******************************************************************************* Genghis Khan II - Clan of the Gray Wolf MS-DOS; SEGA Genesis & SEGA CD, SuperNES/SuperNintendo/SuperFamiCom Walk-through ver 1.4 (2014) by Orion79/Mattia Loy e-mail address: orpheananger@hotmail.com Guide Versions: 1.0 - first edition 1.1, 1.2: better text format, fixed grammar errors. 1.4; more strategies and hints. Index: A.S. - General Notes about Genghis Khan II - the clan of the gray wolf 1 - General advices that complete game manual: 0) General settings 1) Characters’ values: what they really do. 2) Improving a nation 3) Merchants - differences among the four kinds. 4) Policy - what generals do and effects of “entrust”. 5) Generals - how to hire, how to use them. 6) Military units: descriptions and general hints. 7) Creating a good army. 8) Training and weapons. 9) Conquering another State 10) Battles 11) Generating sons and daughters. 2 - Scenarios: starting hints and description of all rulers. 1) Mongol Conquest 2) Genghis Khan 3) Yuan Dynasty 4) World Conquest 3 - Cheats 4 - Emulators and Mods *** General notes *** AS: English is not my mother language so I apologize in advance for any mistake. Still, I'm sure that this guide may be a great help to better play and understand such a lovely game. Genghis Khan II is one of the few very good strategy games ever made for SEGA MegaDrive/Genesis or Super NES/Nintendo/FamiCom, often underestimated without any good reason. It is a very old game, but I recommend it to whoever loves strategy games, because it has some very original concept that rarely have been developed again in modern games, and it is still very entertaining and challenging, often much more than many "apps" for modern smartphones. I claim so because there are several emulators that allow to play great classics from SEGA or Nintendo on owr tablets or smartphones, usually with the benefits of many more save slots. Sega MD/Genesis version has a pretty different graphic interface than the other versions: the most obvious details is that units are “superdeformed”, but the contents and game mechanics are exactly like the Nintendo version, that is equal to the PC (x86/Dos) version. Since it is one of my most favourite games ever, together with Civilization, I wrote this guide since the original manual is not exhaustive and I want to help players to better understand some mechanics of this great game, that is based on few, easy concepts that may still lead to deep strategy choices. *** NOTE: HOW TO GET THE GAME *** Since this game is pretty old, it is possible to find this PC game as abandonware on many websites that offer that kind of service for free. Don't ask me to send you a copy of this game but, if you really can't get the old PC version, or your Operating System does not support the game any more, check for a Super Nintendo/NES/FamiCom emulator and "GenghisKhanII" ROM to play with, since, as I already wrote, it is equal to the PC version, except for the fact that it allows only two players per time. Even if I've always been a SEGA fan, I must admit that fights among UNITS (not legions) in SEGA version are tedious and terribly slow so that, if you just want to enjoy the game, SuperNES version is better under this point of view. There is a SEGA-CD version of this game too, with a highly better sound, new videos and the same Genesis graphic, but is in Japanese language only. As extra bonus, it contains a Japan unification scenario. *** Note about Genghis Khan IV *** If you are wondering, after Genghis Khan II Koei made Genghis Khan IV, but it has never been translated in English language from Japanese, so it is just impossible to play due to language limits. Its mechanics are very close to Genghis Khan II Kotgw, but the game has been overall improved and the player may have a direct control on every conquered State. If you can provide useful information about this game, please mail me at the email address in this guide, thanks. ******************************General advices******************************** 0) General settings A very important aspect to enjoy this game is to choose the right settings. In SEGA version, don't forget to press "START" and set messages speed to "FAST" while in each version, while selecting the character to play with, set: - "view wars": yes - "view battles among units": no. In this way, the game has a much greater flavor, since the AI will be able to flee and save units when invaded by much stronger foes, still preventing the amazing slow view of fights among single units. Disabling "view wars" is very useful when you want to capture an enemy governor that else would flee immediately when invaded, or to order to one of your generals or governors to attack. Even if he may still succeed, keeping the "view wars" On usually leads to a slaughter of units and legions too easily falling in ambuscades, that you may want when such units are NOT yours. In PC version, you may also choose for a more aggressive or intellectual game. 1) Characters’ values: what they really do. # Political Ability (Polit.): it affects the number of body points (BP) you consume to perform any action. The higher, the less you spend for each action. For generals, it represent how smart they are and how and how efficiently they will execute your commands. “C" is average, but even a strong general with fierce warrior skills but a low political ability score can be effective as governor if supported by a good advisor. Usually, characters with "E" score tend to perform very dumb actions and to often run out of money, causing constant extra-taxes that upset the local population and a constant risk of loosing units due to unpaid salaries. A general with a good Political Ability value, when assigned as a ruler, will make better choices, while an advisor will give you better advices but even an advisor with an “A” score won’t be flawless and will occasionally give you wrong hints. # War: it represent a general's ability to quickly train troops and to deal damage when he leads a military unit in battle. I suggest to always lead units whenever you fight with your own legion, if you have a C or more. if you do so, the selected unit will have the upper hand when fighting units of the same kind, and even against the ones that are a bit stronger.