The nomadic tribes of the deserts and steppes north of China, after spending centuries entangled in their own petty turf wars, finally have the hope of unification. Genghis Khan, leader of a tribe that is so small even in the standard of Mongolians, is ready for his conquest of Asia and even the world. Within years, he organized a highly disciplined army of horse archers to challenge the dominance of cultured Persia and Eastern Europe, and the technologically advanced empires in China.
Ghenghis Khan 1: The Crucible
This mission is very straightforward; visit the camps and do what they say. There are large amounts of Kara Khitai in the rightmost corner so avoid them. There are twice as many sheep on the map as are needed to satisfy the blue tribe's request, but to speed the process up, steal them from the Kara Khitai. They keep around 10 sheep walled in along with cavalry archers, approximately 8 castle lengths north and 2 castle lengths east of the blue encampment. If you lure the defenders out properly, you will not even need to fight the KK. Between the cyan and purple camps there is a relic guarded by wolves. This is the easiest way to satisfy the request of the gray tribe. Save the Kill the Tayichi'uds/Naiman mission for last when you have the most troops, then kill the Tayichi'uds as they lack a watch tower.
Ghenghis Khan 2: A Life of Revenge
This mission is a fun one. Begin by killing the cavalry archers of the Taiychuds. You will then gain control of the tribe's buildings and units. There will be an early attack at the wonder, so try not to sustain many casualties. Build up your economy through the use of the herd of deer below your town center. Age up quickly as the attack launched by the Kara Khitai is difficult without walls and troops (assuming hardest difficulty). Getting to feudal quickly can't be stressed enough. Ditch loom if necessary, there are no boars. Move all your men down to the tent and scout out good areas for wall building. There are many cliffs, so use those to your advantage as they are free walls, in a sense. Gather enough stone to build the wall and some towers.
At around 90% research level for feudal, move 3 villagers down so that upon the completion of feudal, you can build the walls. Have the villagers start the wall at different ends for maximum effectiveness. Don't even bother with a gate; you won't have sufficient strength to attack the Kara Khitai for some time. Be sure to maintain stone levels sufficient for making 3 towers. If not, palisade walls will work fine. While the wall is beginning, build an archery range. Upon completion, build 15 archers. When the wall is finished, build 3 towers to back it up and garrison the archers. Note that these steps should all be done simultaneously without gaps if possible. With this defensive arrangement you should be able to sustain the attack. Once you do, the rest of the mission isn't particularly difficult.
Your bread and butter is your light cavalry. It's inexpensive once gold starts to run out, it's fast, it has decent attack for castle age, it has high HP with the Mongol attribute, and it has high LOS. Simply outproduce your opponent by putting 35 villagers on farming and 12 lumberjacks on wood to support the farms. Make 3 stables, set the gather point for 2 at the enemy base while one right next to itself. Once the number of light cavalry at the base is large enough, surge. Repeat this often and you will soon take out their Town Center. Kushluk will run away now if he hasn't already. Break through the wall, send your light cavalry in and kill indiscriminately. Finding and slaying Kushluk isn't hard after this, but he usually hides out at the end of the map, not garrisoned luckily.
LONG
Pause the game as soon as the scenario starts and have a look around. Certain things are important immediately. You have one cavalry scout skirting a Tayichi'ud (henceforth called Yellow) village, and a bunch of cavalry in your "base". Yellow has a very low score, and must be very weak. You have no villagers and no production buildings, but the scenario instructions tell you to conquer Yellow to rectify this. You will be told this again very soon. You have a Wonder, which you must protect at all costs, but it never gets attacked, and in any case, any reasonable course of action by you will make it completely inaccessible to the enemy.
A scenario like this presents a bit of an ethical dilemma. All of your troops are moving automatically at the beginning, but you can force them to move differently. The scout will move to your "base" and deliver the message that you should attack Yellow, but you can do that before the message arrives. It benefits you to do this attack early, but is that proper? The recommendation here is that you cooperate with the scenario design and not attack Yellow until the message arrives.
