Mongol Empire Scenario 0.3

[Kasperus]

I got some dates mixed up with the wars between the Cham and Khmer (I've only had the game for four days) but of course relations should be at -200 with permanent Casus Belli's I'll have to look at by books, your probably right about Buddhism as far as the 12th century your probably right. Well the Thais has been colonising and pushing south (I should have made myself more clear ). I admit I'm not too sure where the Menam valley is, I assume it's somewhere in the Tanen mountains but as you said they started, the population was still mostly Karen and Hmong.

As for Khmer culture I'd like to point out things such as Celtic, Mandarin, Cantonese and Norse cultures, many different people who share similiar histories and languages and all put into one culturual group, compared to the Welsh and Scottish there are more similarities between the three Austroasiatic cultures. Maybe rather then maknig it all Khmer you could give Khmer Mon culture, speaking on Mon culture, I certainly think it should be more wide spread as can be seen in the 12th Century map, as for the Hmong, well I'd like to here what you have to say about it.

No, Menam is the river running through current central Thailand (also called Nam Non iirc). Therefor the whole Menam valley is actually on the map represented as the provinces of Sarakham and Bangkok.

The Hmong I have nothing to tell about, the cultural map of SE-Asia from that time that I have does not mention it as a separate culture - the territory that your map places them are overly Thai in the 2nd half of the 12th century. Neither is there anything mentionned in my sources about any somewhat important political centre in that region during the period of our scenario, before the emergence of the Thai states here. Finally as such a hypothetical culture would only occupy 1 province it won't be included, per definition we try to evade as much as possible 1-province cultures.

Regarding the cultural differences and similarities the opinions might differ, as these are very abstract definitions. Therefor I'm not entering any hypothetical kinds of explanation but simply stick to the ethnic-linguistic-cultural definitions as provided by my sources. Based on these the cultural situation in south-east Asia including a merged Khmer-Mon culture would have to be relatively limited in other territories as well - in the same way Thai and Chinese culture would have to be merged (Sinothai), as also Tibet-Burman and Malayo-Polynesian. Apart of the fact that this would be a too generic setting, this is simply debalancing the game.

And Khmer will not get Mon culture for the simple reason that it is undesire that Khmer will try to conquer and easily keep our Mon provinces in the game (which would be entirely unhistorical)

 

[Semi-Lobster]

But The Khmer did occupy those territory, the Kingdom of Haripunjaya should be in and Mon culture should be more widespread, if you looked at the map, in the 11th century the Khmer took the southern Mon provinces. During the 12th Century the Khmer where still expanding. As for the Thais they're migration into the Menam valley and generally further south into South East Asia (found it ) was mostly after the Mongolian Yuan dynasty swept in and annexed the Thai kingdom of Nan Chao. The Principality of Sukhothai was esablished in 1238, which was the first major Thai cementation of their expansion south, it's colonisation of the area was bolstered by the Mongols annexation of Nan Chao and a flood of Thais moved South

As for Mon culture a Mon-Khmer Culture would actually be very accurate.

 

[Semi-Lobster]

I've been looking over the map and I think it would make sense to have a Haripunjaya nation with it's capital in Lampang. It's culture would be Mon and Kwai would belong to it. Pagan should also have Mon culture and have Bago. The SHen province should be a level 5 colony with Thai culture but still belong to Pagan.

As for the Malay peninsula, I'm not sure Malaysian culture existed yet, the entire area was heavily influenced by the Javanese

 

[dharper]

A wonderful mod! Thanks to everyone for making this possible. In a lot of ways, it's what CK should have been...

I've played it only a few times, but a number of observations (all under v0.3.3):

1) The Mongols received the "Islam Spreads Through Our Lands" event, but the province converted to Mahayana Buddhism. The other conversions worked as stated - except that the Mongols had "Nestorianism Spreads Through Our Lands" happen in Hebei! Is there any way to tell the game to affect only a pagan province? It was funny to see Chinese Christians, though...

2) Several Mongol unification events describe Chingis Khan, but he had not been born yet. Perhaps the earliest date should be changed to his rule? Or is this working as designed to give the Mongols as much a chance as possible to unify the tribes?