(e,g. A Knight led by a general/king with a good War score may win a 1 vs. 1 fight against mamelukes, which are just stronger). Also, greater is the value and less the character will be injured and eventually killed in battle, despite of his body points. Having generals with high War scores helps in calculating the exit of battles when the battle view is off, but usually generals controlled by AI never lead unit themselves, except when only 1 unit is left within a legion or if you lead all battles by Yourself (which is extremely tedious). # Leadership: it influences the number of commands that your King can give to legions during each battle, how quickly your units will recover from an ambush and, overall, how generals can move units and legions. Also, Leadership increases the speed of legions and units during battle, up to a maximum of 15. B score gives +1 movement point per round, A +2, D -1, E-2. Characters with A or B scores may give more than one order per turn, while characters with a D or E will always have one order for each turn, but they'll take a penalty when cumulating unspent points from previous turns. So, an “A” means +2, a “B” means +1, “D” -1 and “E” -2. As for “war” ability, it is hard to notice any difference when observing battles, but having an higher leadership score is very useful to any human player both in managing legions, both when directly using units. All units take advantage from this, because more movement points will mean more attacks, and this is especially true for ranged units, since they can weaken even more enemy units before getting engaged in melee, increasing their advantage. # Charisma: this is useful for many matters. Higher the charisma, less rebellions you will suffer in your nation if you have poor and rioting people, and generals will be less incline to proclaim independence from your empire. Even more, it will help in battle when negotiating with other rulers or generals. Remember that the AI is very dumb, and you'll have to ask a question several times before obtaining the wanted result, even when you have the numbers on your side. In fact, there is a component of randomness and sometimes it is better to constantly save and reload, saving precious turns. A general with high charisma will lightly increase soldier's morale, will be more effective as messenger, will be more resistant against threats and will be more reluctant to betray you, but even generals with high charisma may declare independence if you appoint them as governor of a nation with a very big army. 2) Improving a nation. #Land resources - Almost all the politics in the game are crappy. A nation can't survive on its own with less than 30% in “buildings”. It represent not only the power of your defenses, but mainly the power of your economy. I usually set it to 40%, 50% for some very important nations like my starting nation. The rest is up to you. Farming gives you more food than herding, but farming is related to the change of seasons, while herding is not. You should balance those resources relating to the kind of region and its climate, as you can easily image: arid or very cold lands can't rely on farming to feed the local army and population, but will be forced to rely on herding. Also, farming is susceptible to abundant harvests or disasters, while herding is not. Remember that all the nations will have higher values if they have a large population. Nations like Dzungaria are weak both because of hard-coded settings, both because they have a very low starting population (2000). Recruiting units, instead than hiring mercenaries, will lower the local population and so it will negatively affect its economy. As consequence, you may highly increase a nation's power dismissing low-cost mercenaries to increase its population, and by keeping the loyalty of your people at 100%. If it is lower than 100%, the gold from taxes and the food from farming that the nation will give you will be reduced as well. #Specialities - All nations produces specialities. Some are not very valuable, like fur, some other may really make you rich. Regardless of this, it is always a good deal to keep at least 5% of laborers assigned to specialities production. Furs, for example, have the same value of Food, but they are stored together with other specialities and you can sell them regardless of where they are produced. More, when you have more than one kind of merchant in your land, you can buy one kind of speciality from the cheapest one and immediately sell it to another one, that can buy it at an higher price. A sample is buying silk or spices from Chineses and selling it to Venetians: you can double your gold in a turn, but be sure to have enough body points left for trading. Specialities also have a different impact on population when offered as a gift: medicines help to counter the effects of plagues and it is possible that furs do the same with very cold winters. I did some test and they look more effective in rising population happiness, even if I have no certainties about. Still, it is my opinion that specialities are a harm for the economy of a conquered State, since I guess that all of them go to the player' and none are left for that state to be sold. It looks like that your governors can only sell food and take gold from population (making them angry) but not specialties. And even if, relying on merchants to have gold is a very risky strategy especially in the 1st scenario. You may also want to set special politics (see below) for regions that are far away from your empire borders, allocating 0% of workers in buildings/economy, 50% divided in farming and herding accordingly to the local climate and the remaining to specialties. In this way, the nation will occasionally gain gold by selling exceding food, useful to keep the population happy in case of disasters, will actively contribute to your economy and will be very easy to re-capture in case that its governor should betray you. 3) Merchants They come from four different areas: Europe, North Africa, Central Asia and China. Each of them has a different trading price for each speciality, so that each of them will buy/sell a specific speciality to a unique rate. This trading "rate" influences only specialities and weapons, but not units or food. Chinese are usually the cheapest, followed by Islamic; Uighurs and Venetians, instead, are usually the most expensive. Each type of them will sell mercenaries from their own region and will carry mercenaries from your starting nation. Regardless of their homeland, each merchant will always allow you to hire mercenaries from your own homeland: samurai if you play with Japan, Mongols if you play with Mongolia and so on... sadly, no elephants if you play with Delhi sultanate, which instead has Arabian units. The advantage of hiring mercenaries is that they are more trained and equipped with more weapons than the units that you may hire from your local population and it won't reduce the local population as Drafting would do, also decreasing local population's happiness. 