======================================================================= Genghis Khan Walkthrough ======================================================================= Genghis Khan Walkthrough for the NES By Pinquotriot(Sean McCoy) Started Jan 15, 2003. Version :0.5 For Errors, Corrections, or strategies, E-mail me at : Jaxim@hotmail.com 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789 Public Disclaimer: Copyright 2003 by Sean McCoy This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. If the user wishes to copy the FAQ and place it on any site OTHER than gamefaqs.com, The user must seek permission from me, and can not alter any part of the faq, unless also granted permission from me, and I must be given credit for the core of the faq if it is altered. And as always: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. This IS my first FAQ, so please bear with me on it. I am doing one on what I consider the greatest open-ended strategy game out there. It is part of Koei's Historical simulation series for the NES and SNES. Ok, On with the FAQ. Versions: 0.5 4a done, and parts of 8 done. Thanks to Waffen8888 for NUMEROUS contributions. He and the rest of the genghis khan message board has been a great help to me. 0.1 1,2,3,5,6,7,9 done, or partially done. Will complete rest later Did some spellchecking Contents: ----------------------------- 1. History of Genghis Khan 2. Game Layout 3. Mongol Conquest strategies 4. World Conquest strategies a. Richard b. Alexius c. Genghis d. yoritomo 5. On Training and War 6. On Battle 7. Other people's strategies. 8. Misc. 9. FAQ, Credits, and Thanks 1.History of Genghis Khan Genghis Khan was born Temujin(hence, his name in Mongolian conquest) in 1167. After a rocky start, he gained control of a tribe, and started to conquor all the tribes in the Mongolian Region. Upon doing so, the chieftains renamed him 'Genghis Khan' in 1206. At this time, he started to think of world conquest. He first struck china, decimating them, and then proceeded to go after the other side of Asia, for Russia, India, and almost, Europe. This gave him the largest controlled land mass ever. Genghis Khan died in 1227, and was buried in a secret location somewhere in the Mongolian Steppes. 2. Game Layout A quick overview on what is actually in the game when you start it Tax - Change Rate - To change the tax rate. A Misconception, really. The Tax rate will increase by, what I assume a larger percentage, but not amount that you have requested. Not even a percent of the current tax rate. Lowers Morale INCREDIBLY. Does heighten when you lower, but not quite as much as it lowers. Extra Tax - A one time tax. Only use it if you're desperate. Once again, lowers morale. Assign - To truly understand what you are assigning, look to the right edge of the screen, in the purplish color, are town, mason, etc. Add all those numbers up, Plus the troops you have, and now you have the amount of people you can assign for items. Labor - assigns people for labor. A large food is good, as you can sell off the excess. Towns are for economy, and Masons are for Defense. Unless you have a highly prized item, don't worry too much about artisans. Silk, carpet, Jewelry, and Spice(I assume it is spice) are the ones to pound out. Give - All this does is help raise morale. Morale can be lowered by virtually anything, and this, and tax are the very few ways to raise it. Gold, food, or items. Gold raises it the most, and items the least. Food is the best choice, as if you're going by my standard you should always have plenty. Train - Increases the stats on either you, a prince, your troops, or raises the amount of peasants ready for war(I.E. Being able to draft them) The first princes you get are pretty much worthless, so don't waste valuable orders on something like that. The peasants won't go past 50%. Everyone's abilities gradually decline. More on this later. Trade - Trade with either China, Islam, or Uighur. Watch the rate at the bottom of the screen. That rate affects the trade tremendously. Always buy low, sell high. Sound easy, eh? Sell - self-explainatory, but just items(high). Buy - Buy items(low), or weapons. Increases arms for troops. Very important. You can have the best martial artists in the world but if they're trying to share a spear and shield amongst the 50 of them when going against 50 men with swords, it's not going to be pretty. Hire - Hire troops. Unless necessary, do not do it when rates are high. But, you'll be suprised how often it is necessary if you don't stock up early. Lowers morale. People - Mostly involves princes Switch - Look at your other proviences. Select - Find a man from the country side, an "outstanding man" Normally, stats are low enough for this to be worthless. Demote - Phew, I use this one very often. Demotes prince. Remember How I said the beginning princes, despite them being family, are worthless? This is how you clear some leeway. With the exception of maybe one starting prince, toss the rest. The only place to keep them is in Mongolian