Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



The steppes of Mongolia are home to peoples who defy the conventions of history, being in a landlocked area with little fertile land but having such a significant impact on the world. From the late third century before the common era, an attack from the Chinese would band nomadic tribes into the Xiongnu Empire. This was followed by a series of consecutive empires consisting of one ethnic group within Mongolia dominating, but in 1206 Borjigin Temujin would finally unify the Mongolians more as equals, protecting religious freedom and putting an end to the pillaging and razing of conquered lands, as was the norm. He would take the title Genghis Khan.

By Genghis Khan's death, he had conquered lands from the entirety of present-day Kazakhstan to the Pacific, but unlike the empires of Atilla, Alexander or Napoleon, it lasted beyond his death - 52 years afterwards, in 1279, the Mongol Empire included the entirety of China, Persia, Korea and as far west as Hungary. A quarter of the world's population, and over a fifth of its land area. Over time, however, the line of succession became blurry, leading to collapse in the 14th century. In the late 17th century, Mongolia would come under Chinese rule, ending in the early 20th century, but the nation would essentially become a satellite state of Soviet Russia. In 1990, peaceful protests would bring democracy. Now, with a broad range of allies and strong mineral wealth, Mongolia has a good position in this brave new world. Take charge, and build a civilization that will stand the test of time.



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than domination.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Melee Units - Throughout this guide, "melee units" typically refers to all non-ranged military units - whether on the land or sea. "Standard melee units" refer to Warriors, Swordsmen, Longswordsmen, Spearmen, Pikemen and replacement units for them.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Spotter - A unit which allows a ranged unit (usually a siege unit) a line of sight with its target. Typically, siege units have a higher maximum range than their sight radius, hence the need for spotters.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UGP - Unique Great Person - A replacement for a normal Great Person which can only be generated by one Civilization or provided by allied City-States through completing the Patronage Social Policy tree. There are only two of these in the game - the Mongolian Khan and Venetian Merchant of Venice.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied.
Wide empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.
ZOC - Zone of Control - A mechanic that makes a unit use up all its movement points if it moves from a tile next to an enemy to an adjacent tile next to the same enemy.

Mongolia has a plains start bias. This gives you a decent production base for churning out Chariot Archers early on, ready for upgrading into Keshiks.



While Unique Abilities tend to be the most powerful aspects of most Civs, Mongolia's strength is in the synergy between their mighty medieval UU, the Keshik, and their Great General replacement, the Khan, one of only two Unique Great People in the game.

• All melee mounted units recieve +1
  
• All military units gain +30% versus City-State cities and units controlled by them

A mounted ranged unit
*Assumes a normal speed game.


Negative changes

• No melee attack
  
• 15 strength, down from 20 (-25%)

Positive one-off changes

• Ranged attack (16 ranged strength, 2 range)
  
• 5 moves, up from 4 (+25%)*
  
• No city attack penalty

*Mongolia's UA speed bonus only affects mounted melee units, hence the extra speed is an attribute of the unit.

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• +50% XP gain (Quick Study)*
  
• 50% increased contribution to Great General generation (Great Generals I)

*Stacks with the Honour Social Policy Military Tradition for a total 100% increased XP gain

Miscellanious changes

• Classified as standard ranged unit rather than mounted melee, hence uses ranged promotions, has no extra vulnerability to units with a bonus against mounted units and can be constructed faster with the Temple of Artemis, rather than Stables.

*When you generate one of these Great People, it'll raise the cost of these Great People as well as itself.

Positive passive changes

• 5 moves, up from 2 (+150%)
  
• While healing, regains 15HP more per turn
  
• While healing, adjacent land or air units regain 15HP more per turn. Does not affect units sharing a tile with the Khan.

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 5/10
Diplomatic: 1/10
Domination: 10/10
Scientific: 4/10

Mongolia's uniques aren't useful for anything besides warfare, but that's something they absolutely excel at. Their tech route (prioritising Keshiks as soon as possible) means they may get to Universities late, thus hurting science, while their UA actively discourages diplomatic victories.


Overall

Mongolia's mounted unit-centric strategy is shared with Poland, although Poland has a significantly more flexible UA and better economic support in exchange for a weaker UU (Winged Hussars are still strong, but they can't do hit-and-run attacks on cities as effectively as Keshiks) and the lack of the fast healing that Khans offer.

China also has quite a few similarities with Mongolia. China's UA basically gives them a unique Great General (but with double the strength bonus instead of faster speed and better healing) and they also have a strong mid-game ranged unit.

England is another good candidate. England, like Mongolia, lacks economic support in its uniques but makes up for it with a very strong mid-game power spike.

Same start bias

Mongolia's start bias is shared only with Poland.

Similar to the UA

Persia's UA offers combat bonuses akin to Mongolia's which are less situational. Mongolia gets a +1 movement bonus to melee mounted units, while Persia gets it for all units. Mongolia gets a 30% bonus against City-States and their units, while Persia gets a 10% bonus that works against all cities and units. The key downside is that Persia's advantages require them to be in a Golden Age, something that's fairly unreliable early on in the game.

Similar to Keshiks

Arabia's Camel Archers are the obvious unit to compare Keshiks to, and there's a full comparison later on in this guide.

Other Knight UUs include Spain's Conquistadors, Songhai's Mandekalu Cavalry and Siam's Naresuan's Elephant.

Similar to Khans

The only other Unique Great Person is the Merchant of Venice, but it could barely be more different from the Khan. Instead, consider China's UA, which makes their Great Generals twice as effective, or at uniques that offer faster healing (Persia's Immortals and the Invulnerability promotion that Indonesia's Kris Swordsmen can get.)