4) Policy You need to have an advisor in each nation to have your politics fully executed. An advisor with at least “C” in politics is recommended, even if any will do (yes, if you are in short of generals, a lame guy with “E” in all stats is better than having none). When you declare a new policy for a region, set it as you want, but remember that the governor (or your advisor) will take one entire turn to change the allocation of laborers. It is also possible to set a foreign policy style: I usually choose "threatening" since your rulers will keep threatening adjacent regions or states for moneys and, sometimes, such nations will even surrender to you! Even more, governors with an active policy will exactly follow it, accordingly to your instructions. When setting politics, the the second group of options, the one right after the distribution of laborers, is very important: it allows to focus on population happiness, military or economy, or a balance among those goals. If military or "balance" are NOT selected, the local rule will never hire any military unit, but will eventually train them or buy them weapons. I use this option for those provinces that don't share any border with the enemy or that are NOT ruled by a trusted man (even better an heir or family member), or if that nation has a very low and unhappy population, since it will have the time to restore its economy and welfare if it has no units to support. Overall, keeping nations with no units at all allows you to quickly move your "royal" army and yourself through your empire without being entangled by low-quality and untrained units hired by your rules, that else would entangle you; and also discourages rules from declaring independence from you. The 3rd block of options allows you to set the investments for that nation: occasionally, the advisor will invest money to enhance farming, trading and/or defenses. It makes sense only if you allocated a considerable number of laborers into the same activity. The 4th blocks is about that province's relationships with neighbours. A thing that I really is when the rulers of my conquered Nations will invade adjacent countries, often loosing a lot of units in the attempt and occasionally even loosing the war. In many cases, the generals assigned as governors of your provinces will leave your borders exposed to counter-attacks and, in some cases, they may also die in battle. The best way to prevent all this is to set that policy choosing any option among "threat, coexist or submit", so its ruler will never invade another nation. I have no clue about any difference among "coexist" and "submit" options. You can also entrust a governor/ruler or your advisor, nullifying the set politics, but it is not a very bright idea, since the AI is not very smart. 5) Generals. You can find good ones if you seek for them in your own nation. Italy has Marco Polo, England has Robin Hood and so on... Only the Mongol conquest Scenario makes an exception, since there is usually more than one good general per region. Usually, it is possible to find a region’s default general while invading it for the first time or just by searching for new generals to hire. You will recognize them because their stats are obviously better than the chunk of “E” owned by common people: if you keep searching, you may occasionally find more guys with decent stats in one single field (e.g. all “E” but one “A” in only one ability, as Policy or War), but usually the effort is not worthy of. Instead, it will be much easier to get better generals by re-conquering lost regions, or by defeating enemy legions, or when an old general assigned as advisor or governor dies. If you are in short of generals, a good way to obtain new ones is to create fake invasions, splitting your army in 5 legions each with just one single unit: attack one of the adjacent enemies and do not carry food or gold. Once the battle begins, retreat immediately: you will have new generals randomly recruited and hopefully some of them may have more than average stats. Another way is to assign a crappy general that you have to a defenseless nation, wait until the AI attacks it, then invade it again. You may be lucky and find a very good new randomly-generated general in that same land. You can't really trust any general. There is always a chance that one of them may betray you once you assign them as governors or advisors, especially the ones that have been kings or members of enemy royal families. The only way to be sure of their loyalty is to arrange a marriage with one of your daughters. In fact, even if you choose one of such characters as an advisor for any of your countries, that character will still "suggest" the actual governor to declare independence from your empire. Of course, you can still use such generals as your personal advisors, or as your relatives' advisors, or as generals for battles, if they are worthy of! Still, such characters will tend to disobey orders that you may give, forcing you to reload the game several times - which is very annoying once you have just won a battle or got a new children from your queen. 