What's your best Mongol game in BTS 1000 AD?

[McMickeroo1]

So I'm of the belief that when playing a historical scenario one of the most fun things to do is attempt to achieve historical results. In the case of the Mongols, then, of course, this would involve conquering from Korea to Khmer to Baghdad to Kiev. Of course... the Mongols in this scenario are woefully incapable of achieving this. After dozens of attempts, whereupon I have refined my strategy to the extent that I pretty much play the first 10 turns identically simply by rote, I've made it so I can sometimes take all of China except for Chengdu, but even then China won't capitulate, and I don't have enough troops to take out Khmer or Korea, never mind both... never mind Arabia and Russia.

Now I did have one game that went... better. But it was the Civ4 version of the 1000 AD map in BTS. Significantly, of course, this has the advantage of Korea and no Khmer, which seemed to make China more scared--knowing they had no allies--so they actually surrendered quite quickly (by 1060). I was then able to turn my hoard to Arabia, and a few key cities of mine reached a point where between them they were pumping out a Keshik or more every turn. After sending in Keshik after Keshik I was eventually able to capitulate Russia, conquer Baghdad, and even take over Danzig.

I reached a point where I was pumping out more Keshik's than I was losing so I eventually sent some to take out Korea.

And honestly at 1340 AD I was reasonably happy with how things were going and started to transition away from pumping out Keshiks. With the 20 Keshiks I had in the west I actually decided to march on Jerusalem to get the economic benefits from it... instead I lost every single horseman against the well defended city. In hindsight I should have marched back and taken out Khmer, which would have seen me actually control the entire Mongol Empire by probably 1400 AD, which is only 100 years out from the historical goal.

However, this was all in the Civ4 version... being able to capitulate China early on was a huge help, because without that I would have been stuck between either spending more time and troops finishing them off, which would have delayed other conquests by a lot; or else leave them to finish off later, at which point the two cities they were left with would probably be garrisoned with Muskets, making my job a lot harder.

So yeah... that's the best I've done, but not even in the BTS version. In the BTS version the best I've done is all of China except Chengdu, Korea, Baghdad, and the Barbarian cities of Russia.

Any of you guys been able to do better?

 

[Quintillus]

I don't remember for sure, but I played this scenario several times around 8 or 9 years ago, and every time woefully underperformed the real-life Mongols. Eventually I gave up as it was so disappointing not even being able to get 1/4 of their real-life territory.

But I'm glad to hear someone managed to do it in somewhat close to the real time, even if with the vanilla map. Who controlled Jerusalem at the time you tried to take it? It would be most appropriate if it were Egypt, aka the Mamluks, given their victory over the Mongols in real life.