You have no way of healing any of your cavalry at the start, and it will be a long time before this changes. Therefore, it is imperative to use damage avoidance techniques in combat. At the same time, you need to conquer Yellow as fast as possible. So sweep into the Yellow village like a hurricane, but cautiously! Use Ambush tactics.
You need to kill five cavalry archers. Fighting archers, you cannot avoid damage entirely, but it should be minimal. Then you acquire seven villagers, a Town Center, and a bunch of Houses. Start cranking out more villagers immediately. You will need about fifteen before you produce anything else; keep in mind the fact that villagers are the only units you have in the Dark Age that can both fight and be healed. There are no domesticated food animals in the wilds of Mongolia, so you will be doing a lot of hunting. The downside to hunting is that it takes a certain amount of micromanagement to avoid winding up with a bunch of rotting carcasses. You also need to be collecting a lot of stone in the Dark Age. Wood and gold are not as important, but should not be ignored entirely. After producing the villagers, focus on entering the Feudal Age as soon as possible.
In the meantime, you need to be scouting aggressively. You will actually find a few sheep, but just park them somewhere for later processing. You will find 19 gold mines and six stone mines. The gold is adequate for your needs, but the stone is not. Unfortunately, you will need to do Market manipulations. You will find that half the map is inaccessible. You will find that you can easily enter the Kara Khitai camp.
The Kara Khitai
In the Kara Khitai camp, villagers are merrily collecting resources, unprotected by any obvious means. To kill or not to kill? That is the question. You should know in your bones that attacking these villagers will provoke a massive response, but ultimately, you want those resources for yourself, so you do what comes natural for a Mongol. When the massive response shows up, console yourself with the thought that they were probably going to attack you anyway. Run away to your Town Center and fight there. 10 villagers inside a TC is a formidable force; use your mobile troops only as necessary in this fight. Unfortunately, your cavalry will be seriously battered after just this one fight, and any further raids will have to be put on hold for now.
As soon as you enter the Feudal Age, throw up a stone wall to seal in the Kara Khitai. Commit as many as 10 villagers to this project. Use accelerated wall building techniques. There actually is an optimum wall. It has three gates and costs 220 stone. Build four supporting Towers to cover the entire wall; no more, no less. That costs 500 stone, and leaves you enough for two castles and some repairs. If you crush the Kara Khitai fast enough, you will pick up enough stone for one more castle. You will need those castles, and probably one more, plus a lot of stone walls, plus stone for research. There is a serious stone deficit in this scenario.
In the meantime, build about five more villagers. You will need a lot of every resource type for a long time yet. In the Feudal Age, your only other production should be about 10 archers to defend the wall. These archers can be healed without monks, so try to use them to absorb some damage as well. You must be extremely parsimonious with your stone. Research only the most important items. After that, concentrate on reaching the Castle Age.
When the wall is ready, head back into the Kara Khitai camp and drive their villagers away from your resources. Their troops will probably not be amused, but you are ready for that. Run away when you must, and while their troops are being slaughtered in front of your wall, come back through a different gate and repeat the process.
As soon as you enter the Castle Age, produce a couple of monks. This will revitalize your cavalry, but the most important effect is that you can now maintain a strong military force deep in the Kara Khitai base, with only brief withdrawals for healing. The Kara Khitai have only one Tower, one Town Center, and a bunch of light troops. Pretty soon their gold stockpile is depleted, and then they can only produce the in extremis junk. But they actually only produce Skirmishers, and so, using only the handful of Light Cavalry you started with on the front line, you grind the Kara Khitai into oblivion. When they surrender, all of their remaining units commit suicide, and their production buildings and Tower become rubble.
Explore what remains of the Kara Khitai camp. Take possession of their farms, stone mines, and so forth. Do not destroy their Market! That would be like killing the goose that lays golden eggs. (In practical terms, you will not need that gold, but you don't know that yet.) You will find that the western half of the map is completely sealed off. Actually, it is very easy to pass through the barrier, but your enemies cannot pass it before you do.