6) Military units What follow is the true description of single abilities: # Movement: it both indicates the speed of your units on the map and their movement points on the battlefield, when fighting. More movement points weans more actions to perform each turn, and the ability to shoot more arrows in a round. Fast, ranged units are usually the strongest since they can weaken the enemy units so much before entering melee, that will they have the upper hand during the whole battle. It is affected by a general's Leadership value. # Morale: it has a very poor practical effect, but it should be related to the ability of units to resist and recover from confusion, which is caused from ambuscades, opponent’s charges or uneven fights (severely damaged units will go on disarray very easily when fighting healthy ones) # Attack: the ability to deal hand-to-hand damage. # Charge: it is a double-attack, which costs less than standard attacks. When the charge is used, there is a random chance (calculated upon several variables) that none, one or both units will go on disarray. A unit with a good charge value that completes a successful charge can deal much more damage with it than with a standard attack, especially if the other unit has a weak defense scored and/or is on disarray. An unit on disarray usually can’t recover by itself and are much more vulnerable to any kind of attack. # Arrows & distance attacks: as the name suggests. The main difference with Attack is that ammos have a greater range and that only the units that receive the ranged attack suffer a damage, while in melee both units lose at least few soldiers. # Defense: it is the ability to endure any kind of attack and to resist charges without going on disarray. Greater is the value, less soldiers will be lost from each received attack. It is cumulative with the “Attack” ability, even if this one is more important. In fact, Knights lose vs. Heavy Infantry or Pikemen (if both use only standard “Attack” rather than “Charge”) and longbowen lose to crossbowen. About single units, there are few things worth mentioning: #Mounted units. Mongols are just the strongest ever, since they are the fastest and the more balanced, followed by Samurai and Arabian Mounted Archers. Mamelukes are very good too and represent a perfect complement for M.Archers, which can severely weaken enemy units with arrows but are not very good at melee. Knights are the second most expensive unit in the game and are much stronger if not used directly from the human player but assigned to own generals, with "View Battles" off. That happens because they have the most powerful charge attack in the game, which makes them deadly and are well armored (so, having quite a good stamina), but they have a lame "C" score in Attack (melee fighting skill). For this reason, the best strategy, when directly leading knights, is to use only their charge to attack units with a greater attack score (B or A), ending each round without using any left movement point to deal damage with the standard attack, because self-destructive (and the AI does it each time). Else, assign them to your own generals, knowing that the game still ranks them as weaker than other units. Elephants are simply great, even more if you don't use them directly but assign them to one of your generals: if you use a legion of Elephants to attack an enemy legion inside a castle, they are so slow that you may end the turn without reaching the enemy, especially in the SEGA Genesis version. Give them to other generals instead, as for the knightsm and opt for faster units like nomads, if you can't find better ones #Footed units. Do not underestimate heavy infantry and shortbow archers. For the records, crossbowmen are better than longbow men and heavy infantry is better than pikemen, since they are faster, more resistant to arrows and charges. Pikemen may be effective too, while charging against units with a low defense score. #Special ranged units. Cannons and catapults are not a big deal, since they are too slow to be used and very fragile. Still, they have some interesting ability. Cannons may create confusions among enemy ranks with their ranged attacks, stunning AI units and making them very vulnerable to charges. So, they can be devastating if used in combos with knights. Catapults, instead, ignore the defensive bonus from fortifications. *** Some general hints about units *** Almost all ranged units have a severe limit: when they end ammos, they become almost utterly useless, but they can offer a precious support to melee units. If you are not using the best mounted units, which are versatile both in melee and ranged combat, it is always a good idea to form legions by yourself, using two ranged units and two melee units (heavy infantry and longbow men, mamelukes and mounted archers and so on). The advantage can be appreciated especially when personally leading units and fighting with them otherwise, if the big plan is just to lead the whole army on the battlefield without entering the units vs. units battle mode (which usually is the best cost-benefit ratio), it is better to create legions using only melee units, which will drastically reduce the number of losses on the battlefield. Generally, fast units with arrows are stronger than units without them, because they can weaken enemy units before that they can deal the first blow: when they do, usually they are already so much outnumbered that they have already lost any chance of victory. In fact, a unit's true power is not only due the kind of units’ stats, training or weapons but also due to the number of its remaining men. Unfortunately, it is not the same for slow units, like longbows and crossbows: since they are slower, they can shoot less arrows in a round and they always need melee units as pikemen or heavy infantry to slow down enemy units, otherwise they will be slaughtered very easily. The only exception is given by the Short Archer unit: cheap, with a good ranged attack, that “C” in melee Attack usually allows them to keep successfully fighting even when their ammos are over. Not even crossbowmen can do the same! 7) Creating a good army. In all regions, there are a lot of different units: Try to use all of them for a balanced army. # It is possible to win the war with very few losses even if your army is based upon cheap units but your legions are well balanced. Longbows and heavy infantry inside city walls may win the first round against mamelukes or knights, giving time to your other legions to intervene. # Try to hire the right number of units that the computer will automatically mix in the best way. For example, the computer "thinks" that longbows are stronger than heavy infantry, so it will automatically create a 4 longbows legion, if you have 4 or more of them. Instead, if you have 6 knights, 4 longbows and 2 pikemen, you'll automatically get the archers mixed both with knights and pikemen, in the best combination. This really saves a lot of time. 8) Training and weapons. Both are important, but the thing that gives more advantage in battle are the weapons. They are not only the number of arrows that units can shoot, but they boost the damage that your units deal even in melee fight. Training influences the damage as well, and untrained units will go on disarray easier. 