Sweden's Hakkapeliitta can make Great Generals move faster, making them the only Civ other than Mongolia that can keep up Great Generals with cavalry units without needing Autocracy's Lightning Warfare.

Normally I write overall strategies in the UA section, but the narrow scope of the UA could make that section too confusing.

Welcome to Mongolia. They're incredibly effective land-based warmongers, but lack economic backup. You don't really need to get going with war until Keshiks roll along, so you've got time to build up a decent infrastructure.

Gold, happiness and horses will be the three most crucial elements. The first two can be handled by settling cities near a diverse range of luxury resources, while researching Animal Husbandry first will reveal horses, so you can quickly take them before anyone else does.

Allow time for getting Worker technologies as appropriate, as well as Writing, then head along to The Wheel. This offers you Chariot Archers, which not only make effective defensive units early on in the game, but crucially they upgrade to Keshiks and their promotions stay relevant. You don't need to build a Barracks prior to churning them out; they can farm the XP off Barbarians instead, and Keshiks gain XP so fast that it's often not worth the 1 gold-per-turn maintenance cost of Barracks.

Be sure to keep a couple of horses around for Horsemen. Don't upgrade those Horsemen into Keshiks - they'll be for getting the last hit on a city after Keshiks have battered down their defences. As you can't build Horsemen after getting the Chivalry technology, make sure you have all of them you need, ready.

Once you've got your Worker technologies, Writing and Horseback Riding, it's time to start beelining Chivalry to get Keshiks going as quickly as possible. Save money up for upgrading your Chariot Archers to cut down the amount of time between researching the technology and launching your attack.

Despite their seemingly low strength, Keshiks can still fight perfectly well through the renaissance and even beyond! Crush the Civs that stand in your way - razing the cities you don't need so your happiness doesn't suffer - and you should have an advantage by the late-game which is hard to overturn.

So, to summarise:

• Prioritise getting gold, happiness and horses in the early-game
  
• Build Chariot Archers so you can upgrade them to Keshiks, and at least two Horsemen you shouldn't be upgrading
  
• Beeline Chivalry after you've got Worker technologies, Writing and Horseback Riding going
  
• Use Keshik wars to give youself a massive advantage for the rest of the game

So, you've got the wider framework, but now it's time to cover how all the details work...

For all the apparent strength of the Mongol UA, it's actually weaker than it looks on paper. Not to worry, though, as the Keshik more than makes up for it - you'll see why later on in this guide.

So, the Mongol UA has two aspects. +1 movement for all melee mounted units, and a 30% bonus against City-States and their units. Let's cover both in that order.


All your Horsemen, Lancers and Cavalry, as well as any melee mounted UUs you happen to pick up from City-States have 5 movement points rather than 4. This does not affect Chariot Archers, and it technically doesn't affect Keshiks (though they have 5 moves rather than the 4 Knights have anyway.)

Generally, the main use of the extra mounted movement is for units backing up your Keshiks. As stated in the previous section, they can't capture cities due to their lack of a melee attack, which is why keeping a few Horsemen is useful. With more movement, it's easier to manoeuvre the unit from a safe area behind your Keshiks to attacking the city without meeting any enemy units along the way. Once Lancers come along, you can use them the same way as Horsemen and just upgrade the latter to Keshiks.

In flat land, you can use hit-and-run attacks with melee mounted units without ending a turn in range of the city. You can start three tiles away, run in two, attack and pull out of range again. Generally, though, the city attack penalty melee mounted units have makes this impractical.

The big problem with this aspect of the UA is that it doesn't work on armoured units, so you lose your speed advantage in the late-game. The Lightning Warfare tenet in the Autocracy ideology helps to give you back the mobility advantage, (and makes Khans ridiculously fast with 8 moves per turn,) though hopefully by that point your conquests in the Khan era are enough to give you the momentum to win the game anyway.




Despite the huge difference a 30% combat bonus makes, and the fact it works against the actual cities, not just City-States' units, this advantage may see relatively little use until possibly in the late-game. Fighting City-States in the early-game will ruin your reputation early on, making opponents more likely to build up defences ready to stop you, while in the mid-game, you need to focus on fighting full Civs. You can't raze City-States you capture, so unless they have a good Natural Wonder or lots of luxuries, it might be worth avoiding capturing them.

That isn't all. If you declare war on at least two City-States directly in quick succession, your influence will drop twice as much with nearby City-States and your influence resting point will reduce by 20. To avoid this, if you aim to capture City-States at all, declare war on their full-Civ ally instead. Even if you go for peace with the full Civ later, you can still safely keep the war going with the City-State.

While fighting City-States directly for much of the game may disadvantage you more than it helps, getting a significant bonus against their units will be useful against Civs with lots of City-State allies - you won't need as many units defending your own cities (if the allied City-State is near your own lands) and your Keshiks can more quickly cut through enemy units, dedicating less time to City-State ones.

Later in the game, however, fighting City-States may be just what you need to ruin another Civ's attempts at a diplomatic victory, or to get a foothold into new lands ready for Artillery/Bomber warfare. You can fill the borders of a City-State with siege units, declare war and take it very quickly, as declaring war on a City-State doesn't push your units outside their borders.

Before we go into all the stuff Keshiks can do, let's look at the other strong advantage to warmongering Mongolia has, in the form of the Khan. Like China, Mongolia has extra-powerful Great Generals. However, while China's Great Generals have an even higher combat bonus, Mongolia's Khans offer a broader range of utility - they can help your units heal up faster, and with Khans' higher movement speed, they can keep up with your high-speed mounted units.

If you get the Warrior Code Social Policy in the Honour tree, you get a free Khan and can generate them faster. That'll really help you out at the start of your Keshik wars, and is helpful for early game defence, too.