Kushluk
You will have known since the beginning of the scenario that Kushluk is hanging out in the middle of the map with a cavalry archer escort. When one of your units approaches, they all run away. Do not pursue them immediately. You need to recognize that Kushluk has been building up, unmolested, since the beginning of the scenario. He certainly has a maximum population and a substantial reserve of resources. You will find out later that he will not run out of gold for a long, long time. As soon as you breach the western Kara Khitai wall, you will be facing a flood of enemy units.
You need to map out a good location for a stone wall in the mountain pass. It will approximately follow the Kara Khitai wall. Replace the wooden wall section by section. But first, put up a castle there so you won't get swamped. You should probably also build up your mobile forces before making the first breach.
There are three main approaches to the rest of the scenario. The first is to put up some stonework in the mountain pass and then defend it until Kushluk runs out of resources. That will give you a quick introduction to the practical meaning of never. The second method is to start spamming units, weighted towards Light Cavalry, and fight a war of attrition. You will eventually win, but your casualties will be horrendous. The third, and recommended, method is to do what the British did to win the Boer War.
Kushluk produces sword infantry, Skirmishers, cavalry archers, Light Cavalry, and light artillery. None of this stuff is effective against stonework, but it is pretty good against the sort of mobile force that you can field. Accordingly, the only reasonable way for you to advance without taking forever or losing a lot of troops is to push your stonework forward. The only problem with this approach is that you don't have enough stone. Therefore, you will need to be building wooden walls and wooden mini-castles in addition to the stonework, because Market manipulations become extremely inefficient at some point. Kushluk also has a lot of static defenses (but no walls), and you don't really have a good way of dealing with those.
The basic approach is to raid and sanitize an area, and then to quickly seal it off with walls and static defenses while Kushluk rebuilds his mobile force and you heal yours. Repeat as necessary. Eventually, you would like to build a castle near Kushluk's Town Center. This will effectively end the scenario, although you still have to kill Kushluk himself. The process is straightforward in principle, but does require a lot of effort on your part. Do not be surprised if you end up killing more than a thousand units.
Ghenghis Khan 3
Start by sending your cavalry east and finding a transport ship. Time is of the essence, so don't bother sending the ship far away to find the optimal landing site as he'll have to make a return trip to get the other soldiers in place too. Just dump them right across the river. In the north there are a few militia that are easily dispatched. Several archers will come in soon, and they are easy prey for your light cavalry. While the fighting is taking place, send the transport ship to the southern part of the island. This will trigger the villagers with their siege weapons to join your side. Quickly get 5 villagers in the transport ship and have the other one start building houses, one at a time. Save here.
Send the ship down the river and have it land about 7 castle lengths to the south of the wall. You need to find a suitable landing point with adequate mines and far enough away from enemies. If this is too difficult, enter the cheat Marco Polo to see the whole map, then load the save so that the land is fogged once again. Once you've landed, send your transport ship back to pick up the others, making sure to bring back the villager. Have the 5 landed villagers build a Town Center near gold or lumber and houses. Make sure when the Town Center is complete there are enough houses to start producing more villagers. Build up your economy as you would in a random map game. Build walls in between patches of forest, but leave one area open. The AI will try to invade this point (given the rest is completely enclosed) so build a castle and station men there.
Now it is time to take care of the wonder. Mongolian ships are above average, so load up on galleons (to counter the demolition ships) and cannon galleons to take out buildings. Once all the towers/castles have been leveled, invade with light cavalry supplemented with pikemen to deal with enemy cavalry. It might also help to transport villagers to build stables and barracks on the island to truly deliver a blow to the yellow tribe. If necessary, transport trebuchets to take out any buildings away from the water. Defeating the other camps is very easy, just create a lot of light cavalry and the game should be all wrapped up.
An alternative to the above is to return everyone to the north-west to build your village where there are some natural defenses and resources. Build an army (keeping a small contingent at the village for protection), and send them south to watch over the gate to the Great Wall and the gate to the north island to avoid any folks sent your way. Make sure to stay far enough away from the guard towers. Once you are able to build trebuchets, build 4 and send them to take care of the Great Wall gate, the north island gate and the guard towers by the gates. Move the trebuchets to the north island and take out the guard towers along the river to allow your ships safe passage.