9) Conquering a Land For a fast and entertaining game, it is not enough to make an army, invade a land and smash all units! There are better ways. # If you have a much better and larger army than another adjacent nation, you can threaten a neighbour nation to surrender, by sending your best general with the higher charisma. Here there is a very strong random element, so you may need to send your ambassador more than once. If it doesn't work, try sending different kind of generals, as the one with the highest "War" ability or the highest political ability. I am not sure, but it looks like that enemy kings may sympathize more with warrior-like or intellectual-like characters. Threatening royal-family members or a king that owns more than one land is useless. On the battlefield, you can ask the enemy king to surrender if there is a considerable difference in power. It may take several rounds and will never happen, so be ready to deal the final blow on turn 30 or you will eventually loose the war. # When invading another region, the main objective is to smash the enemy's 1st legion: the one with the king. If you do so, you may capture the other ones and add them to your army for free, at your training and weapon rate! This may also happen when the Legion 1 flees the battlefield before than the other ones too, or when you capture all enemy cities, but there are not certainties. Note that capturing all cities in a region will automatically make you win the war. # Invading a land for plundering it, without actually conquering it, is a good idea only if you are in very short of money and absolutely need to replenish the vaults of your nation. If you do, in fact, you will just squander the region that you want to add to your empire: what you get now, you shall have to give back when you will conquer that region, if you want to make it a productive part of your empire! 10) Fighting: fights among units and leading legions on the battlefield *** Unit vs. unit fight: # Especially at the very beginning of the game, you may be forced to lead units by yourself and to care about the fights. While doing so, make your king or general to lead units if he has a War value equal to C or better, as already explained. # Place your units so that two or more of them can attack the same enemy unit, weakening it faster. This will highly reduce the losses among your men. # Always try to protect your archers with melee units and always move your units so that the most damaged ones may retreat behind the most healthy ones. # NEVER put your units into a single line as the AI does), closing all possible escaping routes. *** How to manage legions in the world map. When invading another nation, you may even want to keep for yourself only a single, weak unit like a longbow, and assign all other units to your generals, if your army is big enough. Skipping the "unit vs. unit" fight will save a lot of time, providing very good results and allowing to enjoy the most strategic side of the game. Still, there are some things that it is better to know, that I'm going to explain with an example. *** Ambushes (ambuscades) and other strategy elements on the battlefield. What follows represent a battlefield. *** ** C: city *****C**** *:forest ****AL1***** L: legion ****C**** A: enemy legion hidden for ambush ^*X This is very close to the French battlefield, with the main enemy legion, L1, fortified at Paris and with enemy Legion 2 in the nearby forest, ready for an ambuscade. AI (Artificial Intelligence) will usually place its units so that all of them in a fortified city or, except legion 1leaded by the king, hidden into the forests surrounding a city.If enemy legions are NOT hidden, they will attack any other legion that gets 2 square close to AI's Legion 1, otherwise they stay quite and/or hidden, ready for the ambuscade: a fearsome situation. The consequences of falling into an ambuscade are terrible, since legions composed by weak units will be slaughtered with no mercy, and almost without harming the "sneaky" enemy legion, while stronger legions will be severely weakened, and maybe destroyed as well. That is because a legion which falls in an ambush (moving into one of the squares adjacent to the hidden legion) starts the fight with all of its units on disarray, in “confusion”, randomly placed in the screen and unable to defend themselves. The only hope, given by the units’ morale and by the general’s Leadership score, is that one of the units recovers and awakes all the others. There are three ways to defeat the strategy of ambuscades. 1 - You can send a legion leaded by a general with a high leadership score, even better if you lead that army by yourself. Even bad weather may help, since it reduces the length of a fight (the available rounds). 2 – You can send your own units inside cities, where they'll still be forced to fight the ambushed enemy legion(s), but will fight not taken by surprise. 3 – you may create some counter-ambuscade, forcing the AI units to move away from mountain or forest areas. The 3rd solution is the most difficult but also the most entertaining to use: you know that AI's legions will attack your legions if they get too close to AI's Legion 1. If all of the AI's legions are hidden instead, they will attack the closest legion of yours, that "touches" AI's legion 1 (standing in a square adjacent to it). So, you can send one of your legions (a thought one is better) into a square that is NOT adjacent to trees or mountains, so that AI's legions will run out from their hiding place to attack your legion but, since there are no trees, they will not be hidden anymore and will be unable to complete the ambuscade. If you can send your units into a city, AI's hidden legions will still gain a first strike against yours, but which will get all the defensive bonuses coming from being attacked inside a fortified city and will not start the battle on disarray. If you have other legions, you can make them to ambush nearby to the enemy Legion1 and use the remaining ones to drive out the hidden enemy legions. Even if each hidden legion can make short movements on the battlefield and still remain hidden, the rule wants that the legion that keeps its position has the upper hand if both legions are hidden. Being caught in an ambuscade also “interrupts” the sequence of commands of a legion, which rarely may attack more than once in that round, allowing interesting maneuvers that allow to destroy enemy Legion1 without destroying the remaining enemy legions and eventually capturing them. If you look again to the previous map, you can figure out how to move your own units to apply those strategies. 