Khans have over double the normal Great General movement, which puts them at the same speed as your Keshiks or melee mounted units. Not only is that useful for moving your army around more quickly, but it also gets newly-generated Khans to the front lines quicker, and even gives you a chance to rush to the edge of your territory and set up a Citadel in a situation where the regular Great General would be too slow to safely do that.


When your land units are healing up in enemy territory, they heal 10HP per turn by default, and in friendly lands, it's 20HP per turn. If there's a Khan adjacent to the unit, they heal 25HP per turn in enemy lands and 35HP per turn in friendly lands! This bonus does not stack with Medic promotions.


Above: Khans can heal themselves rapidly, as well as adjacent units, but the healing bonus doesn't apply to other units sharing their tile. Either stack them with a unit that's on high health already or keep them away from enemies.

There's one major obstacle to this ability, however. Units have to be actively in the process of healing (as in, not moving ot fighting) to recieve this extra bonus, or have the March promotion. Luckily Keshiks, using ranged promotions, can use March as early as the third promotion (for regular Knights, it'd be at least the fourth) and with their fast XP gain, you can get them there in no time.

Interestingly, Khans also increase the healing rate of air units. Place a Khan next to a city full of aircraft and you'll have quite a substantial edge in prolonged air combat. Like Keshiks, air units can get to the equivalent of March (in their case, Air Repair) in just three promotions giving you units healing 40 HP every single turn! Add the Faith Healers Pantheon and it gets even crazier.


Any Civ can obtain a Khan through completing the Patronage Social Policy tree and having at least one City-State allied. This awards random Great People, which includes the two UGPs (so any Civ can get Merchants of Venice, too.)

The Civs that can make the best use of this are those which have strengths in warmongering and gold/influence gain. Sweden in particular synergises incredibly well with Khans (the UA makes keeping alliances easier, the Hakkapeliitta synergises with Great Generals and Caroleans have the March promotion by default.)


Above: Taken from my Sweden guide. That force was basically invulnerable.

The relative weakness of Mongolia's UA is compensated for by one of the game's deadliest UUs. Get the attack going early (that's why I encourage building Chariot Archers, saving up cash then upgrading them as soon as you hit Chivalry) and you can win yourself a colossal advantage, hard to overturn.

Before I go into detail with this unit in battle, it's worth pointing out the odd situations that occur with the unit being classed as a mounted ranged unit. It uses the ranged promotions, and the Temple of Artemis increases production of them, rather than Stables. Most importantly, Keshiks have no vulnerability to anti-mounted units unlike Knights. Take that, Zulus!

Don't get Keshiks by upgrading Horsemen (again, upgrade Chariot Archers.) Aside from the fact most promotions Horsemen can earn don't work on Keshiks, you'll want to keep a few to get the last hit on cities (as Keshiks can't take them and other units are slower.)


But what makes the UU so deadly, having less strength than a Knight or even a Crossbowman? The ability to move after attacking.



Above: Move in, pelt the Kris Swordsman east of the city, then move out. You can do this to anything attackable in order to avoid being hit yourself.

The ability to hit-and-run means you should never leave your Keshiks in a vulnerable position where they can be attacked. To help prevent fast enemy units reaching you, pillage the enemy's roads. High movement should allow you to do this without your pillaging units being killed in the process. If you can avoid your units being hit, they remain viable even into the industrial era (though once planes and Artillery come along, they're going to be splattered.)

Keshiks lose the usual combat penalty against cities compared to the Knight, though in practice this only makes Keshiks 20% better against cities due to Keshiks only having 16 ranged strength (vs the Knight's 20 strength.) Still, using hit-and-run attacks against cities mean that over the course of a few turns, you'll deal far more than 20% more damage against cities compared to Knights.

You don't need siege units or regular ranged units in a Mongolian army. All you really need are plenty of Keshiks with Khans, and a few Horsemen to deal the final hit on cities once you've worn down their defences. You'll want to make the most out of Keshiks, so burn down the weaker cities you capture to stop unhappiness slowing you down.


Keshiks have 5 movement points. Khans have 5 movement points. Mongolian Horsemen and other such melee mounted units have 5 movement points. This lets you have an incredibly mobile army, but that's not the only way Keshiks synergise with Khans.

Great General generation is based off earning experience. Keshiks have both increased experience gain and the special Great Generals I attribute which makes the experience earned count 50% more towards the Great General bar. This means you can generate Khans very rapidly once you've got going. Any spares can be used for ramming Citadels into particularly troublesome enemy lands.

As mentioned in the previous section, Khans work like the Medic promotion, so Keshiks only receive the extra healing if they're either healing already or have the March promotion. The March promotion is easier to reach for ranged units than melee - all you need is Accuracy II or Barrage II (melee units need Drill III or Shock III) and you can heal up rapidly while still fighting.



Above: Honour's Military Tradition and the extra-experience attribute of Keshiks stack nicely together to really eat up those promotions sooner.

While the March promotion is easy to reach, rushing straight into getting it for all your Keshiks carries an opportunity cost. With high speed and use of hit-and-run attacks, Keshiks don't get hit often, hence the need for healing is relatively low. Rapid healing is still useful as Keshiks have a low amount of strength in defence for their era and get hit hard, but consider that getting March delays you getting Logistics or Range.

Generally, work towards the Logistics promotion for all your Keshiks, and use March on units which either have Logistics already or are damaged. Logistics doubles damage output, doubles XP gain (hence doubles Khan generation) and works amazingly on a fast unit that can move after attacking. With 5 moves per turn, you can move in a tile to even rough terrain, fire twice and move out.

