I think I have discovered the most difficult civ to play on this mod.
On the real world map, with cities...
The Mongols.
First, they only have four cities. Only Karakoram has much potential early on.
Now take a look at your neighbors.
Turkistan-3rd most powerful civ in the world, usually.
Tibet-usually quite a contender.
China-most powerful nation in the world. Always.
Korea-your only real option for conquest.
You *can* expand-but only into Siberia. And most of the time, you have to kick out powerful Nomads or hew down forests first. No good.
Israel might be a close 2nd for tough... but I have played a very strong game with them before.
My strategy for the Mongols:
I built a barracks in each city right after the warrior, and immediately started building Archers. When I had four, I moved against Korea.
P'yongyang fell the first round. A turn to rest. Seoul falls. A turn to rest; Pusan is destroyed. </Korea>
That's where the easy part ends.
What I ended up doing was using my 3 powerhouse cities-Karakoram, P'yongyang, Seoul-to actually produce Archers and rushing them everywhere else whenever size 2 was reached.
Eventually, the onset of Swordsmen saved me from shields once I hooked up the iron.
With that, I sent my entire army against Peking. It was a big risk, but also a big stack of Archers,
many of them dropped off by Galley across the sea between Korea and China.
Peking fell with almost no resistance, as expected. Then came the hard part: defending it.
The army was whittled down to 6. Then, foreseeing a culture flip, (*coughreloadingcough*) the brutal Mongols razed the world's greatest, largest city to the ground. They began a hasty retreat west, towards the silk road and the desert.
When they reached Lanzhou (I believe that was the city... east of Dunhuang), they considered attacking the city but its defenses seemed to formidable. They moved on. By the time they reached Dunhuang through Tibetan lands, they were down to 3 from an original 8.
But, supplemented by an additional regiment down from Karakoram, Dunhuang fell to the Horde.
Platoons of Archers and Swordsmen headed south towards where Peking had stood, guarding the area from resettlement while Karakoram rushed a settler and sent it over. Peace was made with the furious Qin dynasty, its capital relocated to Shanghai.
(To make a long story short...) Eventually, the Mongols built the city of Beijing where Peking had stood, proclaiming the Yuan Dynasty in the north.
But all was not secure, for the Mongols were not an advanced civilization and China was the mightiest in the world. It had organized a large coalition against the Mongols of distant nations. These wars eventually ended, but a greater threat loomed.
Turkistan.
It demanded, and the Mongols appeased. It demanded, and the Mongols appeased. It demanded, and the Mongols refused.
Turkistan's war with the Horde began.
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I've played a bit farther than that, (taken Lop Nor) but I'll leave it there. Any suggestions for conquering all of China, Turkistan, Persia, AND Russia by 1300 A.D.?
)