11) Generating sons and daughters. # Spending time with your wife is often a great deal in this game, especially if the default heirs don’t have very good stats. More you do and more heirs you’ll have. In Jap. versions (any platform) there is also an harem sub-menu, where you’ll get the chance to have more wives. # Sons are usually great generals and always faithful rulers; while daughters are less useful but still a good deal, to be used to turn former kings or strong generals with low charisma into loyal rulers. # Don't spend time with your family if your sons are ready to become generals or if your daughters are ready for marriage, since you have better chances to become father again if you "meet" with your wife (she just has to show up on the screen). # Spending time with your children doesn’t increase their stats, which are randomly generated at their birth. What is random are their body points when you make them generals: if you are unhappy with body points, load the game again and retry until you get a decent score. # You may name your sons as Ugudei, Jagatai, Tului or Kublai (Joti is already born in scenario 1) and they will have the same portrait owned in Genghis Khan scenario instead than a "random" one. # In PC/ms-DOS and NINTENDO version, usually heirs have stats that can’t be too far away from the ones of their father: a “B” can be a “C” or an “A” but almost never a “D” or an “E”. Still, in all versions Philip II and Genghis Khan II are the best candidates to have heirs with “A” in all stats and 15 body points. # Don’t turn your heirs in generals in scenario 1: Mongol Conquest, or you will have to choose among them and other generals to carry in the next scenario. ***************************************Scenarios Hints************************* This part describes the four scenarios, giving general starting hints and describing available rulers. You may skip this part, if you play GK II for the first time and don't want to spoil the fun of exploration. 1) Mongol Conquest SCENARIO You have 3 main choices: Mongols, Jardans and Naimans. Tartars are strong, but Thogorul Khan is very old and doesn't have a good heir. -Mongols are in a suitable position, have great generals and, of course, the best leader, but few units and especially only 30% of weapons. Merchants are very rare here! So if Jardans will invade you and you fail with the ambush strategy, you may lose the game. -Jardans have a great leader: Jamuga (all B, 14 body points), good army, good weapons but few generals. -Naimans have 2 lands (great thing), many units but the people hate Taya Khan, who's a poor leader, with even worst stats. His son is much better. The Taichiuds (5) and the Merkits (8) are easy to conquer. In few turns, they will end gold, or a rebellion will break out, wasting of all their weapons (they'll drop to zero, or very close to it). From Onon river (1), you may try to conquer those land with only one legion. Be sure to have 100% in weapons before invading any of those lands, not only because you may lose the war but also because captured units gain the same training and weapons of your starting army. When invading (5), try to move your legion1 in any place after the river and the opponent main legion, while moving the other legion you have, with a shortbow and a light inf., on the other side. Doing so, the AI's legion 2 will try to hit you, but you'll cross the river before that it can hit you and you'll have one whole turn to smash the enemy L1, capturing L2. The same happens when you invade (8), but you must be alone: ambush in the forest and slowly move near L1. Enemy L2 shouldn't see you and you should attack and destroy L1 capturing again L2. It is a bit risky, because you'll have to leave Onon River with no legions in it... but it rarely happens that other nations will invade you. Naimans are strong, but they are far away and they are the only other empire, except Jardans and tartars, that can represent a threat for you. One strange thing is that in this scenario there is more than one great general in each region. Especially nations 5, 6 and 8 has Jebe, Muquali and Subutai. Boroqul is in 9, while Qubilai is in 2. If you don't want to miss them, you'll have to spend a bit of time looking for them. Save and reload a game to save turns, if you can’t find them on the first attempt! Remember: don't promote any of your sons as generals! It will steal free space for the selection of the generals for the next scenario. NOTE: As historical hint, Jamuga (or Jamuqua) was a Temujin's blood brother, but he betrayed Temujin and, even if they eventually came to pace again and Temujin wished to rejoin with his brother, Jamuga asked for the most honorable, bloodless death (breaking of the bone spine) instead than living as a man without honor. That's why he is your foe and you can't trust him as governor for your lands. 2) Genghis Khan SCENARIO Here we have the old Genghis Khan, the Kamakura Shogunate, Ghuri, the Khorezms, Philip II and the famous, lame John I! -Genghis K. here is a bit old. I'm not sure you want to play with him here. -Ghuri is the only Indian ruler in the game and has good values, even if 13 BP with only a C in Polit. will make ruling pretty slow. -The Kamakura Shogunate here has a weak Minamoto. Not a great deal. -The Khorezem Empire has good units, a decent son and a poor leader. - John I of UK is another poor ruler: for challengening games. - Philip II is simply amazing. He is the only ruler with an A in Polit. and B in all the other fields. He is placed in a strategic nation too and, more, once one of my sons got A in all stats and 15 BP! Hints: # Mongols: Dzungaria (2) will certainly surrender to you, since it is a poor nation with few inhabitants; as well as Kao-Chang (7) with Uighur merchants. In (7), there is Tatatonga, a good advisor or ruler for your lands. Even if you have (2) and (7) to surrender to you, and even if you make your best generals