The Range promotion is much less useful than Logistics as hit-and-run tactics fill the niche Range does (attacking without being attacked back) and it also requires use of a spotter, but you can just move your spotter unit in, fire, and move the spotter out again.

The other route to go down is the two Cover promotions, but except in very rough terrain (or if you're fighting a range-heavy Civ like England) it's not that useful to have. Logistics, March and Range are all higher priority (though Range isn't if you're about to upgrade the Keshik.)

• +50% XP gain (Quick Study)
  
• 50% increased contribution to Great General generation (Great Generals I)

Hit-and-run attacks with melee mounted units just aren't as effective as they are on ranged mounted units. To make things worse, many ranged promotions don't work on melee units (with the exception of Logistics.)

Sooner or later some kind of comparison between the Mongolian Keshik and the Arabian Camel Archer had to be made. Both are Knight replacements that have a ranged attack and can use hit-and-run tactics. Both lack a penalty against cities and lack vulnerability to Pikemen. But here's the differences. Compared to the Keshik, the Camel Archer has...

• 13% more strength (17 vs 15)
  
• 31% more ranged strength (21 vs 16)
  
• 20% less movement (4 vs 5)
  
• 33% less XP gain (100% vs 150%)
  
• Reduced Great General point gain. Both the Quick Study and Great Generals I attributes contribute towards this.
  
• Economic backup from Arabia's UA and UB
  
• Slower backup units (Mongolia has 5-move Horsemen, Arabia's Horsemen move 4 points per turn)
  
• Less bonus against City-States (but this is cancelled out by Camel Archers' higher ranged strength)
  
• The lack of the Khan UGP (unless they've completed the Patronage Social Policy tree and got lucky)
  
• The lack of keep-on-upgrade advantages (Keshiks keep Quick Study and Great Generals I when upgraded)

The experience gain and ranged strength are the main differences here. Camel Archers have a strong start, but Keshiks can get to Logistics much faster, doubling their damage output. So, at the start of a war, Camel Archers will have an advantage, but after a while Keshiks will have the upper hand. Eventually, when Camel Archers have Logistics, things could turn the other way, but Mongolia has the advantage of Khans.

Which UU is best is a matter of personal preference, but Mongolia's uniques are better-equipped for war than Arabia's, but Arabia is more flexible in that they're a very strong diplomatic nation.

Mongolia usually isn't in the business of allying City-States, but an exception occurs for militaristic City-States offering good unique units. Here's a selection of the best; prioritise alliances with those respective City-States if avaliable.


Horse Archer (Lower priority)

Starting with Accuracy I, the Horse Archer can get to March or Accuracy III just from attacking Barbarians, giving a slight advantage when you upgrade it into a Keshik and bring it into war. Lacking a horse requirement, it allows you to build up a bigger force ready for upgrading as you capture pastures.


African Forest Elephant (Medium priority)

While slower than the regular Horseman, Forest Elephants have a little more strength, helping them to defend before rushing in to capture a city. Plus, the Feared Elephant penalty helps defend your Keshiks. Alternatively, you can upgrade an African Forest Elephant to a Keshik to stack Khan-generation bonuses. Most importantly, being an elephant UU, there's no horse requirement, freeing up more for Keshiks.

Cataphract (Lower priority)

Cataphracts make good substitutes to Horsemen as city takers. They may be a little slower, but they have as much strength in defence as Keshiks, on top of getting defensive bonuses.

Companion Cavalry (Medium priority)

Higher strength and more speed makes Companion Cavalry excellent city-takers.


Camel Archer (Medium priority)

Being a ranged mounted unit, Camel Archers don't gain an extra movement point from your UA, but they're still excellent units to use, and scary for opponents to face.

Conquistador (Lower priority)

With no city attack penalty, Conquistadors make nice alternatives to using Horsemen to capture cities with. High sight also helps to see units coming so you can stop them before they go after your Keshiks.

Mandekalu Cavalry (Lower priority)

Similar to Conquistadors, but without the sight, embarkment or settling abilities. Good for getting the last hit on cities, recovering quickly and moving on to the next.

Naresuan's Elephant (Medium priority)

Keshiks are arguably most vulnerable to other mounted units, as they can rush in fast enough to avoid being shot. Naresuan's Elephant ends that. In Mongolia's hands, Naresuan's Elephant is actually a straight upgrade to the Lancers of other Civs, as the point of less movement cancels out with your UA's extra movement. Plus, they don't require horses, leaving more for Keshiks.


Hakkapeliitta (Lower priority)

The weakest of the three Lancer UUs, but still, a faster Lancer is a faster Lancer.

Sipahi (Medium priority)

If your Keshiks are having trouble taking out a city, or you want to cause a little havoc for the sake of it, a 6-move Sipahi can utterly tear apart their tile improvements like no tomorrow. Particularly good for dealing with roads.

Winged Hussar (Higher priority)

Now it's even faster, on top of its high strength and knockback abilities.


Berber Cavalry (Lower priority)

While the desert strength bonus will be highly situational for Mongolia, the bonus for defending your own land works nicely in defence while the rest of your army is off fighting elsewhere.

Carolean (Medium priority)

These have excellent synergy with Khans, healing rapidly every turn.

Comanche Riders (Medium priority)

A 6-move Cavalry is nice, but the main point is that the Comanche Riders' +1 movement carries over on upgrade, giving you Landships with 5 movement points and Tanks with 6 and hence a speed advantage your UA no longer provides you.

Cossack (Lower priority)

Higher speed makes it easier to target already-damaged units.

Hussar (Medium priority)

Super speed and enhanced flanking goes nicely together to quickly eliminate enemy units.


