How to win Rise of the Mongols on Deity

A quick* and easy** guide to completing Civilization V's 'Rise of the Mongols' scenario on the hardest difficulty.

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*100 turns or less!
**-ish!

Prologue: Opening Moves

The Rise of the Mongols campaign was a hard one for me, because it was so different to my normal way of playing. Letting unhappiness rise? Razing cities? Declaring war after war after war? Madness! But… those sweet, sweet Steam achievements. What choice was there but to master it?

So, Sun-tzu tells us that the superior general first achieves victory and then seeks battle. You’ve got to know what you’re doing or you’ll run out of time. The first things are your science and your culture – yes, even the Mongols need to worry about them. Set your research to Masonry, Construction, Sailing, Optics, Metal Casting, Theology and then Astronomy and Printing Press. This will make sense later, trust me.

Take the Professional Army culture option (the cheaper upgrade one) then upgrade three of your horsemen to Keshiks. Set Karakorum to producing all the Keshiks you can. Start one of your workers to building a pasture for those sheep sitting there and the other one building a road to the south. Everyone else marches west.

“Huh, what? The city-state of Western Xia is to the south! I can see their borders right there on the map! Look!” you’re exclaiming. True, but Western Xia is a militaristic city. To the west is Uighur, a cultured city. Conquer Uighur and you’ll be able to get Military Tradition, accelerating the speed of your unit upgrades and also, since it finishes the Honor tree, giving you free gold for every unit you kill. Not bad, huh?

For culture upgrades after this, go with Liberty (+1 culture per city); Citizenship (the faster worker one, so that next you can get…); Meritocracy (+1 happiness for every city connected – which is why we’ll be building roads); then Piety; and lastly Organised Religion (+1 happiness for every monument and temple; yes, that’s what it gave you back before the expansion packs added in religion)

In case it’s not obvious, the best attacking strategy is to keep your Keshiks three tiles away from the city. Advance, strike, withdraw and wait til next turn. Make sure to fend off the few military units they have – you don’t have time to spare in healing damaged Keshiks. But if the city will fall this turn, focus on that. Keep your horseman close enough to capture in one turn but out of harm’s way.




When Uighur falls, puppet it rather than annexing – building courthouses takes forever and keeping unhappiness low will be your main concern through much of this campaign. Leave the horseman there to fully heal while the Keshiks continue southeast along the Silk Road to Western Xia.

As you rain destruction on Western Xia, the extra exp from Military Tradition will start to pay off. Promote your Keshiks, trying to keep half of them on the path of Barrage (the rough terrain bonus) and the other half on the path of Accuracy (open terrain bonus). Upgrade them to level 3 of whichever path they’re on and then take Logistics (the double-strike option) to accelerate your conquests and your exp. After that, get Range (the extra distance will keep you safe later against Persia’s million pikemen) and then Indirect Fire (to ignore terrain blocking the way - there’s a lot of mountains out there) and finally Siege.

I put Siege last because the random-number-generator aspect of attacks means that sometimes a unit with Siege will only do 1 damage, while a unit without it will do 4 damage. Given the advantages of being able to fire with x-ray vision I personally prefer Indirect Fire, but the choice is yours.

Don’t forget your horseman back in Uighur when it’s time to take Western Xia. This is the original Civ 5, where units can get stuck in cities as garrisons if you don’t keep an eye out. (Also, all boats are ranged and embarked units can’t share tiles with them? What’s up with that? So glad I began with Gods+Kings).

Immediately after capturing the city-state, upgrade the horseman to a Keshik – he’s got enough exp from those two city-captures that you’ll be able to promote him straight away, and you’ve now got two fresh horsemen up near Karakorum to capture cities across the world. Send one or two of your Keshiks across the river to advance south from every angle.