3) "The Mongols are United" event has broken text in the English version. It ends with "...not only over the".

4) Playing as Aragon, I was almost immediately DOW'd by Castille, Navarra and Leon and ended up losing most of my territory to them. Navarra by itself had 21,000 troops! Perhaps Aragon should be given a larger starting army?

5) I'd prefer for the human player to NOT have the choice to break up the Mongol hordes - this event should be more or less inevitable. If they DO decide to keep the tribes united, there should be revolts at the very least! My suggestion is to give the player a four-part choice letting them choose which of the Mongol successors they will become (Golden Horde, Chagatai, etc.), then have the rest of the Mongols break up afterwards.

Despite all my comments, I really enjoyed playing the game and will continue trying new nations.

 

[unmerged(8606)]

4) Playing as Aragon, I was almost immediately DOW'd by Castille, Navarra and Leon and ended up losing most of my territory to them. Navarra by itself had 21,000 troops! Perhaps Aragon should be given a larger starting army?

Was that playing the 1150 scenario? That's weird, because the iberian kingdoms usually remain in peace. Moreover, they have no CB among them and their starting armies are similar in size. I've never seen such an aggressive behaviour of Castille.

 

[Pontiac]

A response to the former post:

1) The Mongols received the "Islam Spreads Through Our Lands" event, but the province converted to Mahayana Buddhism. The other conversions worked as stated - except that the Mongols had "Nestorianism Spreads Through Our Lands" happen in Hebei! Is there any way to tell the game to affect only a pagan province? It was funny to see Chinese Christians, though...

I don't believe "seeing" Chinese Christians should be so odd. There is a well established view within Buddhist shcolarship that sees the rise and development of Pure Land Buddhism as a direct result of expossure to Nestorian Christianity. Such theoretical impact could also have led to a growing influence of actual Christian movements within China. Further, it is also possible to envision a growing Christian influence under a Yuan Dynasty given the Mongol penchant for religious egalitarianism. I think the possibility should be there.

I'd prefer for the human player to NOT have the choice to break up the Mongol hordes - this event should be more or less inevitable. If they DO decide to keep the tribes united, there should be revolts at the very least! My suggestion is to give the player a four-part choice letting them choose which of the Mongol successors they will become (Golden Horde, Chagatai, etc.), then have the rest of the Mongols break up afterwards.

I disagree with the idea the human players should be disempowered. The option to try and maintain a unifed state leads to interesting possibilites. I do agree that there would be resistance to such a move however. I also agree with the notion of choosing which possible successor state one is to be. There should be the addition option for trying to maintain the empire however.

In general, I think events that allow human player choice (with attendent consequence) should be opted for over set conditions whenever possible.

 

[dharper]

Was that playing the 1150 scenario? That's weird, because the iberian kingdoms usually remain in peace. Moreover, they have no CB among them and their starting armies are similar in size. I've never seen such an aggressive behaviour of Castille.

Yes, it was the 1150 scenario on Normal difficulty, Normal aggressiveness. I admit that it was partially my fault - I built up my army very slowly, being more concerned with tax collectors. When they invaded, I only had an army of six thousand. But there were no CBs that I'm aware of. I ended the game shortly thereafter and started a new one (as the Mongols).

 

[dharper]

I don't believe "seeing" Chinese Christians should be so odd.

In 1190? I know there are a lot of Chinese Christians today, but it was unusual to see the capital of Jin becoming Nestorians. Perhaps it was just luck.

I disagree with the idea the human players should be disempowered. The option to try and maintain a unifed state leads to interesting possibilites. I do agree that there would be resistance to such a move however. I also agree with the notion of choosing which possible successor state one is to be. There should be the addition option for trying to maintain the empire however. In general, I think events that allow human player choice (with attendent consequence) should be opted for over set conditions whenever possible.

I'd be fine with there being an option to maintain the empire, but as it stands right now it's ridiculously easy to keep all the tribes together in a world-spanning empire that reaches from Europe to China. I think that a human player trying to keep the empire intact should at least lose a number of shields - or perhaps just have the various tribes become independent and fight a civil war against you.

