Mongols vs the world redux

[Myth]

Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4t...eature=related

I saw in Phonicsmonkey's clubs or something that you guys played a game like that before? How does it work out? Which version of M2TW?

[phonicsmonkey]

Wrath of the Khan 2 is coming in June. I'm going to play the Mongols.

At this stage I'm thinking it will be in SS6.4 and we'll roll the game forward on autopilot to the Mongol invasion then allocate the other factions by lot. It's all up for discussion though.

In the first WotK game we set custom victory conditions and I think we'll do that again.

EDIT: here's the link to the game thread for Wrath of the Khan. In the first post is a summary of the game with links to the diplomacy and story threads, for your reading pleasure! There is also the Anti-Mongol League group which I believe is open for anyone to view. That's where the non-Mongol factions plotted and schemed their defence.

[Myth]

Nice!

First, on SS 6.4 you have Early and Late campaigns. Early starts at 1100, late starts at 1250 (i think). 1 turn = 1 year. So skipping an early campaign until the time the Mongols arrive will greatly benefit the powerful factions early game. The ERE in particular is so friggin powerful that in 200 years it will probably have 1/3 of the map.

If we play with Real Recruitment on the game will be much harder for those who don't get free units (read: non-mongols). With RR on and manually led battles nations like France and HRE will have the best chance of winnig due to their awesome cav. Especially France, those Lancers are absurdly powerful. Though with RR English Longbowmen no longer have AP they do get huge recruitment pools so depending on how the AI plays England this nation can be huge vs. the mongols.

You also have three kinds of AI - a pathetic one, a medium one and a completely berzerk one. If you select the agressive AI the timeskip will mean there is a higher chance some nation disappears and another one grows huge. Not to mention that the AI has huge money scripts so it can basically never get bankrupt.

Anyway I'm game for WOTK2!

BTW have you considered including the Timurids? They do arrive shortly after the Mongols.

[phonicsmonkey]

Yeah everything you say is true. I was thinking I might skip I ahead a few times and let people pick the best one.

[slysnake]

Sounds good to me, count me in! :D

[Nightbringer]

Count me in as well!

[Myth]

I'm so hoping I get England in the draw, foot archer spam has been reported to work against the Mongols in lead battles.

Or maybe Venice, they are very powerful lategame and have very spammable x-bow troops.

[Myth]

Phonicsmonkey, it seems that in one of the recent versions of SS the Mongols were beefed up by a great margin. IN ss 6.4 they get around 50 (!) stacks. I suggest you fast-forward M2TW vanilla, KGCM and SS 6.4 to compare the relative strength of the Mongols in all three. I don't mind playing against beefed up Mongols mind you, but the victory conditions for them might have to be reworked.

[phonicsmonkey]

Thanks Myth, I'll do something like that when I have a chance and post back here with the results.

In the original WotK game (played in BC1.5) I think the Mongols had some similar amount of stacks which arrived in waves of 5-10 at a time.

Silvershield might be able to be more specific.

[phonicsmonkey]

ok I'm still testing this but so far it seems that:

- in vanilla the AI does not build up the non-Mongol factions sufficiently
- in KGCM the Mongols are in from the start which means the non-Mongol factions are not well developed
- in SS6.4 I can't get it to work at all

So I'm considering playing this game in Lands to Conquer Gold (the mod we're using for V&V). It has better AI than vanilla which means the AI factions are well developed and have decent-sized empires. In the test save I'm working on the non-Mongols seem well balanced.

What do we think of that? If no objections I'll go ahead and post the test starting save for comment and we can debate the rules.

[Nightbringer]

sounds good

[Ashurnasirpal II]

I'd definitely be interested in joining a game like this! This kind of game is exactly what I came here looking for! But vs the Mongols in a player's hands? I hope I can hide in a dark, quiet corner ^_^

[Myth]

Give the SS team some more time to respond to that thread at the .net Stronger Mongols mean a greater challenge, and SS's historical accuracy is very nice.

[slysnake]

What, this is going to be played at the .net? I have some more free time now, so I'd be very happy to play in this one to :)

[phonicsmonkey]

No, this will be an org game.

Myth I don't think it's a SS problem per se, it's just that sometimes in hotseat mode (in general) the campaign script doesn't trigger properly and the mongols don't invade. It's happening in LTC too but it's just that it takes so much less time (40mins) to run the game in that mod vs SS (about ten hours!).

In fact I've only been able to get it to work once in LTC...

I'll try a full reinstall of SS and see if that helps but otherwise I think I'm going to run with what I have (subject to comment when I post the starting save for you guys to look at)

[Myth]

I got my new PC and it has 16 GB of ram and a CoreI7, turn times are near-instant for me. Tell me what I must do to fast-forward in SS and I'll check what happens.

[phonicsmonkey]

First make the mongols (and timurids) playable by pasting them into the relevant section of your descr_strat file

then start a hotseat (autoresolve off, VH/VH) (amend your preferences as per the FAQ thread and pick a password that we'll remember for the admin pw) with all factions human.

Then on the first human turn log into the console (logon [pw]), set all factions to AI except the mongols (control [faction]). The game will either autopilot to the mongol invasion or go straight past it and keep running forever.