Panzer (Lower priority)

This is to make up for the lost speed advantage (as your UA doesn't increase the speed of armoured units.)

In the early-game, Liberty is a reliable option to help secure plenty of horse resources, but Honour is a possibility as well. After that, Commerce will be useful for gold and happiness, then Rationalism helps stop you falling behind tech-wise.


If you're taking a hybrid Liberty/Honour approach, you can probably get the opener and two policies before switching to Honour to get Military Tradition.

Opener

All your cities can now expand their borders, saving you a bit of cash in buying tiles, or saving you having to build Monuments right away.

If you're going down a hybrid Liberty/Honour route, head towards Meritocracy now. Otherwise, head to Collective Rule.

Republic

A small amount of production, helping new cities to get off the ground faster, hence helping you to get more happiness buildings to offset conquest, build new units or whatever you feel like.

Collective Rule

A free Settler and faster production of Settlers in the capital. While once Keshiks have got going, you may not build many cities, the saved production this policy offers gives you more time to build up infrastructure ready for churning out units.

Citizenship

Making Workers more efficent develops your cities faster, but importantly it also cuts down the amount of time to build routes to newly-captured cities and greater Worker efficency means you don't need as many of them as may otherwise be the case, saving you a bit of unit maintenance gold.

Meritocracy

Happiness is vital to warmongers, as it's the biggest thing that slows a war down. While the 5% reduced unhappiness from city population may not affect occupied cities, it does affect puppeted ones.

Representation

A free Golden Age helps to briefly support your finances, possibly for saving up gold to upgrade Keshiks.

Finisher

There's plenty of choice here. A Great Scientist will help prevent your science from falling behind other Civs, but a well-placed Manufactory from a Great Engineer helps churn out more units and a Great Merchant will help offset the costs of war.


Opener

Attacking Barbarians for XP with Chariot Archers or Horsemen will give you a good head start going into wars later, and Honour's opener makes this whole process even easier by telling you where Barbarian encampments are.

Warrior Code

This gives you a free Khan, and you can generate them faster! The faster melee unit production isn't particularly useful, but the Khan certainly is. You can use it to heal up your units much faster when fighting off Barbarians, and starting your Keshik attack with a Khan gets you off to a good start.

Military Tradition

Normally, when range units attack other units, they get 2XP. Keshiks get 3XP a time thanks to their Quick Study attribute, and now it's 4. Against cities, your Keshiks will gain 6XP a time. In addition, as Great General generation is based off experience gain, you can generate Khans even faster.

Discipline

Limited in use as your main emphasis is ranged attacks, though a 15% bonus could still come in handy in the late-game.

Military Caste

Happiness is the biggest barrier to continuing conquests, so any way of gaining more is desirable. Plus, it's a source of culture (something usually scarce in warmongering Civs.)

Professional Army

If you're sticking to solely Honour for your first Social Policy tree, then you should be able to get this policy ready in time for Keshiks. If you've been saving up some cash, you can upgrade Chariot Archers/Horsemen to Keshiks and take them to war almost immediately.


Above: 90 gold in a normal speed game is no great expense if you've been saving up some cash.

Finisher

Besides happiness, the other barrier to warmongering is gold. With large armies and freshly-conquered cities comes high maintenance costs, so getting gold as you kill will stop you getting into debt, ruining your tech rate and leading to units being disbanded.


Opener

As said with the Honour finisher, gold is a significant barrier to war, and getting a 25% bonus to gold in the capital will help offset that. Slightly.

Wagon Trains

Mongolia is a land-based Civ, hence many of your International Trade Routes will be by land, letting you get quite a lot out of this policy already. But add on the halved road/railroad maintenance, and you've got a tremendous economic boost which really helps out with your wars.

Mercenary Army

With the bulk of your army off fighting elsewhere, your homelands may be vulnerable to attack. Cheap Landsknechts will do well at dealing with that problem.

Later in the lifespan of Keshiks, using Lancers where you previously used Horsemen is a good idea, and it's worth pointing out that buying Landsknechts and upgrading them to Lancers is cheaper than buying Lancers directly. So, you can really make that last hit on a city count.

Mercantilism

Buying units and buildings is cheaper now (so Landsknechts are exceptionally cheap) while gold buildings now generate a little science, so building them helps address two problems in one.

Entrepreneurship

You can turn a good-sized city into a Great Merchant farm (your capital is a good choice due to the opener's gold bonus,) which will be handy for getting even more cash to support conquests. Don't be afraid to run Trade Missions - just because you have a bonus against City-States doesn't mean you can't have a few friendly with you.

Protectionism

Original capitals can't be razed and have two types of luxuries nearby, meaning even if you burn everything you can, you'll still have a decent diversity of luxury resources. Protectionism gives you more happiness out of them.

Finisher

Trading Posts are quite a bit more effective now. Put some near your Great Merchant city and let the cash roll in.


Opener

Keshiks won't last forever, and as such you need to keep ahead with technology. The opener immediately offers a 10% science bonus, so long as your empire's happy. Protectionism from the Commerce tree should make that easier.

Humanism

Once your finances are in order, you can place emphasis upon Great Scientist generation and help keep ahead tech-wise. Or mix Great Scientists and Great Merchants. Either way, you can generate these valuable Great People faster.

Free Thought

Commerce's finisher adds an extra point of gold to Trading Posts. Free Thought adds a point of science, too. So, if you've been building plenty to help get the gold going, you can really gain here. Plus, Universities are more effective. Overall, an excellent policy for upping science gain.

Secularism

While, chances are, you won't have loads of specialists, science is science.

Sovereignty

Lower science building maintenance makes having a good science infrastructure cheap, leaving more gold for unit maintenance.