 

[unmerged(18239)]

I encountered a curious thing when I played 1205 Mongols.

I got 2 Ghengiz's
I got 2 Ogdai' s
I got 2 Jebe's
I got 2 Bo er Chu's

I this to give the ai some extra chance?

 

[CatKnight]

Hi there

I disagree with the idea the human players should be disempowered. The option to try and maintain a unifed state leads to interesting possibilites. I do agree that there would be resistance to such a move however. I also agree with the notion of choosing which possible successor state one is to be. There should be the addition option for trying to maintain the empire however.

Disempowering a player. Hmm, sounds really ugly doesn't it?

I disagree. If you look at almost all of the events, you're taking a choice away from the player. How about our old friend 'Diplomatic Insult'? Should we include an option where the player doesn't take the negative relations hit and doesn't get the CB? What if they wanted to be friends with that AI country? Aren't we making it that much harder?

In MES, how about all the German revolts? Or the Romans in the 4th Crusade? Should Rome have an option that says "Ignore Fourth Crusade, Keep Empire Intact"?

No. The events are in there to encourage history and to give the players a challenge. The fact is the Mongol Empire did break up, and a player should absolutely have to choose a 'power base.' Now, if he wants to use that base to try and take the Empire back? That's his right, just as it's the Roman's right to try and fight off the Venetians, and the German player's to hold together. If a Mongol player's gotten this far, he's had his moment in the sun. Taking over vast territories as the Mongols is easy. If he wants to keep it? There's the challenge, there's the 'glory' for said player. Let the Mongols break up. The Frankish Empire broke up, the Roman Empire split, as did Alexander's. It's a natural enough result of history. Let the player buck the trend just like the successors of those empires would have had to - by taking the other lands back.

 

[lucaluca]

Hi there



Disempowering a player. Hmm, sounds really ugly doesn't it?

I disagree. If you look at almost all of the events, you're taking a choice away from the player. How about our old friend 'Diplomatic Insult'? Should we include an option where the player doesn't take the negative relations hit and doesn't get the CB? What if they wanted to be friends with that AI country? Aren't we making it that much harder?

In MES, how about all the German revolts? Or the Romans in the 4th Crusade? Should Rome have an option that says "Ignore Fourth Crusade, Keep Empire Intact"?

No. The events are in there to encourage history and to give the players a challenge. The fact is the Mongol Empire did break up, and a player should absolutely have to choose a 'power base.' Now, if he wants to use that base to try and take the Empire back? That's his right, just as it's the Roman's right to try and fight off the Venetians, and the German player's to hold together. If a Mongol player's gotten this far, he's had his moment in the sun. Taking over vast territories as the Mongols is easy. If he wants to keep it? There's the challenge, there's the 'glory' for said player. Let the Mongols break up. The Frankish Empire broke up, the Roman Empire split, as did Alexander's. It's a natural enough result of history. Let the player buck the trend just like the successors of those empires would have had to - by taking the other lands back.

yes but too much determinism is sometimes annoying

 

[unmerged(8606)]

I encountered a curious thing when I played 1205 Mongols.

I got 2 Ghengiz's
I got 2 Ogdai' s
I got 2 Jebe's
I got 2 Bo er Chu's

I this to give the ai some extra chance?

Errr... no! I have no idea how these leaders have appeared twice. In the leaders file they're defined only once.

 

[unmerged(18239)]

Errr... no! I have no idea how these leaders have appeared twice. In the leaders file they're defined only once.

It is a bit strange. The more since they had different stats.

 

[dharper]

It is a bit strange. The more since they had different stats.

Could there be an old leader file hanging around that was meant to be replaced?

 

[unmerged(32900)]

Only to say I have great fun with playing this one, being studying on steppes people (more turks than mongols, but steppes people anyway). I think the new graphics are terrific and the script of the Mongol Invasion is extremely... fabulous. At least in solo play.
I applause with both hands.

Continue the good work

Tril

 

[Kasperus]

I've been looking over the map and I think it would make sense to have a Haripunjaya nation with it's capital in Lampang. It's culture would be Mon and Kwai would belong to it. Pagan should also have Mon culture and have Bago. The SHen province should be a level 5 colony with Thai culture but still belong to Pagan.

