Mongol Khanate Advice

[unmerged(779238)]

Hello everyone!

I wanted to try and recreate the Mongol Empire to their greater extent so I did a few (2) attemps without succeding.
The Manchu have a mission to reclaim my territories, I'm a vassal of the Oirat Horde and the economy is crumbling.
Is a bit of a rough start but still, I think that with a bunch of loans and a bit of luck is doable (if Ming don't DOW me the moment I become indipendent...)
I found only one AAR but it was outdated and there's no playthrough avaible (that I know) so I'll ask here, as anybody got any tips?

This will also be my first attempt playing a steppe horde so I'm a bit in doubt about the idea set, is:
Expansion (cutting Russia and Spain out of Siberia)
Offensive(cavalry shock?)
Administrative (to eventually reform government -> westernize)
Aristocratic (massive cavalry?)
a solid start in case I survive the first years?

Everything is welcome.

 

[knoddy]

see this thread

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...h-the-Mongol-Khanate&highlight=mongol+khanate

some useful stuff, some step by step instructions to get off too a decent start. My suggestions, dont waste Admin on boosting stability, and dont waste military power on stamping down rebellions, otherwise you dont get expansion early enough to cut Russia off above uzbeks, and you fall behind in military tech and get womped.

Also take on Ming asap, otherwise like in my game if they dont fall apart you end up behind them in terms of units/tech.

 

[unmerged(779238)]

see this thread

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...h-the-Mongol-Khanate&highlight=mongol+khanate

some useful stuff, some step by step instructions to get off too a decent start. My suggestions, dont waste Admin on boosting stability, and dont waste military power on stamping down rebellions, otherwise you dont get expansion early enough to cut Russia off above uzbeks, and you fall behind in military tech and get womped.

Also take on Ming asap, otherwise like in my game if they dont fall apart you end up behind them in terms of units/tech.

Thanks, seems like I'll have to practice the scorched earth strategy, I only used that with Russia but the result was a stalemate (AI avoiding the province) so there's probably something I'm missing to get them to take that damned 10% attrition.

I'll keep in mind to save monarch points from day one.

The only thing I don't really like is avoiding military ideas as a horde, the offensive idea bonus seems juicy and helpful and I won't even get new units until I reform government\westernize (and I'll do that once I hit Europe, so not anytime soon).
Ming has a discipline malus too, so why not abusing the offensive +10% against them if I manage to not fall too much behind in tech?
Still I am really inexperienced playing hordes, so I'm probably wrong lol

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Military techs >>> military ideas, unless the latter put you ahead of years...at least in most cases (there are a few lackluster techs). In Europe, going military later than 2nd idea will put you ahead very much unless you are large and can spam buildings. As a horde, you won't go ahead of years until like 1600+ if you stay nomad. Nomad really, really needs those colonists + conversions, don't screw around early.

Scorch 1 day before AI enters in 1.5.

 

[unmerged(779238)]

Thanks again.
I'll do as you guys say and pick Religious second, I don't want to restart because Ming stomps me after the struggle for indipendence.

 

[mgoetze]

If you make it to the point where you can take a 4th idea group you will be doing very well. Anyway yeah be careful about too many military ideas.

 

[parachute]

I played three games as the Mongol Horde in various patches and I never invested into admin or colonization techs until very late in the game (1750+).

1st idea: 1st diplomacy (vassals+unlock horde ideas), 2nd military (quantity), 3rd military (defense), 4th some admin idea, 5th military (offense). When fighting Russia I was winning wars by throwing 150K (40% cannons) at 30K, but that's late game. If you manage to vassalize/absorb China and own everything north and east of India, Russia won't be able to hurt you.

Starting moves is usually shrink and vassalize somebody (Manchu), shrink and vassalize another one (Oirat), shrink and vassalize the Chagatai, save some manpower, hit the Ming with 3 vassals and full manpower pool and fight on your OWN territory exclusively until the war is basically won (which is when the AI doesn't have troops for rebels and/or other countries start to declare war).

Scorch earth is a terrible way of using military power. If you want to waste MP you might want to waste them on gambling for generals.

The start is really tricky. You need to master split army/merge army techniques to be able to wipe some stacks (cause the AI won't attack you or will run away if you don't). You must also always check for WHO is commanding their armies. When your not outnumbering the enemy, fall back. Your home territory is your friend and you should only leave it when the war is nearly won. After the initial blitz onslaugt you can win entire wars by fighting on your home land 90% of the time.

What else: It's okay to be at something like 6/4 diplomatic relations for most of the game. It's also okay to invest into mil tech when it has at least 10% neighbor bonus. Your strength is in your numbers (and your free reinforcements). No need to worry about tech (with the exception of the tech that unlocks artillery).

Oh, and religion... I usually go confucianist at some point, but staying buddhist should work fine.

Horde reform/westernize: not necessary unless you want to fight Russia/Sweden/Ottomans etc. It's perfectly enough to build LOTS of artillery and cavalry + some archer fodder.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Scorch earth is a terrible way of using military power. If you want to waste MP you might want to waste them on gambling for generals.

