Civilization: Mongols Leader: Kublai Khan Difficulty: Monarch World Size: Standard Opponents: Six Map Script: Great Plains Rules: Default Victory: Any Version: v1.00

The plan for this game was simple: to attack.

My first game (still in progress as I started this game) was on a water map, as it turned out. That was a builder game with a peaceful opening. I wanted to get in to the thick of it with early warfare, and playing a Horse-UU civilization on Great Plains, with those wide open spaces, seemed like just the ticket. With Kublai Khan, I could have Keshiks, promoted foot units, and free border expansion, making it easier to consolidate terrain, pull resources in range, etc.

I started off building four cities, then decided to add a fifth in the back lines at the Silver, since I otherwise lacked for any luxuries. Of course, my research focused on Horseback Riding very early, and on growth techs, and I did not even need Obelisks, so I skipped the early religion branch entirely.

I drew the most northwesterly location, just outside the Rockies. That is a nice place to be, compared to being in the middle of the Great Plains, because eventual access to the Rockies means access to gold and silver, to sheep and maybe deer, furs and dyes. That's a lot better prospect than starting dead in the middle with rivals on all sides! Starting in the East isn't bad -- you get forests, among other things -- but all in all, I probably drew one of the best parts of the map to be put in.

My immediate neighbors were Louis and Tokugawa. I settled toward Louis, but only got one city settled toward him (Beshbalik) before he covered his flank. My third city went to the north and my fourth in the deep south, at a site with no resources but several flood plains, to establish the front line and (I hoped) mark off all the Rockies as mine. The fifth city went in the edge of the Rockies, getting Silver and Stone.

A significant barbarian city popped up on the north edge of the map, where there was copper, gold and wheat, and it seemed like a grand opportunity to promote my earliest Keshiks while seizing a naturally strong location and "sealing" the Rockies off from north to south. Not long after I embarked on that venture, Tokugawa settled toward me, marking him as the definite "first target" for my conquesting armies.

Here's the situation in the south as I begin my first war vs the AI:

Barbarian Axemen are threatening. I had to respond to that. Plus I had to be sure not to tempt Louis by leaving a token force on our border. So basically, the south had to fend for itself and keep up a defensive front there, while I made war vs Tokugawa purely on the strength of my two northern powerhouse cities:

My Horses are at Turfan, and somewhat exposed. Since that was my third city, I actually had Horseback Riding tech before I had the horses themselves connected! I did not get launched in to my first war as quickly as I hoped when I started the game, but I was fairly satisfied with my Keshik factories in the north at this point.

I started the war with just a pair of Keshiks razing an offending settlement east of Saxon. You can see the ruins below:

You can see my next force closing on Osaka, the Japanese second city. (If only they had settled away from me and toward the east, I would have been happy to attack Louis first. But no, Toku made himself the logical target.)

The one down side of having control over the Rockies but NOT having the economy to settle there yet is nonstop barbarian harassment from the untamed wilderness:

That turned out to be more debilitating than I expected. The notion that I'd have a "safe" back line turned out to be vaporware, as it was at least as bad back there as it would have been to have an AI on that side. That was a bit of an eye opener!

Keshiks promoted with Shock can be a match even for Spearmen! If you are willing to take some losses, you are also rewarded with big experience points for winners, who will then promote quickly and can become strong enough to win outright. It's an interesting mix. The First Strike is a bigger deal than you might think (and it was added to compensate for Keshiks not directly benefitting from the free promotion at Aggressive trait.)

The Mongol Horde:

I pushed forward and pillaged their iron mine at Edo, but they built enough Spearmen to slow my advance. I needed Axemen and didn't have any coming.

I took one more Japanese city west of Kyoto, but Kyoto itself was stacked to the gills with Archers, Spears and Axemen, and ALL of these units refused to budge, staying behind the city walls and the 60% cultural defense bonus. I lacked for Catapults, and it was just too much to attack in to the teeth of that kind of garrison with that much bonus. I pillaged at will, however, and stripped a good portion of the land clean before accepting peace, to concentrate on building up some infrastructure and a larger army, including some Axemen and Swordsmen.

My nearest opponent was hamstrung, and rather than try to go back later to finish them off, I next wanted to gut Louis and knock him out of the competition.

I had some highly promoted Keshiks, but no foot troops. I also needed to attend to building things like Libraries, Courthouses, Granaries, and get myself pushed up the tech tree a bit before I took on too much more territory.

I attacked Louis about halfway through the first millenium AD. I hit first on his west flank, at Orleans, which had 40% cultural bonus. I promoted my units in the field vs his mobile defenders, then with City Raider II Swordsmen, I struck the city, took a couple of losses, and got big experience for the other units. (Again, if you can absorb a few losses, attacking at less than overwhelming odds can net you big XP and rapid promotions for the survivors. Get some elite units going and you can start to snowball through the enemy.)

After taking Orleans, it was on to Paris. Attacking a 60% defense bonus city with just Sword, Axe and Rider? Is that weedy? Or just bold?

I was number one in the world in Soldiers. How often do you see that on Monarch or higher difficulty?

I did lose a couple of units taking Paris, but you'd trade a couple hundred shields worth of dead units for your strong neighbor's capital and second city, right? Cut him off at the knees, then pause and consolidate. I began to settle the back lines, needing the resources, and my maintenance costs were going ape-crap on me.

You can see I'm working on Forges, and that I have a few trickles of religion in hand, finally.

Here's a look at my capital and at the stats on these Keshiks:

I've got Courthouses and Markets and STILL I'm feeding off heavy deficit research from funds looted from French cities and a Barbarian city I just captured.

I've got some cottages going, but it's not as easy to get cottages going in the plains territory as one might imagine. If you have any mines at all, they eat your surplus food!

Machinery will net me Watermills, though, and no map is better suited to building lots of watermills than the Great Plains!

The one thing about capturing a piece of a civ and leaving the rest behind is that your cities right along the front will be squeezed by the protruding borders of the remaining enemy core cities.

Although that can be annoying, I think it's rather realistic and kind of neat to manage.

Tokugawa actually tried to catch me napping in the north, and declared on me, but I was (barely) prepared to meet him, even though most of my army was in the south.

This time I could bring Catapults. I gathered my army, pushed all the way to Tokyo (and pillaged a LOT, and I do mean a lot, as I needed every penny to fuel my bloated empire!)

I left Japan with a single city and turned my attention to finishing off France before they could get to Musketeers.

I razed their forward city, which was not in a good location to fit well with my dotmap. I would replace that with THREE cities, ultimately.

Here you see my invasion force heading for the Holy City of Orleans. I had made Confucianism my state religion and turned to Theocracy, and now I would control the holy city and its shrine, too.

It was Keshiks alone vs early Japan, Axe Sword and Keshik vs early France, Keshik and Mace vs late Japan, now Mace, Knight, and Musket vs late France. Then it would be Grenadier and Cannon, Rifle and Cavalry vs Germany, who got to MACHINE GUNS halfway through the war and inflicted serious losses on my forces.

Finally, it was Cannon, Cavalry and Infantry vs Persia, and I never had to fight Hatty, who was WAY ahead on tech, building ship parts and running around with SAMs, Mechs and Tanks to my obsolete but very large forces.

Domination victory in the late 1800s.

This was on the tough side for a Monarch game. I'm not sure I'd have won on Emperor.

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