Scientific Revolution

You won't get much use out of this due to all the warmongering you've been up to, but it's needed on the way to the finisher.

Finisher

A free technology and the ability to faith-purchase Great Scientists! If you're lagging behind a little tech-wise, this is a great opportunity to close that gap.

Autocracy is the best fit for Mongolia thanks to the Lightning Warfare tenet, giving you back the speed advantage you've lost from mounted units going obsolete. Alternatively, consider Order for its strong infrastructural advantages.

As usual, I'll be covering the best options from the first inverted pyramid of tenets, so that's three from level one, two from level two and one from level three.


Industrial Espionage

Stealing technologies from other players is a good way to keep your science up. This tenet doubles the rate of tech stealing allowing you to concentrate on the military-focused bottom half of the tech tree while stealing technologies from the rest of it.

Elite Forces

Armoured units even with Khans may have to fight injured (particularly with the Blitz promotion.) This tenet makes that less of a problem.

Fortified Borders

An easy, maintenance-free way of gaining more happiness late in the game.


Lightning Warfare

Your ex-Keshiks get their speed back, a strong bonus to attack and the ability to ignore Zone of Control. Remember that melee units gain XP faster than ranged units, so even though most of the promotions you took now lack relevance, you can use Quick Study to get new ones relatively quickly.

Additionally, your Khans are now the fastest things on land. They're still affected by Zone of Control, though, so use their insane speed to keep them safe.

Third Alternative

Tanks and planes need oil, and that's something you may be running low on. Get this policy before Lightning Warfare if you're particularly low on the stuff.


Clausewitz's Legacy

You've got 50 turns with a significant attack bonus. If you're fast, you can conquer the rest of the world in those 50 turns. If you're not quite ready when the tenet's first avaliable, take something like a Social Policy or level 1 tenet instead, and come back when you're prepared, as you'll want to get as much out of this as possible.


Socialist Realism

This is an incredibly easy source of happiness that you'll need for those late-game conquests.

Young Pioneers

A fairly easy additional happiness source. You should be building plenty of production buildings anyway, so it's no great effort to use this effectively.

Universal Healthcare or Skyscrapers

The former's better if you desperately need more happiness or have a low number of non-puppeted cities. The latter's better if you want to quickly set up bases on new continents - you can cheaply buy an Airport and start airlifting units in.


Workers' Faculties

Factories are cheaper, and also give science. Science and production are two of the most important things for warmongers, and a tenet that can help with both is very welcome.

Five-Year Plan

Even more production. Well, after all, you can't rely on upgraded former-Keshiks alone.


Iron Curtain

Annexing new cities no longer has an extra unhappiness penalty, making it much easier to support more cities contributing towards the war effort. Don't just annex everything, though - just stick to the most strategically important cities, or those with the strongest infrastructure. You can puppet or burn the rest.

Additionally, internal trade routes now are 50% more effective. This provides a good incentive to stop international trading and use the high production from internal trading to build up a strong gold infrastructure instead. It might not bring in as much money as international trading, but it's much more consistent, letting you freely declare war without worrying about having your finances destroyed by trade route pillaging.

Mongolia can do perfectly fine without a religion of their own, but if you found one, there's a few decent choices that can really help you out. Highly-situational beliefs, including most faith Pantheons, are not listed here, but it's nonetheless a good idea to pick up an appropriate faith-giving Pantheon to increase your odds of getting a full religion.


Faith Healers

Combined with Khans, you can heal up units incredibly quickly, which is excellent for rapidly recovering after a city conquest. But it's this Pantheon's interaction with air units that makes it particularly powerful. Combined with a Khan and Air Repair (which isn't that hard to get) you could have air units healing 70 HP every single turn!

Messenger of the Gods

More science gets you to Keshiks sooner.

God of the Open Sky

The need for horses means you're almost certainly going to be working some pasture tiles. This Pantheon belief lets you get culture out of them, helping to get through Social Policies sooner.

Religious Settlements

If you're not placing your cities right next to horses, they're going to need to expand their borders to get there. While you could buy the tiles, that uses precious gold you'll need for upgrading units to Keshiks. Here's an alternative.


Tithe

Gold will be highly important for unit maintenance, upgrading your units or buying new ones. As your religion is unlikely to dominate, Tithe is a better choice than Church Property; not needing to be a majority religion in any city.

Church Property

A backup if you can't manage Tithe but want a constant source of money.


Pagodas

A maintenance-free source of lots of happiness, though it's highly competed-over. Still, being a follower belief, if someone else gets it, you can always let their religion spread to one of your cities.

Mosques

An alternative to Pagodas. Providing more faith, it cuts the time between buying a faith building and buying the next one, so in the long-run it can provide more happiness than may be immediately obvious.

Asceticism

Shrines are easy to build, and three followers in a city isn't hard to reach either, so you can take advantage of the happiness offered here.

Cathedrals

A backup for Pagodas or Mosques. Has only 1 faith, happiness and culture but has a Great Art slot, (which is fairly useless as Mongolia.) Still, happiness is very useful, especially considering this is maintenance-free and requires neither production nor gold.

Guruship

While the only specialists you're likely to have around the time of Chivalry are Merchants, getting 2 gold and 2 production out of a single specialist isn't a bad deal.


Religious Texts

This helps to keep your core cities following your own religion without having to spend faith on Missionaries, Inquisitors and/or Prophets.

Itinerant Preachers

Similar to Religious Texts, it helps your religion stay strong without needing to spend faith. Works particularly well with Tithe.

