Open 1.29
Used the initial area to create a single 4 turn settler factory with an adjaceant 2 turn worker factory. Didnt really understand (read) about the minor civ concept and was content to let everyone build up their areas whilst I built a host of warriors for upgrade to swords. Used these these swords to relieve the magog of their pyramids and the lighthouse (which seemed valuable at the time
.). Began building horse and archers for later upgrade. Used initial leaders for great lib, FP, Sun Tzu and Leos, army, epic then libraries thereafter. Monarchy thoughout, mine was the only opinion that matters!
Each civ to was allowed to fill its local area before I showed them the wrath of Khan, initially I convinced the gorygeo that the Koreans were a common enemy,using them as a buffer as I sent swords and horses along to establish a new holding in the north. Unfortunately for the green guys their culture began to steal my cities and their capital seemed the most central point for the FP, so they were next. Progressively allied with everyone possible except the immediate next target, wanted to keep a decent rep in the short term. Turned my forces east and began to chew on ghandi,Russia and khazar. Khazars were at somewhat of a disadvantage as their forces were all off chasing our common enemies,(Ottomans and Cleo) when the Mongols came to visit.
Maybe it was his steely glare or just the sheer number of troops pumping through, but the arabs seemed too big a bite. They were the tech leaders, along with the Han, and I was concerned that they could buy an alliance against me with their techs. Alliance with the arabs/Han allowed my eastern/western cities to be largely undefended except for the common route used by the arabs, i was stuffed if they ever turned against me.
Next were the Celts and Germans, again their forces were off visiting the western lands, research continued only to leos once education learned, and then stopped, thankfully the leaders chased banking/democracy rather than muskets, this meant I never had muskets leveled against my arrows.
Quick check on mapstat, have 1200 tiles in 380ad and need another 600, I continue to rush settlers in outer towns rather than rush temples, filling in gaps. Up to around 14 leaders, 7 or so have simply rushed libraries for culture (research on zero).
Major error was to find luxury tax on 40%, this had been going on for centuries, put it back to zero and got gpt to around 250-350 asking the governor to manage moods in most towns.
Used the Moonsinger artillery approach mainly, 3 move artillery is devastating. Used a simple rule never to attack until the defender was redlined and if possible the town size<6. Initial core continued to build hordes and ordu . Northern core was not connected to horses/iron except for one town, so everyone built bowmen for upgrade. Two of the isolated northern towns rushed harbours to share their lux with the rest of the Mongols.
Ended up with a bias toward ordu archers, as a good pack of these reduced most defences in a single turn, turghauts riding shotgun for defence and the hordes along for multiple attack against redlined defenders. Also had a large number of khorchin, bombardment was not effective but hey they were cheap to build via warrior upgrade from an outer town. (FP produced warrior every turn). In hindsight I really could have ignored any early warring and just prebuild for ordu (and turghaut) as they cut through everyone sooo quickly. Korchin lethal bombard was too erratic, preferred the 3 attack.
Turned off the animate battles to reduce time watching ordu bombardment, this eliminated cheering during the attack but you have to watch closely to see who wins the subsequent hand to hand combat!
Around 14th leader was Conan (against the Han), bit of a laugh, no mongol horse could carry Arnie for long, so he tottled off and rushed a library and began his political career on the west coast. He wont be back.
Mongol conquered cities were often left in resistance as the horsemen set off in search of fresh meat, only reduced the resistance if I had to cash rush improvement/ settler. Leaders could rush in a resisting city and leave the sourfaced female resisters to gripe about the notorious Mongolian one night stand whilst the hordes advanced ,heeding crackers advice re the rapid advance.
Tended to attack several civs at the same time just to reduce travel time and efficiency, and simply because there were enough units to do it.
One observation, none of the minor civs had a large army in town, I set up embassies asap (azap?) but they only had two defenders not the large number of cannon fodder reported by others. I was also unable to buy many workers, but managed to find reasonable numbers of unemployed in the newer Mongolian cities.
Domination achieved 500 AD, army dropped off a bit with a mad charge to get the last bit of territory needed. Arabs and toku (2 cities)were still there and had researched to gunpowder and most of the upper techs knowledge is power but horsies with arrows are absolute power.
i think i could have been quicker if i had advanced the tech pace and faced a few muskets, but importantly could have used the steppe settler upgrade by moving the 3 move offensive units close to where all the holes were.
Great job cracker (as usual)
[dance] 
the three different classes might compensate that a bit. 
surely, it might be replaced by other exiting topics. 
So very true! This almost sounds like a quote...