Part 1: China

Your armies have a taste for blood now. It’s time to get serious. The city of Xian awaits just to the south. Declare war on Jin (sometimes China has managed to snatch Xian. Hopefully not; you don’t want to fight them both at the same time for another few turns if possible). Beware the Great Wall – your units will move at half-speed through the Jin territories. Again, the advance, fire, retreat option is the key. You’ll get another Khan around this point; bring him down to the front-lines, you’ll need him soon.




As Xian falls, raze it and sell off any buildings that survived. Except the coliseum. Keep that for last, the extra 1 happiness sometimes makes a difference.

Press east to Kaifeng, sending a couple of your Keshiks and the other Khan along the mountain range just north of Kaifeng to pick off units and begin the route to Beijing (note: keep to the mountains two tiles back from the roads, or you’ll get a nasty spearing. Always beware of roads, especially around Persia).




Your two workers should have leapfrogged their road to Western Xia by now. Finish linking it with the silk road, then one can return to Karakorum (or whatever you please) while the other hangs around to link the roads of north and south China.

As Kaifeng falls, it’s time to split your army in equal halves. Try to keep an even mix of open and rough terrain experts for each wing (and, obviously, one horseman and one Khan for each). The north wing rides to Beijing (by this time the Jin army is so depleted that you don't have to worry about avoiding the roads, the rare exception to the rule), the south wing goes to Xiangyang – yes, it’s time to declare war on China.

After Xiangyang falls, the southern wing continues south to Tanzhou. The trick to avoiding the river is to send your horseman via the forest that’s just outside China’s borders but on the other side of the river (see the image below). Any new Keshiks from Karakorum go south; the northern wing should be fine with what they have. Especially now that you’ll be reaching Logistics and that sweet, sweet double-firing rate.




Beijing is a capital, so it cannot be razed. Which is fine – the Great Wall is worth its weight in gold. Now it is your territory that will slow everyone else down. Not that you’ll have much of it, what with all the razing, but it’s the principle of the thing dammit. The northern wing continues east to the last Jin city, Liaoyang. When it falls, take Engineering as your free tech (see? None of your research goes to waste, it’s safely invested in the sailing route). Bridges at last! Use some of that conquest money to buy a circus and/or coliseum in Karakorum to keep your unhappiness above the dreaded -20. Any longer than one turn at or below -20 and rebels will appear, which can be very messy if they happen to pillage one of your horse pastures.

A Khan and two Keshiks are all you need – one open terrain, one rough – to keep going east to Korea, the other/s can race south. Any workers captured along the way can start extending the road from Beijing east towards Korea.

The southern wing continues east from Tanzhou to the Chinese capital Hangzhou. After that, keep the army unified and press south to Guangzhou. It’s tempting to split up, but wasteful at this point – you’ve only got the one horseman to give the knockout blow anyway, and China will keep pumping out military units to try and slow you down. Best to smash each city completely and quickly before moving to the next.

When Guangzhou falls, it’s time to take the last Chinese holdout, Chengdu back in the northwest. Don’t bother about those other pesky city-states, they’re just there to tempt greedy conquerors into wasting time. Once Chengdu is down to about half-strength you can start sending some of your Keshiks galloping west along the Silk Road to prepare for the next stage.

Part 2: (Most of) Persia and Japan

Korea should have fallen by now, giving you a gift of crossbowmen. Put one of the free crossbowmen into garrison at Karakorum, the other goes to Uighur to guard those horses. No rest for the wicked – the two Far East Keshiks continue south along the Korean peninsula until they can see Dazaifu. With their +1 Range and Indirect Fire, that mountain is no obstacle. Declare war on Japan and start reducing Dazaifu’s defences. Good thing you’ve got Optics by now to embark that horseman waiting in Korea, huh?

Chengdu falls and China is no more. Take Machinery as your free tech. Build an Armory in Karakorum, buy a Keshik and laugh a menacingly Khan-ish laugh as it gets two free promotions (again, try to keep the mix of open- and rough-terrain experts at 50-50 with your newly trained units). You should soon get Metal Casting – buy a workshop in Karakorum when you do to accelerate the production rate and start generating a Great Engineer.