conquest. Only because you will not be able to marry your daughters at the moment. After conquering a territory, you will meet a man on the country side, always pick him up as a prince. Usually the officer in charge of the territory, if it's not the leader,(you can't make other leaders princes) is too pathetic to pick up. Now, since you can't tell the stats of the man you picked up, you have to view it afterwords. If he's terrible, demote him. Toss all those who you can't afford to marry, as they are much more likely to start revolt, unless their stats are exceptional, and you need a few good generals. Promote - Raises children to be princes. Marry - Marries non-family princes with your daughters, provided you have some. VERY important. Marry the men from the conquered territories, at least the ones with high stats(250+), to keep them loyal. Draft - Takes men from the countryside. Usually not a whole lot, also lowers morale. View - Exactly what it says. You are able to view State, Ruler, Allies, Your Princes, Your Children, or your Stock. Move - Move Gold, Troops, or home base from one provience to another Policy - Deals with Vassal states. Whether to have a Prince or yourself to rule them. Usually better for a prince, as they have more turns. The only problem with a prince, if they're either not trained enough, or are not loyal. Treaty - Make a treaty with another country Become vassal - Try to make another country pay you 1/10 every season. Won't work unless you can very easily take them. Pay Us - Demand 1/4 of their gold&Food&items. Once again, won't work unless you can give them five across the eyes. Ally - You and the other country agree not to attack each other for 5 years. Useful early on, and in mid-campaign. Can not break treaty as far as I know. Spy - View & Report - Lets you check on another country and leader Wreak Havoc - Tears down their Defense and hurts morale Kill - ATTEMPTS assasination. I have never seen it work, but feel free to throw away money. Search State - searches for other spies who may be viewing your country. Not terribly useful, unfortunatly. War - Self Explainatory Pass - Never do this. It forgoes your turn, or what's rest of it. Other - Save, miscellaneous animation, and music options. 3. Mongolian Conquest Always start in this mode if you're a beginner. World Conquest will either come AFTER you win Mongolian, or for seasoned players, or finally for multi player. Since this is an Open game, I have decided to list ideas and strategies on how one can go about winning. There are several ways, but these are a few basic ideas. After picking difficulty, you get the chance to either have the computer select your stats, or you can pick them yourself, and then allocate 100 points any way you see fit. Always create stats yourself(it's a random number generator) and you get the option of continually selecting it. If you're playing this game, then you're not in any hurry. Once the stats have been allocated, you will be in the right hand side, underneath the 5 state There are 4 countries surrounding you. Now, here is where the difficulty factors in. The countries begin an assault sooner. Trust me when I say difficulty 5 is not exactly paradise. Normally the assault starts after 4 or 5 years, if you're on difficulty 1 or 2. This is a guide for those two. Advanced tactics will be explained later. Immediately, Temujin will have a daughter born. This is a good thing. It doesn't happen every time, but you certainly hope it will happen. Happens about 50% of the time. One strategy, at least the one I use, is to immediatly try to ally myself with each country surrounding me. This guarentees no attacks while the next phase of the idea is implemented. Now, here is where you assign all those soldiers(60 or so) into other commerce. Such as assigning more for towns, masons, food, and artisans. Don't waste too many(or any) on artisans, as sheep never go very high in price. Waste more on food, which is sellable, and can be used to buy other items, including weapons. something like: 15 town, 15 mason, The rest in food. Artisans, as a rule are worthless unless you have a high priced item. Food will generally always be bought. After 3 or so years have passed, assuming you've been training and trading correctly, you should have amassed quite a fortune. Use these to buy troops, and start drafting. Do this to fill your roster again, and re-assign food back to the army, as war is pretty much upon you. This will drop the skill of the army, but nothing like a bit of training to make you happy. Immediatly after the 5 year period is up, and war is progressing nicely, the first country to take the blade should be the country right above you, 5. Wait until the next season to do quick repairs, or if you feel ready, hit 8. Once 8 is taken, immediatly reassign workers, and take all extra forces out, as 5 is now blockaded in between 1 and 8. Turn this over to a prince, and he will build up the troop supply for you to plunder later. Use 1 to take 2, and 8 to take 6, and now empty 1 of