The Mongolian Horde

When I play civilization I usually am quite peaceful and also a perfectionist, I don't conquer a lot and I love to build a strong economy. Once I played a game on a randomly created map and I played as a militaristic, aggressive, expansionist, who only builds a barrack and a temple in his city and with one goal: CONQUER THE WORLD or destroy it. I never have finished the game I stopped somewhere in the middle, when I realized that I couldn't accomplish my goal.
But I loved every minute of it: the strong army I had, the fear some other countries had for me and the fact I didn't had to worry about building a strong a economy, and so on. Why was I not able to complete my goal? Well because my country was quite isolated and it took to long before I could start conquering, also my country was bad organized. So I started another game at emperor level, large (real earth) world map, as the Mongols.

In the beginning, I build several cities in the steps of Mongolia, I built a good road network so armies could move fast. Several horsemen were exploring to world and soon I met the Romans (who had a city, Pomeii, in Siberia), the Japanese (with a colony or two in China) and the Persians. The first thing I did was demanding tributes.
Meanwhile I expanded my army and constructed barracks in my cities. I continued my aggressive behaviour against other nations. Then around the year one it happened, my first war, against the Persians. My large and mobile army rushed towards the Persian cities in Central Asia, sweeping away all resistance. I destroyed two cities and I conquered Persepolis, their capital.

After that I met the Egyptians with 2 cities in Mesopotamia and one city in the Kaukasus, I attacked them immediately. I still had a large army over there, I destroyed one of their Mesopotamian cities and conquered another. Then I moved to Memphis in Egypt and conquered it though my losses were quite heavy. I took a break to strengthen my army and afterwards I captured their last city in the Kaukasus.
During that war I noticed that the Romans had build two new cities in Siberia, which disturbed me, Because it was near the heart of my empire. I wouldn't take long before a war broke out the Mongolian and the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire stretched out from Italy, Ukrain all the way to Siberia. They were the strongest and most advanced civilization with many large, rich cities.

The Mongol Empire existed out of Mongolia and surrounding and the Middle East. It was the opposite of the Roman Empire: my cities were small (my largest city was Memphis with a population of seven, they had at least five cities larger than that) and I wasn't very advanced. But I did had a large, modern, veteran army and my monarchy government allowed me a lot of freedom. Thanks to the many tributes I received and low costs, I had a large treasury. Still I was afraid of the Romans. About 500 AC I bribed Pompeii and the war started. My Elephants and Legions surprisingly easily captured their other cities in Siberia and after that we signed a cease-fire.
In that time the Japanese refused to pay their tribute and a war between us broke out. As I expected they had build more colonies in Asia: two in China and two in the north, in East Russia. In that time somewhere around 1000 AC I discovered chivalry and my new knights swallowed East Russia and were turning towards China when a new war between me and the Roman Empire broke out. I left China knowing that they wouldn't be a treat to me and I moved west were a long and hard battle awaited me. Meanwhile I discovered another empire in the West, the English. Their civilization was at least as advanced and as powerful as the Romans. Their empire existed out of England, Spain, West and Central Europe and north Russia. And even worse they were allied with Rome and I had to fight them as well. A huge battle between the civilized West and the uncivilized East began...

My first unorganized attacks on the Roman city Cumae near the Caspian Sea failed, but I began to notice how old their armies were, they attacked me with chariots and they had pikemen, while I was researching monotheism and had knights. Encouraged by this I quickly began a new better-organized attack, not on Cumae but on a city in the north Pisae. I overrun their defenses and then turned towards Cumae, which I also conquered. Now I almost conquered half of the Roman Empire, then I turned my eyes towards their largest and richest city Antium in Ukrain, If I was able to conquer that city the Roman Empire would be knocked out.

During that time I discovered a new country in Africa, the Aztecs, which I left alone, there was time enough to conquer it. With my new crusaders I conquered the Japanese cities in China and a city of theirs in India. Around the 1400's I attacked Antium with a massive crusaders and knights army and though my losses were heavy I captured it.
By this time my empire was truly the most powerful of all, it consisted out of South East Asia, Mongolia, the eastern part of Russia, Ukrain and the Middle East. I had gunpowder and was researching dragoons. BUT, the world wasn't mine yet: the Roman and the English military science were closing fast on me and the English Empire was becoming stronger and I knew that beating them would become hard.

I started a new offense around the 1500's against the Romans to conquer their last cities: Veii, Leipzig (which they had conquered from an old German empire) and last but not least ROME !!! Conquering Veii was quite easy but Leipzig in the Balkan was harder, because of the rough area the city lies in. By this time I had dragoons and cannons, they had musketeers, crusaders and ironclads.
I surrounded Leipzig from the north and the east and conquered it, although Roman ships attacked me several times. After a built ironclads myself with conquered technology that treaty was also over. Only Rome was left but it would be hard to conquer because it had at least veteran twenty dragoons and several cannons.
While I was preparing the attack on Rome I moved a part of my army to a fortress in the Alps for a invasion of France & Spain and another part towards the English part of Russia. Rome fall easily and my last Great War began, against the English. The English cities fall one by one, while my fleet destroyed the English fleet. Each time I captured on of their cities I received technology, which made sure I would fall behind on that point.

In Asia I prepared the invasion of Japan and in Africa I conquered the Aztec city, their only one. At the beginning of the 1800's the mighty English empire only had two cities left in Europe (out of ten!) and Japan was mine, but they still had colonies in America. The English and I had riflemen by now but I had Cavalry. The two English cities were quite hard to conquer but I managed it. After that I moved my units into transports to England and America. The English invasion army easily captured the unwalled cities of London and Nottingham in Scotland, I only had to conquer their capital York. The American Invasion force a eight Veteran Cavalry units was DEFEATED by Japanese musketeers. I send two new transporter filled with Cavalry towards America from the west and one from the east and they had more success, the remains of the Japanese empire were wiped.

Still the game wasn't over yet as there was a small French civilization in South America and a Chinese one in Australia. The French were conquered in a turn, but the Chinese were tougher. Although they never made any contact with any other civilization (they even didn't had any harbors) they had musketeers behind large walled cities. I send several transports to them and after a massive attack on the last large free city, Beijing, the world was mine. In the year 1886 my empire had a population of 24.620.000 people, a land area of 2.919.000 sq. miles and a treasury of 17.883 Gold.

You can reach me at geene.raes@village.uunet.be .