The western army descends on Almaty. Personally I like to try and take it the turn I declare war on it; there’s some cruel delight in promising India and Persia ‘Our apologies, we’ll withdraw immediately’ even though it’s too late, you fools! It just seems like something Genghis would have done. Send those two free horsemen you get from Almaty to the front-lines with Persia.



Cross the river around Samarkand (as in the image above). It’s not strictly necessary, since you should have Indirect Fire for about half of the army to see through those mountains, but it does give a bit more room to maneuver. Again, beware of staying too close to the roads – Persia has a *lot* of frigging pikemen.

Time for war with Persia. Take Samarkand and threaten their capital Urgench but for the love of Genghis DO NOT CAPTURE IT. If you check out Persia's other cities you’ll notice a pattern: bristling mountain fortresses with pikemen everywhere, ugh. So much easier to leave that city on the nice open plains for last.

Fight like crazy against those accursed pikemen marching along the roads and get your army west of Urgench along the mountain range; the city behind those mountains below you is Nishapur. Keep a couple of Keshiks back to deplete Urgench’s defences, along with a horseman nearby to twist his arm by advancing menacingly to the very gates of the Persian capital when you're about to make your demands. They will (hopefully) see reason and surrender all their cities for peace.

You may want to take Nishapur before making your demands. Conquering a city decreases the population by half, making for a quicker razing and less prolonged unhappiness; it also makes you seem more reasonable, only demanding two cities instead of three. Either way, at this point you *will* drop below -20 unhappiness. Nothing to be done. If you’ve used all your horses, Samarkand should be turning out crossbowmen to act as garrisons – having a garrisoned unit in a city decreases unhappiness by 1 and also means you’ve got someone to shoot at the barbarians who’ll be poking around (also, they can proactively go and disband nearby barbarian camps). Sometimes you'll be lucky and the rebels will appear somewhere useless, but be as ready as you can. I like to leave some of those workers garrisoned in cities for quick clean-up work - it's not like city-growth is going to happen in this scenario anyway, so there's no need for farms.

Dazaifu should be pretty weak by now. The AI has an odd preference for attacking your Keshiks over horsemen (again, this isn’t the expansion packs: embarked units aren’t the sitting ducks you’re used to, as you'll find when you try to shoot down embarked Japanese units). Put one of your Keshiks on the mountain in range of Dazaifu's attack while the embarked horseman is 2 tiles away. They’ll attack the Keshik and you get the city. Neat, huh? It may take a few turns for Japan to sue for peace – demand Kamakuro and raze it, then shuttle your two Far East Keshiks and their Khan over to Dazaifu island, soon to be a beautiful wilderness. The horseman can go do garrison duty in Korea, he has 10 turns of peace and quiet and then a few more turns to wait for the final invasion.

Part 3: Everyone Else

Such an unhappy empire. And it’s going to get unhappier. The army gallops west along the roads past those burning Persian cities. The city-state of Abbasids awaits with fresh horses. When you declare war, Georgia just to the north will join the alliance of city-states against you. Ignore them, or swat away any units that get too close. The Abbasids should fall in two turns; set up your armies to keep pushing west against Arabia.

Damascus is right over the river; you may want to wait a turn before taking it to let the last of those Persian cities fade into ashes. At this point the hardest part will be keeping all your Keshiks in range. Put them in the tiles around Abbasids or stretched out along the road back east. Never end a unit's turn on the border with Arabia if you can help it or you will get damaged.

After Damascus take Aleppo, then Crusader States, and then split up to tackle Cairo to the west and Mecca to the south – just follow the roads and watch out for their camel archers.