By now, the wonder on the east island should be completed. Build a few transport ships and galleons for protection. Move your main force (plus a villager) to the east side of the north island, and send your small contingent to guard the destroyed gate in the Great Wall. Transport your main force (including trebuchets) to the north part of the east island. Build two stables, a barracks, and a siege weapons, while the trebuchets take out the gate and some of the guard towers. Now, you are ready to send your force in to destroy the wonder. Once the east island is secure, you have time to take out the mainland one tribe at a time. Lastly, take care of the hornets nest in the south-east. It helps if you build stables and barracks on the mainland inside the Great Wall, where they are closer to the action.
Ghenghis Khan 4
Your mission is to fight Khwarazm. You start with two town centers, some workers and some cavalry archers. Since your bases cannot support each other due to the map design, it's better to focus on one of them and give up the other one as soon as the first heavy attack from Khwarazm comes in. The upper part of the map offers more gold and is easier to defend, so let loose the other one. Focus on mining as much stone as you can, the upper map does not have any.
As the game starts, your first objective is to send in two trade carts to the Shah. Be there when they arrive - you have to kill him. In the meantime you can build up your economy and fight the Merkids. They only have two cavalry archers - you got four of them, as well as two hunting wolfes. As soon as they are slain, the Merkids buildings belong to you, that is two archery ranges, several houses, a mill, a mining camp (4000 gold nearby) and a market. These buildings will be attacked by the Russians soon after, but if your military grows fast enough, this will be the last attack they start. A hard counter strike will stop them for 30 minutes, that is more than enough time to wipe them out completely.
So only Khwarazm is left. Remember they are Persians, which means they farm 33% less food than you. They also like to attack with cavalry archers and paladins, and a lot of war elephants. Their forces cost a lot of food and gold - that is where you have to hit. War elephants cost 200 food and 75 gold and are easy to kill by lousy spearmen. Same for paladins.
Ghenghis Khan 5
A very easy mission. Extinguish three enemies and capture the flags near their castles. Everything is covered by cliffs, you just have to use them for your advantage.
First of all: Don't hurry, take your time. The Bohemians have no villagers and will not expand their (impressive!) army. The Polish lack resources, and the Germans are far away.
The Polish settle at the right corner of the map. They like to tickle you a bit by sending knights and siege equipment, but that's all. As they only have access to 3200 gold, their decay is just a matter of time. And by the way, a relic can be found near your own town center. Combined with miners and trade carts to the Polish market your gold income should be quite high after capturing the first flag.
The Germans are on the lower corner, but they also have a castle and a watchtower at the middle of the map. It may take you some tries, but if both buildings are down, this plateau is the perfect place to be. Use the terrain to fortify your defense. A message will appear saying that the Bohemians are nearby and three castles are needed to withstand. Don't worry, they are triggered by the number of your castles (or being attacked by you), not by time. Finish the Germans off before that. An army of archers is useful against teutonic knights, as they have a huge armor against melee attacks.
After that, research spies (200 gold) to see the Bohemian army. If you think your defenses are strong enough, complete your third castle at let the show begin.
Ghenghis Khan 6
The final task is to destroy Hungary. Another easy scenario!
A partially frozen river divides the map. You aren't allowed to build ships, so the bridge is the only way for Hungary to send soldiers and siege weapons. Guard the bridge by a castle nearby (place it on an elevation), cover it with walls and a gate, and that should do the trick. Have some cavalry ready to fight trebuchets and rams, everything else can be done by the castle. You have to be quick on constructing your defenses because a massive attack will hit you soon after the game starts. Take about 4 villagers for building these defenses, or they will not be ready when the invasion starts.
Later on, Subotai appears and brings some petard reinforcements. Soon after, the bridge will be destroyed, so that no enemy units can come across the river any more. This is the time to go east. A thin path of ice will lead you across the river. Place another castle on the small hill near the gold mines and create a military basis over there. A siege onager will breach the forest, maybe about right the time when Hungary starts building a wonder. Stop them and take them out bit by bit.