everything but the bare bones. Turn this country over to another prince, who may need a bit of training. At this point, if you're doing this in a rapid succession, you will probably be a bit weak, and certainly untrained. Take 2 years to recooperate and gain more troops. Remember to work the market those years for better gold advantage. At this point, you should be 7-8 years in, and have 1,2,5,8,6. You should be the one in control of 8,6,2. Princes have a nasty habit of attacking, and, if not trained well enough, losing. The thought is that, you should have enough at your main base, which should be 2, to attack, and 8 and 6 with enough for solid defense. Now, If you've been training yourself and the people, you can go draft instead of buying. Be sure to take the troops from the prince controlled countries. Attack 3 with country 2, and quickly hit 7. Do the same deal with 2 as you did with 1 and 5. Take 2 seasons off to quickly regain composure, and hit 4. Doing this has just built a wall around the back countries, and with as few countries as possible on the front. Leaving all 5 princes at the back countries will guarentee a constant supply of troops. One of the princes is unmarried, if you still have the family instead of booting, so be wary of him betraying you. If you wish, you can just rule that country also, but this limits you to one turn, and more time consumation. The next country is 9, opening the west. After nine, if you're doing this as quickly as I have written, you will not encounter any great difficulties until the last 2 or so provinces, especially if they are owned by one king. Now, if you are being more patient, the longer you wait, the greater the last country's defense will be. Once 9 is in your hand, 10-14 will slow GREATLY in their attacks on each other, and wait for you. I went 11,10,13,12,14. Do whichever you want. Just know the longer you wait, the larger the force they will build, and you must build in return. The best part is, this is a bit past mid game, and now the market takes a back burner unless it's arms being bought. The other problem with taking 9 is that it leaves absolutely no possibility of family being a prince. Either you control the country, or you will set someone who is unreliable in the area. Having someone unreliable does still keep the very much needed troops flowing, but the problem of them stabbing you with the knife you gave them is problematic.(I.E. They will build up troops, just to use them to rebel). If you go through the Mongol level at a relatively quick pace, you will definetly need a supply of troops. You can choose to set some countries that you rule to just food producers, sell the food, and buy troops with it. This would be great, but it takes 3 seasons to do this, and the computer is doing it in 1. Well, the end game of the final couple of provinces are usually owned by one country, making the attack a bit more tedious. You will never capture the final king with a 2 pronged attack, and more than 3 will thin out your troops a bit too much. The king will usually escape, and you must throw together all armies for an all out assault. If you're taking from the princes and slowly building the army in other provinces, you should be able to bring together 500-700 men, if not more. This is more than enough on difficulty 1. The first time through might take a bit longer than what is normal, and this is fine. If you can do it in under 35 years, everything will be fine. Any longer, and it won't be worth taking Genghis to world conquest. The best part, is that you start off in World conquest with beefed stats, and more men with higher trainings. Which brings us to World Conquest 4. World Conquest A few quick things about World Conquest mode. *The Market is much more important, as is trusting unmarried generals, some of whom WILL turn on you. *Your starting character will probably end up dying of old age, so have a spare son(Don't promote to prince). *Attack the country of choice whenever they have just finished an assault, or if they have just been taken over. *While the strategy I used for Mongolian conquest can easily be followed to the very letter, in World Conquest, this is different. You can follow any and all moves I use, but the difference is that countries change hands a lot more rapidly in this portion, therefore making a late game walkthrough all but worthless. There can be general ideas, but nothing is set in stone. There are too many variables in this one, therefore I will do a walkthrough on the BEGINNING of each campaign. Experience from the mongolian conquest will carry you to the intermediate stages, and I will provide a section for advanced. *After saying all that gobbldygook, the best decision maker is knowledge. USE SPIES. a. Richard With Richard, you can conquor the world relatively easily. The other countries simply have more country to peace up with before they can build. Once again, keep in mind that this is easy level ideas. Yet, on hard, you only have to steel against 2 countries, so Richard can do both easily. Right off the bat, make peace treaties with Both 8 and 9. We will refer to country 8's ruler as the pope simply because of my best friend's reference of him. After making the treaties, go ahead and re-assign your troops into the labor class. I did 20,20,85,45. The rugs do decently in the marketplace, so it's alright to stock up on those(unlike the worthless sheep from Khan's place). Now start training yourself, as you probably had great decreases in just about every stat. Don't worry about doing it EVERY turn, as you still want to check the marketplace and pick up silk or spices up on the cheap. 