Time is running out, only 30 or so turns left, but keep your cool. When the treaty with Japan expires, begin the war anew. Send your embarked horseman down to clear away the fog of war and reveal the second open plain tile that’s within firing range of your Keshiks (seriously, there's nothing worse than landing there and discovering a pikeman waiting to smash you next turn). Once the visible plains and mountain on the Japanese mainland are clear, shuttle one Keshik over (the other maintaining covering fire) and then when he’s safe, bring the other over along with the Khan. The two of them are able to shoot through the mountain forests and hit Kyoto directly. Use your Khan to dart forward and reveal the terrain; take out any samurai or archers that look to threaten you.

When you discover Astronomy (or take it from the fall of Arabia), annex Korea and buy a courthouse and a caravel there – plus any other happiness buildings you want. Depending on which wonders Arabia built, you may have the Forbidden Palace or Notre Dame to bring you back up into the positive happiness range – at least until you get back to that city-conquering.




The caravel is there to protect against any pesky triremes trying to sink your horseman. As in the above image, when Kyoto is down to no defences, send the caravel 2 tiles away and the embarked horseman 3 tiles away – thanks to Astronomy, embarked units can now travel 3 tiles. Japan’s days are over.

The Far East Keshiks race across the seas and back up towards Urgench. Use the thousand gold from Japan’s demise to buy some more Keshiks in Karakorum to support them, now that Crusader States and Abbasids have given you more horses (be careful if Aleppo is somehow still burning – those 4 horses won’t be yours for long).

Split the Far Western army after Arabia is defeated – at least 4 fully-promoted Keshiks (plus maybe one of the lower-exp ones too) go northwest to Byzantium, the rest… well, at this point it’s up to you. Byzantium only has two cities; Russia (to the north of Georgia) has three but a strong army to protect them. India has four cities, but once you find the secret pathway in, they’re sitting ducks. (The secret pathway is in the image below; follow the Persian roads south and east, there's a gap by the ocean where you can ride through - just watch for ambushes when crossing that river! Send a Khan over first to reveal who's nearby)


And the last Persian holdout, Urgench, still bristles with pesky pikemen. In the game I played for the screenshots here, luck intervened – foolish Persia declared war and advanced on Almaty, leaving their precious capital undefended from the west just as the other half of the Far West army arrived, making a swift end to things. Otherwise it might be a few turns longer, giving time for the Far East army, along with the new Keshiks from Karakorum, to arrive. You’ll only really need four keshiks (at least two at the super-promoted level) for India; more is always helpful. But don’t forget that the Russian invasion will also need a hand.

You may get a Great Engineer around this point (unless one of your city-states had been generating a Great Merchant instead, dammit). If Notre Dame isn’t taken yet, build it; otherwise the Circus Maximus is also good for countering unhappiness in the closing stages. With Printing Press you can also build theaters in Karakorum and Korea and any other places you've annexed.



It usually comes down to literally the very last turn (or, as in the image above, getting so very, very, very close on the last turn) and yes, sometimes (okay, more than just ‘some’times) you will have to re-load from an autosave to make things turn out just right. But it’s totally worth it – especially if you were crazy-dedicated enough to hold off and only do this one on Deity to watch those five achievements pop up all at once.

[trar]

What I ended up doing was seizing enough of Persia and India's territory to grab their other non-capital cities in a peace deal, and then going back to war to capture those capitals immediately after the peace treaty expires. I did this for Persia first and then India, splitting 4 keshiks with a khan and horseman from my main army to do this - meanwhile my main army in the west destroyed Arabia and Byzantium. Arabia did not ever sue for peace in my game. I allied with Georgia to make sure they wouldn't flank me, which helped with Arabia. After Byzantium was defeated I attacked Russia; they sent troops to Georgia, which left me able to cross into Europe and attack their cities from the south relatively easily.

[trar]

I ended up just dealing with the combat penalty from unhappiness - I couldn't wait around for cities to finish burning down. By that point a lot of my keshiks had enough promotions (and I had enough khans) to make them deadly regardless. I also had a handful of units on garrison/rebel/barbarian duty.