as rulers and create a great policy, they still be poor lands for a long time, that will certainly be conquered by their neighbors because they don’t have the economic capacity to keep big armies. I suggest you to get all the unit from those places and drive them in Mongolia: train them, buy weapons, create a new policy and choose only one of those nations. Then, place Temuge as ruler, with a good quantity of gold and 8 of your best non-mongol units, allowing enemies to conquer the worst of the three regions. Those lands can barely support 8 units and, if you send more, they'll begin to draw moneys from population, eventually causing a civil war or a rebellion. You will re-conquest those lands ahead in the game. Now, it is time for the most interesting invasions! Prepare for war and invade (4): Liaodong. A pretty easy fight, but the units will flee in (5): Hopey. Be sure to keep a free place for Ve-lu Chukai among your generals: he is a great advisor, perfect for Joti. Then attack immediately (5) with only ONE legion with four Mongols. The legions in (5) will be displaced near the border, exactly where you are coming from. Attack AI's legion 1, that you can easily destroy in 1 turn, capturing all the others units in the land. Now you have enough units to defend your borders and to attack other nations with a real army.If you conquered Korea, you are in a good place to invade Japan in the same way you conquered (5), sometimes bringing you even a second legion. You can have a lot of samurai for free! But they are very strong: be careful! # Dheli Sultanate: The only advice I can tell you is that, if you put all of your units together, you can force Barrula of the Indian empire to surrender to you, obtaining a lot of free elephants. Otherwise, it will be a bloody battle. You can even move your units passing from a nation to the other, destroying Barrula's legion II (usually made by poor light infantry) to increase the chances of having him surrendering during the round after. # Philip II: France is located in a strategic point of Europe. You can invade England with all your soldiers and try to destroy legion 1 immediately, eventually capturing the remaining ones. If enemy legions are placed on the left of the map and you came from south, you have to attack with L1 & 2 together. If enemy L1 is fortified in London, it is possible to repeat the same strategy already used for China or Japan. After conquering England, you can invade Iberia first, then split your army in two parts to conquer Italy and Germany, that will work as a "wall" against enemy invasions, while you conquer Africa and the Arabian lands. Or you can invade Spain, leaving France as a stronghold nation. # Japan: It is always a strong starting nation, regardless of the ruler. In fact, Samurai are the second best available unit in the game (A in attack, no real penalties, pretty fast movement and arrows). Japan may achieve a very high rank in agriculture and in economy, produces silk and sea offers a good natural barrier against invasion, giving you few borders to defend. The only back draw is that, here, you play the young Minamoto, that is not such a great ruler and typhoons may strike Japan quite often. Also, you can hire only samurai, which are expensive, and don’t have any foot or ranged unit. 3) Yuan Dynasty SCENARIO Here you have Youan Dynasty, Kamakura Shogunate with Hojo, Michael VIII from the Byzantine Empire, Il-Khan Empire with Abaga, The Mameluke Sultanate with Baybars and the Sicilian Kingdom with Charles I of Borbone. Not an easy Scenario: Youan Dinasty with Kublai Khan is the strongest nation, with great generals, troops and so on. They win almost all the times, if you leave the game and ant to see what will go on. It is very funny that there will always be some rebellion inside Youan borders, preventing even the strong Youan Dinasty to conquer the whole world. # Youan Dynasty: Great leader, troops, generals but the empire needs a lot of work and Kublai Khan is old. Tibet and Mongolia don't have enough units to defend themselves and Nomghan in (7) is too slow and may get economically broken quite easily and often. # Kamakura Shogunate: Hojo has a D in Polit. and is very slow, but strong in battle. # Michael VIII is a puny leader and his land has no advantages. A challenging ruler for a hard-level game. # Abaga of the Il-Khan: decent leader, many family members and Mongol units can be hired from merchants. His geographical position is very good too, since you can conquer Africa easily. # Baybars from the Mamelukes: good generals, good leader, many units but strong neighbors. # Charles I of the Sicilian kingdom: Italy is the best nation of the game! It has Venetian merchants all the time and with F 40% and B50%, it can reach 200% both in farming and economy at the early stages of the game. Charles is not a bad king, even if his successor, Charles II, is nothing special. There is a lot of work to do, but it is worthy of and a challenging game! Hints: -Youan Dynasty: Mangrala in Tibet (9) has 9 extra units that can be sent to the nations that need them more. If you conquer Hunan (12) immediately, you’ll free Tibet with Hgpags-Pa from the risk of invasions, so that you can relocate his units. You may wait that the foreign nations will declare war each other, then attack from Mongolia and LiaoDong (4) to get new lands, without splitting your army to defend your lands. Japan can be conquered in the usual way described above. -Kamakura Shogunate. If you are strong enough, you can split your army in 2 parts and conquer both South Korea and the nearest part of China, having a solid base for further expansions. -Abaga: Quarlawn from Mamelukes will attack you as soon as he can, so get ready. If you kill the legion 1, there is a high chance that the other units will be captured. This is a good beginning for further expansions. Still, you need to work a lot on laborers allocation first and remember that, in such dry lands, you can't invest too much in agriculture. -Baybars: Quarlawn is not a loyal general. If you build a strong army; you can conquer Magreb (17) without losing too many men. -Sicilian kingdom: quickly make your population happy, in order to increase the economical and agricultural scores of your nation. Then accept as many alliances as you can since, starting from Italy, you'll be in need to conquer many other lands before being able to "close" the edges of your empire, like it happens when conquering England from France or Africa by Spain. Perhaps, it is better to conquer Germany first, then France for further expansion toward Spain and Africa. In Italy, you may hire Marco Polo, that is a more than average advisor and diplomat. 