You can stop it to check where you are at any point by using the console to set a faction human.

[SilverShield]

i ve never heard of lands to conquer. so i got no idea whether im getting this running. this whole installing and updating and folder name changing and all this is giving me a hard time already. what about starting a late stainless steel campaign. the mongols are there already so we are good without any turn skipping. true u pretty likely are overrunning kwarz and the nomads in the north but u are running out of money fast which soon is giving u an US debt dimension like treasury. so no forts. and without forts ur offensive is slowing down massively unless u was fine with being caught in battles. i mean even with the movement rate of the mongols u still are running the risk of getting a battle forced on u if there is no forts. so u without forts already is balancing thigns. and yea human vs human field battles is what im in favor of. otherwise there really is just a little chance. so im cool with a late stainless steel game. im pretty sure we in the west are capable of building up a first front in turkey and the holy land already. also if one player was having 1 big and 1 small faction things very likely are balanced. east rome and sicily, moors and crusaders, england and southern russia e.g. so there still is backup further away in the west when the kingdom closest to the first line of battle is down. turkey, crusaders, southern russia maybe even east rome and egypt likely are falling in this category. having more factions human ruled is better than having those factions computer ruled and players leaving early in the game already because they were up for facing the enemy the earliest possible as turky or crusaders causing at least some casualties on ur side in an honorable act of pure self scarification in a glorious war of attrition. kinda like Quirl once did with the seljuks

[phonicsmonkey]

LTC installs itself nicely in a seperate folder. No messing around. It's a great mod, we're using it in V&V and it was played a lot a few years back by those who wanted an experience close to the vanilla game but improved. So I don't think you'd have any trouble at all getting it to work.

I did look at the option of the SS6.4 late era campaign but the Mongols don't really have the strength in that starting position to give them much of a chance against everyone else combined. Also they aren't a horde and my concept for this game is based around that. I like the arrival in waves, the decision whether to settle or not etc. I'll look again but I'm not crazy about that idea.

Ideally I could get SS6.4 to work and we'd use that. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the mod and I'll try again overnight tonight. Also maybe Myth will have luck where I have not.

[Myth]

Phonics I'll try this either today or tomorow, I was busy during the weekend with starting a project in AfterEffects, and in general had no option to leave my PC on with me in the room and not use it for work. 10 hours worth of turns sounds... daunting to say the least. But I'll give this a try. Also, some more inspiration:

In 1260, Hulagu (Mongol Khan) sent envoys to Qutuz in Cairo, demanding his surrender:

From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. To Qutuz the Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords. You should think of what happened to other countries and submit to us. You have heard how we have conquered a vast empire and have purified the earth of the disorders that tainted it. We have conquered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses are swift, our arrows sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as the mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand. Fortresses will not detain us, nor arms stop us. Your prayers to God will not avail against us. We are not moved by tears nor touched by lamentations. Only those who beg our protection will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled. Resist and you will suffer the most terrible catastrophes. We will shatter your mosques and reveal the weakness of your God and then will kill your children and your old men together. At present you are the only enemy against whom we have to march.[4]

Qutuz responded, however, by killing the envoys and displaying their heads on Bab Zuweila, one of the gates of Cairo.

[phonicsmonkey]

No one makes threats like a Mongol.

I reinstalled SS6.4 and am planning to give it another whirl overnight tonight. Also I'll run another LTC test and see if I can get an alternative start in that mod. I really like the one I have but the Mongols don't seem that tough in that mod compared to SS...

[Visor]

Then beef em up! :D

[phonicsmonkey]

Yeah I could do that but not in the current save, right? And I can't get it to work again (so far). There's something screwy about hotseat mode and the Mongols. I ran it through four times in SS and five times in LTC and only once have they arrived.

[Myth]

Dang... Well the only other solution is to set the start date in SS to like 20 turns prior to the invasion and let us develop two factions. Since the starting regions in Early are scarcely populated (like, most castles have less than 1000 people total) it will not be the same as letting 125 turns pass, but allowing the players to prepare two factions unmolested for 20 turns should equal the odds somewhat. What do you think?

[phonicsmonkey]

It's another possibility I guess. Will take a bunch of time though and I had hoped for more non-Mongol factions. Let's see if we can get a working SS save. I'll also keep looking at this LTC save to see how strong the Mongols are. It might be ok I just haven't had enough time to test it yet.

[Myth]

Erm there's one more thing we can try - Darth Mod. It's for Vanilla M2TW and it's basically like KGCM. At least that's what they say, I haven't played it. You could give it a try though.

[phonicsmonkey]

Yeah I've played it. It's just a balancing mod for vanilla, not much different than LTC to be honest (don't tell Darth or Lusted I said that!)

I don't think the Mongols are much different than in LTC so I should probably just stick with the save I have unless I can get SS working.

[Myth]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=456595

[phonicsmonkey]

Woohoo! I'll try this again as soon as I can and post back. By the way I have three working saves in LTC now. If I can get three in SS then we can all take a look at all six and vote on which mod and starting position to use.

[phonicsmonkey]

I got this to work in SS. I'm not crazy about the starting position so I'm going to run it again a few more times and post a selection here.