The Mongols revolve primarily around cavalry armies, particularly Horse Archers. They are an aggressive nation who excel in the hands of players who are able to multitask numerous raids simultaneously. Mongol players don't have a lot of economic bonuses to rely on, so they must concentrate on utilizing raiding to slow their opponents down.

One particularly brutal strategy the Mongols utilize is a rush directly through the Library techs to Classical Age and Military II. At that point, they lay down as many Stables as possible (usually 2 or 3) and use the resulting units to raid your opponent's citizens. You will also have to continue to improve your economy in the background. Remember, the trick to making any raiding effective is that you have to do more damage to your opponent's economy than it costs you to field that raiding party. If you spend your early resources setting up a brutal raid, that raid has to at least allow you to catch up in resource production or it won't have been worth it.

Receive 1 free horse archer when you build a Stables, 3 after Military II is researched.

Why is it important?

This power provides a very large source of raiding units. It's best used early, when the raiding units are much harder to counter.

How do I maximize this nation power?

• Early raiding: Use a similar strategy to the one listed above to get some early raiding done on your opponent.
  
  
• Horse Archers and Knights: As an alternative to a very early raid, you can use a strategy where you create 2 stables in Classical Age and begin to create large amounts of Cataphracts while keeping your horse archers garrisoned. Eventually you'll reach Medieval Age and upgrade this army. At that point, also construct 2-3 additional stables for many more horse archers (you didn't want them beforehand since it would raise the ramping cost of your Cataphracts). Use the resulting army to wreak havoc on your opponent's economy, using Knights to annihilate any Light Cavalry that tries to kill your Horse Archers and using the Horse Archers to kill pikemen. Don't stay too near buildings that shoot, as they will gradually wear down your army. Instead, continually keep your opponent's citizens either dying or garrisoned inside a city - all the while increasing your own economy above theirs in the background.

Mounted units created 10% cheaper and 20% faster


Why is it important?

This allows Mongol players to field larger cavalry-based armies. The bonus itself is fairly small, but considering Mongol players are already receiving plenty of free cavalry units anyway it's still quite useful.

How do I maximize this nation power?

• Avoid losing resources to unnecessary ramping cost: The more cavalry units you have, the more each new cavalry unit will cost. With this in mind, be sure that you don't rack up too many free horse archers while constructing new cavalry units. If you plan on taking advantage of your free stables units, do it after you've already trained a sizable cavalry army. You'll save resources and end up with a larger army.
  
  
• Use cavalry units: Make good use of this bonus and it will save you a lot of resources over the course of the game. You can and should still use infantry, but cavalry is the strongpoint of the Mongol military and you shouldn't neglect it.

Receive +1 Food for each 1% of the world you control (times half the number of players in the game)

Why is it important?

This bonus provides a great income of food through most of the game, especially in team games. As the only economic bonus of a very military-heavy nation, it's not going to win the war for you but it's another reason to keep increasing your territory.

How do I maximize this nation power?

• Use Mongols in team games: In team games with many players, this bonus will become much more noticeable and keep your food income easily maxed at the commerce limit with only a minimal amount of farms.
  
  
• Control slightly more territory than normal: As with some of the other weaker economic bonuses, this bonus alone shouldn't make you want to increase your territory. However, it gives more incentive to keep your territory slightly larger than normal - researching civic techs a little earlier and constructing new cities and forts slightly earlier than normal to take advantage of some extra food income.

Attrition damage to your units is reduced by 50%

Why is it important?

As a raiding nation, you'll spend long periods of time in enemy borders. This means you'll be subject to attrition for extended periods of time. Luckily, Mongols only take 50% of normal attrition damage. This means they can survive much longer in enemy territory.

How do I maximize this nation power?

• Raid, raid, raid: This nation power allows you to raid without worrying about attrition (unless you're facing extreme amounts of it, such as a Russian player two ages ahead with Colosseum). With the knowledge that your units suffer far less attrition that other nations, you should feel quite at home in your opponent's soil, generally wreaking havoc upon his poor economy.

Receive Forage/Supply/Logistics research for free.


Why is it important?

The first tech allows your units to take no attrition damage while not moving in enemy territory. Each of the techs improves the radius and hitpoints of your supply wagons and further reduces attrition (yes, in addition to your units already being quite resilient to attrition damage).

How do I maximize this nation power?

• Utilize Forage if necessary: It's easy to forget that with Forage researched your units take zero attrition damage while stopped and not attacking in enemy territory, but it's a handy bonus in some circumstances.

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