Even Mongolia will benefit from some City-State alliances, as Keshik warmongering will eventually drive the rest of the world against you, and you don't exactly want to be embargoed, or for all your luxuries to be banned. Still, if you're already infamous, you can use your 30% bonus against City-States to crush any siding with players trying to make life harder for you.

Remember, declaring war directly on at least two City-States in a short space of time will cause faster influence decay and a lower influence resting point in nearby ones. As stated before in the UA section, make sure your wars with City-States are initiated by declaring war with their ally to avoid this problem.

Note that "priority" in this section refers to how high a priority it is to vote on each decision, not how high a priority it is to put the vote forward.

Arts Funding

Medium priority
Vote no

Cultural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you captured a lot of wonders earlier

Embargo City-States

Medium-High priority
Vote no

Despite being capable of butchering City-States, you'll need to keep some alive for trading, as trading with other Civs becomes too risky when they're looking for a reason to declare war on you.

Historical Landmarks

Low priority
Vote no

International Games

High priority
Vote no

International Space Station

Medium-High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes if you have plenty of nuclear weapons, you lack uranium and other players have them or you're the only player with nuclear weapons. Vote no otherwise.

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Standing Army Tax

Very High priority
Vote no

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote no

Mongolia's more about capturing wonders than building them, though you may be able to squeeze in one or two before Keshiks come along.


Pyramids (Liberty Only)

Fast Worker speed and two free Workers makes developing your cities fast, which means they can all contribute to the war effort.

Statue of Zeus (Honour Only)

Keshiks are deadly enough against cities, but why not make that even better? The Statue of Zeus puts their damage output against cities above that of an unboosted Crossbowman.

Temple of Artemis

The main point here is the 15% bonus to ranged unit production - which works on Chariot Archers and Keshiks. If you think the loss of some early production isn't worth the saving later, then there's the handy 10% food bonus as well to aid with early infrastructure.


Great Wall

If you have this wonder, no-one else does and no-one can use it against you. However, it's a bit off your main tech path, which makes things complicated. Either take the player that builds it out quickly (as the speed disadvantage is less of a problem when the enemy has classical or medieval-era units) or leave them until they've researched Dynamite if you can't build it yourself.


Alhambra

While it's useless for your Keshiks, the Alhambra will be useful for building new units later in the game. It's a wonder to capture rather than build.

Machu Picchu

More gold means you can support more units.

Notre Dame

A lovely wonder to capture, as it'll usually cancel out the unhappiness of catching its city, giving you a good city for use as a military base.


Himeji Castle

When your Keshiks are generating loads of Khans, you need a use for them all. Driving Citadels into enemy land is the best (or, rather, only) way of dealing with excess Khans (unless you're in a team game,) and the Himeji Castle helps to keep your Keshiks safe when occupying that land, as well as boosting their damage (as the Himeji Castle's bonus is based on where your units are located, not who they're targeting.)


Big Ben (Commerce Only)

By now, money problems from having lots of units will probably be dealt with, giving you more cash for purchasing units and buildings. Big Ben makes that money go further.

Brandenburg Gate

Particularly good in the Alhambra city, but decent otherwise, together with a Military Academy new units in the city will start with three promotions of your choice. That could mean Artillery one promotion away from Logistics...


Kremlin

Most promotions Keshiks can get aren't useful when you upgrade them into Cavalry and beyond. Coupled with the high cost of getting future promotions, it's sometimes worth disbanding some of the less-powerful Keshiks or ex-Keshiks and building a new set of units to replace them. The Kremlin can help there.

Neuschwanstein

Together with Fortified Borders, Castles give you 2 happiness for essentially negative maintenance, with culture as well. Great for supporting late-game wars.

Prora (Autocracy Only)

Happiness! And even more late-game war support therefore.


Pentagon

Mongolia's likely to do plenty of upgrading due to a significant chunk of the army being former Keshiks. The Pentagon reduces the cost of that and hence reduces the time to modernise, atomicise and informationise your army.

Mongolia is not invincible. With a lot leaning on a resource-dependent UU and a lack of economic support in your uniques, you've got to play carefully. Here's a list of mistakes it's best not to make.


Unless your starting location is absolutely full of forests and/or jungles, researching Animal Husbandry right away is a good idea. You need to know where those horses are so you can settle there, and if you research the technology late, other Civs might take those vital spots.


Here are some reasons for conquering City-States. There may seem like quite a few, they're rather situational.

• The city spot is excellent and taking it justifies the attack
  
• It has horses and you don't, and there's no spots nearby with them
  
• It has an important late-game resource that you lack despite your Keshik conquests
  
• As a launchpad for attacking a full Civ next door to it
  
• To prevent other Civs using it as a launchpad against you
  
• To deny Austria or Venice from buying the City-State
  
• Denying a Civ World Congress delegates

The following are not good reasons:

• To get horses (or any other resource) despite the fact you could easily settle near some more
  
• It gives you more score (gaining score shouldn't be a priority)
  
• You've conquered a few City-States already, and might as well carry on (this will just slow down your more meaningful conquests)

And these are situations that should make you think twice about conquering City-States, even with a good reason:

• You've not angered anyone yet, or no-one knows of your warmongering past (if you've conquered your home continent before meeting Civs on other continents)
  
• Your happiness is low
  
• Your gold is low and the city's radius lacks gold tiles
  
• It'd use units that you need for fighting a war against a full Civ

Conquering City-States is really a bit of a last resort. Generally, the 30% bonus against City-States is to stop them being a problem when attacking full Civs with lots of City-State allies. Actually conquering them will just give you an unrazable city with plenty of unhappiness unless you have a good reason to do so.

In a similar point...