3.5 or less is good. People may disagree, but market savvy early will net large troops come war time. Since this is my Walkthrough, go ahead and pick up some items on the down rate. After the first year, And come 1207, during the Fall, sell excess food(bringing it down to 200-300 is fine), and try to buy troops. After this, wait for the rate to go down to pick up more, and sell those rugs and food items. Buy arms also, and remember to train your troops. Go ahead, and train your people a bit to draft them into the army also. I bought the Fall and got 20, sold my food, the next season, the rate went to 58, and I got another 50 troops. This is how fast you can build your army. Drafting a 50% mobilization will bring in at least 40 people. Now, of course, the Morale will go down, but with the abundance of rugs and food, you can easily fix that. On top of it, you will lose skill and arms for each troop you draft. But no worry, you have time to fix this. These reasons are also why you should not be overzealous in the amount of troops. Time for that will be later. After 4 years or so, fighting will start picking up, and this is when you want to pull all those people you placed into the labor force back into the army. Doing things right, you will probably end up with 200 or so troops. Go ahead and set your sights on the pope's land. His land is only able to be taken by 7(you), 9, and 20. So, this is a great spot for first expansion. Never attack in the summer either. During the summer, you will get hit by lower troop skills. The best time is either during the fall or spring. In the spring you gain people and money, and in the fall you gain food. Something to keep an eye out for is war hitting 8 or 9 before the 5 year alliance is up. If this happens, your plans will have to accelerate a bit. Cut the training time for people out, and short the trade business into selling food and buying troops. Remember how I said not to be overzealous, like ghostbusters, you have to break my rule. But, once again, after a season or two of quick fixing, the enemy will not attack. During the 4th year, go ahead and send spies to countries 8,9, and 20. These are the countries that are going to be the biggest blips on your attack radar. If you want to send more spies, go ahead, they cost 10 gold a piece and are worth it. Here are what I was at during the spring of the 4th year: Gold: 195 Food: 339 Troops: 141 Town: 26 Masons: 26 Food: 89 Artisans: 50 Morale: 139 Economy: 384 Defense 364 Arms: 184 Skill: 173 Items: 334 My Personal stats averaged 165. As you can see, even if I didn't feel like taking the labor away(which I will), I am extremely capable of strong defense against early attacks. Of course this won't cut the mustard in advanced stages, but we are not there yet. During this particular game I have not been pushing troops as much as I usually do because I am also taking the time to train princes to see if they are worth it. Instead of using this army to attack, you will use the labor force to attack. After the fall, go ahead and reassign the labor again to distribute the men back into the army. Also,make sure that you have also reassigned the army before battle. Come year 5, you will be ready for some action. If you build like I have, there's a great chance that the pope will ask to sign a peace treaty. Here is where I have no control over your ideas, but do as you will. I would recommend against it, as you will take him and hope to drink in the weakness of other countries. If you do ally with him, you can take country 9 instead, and there will indeed be more countries to exploit but he will be at your back, building. When you decide to attack, make sure you view the country you are attacking (You DID send the spies, right?), and normally they will not have troops past 100. They might have large skill/arms, but no worry, you should be at least close. By the time I entered the fray against the Pope, I sent 150 men, and was at 243 arms, 261 skill. For those who want the extra insurance, feel free to make another alliance with country 9. This lets you send in the full force. This treaty probably won't make the 5 year mark, but it will let you attack at this moment with complete impunity. Either way. After wasting country 8, you either get the chance to keep the pope, or he runs away to a country he's conquered(usually 20). The truth is, you don't need him, but if you do, marry him off