses.
2) Liberty is your best bet. Full liberty will grant you a GP. With it you either bulb chivalry or you rush national college.
3)Philosophy, Luxuries, and then Chivalry (obviously take its best requisites first).
4)No. Only get a pantheon.

You only need monument, libraries, granaries, barracks and maybe stables in your cities. Make some chariot, hoard some gold, upgrade all of them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yesterday was keshiks.
Today it is keshiks.
I'm I'm I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I'm going to mass keshiks all day.
Tomorrow is keshiks, and keshiks come afterwards.
I DON'T WANT THESE KESHIKS TO ENNNNNND!

 

[mikeville]

1) Any decent start will do. Some hills, some lux, preferably no jungle. Obviously you also need horses.
2) Liberty is your best bet. Full liberty will grant you a GP. With it you either bulb chivalry or you rush national college.
3)Philosophy, Luxuries, and then Chivalry (obviously take its best requisites first).
4)No. Only get a pantheon.

You only need monument, libraries, granaries, barracks and maybe stables in your cities. Make some chariot, hoard some gold, upgrade all of them.

This is one of my favorite ways to play! I too do this on pangea. I play on Emporer.

Pretty much what Acken said...

DO go full liberty, use the free great person as a Great Scientist and bulb Chivalry with it. The sooner you get Chivalry, the sooner you get Keshiks. Once you've completed Liberty, then go with Honor.

DON'T build lots of your own cities. Keep your starting empire small, don't have any more than 3 cities. You'll need the happiness later. Wait to settle your second city in a spot with horses, and if you settle a third city, again make sure it has horses. The key here is to get libraries up and National College up ASAP to help you burn through researching to Keshiks. Be sure you get granaries and water mills if possible - more food = more population = more science = faster keshiks.

DO Build chariot archers and declare war on a city state or your nearest Civ neighbor. "Farm" experience for your chariot archers with the city state. DON'T take any cities yet, just bombard them.

DO complete City State quests if possible, especially barb hunting quests. Many obvious benefits here. Culture city states = faster policies. Martime = more science (due to more pop/faster city growth). Militaristic = more gold (sell the extra units they give you). Mercantile is good only for extra happiness, maybe they help you get an early golden age. Religious is pretty much worthless for this strategy.

DON'T spend gold on ANYTHING, get as much of it as you can, you're going to need it to upgrade them to Keshiks.

DON'T make any early DoF's (unless they are very far away from you).

DO sell excess luxuries for as much gold as you can get (in BNW, gold per turn obviously).

DON'T worry about wonders, tourism, or religion. You'll get all that stuff when you start conquering.

DO build 2-3 scouts early on. You need to know where everybody is to form your attack plans.

DO kill Alexander ASAP. If Alexander is in your game, he must be dealt with as early as possible, as his Companion Cavalry can give even your Keshiks fits.

DO raze every city that isn't a capital. Puppet the capitals you take.

REMEMBER - the keys are, EXPLORE EXPLORE EXPLORE, full LIBERTY tree, BULB great scientist, settle horses, prebuild chariots (or horsemen), farm experience, hoard gold, updgrade, and DESTROY EVERYONE.

 

[Firebrand]

More do's and do nots:

Do not build siege units, four keshiks can reduce a city's defenses to zero in two turns. Do keep at least two horsemen. Keshiks can't capture cities and it's painful waiting for melee units to do it.

Do build chariot archers. Do not build any other units except horsemen before keshiks.

Do build up experience by warring with one nearby city state as soon as possible. Capture their workers, kill their units and bombard their city but do not capture it unless you feel you have to.

Do not capture every available city. Once you get going you will steamroll everything. It's tempting to capture every city but most aren't worth it. Your plan is to conquer every capital and taking secondary cities slows you down. If you have to take a worthless city sell it / liberate it.

Do try to found a religion that focuses on happiness. You'll need it.

Finally, do not allow the game to advance past turn 180-200 depending on your difficulty level. Your keshiks risk becoming obsolete. They're still good but while you were warmongering others will researching.

 

[mikeville]

One more thing to realize...

You CANNOT build more horsemen once you reach the tech for Keshiks. You HAVE to prebuild your horsemen, and you HAVE to keep them alive. Otherwise you have to drag swordsmen with your armies and obviously they can't keep up and it will slow you down.

 

[joshua43214]

One more thing to realize...

You CANNOT build more horsemen once you reach the tech for Keshiks. You HAVE to prebuild your horsemen, and you HAVE to keep them alive. Otherwise you have to drag swordsmen with your armies and obviously they can't keep up and it will slow you down.

Do Not build swordsmen! Build Pikemen - swords suck

 

[mikeville]

Do Not build swordsmen! Build Pikemen - swords suck

LOL, actually, don't build either swordsmen or pikemen. Just keep your horsemen alive! Leave an archer/comb bow per conquered city if possible to deal with barbarians.

 

[Novalia]

Build horse archers to be upgraded later. Build horses to never upgrade later.
Don't kill all the city states. They'll be a prime source of happiness or culture.

If you didn't know already your Khans will give additional healing to units that are healing if he is next to them.

 

[joshua43214]

LOL, actually, don't build either swordsmen or pikemen. Just keep your horsemen alive! Leave an archer/comb bow per conquered city if possible to deal with barbarians.

I have found in practice that you need at least 1 pike as cannon fodder/blocker with Mongolia per army, so you need 2 of them so 1 can heal.

 

[Novalia]

You don't need cannon fodder as nothing stays in range of city... Unless you WANT a keshik to be hit for extra xp. Melee units can't keep up with the horde. They're a waste of resources except maybe to garrison but then you should use xbows instead.