Soph's AoE Chronicles: Genghis Khan 3 Into China
Difficulty: Hard
Attempts: 2
The great invasion force to subdue all of China in this scenario consists of six cavalry archers and four light cav. Genghis has a lot of faith in us, sending ten soldiers against millions. At least we get a lot of resources! We spread out our units to scout the immediate terrain. Lots of delicious stone, gold, berries and wolves can be found in the Mongolian countryside. To the south of us towers the giant wall of China, with multiple rows of fortified walls and keeps interspersed throughout, it forces us to the far east. Here we find a transport ship in the river and a camp of Engineers on the other side. Killing their few defending soldiers nets us some villagers, an onager and a ram. The siege is used to destroy the few buildings these engineers had scattered around.
Apart from the Engineers, there are four stronger Chinese factions to take care of in this scenario. The Hsi Hsia (Green) own the great wall and also have a fine looking city on top of cliffs in the middle of the map. The Tanguts(Red) are to the northwest of the Hsi Hsia, with Song(Cyan) starting to the southwest of the Tanguts. Last but not least there is the Jin(Yellow), residing in the far east off the map on an island all for themselves. The Jin have a lot of resources and will start building a wonder if we're not fast enough. This reminded me to check the achievements, and well, there is actually an achievement for destroying the Jin before they start building their wonder. Marvelous!
I pondered a bit, but decided to keep going, even if we lost some precious time. Everyone on board the transport ship, we land to the North of these Jin! I made a quick lumber camp and decided to build the Town Center in the far east near some food and wood. We went back and forth until the whole army got shipped over. A nice dock in the north nets us a safe pond to fish in, but beware, there are towers everywhere to the south and west. Our beautiful ram starts pressuring the gates and walls of the Jin city, which is reinforced with double towers behind them every few meters. Repairing the ram, we are able to get in and take care of one of these sets of towers. This is going way too well, the Jin thought so as well and finally send in their knights to mop up our whole army. We go Imperial age and I try to castledrop. The castle went up, but so did the start of the constructions of the Jin wonder. The achievement is lost when the Jin start building.
Attempt 2
No scouting around, time to rush the engineers. When we get the reinforcements, we load up four vills and a ram in the transport and ferry them first. The four villagers go to the same food north of Jin and build the town center, while the ram starts besieging the Jin straight away. How about them apples hmm? The next two ferried villagers build a lumber camp near the shore, and a dock as well in the safe northern water. My tactics actually don't change all that much, we're just faster this time around. The ram manages to break through the wall just south of the Town Center and crushes the two towers there, opening up a goldmine for us. We castledrop to defend this goldmine, but also cover a widely used Jin woodline as well. The Jin manage to crush our siege and army with their knights but our castle fights on. We build some mangudai to raid Jin resource nodes while going up to Imp, a few trebuchets and mangudai later and the Jin are no more.
Glory and Honour! We get the achievement! Or well, we actually do not. This was pre-patch, and the achievement appeared to be bugged out somehow. Let's put the wrath of our Tengri Sky gods upon the other Chinese factions for denying us the achievement. The Jin island has so many resources, we almost drown in them. Most of the water is ours, since noone but the Jin actually make a navy. There is a huge contingent of units in the former Engineers lands, consisting of the Song, Hsi Hsia and Tanguts. So let's surprise them from the south instead. We ferry a bunch of villagers and start building five castles to the south of the Hsi Hsia cliffs. (Yeah the Jin have way too many resources!)
Our navy annoys the Song on the river a bit while we push a combined army of 12 trebuchets and 40 mangudai up north through the Hsi Hsia's main fortress destroying everything in their wake. We head farther north and attack the great wall of China from the south, bet they never expected that! Circling to the west we find another engineer encampment with bombard cannons lying around for the taking! With these reinforcements we rush south crushing the Tanguts, who have a cute moat around their base. Song isn't all that strong, so we mop them up as well and finish the scenario.