immediatly. Spend a few years getting back into fighting shape, and by this time, either our good buddy heinrich has bit the bucket, expanded, or is standing strong. If the last one is true, feel free to mass assault 20. If the first two are true, attack now, or wait for his inevitable demise. After securing area 8(or 20), send a prince to rule country 7. This ends the beginning of the game. b. Alexius c. Genghis d. Yoritomo 5.On Training and War This is just a bit more depth into training, and battle. The preparation and nuances of it. In Training, you can train yourself and the Princes, as I've already mentioned. When you do start a game, it's nice that you can redo your beginning stats multiple times, and you should. Each stat(no exceptions) should be around the 110-140+ level. Keep trying until you do(before point allocation). Then allocate it to a nice balanced level. Worry about the first prince and leveling his stats, then just rush the rest. There are several different areas a person can train, Leadership - If this is low, chances of revolt increase. Judgement - This is necessary to trade with dealers. If it gets too low, you will not be able to trade. Also, It does seem to have a small effect on prices. Planning - Not Too sure how this one works...Probably more useful in computer hands. Charm - Needed for negotiations. The higher, the better. Body - This is for life, and a part of battle. More useful if you're just going to let the computer take the battle from your hands Battle - Important if you plan on leading a battle. This is a stat used in duels. A high stat 200+ is important, unless you have overwhelming troops. This stat becomes more important the higher the difficulty level is set, as you are challenged more. It's important to keep these stats up at least 100. It's very easy to let these stats slip, but trust me, it's important in the long run. One thing you CAN NOT do is never train. Your abilites will sink to a point where you can't go to the market, and are imcompetent to personally go to war, making the game murderously hard. As mentioned earlier, both troops and people need to be trained. One, because you don't want soldiers who thumb themselves in the eye when saluting you, and two, you don't want them to get rolled over like hot tar. The People keep a free constant supply of troops in, as long as you don't milk the draft too much. Which, as you recall, lowers morale. As for the Preparation for war, it's very important to realize that it takes money and food for war. If you don't have any when other attack, you automatically lose. Spies, to check on the enemy, are important. A good time to attack is either in the fall or spring. You will need food and gold for the transition between winter and spring, otherwise morale, defense, economy, among others lowers. If you don't have gold, troops will leave. Gold, a few troops will come. The summer is also bad, as food, morale, skill, etc, etc, all lower. The best time for war is after the country you want to attack has either just gone to war, or has been hit by a disaster. 6. On Battle The joy of crushing enemies, taking their stuff, and hearing the lamentation of the womenfolk is battle. Now, to win, you MUST customize your troops. I personally like to use the command unit for cavalry, and a side unit for archery, to help dig out entrenched troops. 60/40 does it for me. A LOT of people don't like using the command unit for attack, which is really a decent idea, but I prefer to let my leader get a dual in. If you've trained well enough and win, two scenarios occur. A: You get a few troops from defectors, or B: You win. Winning is the better of the two scenarios, obviously. Now, aside from duels, normally the troops the enemy has are dispersed into more than 2 large units, usually like 4-6 units. This makes for easy clean up assuming that you've trained your troops. Even 2-1 odds aren't terrible, once again, if you've kept up. because being able to rain arrows on attackers bent on taking on your cavalry will dampen the spirit. More than 2-1 odds aren't good, even with a great army which is fully equipped. The chances of victory are extremely slim. Numbers will just do you in. If you MUST fight, keep in the towns and castles. Your first couple of fights will rely on a bit of chasing, and perhaps a bit of baiting, since usually you'll be a bit outnumbered. Try staying away from water and mountains, as they will just slow you down. The defending noble will run 90-95% of the time after you've weakened him down enough. This is why I enjoy 2 different people. There's a good chance you can trap him for the last bit of damage. Later in the game, it will be a bit easier to amass larger armies, and you will need them, as the computer will ALSO amass larger armies. In higher difficulties, the computer will tend to match your army in size. Such as this case in Mongol conquest: I amassed an army of 567 for a 2 country sweep, but the first country already had 500. Not only that, but the army was well trained, resulting in a close, and difficult battle. I will admit that this happened near the end game, and the last country did not have nearly that size, instead were at 323. Infantry: Normally, this is the B&B of a real army. This is not the case in this game. They are worthless. THey have a specialty of being able to ambush, which is good defensively, but can only be really effective once. To defeat an ambush, always remember that the ambush can only take part in a square adjacent to theirs. Simply avoid those 8 squares, and the infantry will be forced out of the ambush. They also get hacked apart by cavalry. Don't pick any of these. Archers: The amount of arrows depends on how many archers you have.