As for the Malay peninsula, I'm not sure Malaysian culture existed yet, the entire area was heavily influenced by the Javanese

I needed some time to check these things out with my sources (and was somewhat busy with exams-stuff) so sorry for belated reply:
-Regarding the Haripunjaya-stuff: it is not mentionned by most sources as a still existing state after 11th century, and even then basically not as a 'real' state. I think you are somewhat confused with the Dvaravati kingdom of Mons which existed in these lands, but that was destroyed by Pagan and Khmer halfway the 11th century. Haripunjaya was a small tributary principality under Dvaravati and fell most probably together with the rest to one of these two. There are later (13th cent) references to the city as an important place of culture and knowledge but these do not refer to it as a political centre, nor do they specify the culture/nationality of its people. And well, Haripunjaya fell indeed only around 1230 to the Thai's, but again as 'city'. The lands around it were THai for a much longer period before that.

So for the sake of historicity I do not feel the inclusion of such a state is justied. While for balance I don't see any good reason to include another 1-prov minor which only 'purpose' will be getting annected early in the game by one of its neighbours... I keep this point open though, in case more information will become available though.

-Mon-culture: I'm wary to give it to Khmer for balance reason, as I don't want these lands being conquered by Khmer, which is already too strong. Otoh giving it to Pagan, which base-culture (Burmanese) is entirely not familiar with Mon seems to me unlogical at least... Motivation?

-Bago and Lampang will remain Thai for now. Even if Thais weren't yet the mayority throughout these whole provinces here by 1150, they should at least have a considerable part of every of the two (considering their population there - I base it on my maps which I DO think are rather accurate), which cannot be of course done as the map is unchangeable.

-Shan otoh cannot be Thai yet, as Thai colonization here started indeed only after Mongol conquests of China.

 

[Kasperus]

A wonderful mod! Thanks to everyone for making this possible. In a lot of ways, it's what CK should have been...

I've played it only a few times, but a number of observations (all under v0.3.3):

1) The Mongols received the "Islam Spreads Through Our Lands" event, but the province converted to Mahayana Buddhism. The other conversions worked as stated - except that the Mongols had "Nestorianism Spreads Through Our Lands" happen in Hebei! Is there any way to tell the game to affect only a pagan province? It was funny to see Chinese Christians, though...

hmmm, Islam thing is a textbug... will fix it asap
And it *is* in theory possible to define it to only some province-religions... I must have had a reason to not doing it before, but somehow that excapes me right now... :wacko:

2) Several Mongol unification events describe Chingis Khan, but he had not been born yet. Perhaps the earliest date should be changed to his rule? Or is this working as designed to give the Mongols as much a chance as possible to unify the tribes?

these events were initially designed to happen indeed only during or after Chenghiz khan's life but that window proved too short. I didn't think of changing the text, doesn't seem too crucial either - I would say see these description as nothing more than a historical reference...

3) "The Mongols are United" event has broken text in the English version. It ends with "...not only over the".

indeed... will be fixed.

5) I'd prefer for the human player to NOT have the choice to break up the Mongol hordes - this event should be more or less inevitable. If they DO decide to keep the tribes united, there should be revolts at the very least! My suggestion is to give the player a four-part choice letting them choose which of the Mongol successors they will become (Golden Horde, Chagatai, etc.), then have the rest of the Mongols break up afterwards.

huh? So you want to have the option to NOT break the empire or not? Somehow I don't get it...
I was thinking of making it possible to give the player choice to become one of the hordes but it required more events that I wished to script once I started on it...

 

[Kasperus]

I encountered a curious thing when I played 1205 Mongols.

I got 2 Ghengiz's
I got 2 Ogdai' s
I got 2 Jebe's
I got 2 Bo er Chu's

I this to give the ai some extra chance?