[trar]

This guide and the comments were pretty helpful. If you don't have keshiks with indirect fire to attack Kyoto you can always just buy 3 or 4 frigates to help bombard them into submission. Maybe that's what the Mongols needed to conquer Japan in real life: 18th century frigates with cannons.

[savaty]

I'll allow myself to correct:
-set Karakorum for production
-before going to war for each civ, exchange resources for available gold then go to war immediately
-attack Xia+Xiang while 3 Keshiks go to Beijing. Take Kiafang+Beijing, you will be given Liaolang
-take Xianyang+Chengdu, then rush to Hangzhou, you will be given Tanzhou and Guangzhou
-Take Uighur+Almaty, burn Samarkand, and TAKE URGENCH! Darius gives you 2 cities in exchange for a peace treaty
-Split 4 keshik go south to attack Multan, the others seize Aleppo+Damascus. Sign the peace agreement in exchange for Mecca+Medina
-After taking Multan, sign a peace agreement to get Lahore. Meanwhile, go to Isfahan and send Keshiks to Russia
-Send 6 K. to fight Byzantina
-Burn Daizaifu and sign a peace treaty to get Kamakuro. Annex and buy frigates+swordsmen+trebuchets
-When Thessaloniki falls, split troops for Russia and Cairo, bringing down the Crus. States
-Send ++ Kesh for the siege of Cairo
-Take Kyiv, Vlad and Novgorod

[milwakkee]

Really useful guide, helped me win on my 3rd attempt.
- Buying / building spare units to garrison in each city, warriors or even scouts to get the +1 happiness in each city.
- Burn each city without horses
- Declare war on India / Arab as soon as you finish Persia
- Use your money on alliances with city states, better get them on your side than wasting time conquering them

[lukebaird84]

Tried again, second attempt was 1 turn shy, third attempt the happiness bug was back and I was able to do it in 80 turns. Thank you for the guide.

[lukebaird84]

I attempted this last night, coming up 2 turns shy of victory. However, a bug occurred where the game wasn't giving me extra unhappiness from pops--only cities. Due to this, my happiness was around 100, but it was my first time opening the scenario which definitely cost me time figuring out where everything was...

One thing that went wrong was Russia conquered Urgench, and thus Persia didn't give me their cities. I decided to take out Russia with 4 keshiks and 1 horseman, and continue south with everything else. Turns out, I was too slow.

I'll try again now that I know the map.

[chessprofstephen]

Part 2. Also read the comments not just the guide. There are many pearls of wisdom. :)
Gold is also important so don't forget to sell buildings in razed cities and to pillage the improvements in these cities. It really helps in buying units and improvements. You can also sell your silver to Jin and then declare on him at the beginning of the game.
Personnally I made peace with Japan and Persia. But there are several ways to win I think. That makes it all the more interesting. ;)

[chessprofstephen]

Thanks for this really great guide. I managed to beat the scenario on deity in 80 turns on the second try.
Xian was conquered by China before I could get there. In that case you have to attack Beijing from the north and then Liaoyang (keep it for the horses). Just capture Xian just before Chengdu when you are conquering China.
The key is getting as many Keshiks and Horsemen as quickly as possible from the beginning. Also keep all the cities that have the horse resource (you don't need Antioch at the end). Build Horsemen in Karakorum and promote them!
I was lucky and was able to get Kamakuro from the Japanese. It seemed to help that I had killed a few of their units before they sued for peace. Had other playthroughs where they wouldn't trade it.
Byzantium, Japan and Persia fell one after the other around turn 60. Then Russia and India declared war and it was pretty easy to clean up.

[Great Azatot]

Great guide! Thanks to it I was able to win on my second attempt With a lot of restarts for turn optimizing ofc.
On the first try when I was attacking Darius, Arabia and India simultaneously declared a war on me, so it was endless swarms of enemies and no surrender from any civs. If something similar happens to you, just restart