(I have also heard it depends on how much weapons you have, I will check on this and make altercations, if needed, in the next update) These are good for damaging the defending noble w/out having to sacrifice men to do it. ALso good to weaken any would be attackers to the crown. Gets butchered by infantry, and doesn't exactly stand up against horses either. Cavalry: Great attack, and speed. These should be the shock troops. Always set the commander in this. (Actual Numbers will come later) Plains - No hinder to movement. Forest - Slight Hinder, but can hunt for food. hills - Slight Hinder, Mountains/Rivers - HUGE hinder, try your best not to enter these. Sometimes crossing a mountain is the only way to get to the enemy quickly. City - Good for raids, and decent defense. Raises by 25% Castle - Great defense. I believe it raises defense by 50% Great place for last stand. 7. Other Ideas for conquering For the first timers, the best way to go about beating world is to team up with a friend(or 3) and each conquer his own part. This one is submitted by Waffen8888 - Actually the easiest way to play from what I've found is just raid. Empty out your entire population in to the army and continue advancing for a set number of provinces. Alwasy try and avoid duels unless you feel your'e built up and can win >very rarely it seems< after you do this about 10 times. Every place will have like no people, the comut will invade and redistribute into it. Draft wherever you go to, computer never does that. You'll have a massive army. Than just set up a base from which to conquer the world. Save often and set up what I call factories. Just build men and ship them to the front lines and your generals in the provinces will do the rest. This strategy is a very solid one, one I whole heartedly recommend for people wanting to go a bit faster than I do. My only problem with it is that I constantly am forced to duel due to my way of setting my army. Arranging the army to fit this style and you should be on your way. If you are pretty well versed in this game, go ahead and try this one out. In harder difficulties, this is also a decent strategy, but there's more attacks on your personal state, making duels *much* harder to avoid. Try to build yourself up for it. I also had a small problem with rebellions coming behind me. Nothing much, as I usually mopped up whatever pitiful force they mustered, but it was an annoyance because of the large amount of back tracking I had to do. 8. Misc -Marketing Here is where we discuss marketing. This is negligable in Mongolian conquest, but in World, with a bit of effort, can pay of handsomely. Here is a quick breakdown of what's there, should you ever buy it, and what price for buying is decent Sheep: No Pottery: No Silk: Yes, 4.0 and under Glass: No Jewelry: Yes, 3.5 and under Rugs: Yes, 1.5 and under Gold: Yes, 3.0 and under Silk: Yes, 4.0 and under Medicine: No Food: no Furniture: No The simple problem with marketing, and the reason most probably don't do it, is that you can't automatically take what you have with you when moving countries. If you choose to send princes to do your dirty work, or prefer building a massive army in the beginning, marketing is a must. Because of the way I play the game, Marketing is a must for me in world conquest. Since I tend to go more cautiously into the game, I have much better chances of buying and selling. Another stategy with buying and selling is to buy and sell in the same turn, this usually nets oodles of cash, done right. This rips apart your judgement ratings, though. 9. FAQ, Credits, and Thanks No FAQ's yet Credits - Myself Waffen8888 - for numereous Grammatical and gaming mistakes, and for giving me permission to use his method in my other methods of attack. I have decided to place here where else this FAQ can be found: www.neshq.com - Up and coming authorative NES web site. Thanks - Koei, for making the game Gamefaqs and CJAYC for posting The Message board for Genghis Khan for at least tipping me some ideas Genghis Khan, for being the baddest mother ever. ever. Everyone who e-mails me to thank me for the guide The Message Board also for pointing out my many errors and omissions, specifically ScottyBeamus(who started a Board Topic, pushing me back into the game) Waffen8888(who keeps popping up everywhere in this guide) greendrakkon and others.