Doing this will lower the influence resting point and increase the influence decay rate of a number of City-States nearby. This is a problem if you intend to ally a militaristic City-State for a good UU or if you're simply aiming to have a presence in the World Congress. To avoid this situation, declare war on the Civ that the City-States are allied to.


Prior to Lancers, Horsemen are the only mounted melee units Mongolia can build. With 5 moves, they can, even over rough terrain, run in and take a city after your Keshiks have battered down its defences. Make sure you have at least one (preferably 2 or more) with your Keshiks.

Of course, once Lancers are avaliable, you don't need Horsemen any more and can upgrade them, but until then, keep your Horseman safe.


All you need are Keshiks, a Horseman or two and your Khans to bring down cities. You do not need to spend ages building Catapults, or Trebuchets, or bringing lots of Longswordsmen. Even Knights, the main counter to Keshiks, can be dealt with with a focused hit-and-run attack by the Keshiks themselves.


Keshiks are weak in defence, and can be picked apart very quickly when near a city. Always use hit-and-run attacks to keep out of the range of cities and ranged units. An exception is cities surrounded by rough terrain where it's impossible to hit it without getting close - in which case, be sure your Keshiks have an escape route in case they get hit.


Nothing slows conquests down more than unhappiness. To help deal with that, burn down the cities you don't need. True, it initially creates more unhappiness than puppeting the city, but once it's utterly destroyed, you'll have all the happiness back you lost from capturing it.


Despite the fact Cavalry have over double the strength of Keshiks, in the early industrial era, hit-and-run attacks can still be effective. Hold off upgrading them until enemy planes, Artillery or more than just the odd Cavalry unit are around.

Mongolia's main threat is from their Keshik UU, though they can seriously ruin your day if you're playing diplomatically with a strong bonus against City-States.


+1 mounted melee movement

The +1 mounted melee movement is a relatively small problem when you're under attack, as roads give you a speed advantage. Of course, problems can arrive if they start pillaging those roads. To minimise that issue, favour building roads through rough terrain so moving out and pillaging them would leave them vulnerable. That's the case for road building generally - if you have a choice between an open-terrain tile and a rough-terrain tile for the same length of road, the latter is usually better to build a road in.

+30% vs City-States

For the diplomatic players among us, this is problematic. For the warmongers, it's amazing. Mongolia's incentive to conquer City-States gives you a great opportunity if you're invading their empire yourself as you can liberate the City-State, gaining masses of influence, weakening Mongolia, improving your relations with other Civs and do all that without giving you the unhappiness you'd usually get from capturing a city.

That "improving relations" point is particularly good. While it doesn't really mean a lot in multiplayer, against computer opponents, liberating cities offsets the anger at you for being a warmonger.

But what about people who don't want to fight? Well, the first thing to do is avoid investing in a City-State right next door to Mongolia. Instead, favour those far away, especially ones which are hard to attack by land; Mongolia is likely to have a small navy due to the mounted unit emphasis. If they're deliberately attacking your allied City-States, then it'll turn other Civs against them; you hopefully can then bribe another Civ into attacking Mongolia. Just be warned that there's no guarentee that Civ will liberate the Mongolian-captured City-States.


For all the damage Keshiks can do with hit-and-run attacks, they're highly vulnerable in defence. Don't send Pikemen against them - the 50% bonus against mounted units doesn't work on Keshiks and their slow speed will get them killed before they can reach the Keshiks - but instead use hit-and-run attacks with Knights, or even Horsemen if you don't have Knights.

Keshik hordes can easily focus fire on a single unit at a time, so get a few Knights or Horsemen ready before they come, which will help overwhelm them.

Another way of dealing with Keshiks is to pick off Mongolia's melee units, such as their Horsemen, as Keshiks can't capture cities. Typically, they'll use Horsemen, which are much weaker than Keshiks and can be picked off by just about anything. If they use anything else, it'll be slow and easily picked off by ranged units or your cities' ranged attacks.


Khans are Great Generals with lots of mobility and the ability to make a healing unit heal up more rapidly. Like normal Great Generals, moving a military unit onto their tile when you're at war with Mongolia will destroy the Khan, but their high mobility makes killing them a tough task.

If you can't kill them, then you might as well weaken their abilities. When attacking a Mongolian army, try to attack one unit at a time and attempt to destroy units before they have a chance to heal up. Prioritise attacking units you know have the March promotion.

To prevent Citadel spam (which Keshiks' fast Khan generation combined with Khans' high speed makes easy for Mongolia) place a fast or high-sight unit between your lands and Mongolia's so you can see a new Khan coming (it's a good idea in peacetime anyway so you can see Keshiks coming, giving you time to prepare.) When you're at war with Mongolia, they may leave the Khan unescorted, using the high speed to try and evade interception. Good unit placement helps to stop this happening.


Early-game Aggressors - If you want to attack Mongolia early on, be prepared to face Chariot Archers and Horsemen. Bringing some mounted units of your own will help out.

Mid-game Warmongers - Invading Mongolia while their army is off in someone else's lands may be fairly effective, but Keshiks' high mobility means they can quickly bring that army back home again. Be sure to bring some Knights along with you.

Late-game Warmongers - By now, Mongolia may have conquered the odd City-State, and it's very worthwhile to liberate them. They're weakest in the late industrial to early modern eras, when Keshiks are obselete and they're recovering from warmongering unhappiness.

Cultural and Scientific Players - Take a detour to Chivalry on your tech route for Knights to help defend against Keshiks.

Diplomatic Players - Avoid spending money on City-States near Mongolia. If you can manage it, try to liberate those Mongolia captures, giving you a strong alliance for quite some time. If you can't, then use the World Congress to get Mongolia embargoed, or peel apart their happiness by banning their luxuries.

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These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)