4) World Conquest SCENARIO Here we have: young Genghis Khan, Minamoto of the Kamakura Shogunate, Isaacius II of the Byzantines, Sal-Al-Dil of the Ayyubis, Frederick I of the Holy Roman Empire and the mighty Richard I, the Lion hart. Hints: -Genghis Khan here is still very young, so that you have more time to develop your strategies before that he ages and eventually dies. Since the geographical situation is almost unchanged, you may follow the same advices described before, for Genghis Khan scenario (n°2). -Minamoto of the Kamakura Shogunate. As above, but with a much better leader. -Sal-Al-Dil of the Ayyubis: great leader, even if he is already old and will die soon. The advices are the same for the Youan Dynasty scenario. -Isacuus II and Frederick I: they are good leaders but not GREAT leaders, they live in lands that are characterized by bad ruling, with terrible stats, and their army is nothing special. Isacuus may usually generate interesting heirs. -Richard I: He is a great leader, except for the "small" problem of an "E" in “Polit.”, that doesn’t really matches history. Playing with him is very difficult because it is possible to perform very few actions in a turn but, at least, he is very effective both at leasing legions and at fighting. The most obvious choice is to conquer France and make Philip II your advisor, getting land advantage almost immediately. I suggest you to let your advisor working for you, creating balanced policy and training units on your own. Robin Hood can be hired as general in England. ********************************cheats***************************************** The only, obvious cheat is to play with 4 kingdoms at once in the Dos/Windows version and 2 in the SEGA/NINTENDO version. It is up to you to have your secondary ruler to surrender to your favored one or to use both of them at once, to conquer the whole world, dividing it in two or four balanced parts. #Playing the game on emulators. Playing the game on emulators, both on PCs or on smartphones, offers you a new cheating possibility. In fact, it is possible to save and reload outside of a player's turn, while the game is running: battles, threatening, turn an heir into a general (for body points) and much more! And, overall, saving and loading is much faster than in PC/consoles version since you don't have to reset your machine each time. By doing so, it is possible to: - prevent disasters to happen in the provinces of your interest - prevent any king or governor to invade any nation - delay the death by age of any character in the game - reload for better trade rates - be sure to capture enemy units - save right before sending an ambassador to threaten a nation. The last option is probably the most important, since it allows to remove that nasty random factor that, in the standard game, just makes faster to invade an enemy nation than to threaten it! Here, instead, is the opposite: if you have an army large enough, you can force almost any neighbour to surrender, getting its units. With my army of 20 units, with 100% in weapons and training, I have been able to obtain the yeld of rulers with an army of 13 legions or less. The disadvantage is that you also "use" turns to move to the conquered nation to personally seek for its hidden general and to replace its governor, if he was an enemy king or a royal family member. With the same strategy, I have also been able to form an army of 20 Mongols while using kings from non-mongol countries and to prevent enemy units to flee into other countries even if I couldn't add anymore to my army. It is also cool that, in this way, I could delay the death by old age of many of my governors and advisors, keeping them even when they had 0 body points! ********************************Mods & Emulators******************************* As stated above, there is plenty of emulators to play this game even on modern tablets and smarphones, with the great advantage that - being a strategy game - the lack of a joystick or joypad isn't a problem at all. Such emulators often have many save slots, for sure more than the poor single slot in SEGA/Nintendo versions. And, even if you should end them while enjoying each game possibility, it is still possible to copy the ROM with a different name to start it blank and with new save banks. But the most juicy news are about some alternative mods for this game. Those are just modified ROMs (most of them for the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive) that allows new scenarios: it is possible to find them by searching for "Genghis Khan II New Scenario Mod" even on Youtube. So far, I have been able to play (and have great fun with): - the Kara Kitai empire (replaces the Ill-Khan empire) - Timur the Great (also known as "Tamerlan") that replaces the whole Yuan dynasty scenario But there are many others, with new generals and game rebalance. In the Kara Kitai mod, there is a small bug, but it is very funny. If you play the Genghis Khan scenario that you have edited to use also the Kara-Khitai empire, something strange happens if you make nation 6, Gansu, ruled by Xiang-Zong of the Hsi-Hsia empire, to surrender to Genghis Khan. If you do, the computer makes you to play with Xiang-Zong, but using Genhis Khan's generals, sons, whife and territories! If you can immediately replace Xiang-Zong with one of your generals, the game will make you play with that general too. In one game, I have replaced Xiang-Zong with Muquali! In the same game, I was playing 2 rulers at time (Philip II and Genghis Khan) and then I played with Muquali too, for a total of 3 rulers per game! It was so cool to use Genghis Khan for combats and using Muquali to manage my empire, setting politics and giving orders to other states :) After a while, it disappeared and I returned to use Genghis Khan and Philip the II only. Enjoy! Mattia Loy, known as Orion79 Mail me at orpheananger@hotmail.com if you have questions related to the game. PS: Check on internet for my other guides on Gamefaqs and my patches and mods for Temple of Elemental Evil (ATARI), Civilization and Neverwinter Nights!