Although intimidating, the Taming of the Great Khan scenario is not very hard to beat. It is entirely possible to win the scenario in 80 turns for a lone human player. The secret is to create a level playing-field between you and the enemy as quickly as possible, otherwise, the Warlord AI enemy will crush for sure both you and your AI allies with its unfair production advantage.

Though anything will do, some choices are much stronger than others. I feel that Warlord is the best option because everything the class gives strengthens our rush. Taking Zerti's player slot gives you the central position on the map. This position is important because mobility will be a crucial asset in the 20 first turns. I strongly suggest choosing Destruction adept because Hasty Plunder and Scorched Earth work perfectly in the strategy we will use. Know that your initial position has a lot of blighted terrain, so having at least a way to deal with that will be very useful if you do not choose Destruction.

Remember that these turns are where your win is decided. The first thing to know is that the AI lies. It will not give you any time to prepare. It attacks your throne as soon as turn 5 with a decent force if it senses it has the chance to win. The enemy uses Raise Militia every turn and builds troops, so you will be completely swarmed by turn 20 if you do not bring the fight to him instead.

Your opening strategy relies on learning, in this order, Raise Militia, Warfare I and Hasty Plunder. Immediately rush with everything you have the city 2 turns away northwest of your throne and migrate it. Also, use your Settler to rebuild the city next to it, and use it for both gold income and Raise Militia.

Immediately cross the bridge North of the city you conquered and start your path of destruction. The enemy has three cities in his outer realm (close to you) on the overland map and one city in the center of the underground map. Razing every single one of them will create a no-man's-land and reduce the enemy's production capacity by about one third, thus giving you a chance to compete normally against the AI.

In your throne and in the migrated city, you should be producing units every turn after producing a Builder's Guild, and should position your defensive stacks of units on your side of the bridges. That way, only one enemy stack can attack you from the land, and only against a possibly superior number of units. The AI will try to use Seafaring to bypass this, so be prepared to make a proactive defense.

Death March can completely save you, so researching it next is also strongly recommanded. Also, the underground is a safe way to return to your starting position if enemy troops are cutting you from coming back through the bridges.

The AI now "crippled", you can start producing higher tiers of buildings and units. Take a decent amount of your forces and send them towards the eastern objective. Raze the first city and try to hold the objective for income after migrating it. Use the rest of your forces to hold your lands while you take the East. At this point, your AI allies will compute that your alliance is winning and will push out to rebuild the razed cities and defend them. This should tell you that you just entered the "mopping-up" stage of the game. From the East, push towards the enemy throne and victory is yours.

This scenario gives players a good lesson in competitive gameplay and about the nature of the game : AoW 3 is a game of fantasy military conquest. Agression starts as soon as players have units, and the player taking the right military initiative as a better chance of winning.