Were you perhaps using a saved game after you applied the patch? As some id's were changed for some leaders which might have caused that (keep in mind that we do NOT recommend the use of older saves with newer patches)

 

[Semi-Lobster]

I needed some time to check these things out with my sources (and was somewhat busy with exams-stuff) so sorry for belated reply:
-Regarding the Haripunjaya-stuff: it is not mentionned by most sources as a still existing state after 11th century, and even then basically not as a 'real' state. I think you are somewhat confused with the Dvaravati kingdom of Mons which existed in these lands, but that was destroyed by Pagan and Khmer halfway the 11th century. Haripunjaya was a small tributary principality under Dvaravati and fell most probably together with the rest to one of these two. There are later (13th cent) references to the city as an important place of culture and knowledge but these do not refer to it as a political centre, nor do they specify the culture/nationality of its people. And well, Haripunjaya fell indeed only around 1230 to the Thai's, but again as 'city'. The lands around it were THai for a much longer period before that.

So for the sake of historicity I do not feel the inclusion of such a state is justied. While for balance I don't see any good reason to include another 1-prov minor which only 'purpose' will be getting annected early in the game by one of its neighbours... I keep this point open though, in case more information will become available though.

-Mon-culture: I'm wary to give it to Khmer for balance reason, as I don't want these lands being conquered by Khmer, which is already too strong. Otoh giving it to Pagan, which base-culture (Burmanese) is entirely not familiar with Mon seems to me unlogical at least... Motivation?

-Bago and Lampang will remain Thai for now. Even if Thais weren't yet the mayority throughout these whole provinces here by 1150, they should at least have a considerable part of every of the two (considering their population there - I base it on my maps which I DO think are rather accurate), which cannot be of course done as the map is unchangeable.

-Shan otoh cannot be Thai yet, as Thai colonization here started indeed only after Mongol conquests of China.

Oh, I was getting worried you forgot about our discussion! It's really interesting!

From my sources Haripunjaya and was an independent Mon kingdom until 1281 when the main city of Lamphun was besieged by the Thais and it lost territory to Pagan and Khmer. From what I've read about the Several kingdom is very confusing, some say Haripunjaya and Several where Mon city states, other say it was one kingdom but I'm leading towards a more principality status as you suggested, either way, seeing as how Several Mon culture continued until the fall of the principality some kind of Mon entity should be present and there should certainly be more then one Mon province. All of South East Asia was heavily Indianised and MES has addressed this amongst many others, by giving the South East Asian countries, the Indian sprite, the Mon where the inhabitants of Haripunjaya and Several with an emphasis on Indianised since they where the first to convert to Buddhism from India and where integral in the diffusion of Indian culture and cultural values into the region. The Thai's couldn't have been around there for much longer then the Mon because the Mon had been there since the 9 BC and established their Mon kingdoms sometime after the 6th Century.

As for the Khmer and Mon culture, perhaps your right, gameplay wise that would let Angkor expand a lot more then it actually did , especially since Angkor should be focused more on the Cham. Although a Mon country would probably be two or three provinces.

Giving Mon culture to Pagan makes perfect sense when you see that Burmese Pagan assimilated into (at the time) more affluent Mon culture.

If you have a scanner I'd like to see your maps, the Thai's did not expand that quickly as both you and I stated the catalyst was the Mongol invasion which forced the Thais to accelerate their migration down the Mekong, as I stated before the existing inhabitants where Karen (never densely populated so maybe you have the point in the northern most province) and the Mon who certainly should be there, I'm not on my home computer right now so I can't have a look at the map to refresh my memory on which provinces are where unfortunately.

You are right about Shan though, it would still be Burmese as of 1150

 

[dharper]

huh? So you want to have the option to NOT break the empire or not? Somehow I don't get it...
I was thinking of making it possible to give the player choice to become one of the hordes but it required more events that I wished to script once I started on it...

I'd like the player to have a hard time keeping the empire. Large-scale revolts, loss of shields, etc.

I'd also like the player to choose to become one of the hordes. I understand that this is difficult! But I assume you could make this happen with only two events:

1) "Initial Disintegration of the Mongol Hordes" (MONGOLS) - Player chooses which horde to become. Change nation to that country name. Then create the Mongol Horde (original horde) and secede all provinces to them except your base ones.

2) "Further disintegration of the Mongol Hordes" (MONGOLS) - The computer AI now automatically makes the other hordes independent and gives them their provinces.