Calling quantity ideas a worthy investment for MK and scorched earth a waste of MP has to be the biggest joke I've seen in a while lol. One thing lets you slaughter 15+ size stacks without losing manpower at the start, the other gives you the ability to...stack additional units in the province back because of attrition. Quantity is quite literally the single worst military idea group a horde could possibly take .

No need to worry about tech is false also. You get tactics, shock, maneuver, morale, and more from tech, and when you start building enemy units from their provinces, those things make your stacks win...not with numbers but with laughably easy stack wipes on everything worse Russia's forces.

Also, there's not a lot of reason *not* to bolster your manpower and block Russia from becoming big via colonizing yourself first. Monoculture land with decent trade value is welcome, and heck if you go expansion you even get diprep and #relations. Trading that away for quantity early is awful.

 

[knoddy]

I played three games as the Mongol Horde in various patches and I never invested into admin or colonization techs until very late in the game (1750+).

1st idea: 1st diplomacy (vassals+unlock horde ideas), 2nd military (quantity), 3rd military (defense), 4th some admin idea, 5th military (offense). When fighting Russia I was winning wars by throwing 150K (40% cannons) at 30K, but that's late game. If you manage to vassalize/absorb China and own everything north and east of India, Russia won't be able to hurt you.

Starting moves is usually shrink and vassalize somebody (Manchu), shrink and vassalize another one (Oirat), shrink and vassalize the Chagatai, save some manpower, hit the Ming with 3 vassals and full manpower pool and fight on your OWN territory exclusively until the war is basically won (which is when the AI doesn't have troops for rebels and/or other countries start to declare war).

Scorch earth is a terrible way of using military power. If you want to waste MP you might want to waste them on gambling for generals.

The start is really tricky. You need to master split army/merge army techniques to be able to wipe some stacks (cause the AI won't attack you or will run away if you don't). You must also always check for WHO is commanding their armies. When your not outnumbering the enemy, fall back. Your home territory is your friend and you should only leave it when the war is nearly won. After the initial blitz onslaugt you can win entire wars by fighting on your home land 90% of the time.

What else: It's okay to be at something like 6/4 diplomatic relations for most of the game. It's also okay to invest into mil tech when it has at least 10% neighbor bonus. Your strength is in your numbers (and your free reinforcements). No need to worry about tech (with the exception of the tech that unlocks artillery).

Oh, and religion... I usually go confucianist at some point, but staying buddhist should work fine.

Horde reform/westernize: not necessary unless you want to fight Russia/Sweden/Ottomans etc. It's perfectly enough to build LOTS of artillery and cavalry + some archer fodder.

So you give all that free Siberian land to Russia? Cool then what do you do when they wallop you with 200k troops?

i guess each to his own, but if you get expansion, you can take all of Siberia, giving you heaps of manpower and taxes. As for scorched earth, I dont know how you could win your independence war without it, the Oriat have more men then you and a they start with an incredibly good general. even with stack manipulation you would have to be very very lucky to pull it off.

finally if you fall behind in military tech by taking Ideas your in trouble, in my current game I have going atm, I fell behind and I have a -0.5 military tactics against pretty much all my neighbors, which means even on my land with a 3-1 numbers advantage i still lose.

also if you are going to do scorched earth, do it last day before they come into your territory, 1 unit of mercs, scorch and disband.

finally i dont know if it helps or not but i improved relations with ming from day one and they pretty much left me alone, unfortunately they didnt fall apart either.

good luck

 

[oblio-]

I don't really see how you can pick up Quantity over Exploration/Expansion as the Mongols. I've picked it as Qara Qoyunlu (actually I got both) in order to colonize Siberia, and Qara is 5000 km away from Siberia at the start of the game, the Mongols are literally there.

You definitely want those colonies - cheapest and most stable form of expansion possible and you can expand incredibly fast with it. You get no over extension, no aggressive expansion, those provinces have the correct culture and religion from the start, the revolt risk is 0 (which for a horde is quite important).

Also quantity doesn't really seem to work in this game unless the tech difference is rather small. If you're 2 military tech levels behind, unless you have 3+ military idea groups filled, or your nation has very good military national ideas, you will fight 3v1 and lose. And for a horde it is quite difficult anyway to tech up so it is quite likely that you will be behind, especially behind the lucky nations (Hi, Russia!).

 

[unmerged(779238)]

I think that expansion as a first idea is a must have if you start near Siberia, if you don't colonize all that free land and somebody else does it, you'll have to fight for it.
May it be Russia, or Spain, it's wasted time, so there's no question about taking it first.
Once I unlock the final expansion CB I think I'll stop caring about Diplo points for a bit just like you said.

Don't really know about quantity tough... it's pretty weak and gives:
+50% manpower
+33% forcelimit
while offensive, wich I think I'll pick sooner or later (if I survive until that moment lol) gives you:
+25% manpowe
+25% forcelimit
and all the other bonuses (leader stats, forced march, discipline) make it overall way better.

Avoiding SE to save MP seems nice but I need a bunch of tries to understand how to use that and how much it does help me before saying I will\won't use it.

 

[oblio-]

As a horde you have +50% manpower/+50% force limits anyway.

Just sayin'.