is there a way to play as the mongols?

this might belong in the modding section, sry if it is but....is there a way to modify the game to start at the year the mongols arrive and is there a way to actually play as them. i just love their units

You could simply play SS in the late period, where I believe the Mongols start off with a developed empire. I think a few others add the Mongols too.

Modding them in to vanilla could be tricky. I think that if you give them at least one stack or city at the start, and then change them to playable in descr_strat, it should work; you'll simply get several big reinforcement stacks in the 1230s. Not tried it myself though.

There are many emergence mods around, a few in the sigs of people that post around here. Try a search.

I remember reading a post almost a year ago that claimed you could do it. It worked out something like you start a gc as say England and then you open the console ( the ` button) and type in some command - you may have to change a config file first, can't remember fully though. Anyway, after you have changed the faction to the mongols, the game jumps forward to the year that the mongols appear.

As above, try doing a search, I'm sure you'll find it.