Harlan's Mongol Scenario on Deity - Has anyone won?

[Ken Hinds]

Or for that matter has anyone beat any of his scenarios when played at Deity instead of the default Emporer level?

And Harlan, If you intended that we all fail if we choose the Deity Level I don't want to know that.

So far I've tried several different tactics and nothing seems to work. I always seem to get bogged down and stuck trying to preserve my remaining forces. By the way I'm using MGE not FW. I've had the same problems with LOR 3.1. I haven't tried 4.0 yet.

Ken

[Sloth]

Playing right now, at king level and not winning...but is my first try...I do agree: it's a difficult scenario!

[Andz83]

well, what Mongol scenario are you talking about? Mongol 3.0?

[C0ckney]

the best I have achived is a stalemate, but I am pretty close to a marginal victory

[Sten Sture]

Xin always wins.

It should be listed at the beginning of every scenario. "Failure to take this scenario apart in six turns doesn't mean that you are stupid, you just aren't the Robo-civer"

I haven't done Mongols yet, but I would bet that Xin could beat it and make everyone else look bad. Don't egg him on like this!!

[Ken Hinds]

Andz83,

I honestly don't know which version it is. Whatever was on the CSC site with LOR 3.0. My version always starts with Turfan in disorder on Deity level.

I noticed that when Harlan did LOR 4.0 he fixed the Deity level disorder problem, which was really nice of him. However, in exchange he also fixed it so that I can't bribe a city full of Nuzgul's anymore. That is not exactly what I call a fair exchange. Disorder I can fix. Not being able to be the good guys and still having my own army of Nuzgul's I cannot.

Ken

[Harlan]

I've had no problem winning on Deity level, but then when a person plays their own scenario, they know just what to do.

Still, I've known other people win on Diety too, and even one person who complained the scenario was too easy.

[Paul Hanson]

At least Mongols v3 was a good challenge, unlike that crappy Microprose effort, where it really wasn`t worth being anyone other than the Chinese.

Back to Harlan`s one, I`m just checking how well I did...Emperor level...oh, decisive defeat. But than again, I`m using MGE, so major objectives don`t count. I`ve got 41 objectives out of 145. I haven`t been able to touch the Sung Chinese, but I`ve taken out the Chin/Kara-Kitai, most of India, several Khwarizmian cities and conquered several areas that the Mongols didn`t in real life. But I`m still crap.

[Ken Hinds]

Considering that I have only beaten the AI to AC in a regular Deity game once I guess I shouldn't expect too much. I think that my biggest problem is probably the fact that I try not to spend gold on building units that are going to get trashed right away. And then I try to preserve most of the infrastructure in a captured city, unless I have the techs to rebuild later. Lately what I've tried is bypassing the conquest of China and heading to Jerusalum as quickly as possible. I've gotten as far as Damascas but ran out of troops before I made to the Dome of the Rock.

For those of you who haven't found out the hard way yet. When Harlan tells you in the read me to not take certain cities be sure to follow his advice. He has rigged things where when you take certain cities all your hard work will come unglued, if you are not properly prepared. Nice job Harlan, I just wished that I could have honestly said "Why didn't he warn me about this?" Unfortunately, I had read the readme and decided to ignore your advice. And that was one of the few where I had been doing so well up to that point. The Chin were nearly toast and I was still on my second Khan. Capture one city and lose my Khan in the process and all hell breaks loose, which killed the game about 4 turns later.

Ken

[Xin Yu]

I have only played this scenario for two turns (just downloaded it). Have some thoughts but don't know if it works.

Send food caravans to each other to boost population, and hire taxmen to get cash. This needs time to build up. You build granary, aqueduct, sewing system, bazaar, monastry, bank. Suppose you can grow a city to size 16, and hire all citizens as taxmen. You get 120 gold per turn, no corruption. Plus, it is difficult for the AI to bribe a large city, and under despotism you can support 16 units for free. When food is exhausted, just send another food caravan to the city.
After you build up the cities, build more caravans and trade with Kaifeng or Hangzhou, which you left for the AI to control. Don't forget to build roads to connect your cities with them.

Remains a question: the food box has 50 rows, will a food caravan fill half of it (25 rows), or just 5 rows? If the former is the case, then you can grow a city quickly and one food caravan can support the food supply for a long time. Got to test it.

Spies are cheap. Use them to steal techs, and investigate cities before attacking. You can arrange the attacking sequence according to the defense unit distribution of the city. For example, the first Chin city you want to attack on a hills square has (in order from left to right) 4 units: a siege defense, a siege defense, a fortified chinese pikemen, a fortified chinese pikemen. You know that the two chinese pikemen will be selected to defend first, and they are weak. So you use a Mongol general to attack twice. Then use Ghengis Khan to attack twice. This way you don't waste Ghengis on the weak units. Another example: a city has a strong unit like warrior. You can park a Mongol general beside the city on a hills. The warrior will attack him and die so you don't need to deal with him the next turn. However you don't want to do this if in the city there is a siege tower.

The most important unit is Ghengis Khan, which has ignore city wall flag. Use him wisely. The Chin civ has two generals at the beginning. Kill them before proceed deep into hostile territory.

[Xin Yu]

With no resistence I occupied 6 Chin cities and two barbarian cities (in Korea) in the first 4 turns. Tons of money. Is the scenario really difficult?

BTW, tested the food caravan thing. Every food caravan fills half of the food box. The food can last for 12+ turns when I put all but a couple of citizens collecting tax.

[Ken Hinds]

Xin Occupying the cities in the early turns is not a problem holding them while you get the rest of the world conquered is a whole nother ball of wax.

Ken

[Kull]

The Scenario League devoted a contest to just this topic a few years ago. I did win at Deity and wound up on the top ten list, but several people had MUCH better scores!

I can't remember all the strategies, but here's a few that come to mind:

1) Steal Techs! An absolute must.
2) Economy! Bribing was key, and that means Gold.
3) Steal the enemy Generals! Find out which cities they're in and bribe them, no matter the cost. You must wage war on several fronts and you can only be successful if there are Generals available to substitute for Ghengis on the other fronts.
4) Samarkand (?) This rich Muslim city is the mountain gateway to the West. BUY IT! Cost is no object.

Mongols is still one of my favorite scenarios. It was one of the first to use specialized civ-specific units and cities, which really enhances the atmosphere. When you leave China and enter India, there's no doubt that you've entered a whole new world!

[Harlan]

Minor point:
In designing that scenario, I couldn't stop the stealing of cities with Generals in them, but if I could have I would have. So that strategy is very "poor show".

[Paul Hanson]

If I remember rightly, only the AI could bribe cities in Mongols 3.0, the version I`ve got. Does this mean that you lost had it easy while I had to struggle using armed force to conquer the world?