The Mongol Empire is fun. You eventually reach critical Mongol where with a million marching Mongols, only the extent of your maps and the ability of your commanders becomes the greatest obstacle in your way.
Blue = Everyone else's Fortresses
Green = Mongol Fortresses
Darker = more fortification, darkest green = Mongol capital
Unfortunately towards the end of the great conquest, the great armies of the Khans began to slow their progress. Time had to be made to construct new fleets in the Mediterranean and the Baltics, and to make matters worse the density of Fortresses greatly amassed the closer the horde approached the Holy Roman Empire, some unknown and unchartered foreign Empire. With momentum decreased the horde could no longer annex the Germans without risking overextension, which given the size of the Empire was much too much to risk - much easier to diplomatically annex and chip away at the ailing Empire, at least until the Empire was consolidated and the silk roads united. With horde unity decreasing the great Khan decided to reform the Empire and do away with the old hordes and settle down across the land - ordering the construction of a great swathe of Fortresses across the conquered lands to ensure the lands of the West could pose absolutely no threat all across the entire Empire's restructuring. It would only take a few decades for the Mongols to develop cannons and reduce the Holy Roman Empire to dust - the Empire's days were numbered unless the French could come to their aid fast.
I'm thinking a second Knights hardcore run, but this time vs the Mongol Empire, based in Malta, not Rhodes - using the ET mod, not ironman vanilla. I'm not sure if the Mongolian Empire can physically be defeated in any meaningful sense of the term, but repelling them and pushing them into Asia should be within the realm of possibility, with perhaps the additional goal of cutting them off from Africa.
Ryukyu could also do, but they'd spend the game doing not much in particular. Interestingly when the Mongols smashed Andalusia, Portugal entered into a personal union with Spain - if the Iberians can stop the Mongols diplo-annexing Granada, all of Iberia could belong to one crown. I wonder if the French and Germans can hold off the Mongol Empire long enough for the Iberians and Britons to form colonial Empires capable of attaining victory? Will the Timbuktu Empire of West Africa potentially be the dark horse three hundred years later?
It goes without saying that it will not be an easy task, least of all because before saving I cheated to give the Empire an admin tech 260 years ahead of its time in order to give the Empire much-needed stability to not implode, so even the AI will have a hard time making the Empire collapse - with over 1,500,000 cavalry at its disposal, and a few tens of thousands of infantry. The Empire is Nestorian and reformed to a monarchy, and has both humanitarian and religious ideas so it'll only grow more stable as time goes on. The only issue I think the Empire will ever have is that there are so many provinces manually assigning estates is near impossible, which should be no issue for the AI :
D
Norwegian exodus or big blue blob also seem appealing, but I'm not sure if I have the time for that, whilst operating clandestine pirate armadas is just as rewarding - I especially like unraveling giants by making them fall through a pin.
Religions. I'll cheat the Mongols into gaining expansion ideas before switching to the Knights (I think given their aggressive expansion they've def. earned it). Hopefully everyone else will develop exploration ideas before everything becomes Mongols
First Knights mission:
Thus begins Mongolia Universalis
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Topic: Europa Universalis IV (Read 467838 times)