Some remarks on The Mongols

4CV

Prince
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In the last few days I've set up a small game with three nations that I've rarely played actively, and I've chosen the Mongols first.
Their warfare abilities seem to be exceptionally good:

- All Skirmisher units have more movement points (5), plus double attack and the ability to move afterwards if there are any points left.
- The Khan is not only a Great General with additional "pilum" promotion (10 damage points at the beginning of each turn), but also a great medic.
- Mongolian units are stronger against city-state troops.
- When tributing city-states, in addition to the gold the Mongols receive 20% of the sum in all other yields!

That should be very powerful when used correctly. In fact, it was impressive how strong even small battle groups of three to four skirmishers can be against any target. If you add a Khan with his special abilities to the mix, which appears quite soon through diligent attacking, "Mongol Terror" absolutely deserves its name.
Ok, Korea as opponent wasn't a good choice on a map without water, but Poland didn't stand a chance either.
After about 170 turns, it was game over.

But if you look at the statistics of the AI games, the result looks completely different: The Mongols find themselves near the bottom of the table! How is that possible?
Using the ctrl-shift-L (iirc) key combination and an early save, I ran the game again as "AI alone".

Result: In the end (>T 350!) the Mongols dominated here too. But it was a very long and very rocky road.

Why? For me, two main reasons:

1. the Mongols did not use skirmishers at all! Their absolute best early weapon, imho... Instead, they used their numerous horses as horsemen, without any advantage.
(Later they had two or three "heavy skirmishers", but those stood uselessly as garrisons in cities.)

2. City-states were allied at great expense instead of having to pay the excellent tributes. Never a single angry CS...

There were other problems as well, but these may affect all AIs, not just the Mongols.
- Khans were practically not used.
- Settlers were accompanied by spears, but being afraid of even single barbarian hand axes, they made aimless evasive movements for many turns.
...

My conclusion: In their current state The Mongols are a great pleasure for the player, but practically worthless as AI.


Unfortunately I forgot where to find the other short cuts (for example to switch to other civilizations in the game) Maybe someone can tell me? Thank you
 
Seems the trait ability isnt hooking up properly to the unit production AI then. Will need some DLL dev to look at.

The main shortcuts are Ctrl+shift+P for change player and Ctrl+shift+O for global observer.
 
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Well one thing that could help some is defining Genghis as 9-10 on mobile attribute in LeaderFlavorSweeps.sql. right now he just gets the default 7 from conqueror personality. But yeah I'm guessing because it isn't a UU, the AI is prioritizing producing them enough.
 
Seems the trait ability isnt hooking up properly to the unit production AI then. Will need some DLL dev to look at.

The main shortcuts are Ctrl+shift+P for change player and Ctrl+shift+O for global observer.
I assume the devs are busy working on more important projects at the moment... Thanks for the shortcuts!
 
Well one thing that could help some is defining Genghis as 9-10 on mobile attribute in LeaderFlavorSweeps.sql. right now he just gets the default 7 from conqueror personality. But yeah I'm guessing because it isn't a UU, the AI is prioritizing producing them enough.
Where could I find that LeaderFlavorSweeps.sql? Will changes apply in a running game? Or at least savegames be compatibel?
 
Where could I find that LeaderFlavorSweeps.sql? Will changes apply in a running game? Or at least savegames be compatibel?
The leader flavors are here: MODS\(2) Vox Populi\Database Changes\AI\

The steps are: 1) save and close your current game; 2) make your changes to sql; 3) reload and continue game, the changes are savegame compatible and will apply.
 
The leader flavors are here: MODS\(2) Vox Populi\Database Changes\AI\

The steps are: 1) save and close your current game; 2) make your changes to sql; 3) reload and continue game, the changes are savegame compatible and will apply.
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_MILITARY_TRAINING' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 8, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_OFFENSE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 8, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_NUKE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 9, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_USE_NUKE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 9, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 7 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_TILE_IMPROVEMENT' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 3, UB

These are the lines I found... most are already set to 10 (10=max ?) Skirmishers are not here...

Thanks anyway...
 
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_MILITARY_TRAINING' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 8, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_OFFENSE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 8, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_NUKE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 9, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_USE_NUKE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 9, primary: dom
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 7 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_TILE_IMPROVEMENT' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 3, UB

These are the lines I found... most are already set to 10 (10=max ?) Skirmishers are not here...

Thanks anyway...
I made a pull request to add this line to that block:
UPDATE Leader_Flavors SET Flavor = 10 WHERE FlavorType = 'FLAVOR_MOBILE' AND LeaderType = 'LEADER_GENGHIS_KHAN'; -- 7, UA and UU
 
Mongolian units are stronger against city-state troops
This is not a thing.
The Khan is not only a Great General with additional "pilum" promotion (10 damage points at the beginning of each turn), but also a great medic
The damage timing is at the end of the enemy unit's turn, like a citadel.
All Skirmisher units have more movement points (5), plus double attack and the ability to move afterwards if there are any points left.
Skirmishers already have base 5 movement and move after attack.

AI does not know about the Trait_FreePromotionUnitClass table, so they're never going to produce more skirmishers than mounted melee. Why they actually produce less compared to other civs is a mystery.
FLAVOR_MOBILE isn't going to help. It's mounted and armored unit classes only. Skirmishers are archers. Currently used flavors don't affect skirmisher production (you can use FLAVOR_SKIRMISHER introduced by @balparmak).
 
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I have now run the game again in the same way to have a comparison. The Mongols again had no interest in skirmishers. However, I noticed that several city-states had produced 3 or 4 Skirmishers. So the unit was not ignored in principle. That should be enough for now. I don't think I'm capable of making my own improvements here. Perhaps there will be an option to use the improved Skirmishers as the Mongols' 2nd UU at some point in the future. Then they would probably be produced preferentially.
*** Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***
 
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