Into China

Into China is the third scenario of the Genghis Khan campaign in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings.

Players

 * Player (Mongols) starts in the north, only with 4 Light Cavalry and 6 Cavalry Archers.

Enemies

 * Engineers (Chinese) are at the northeastern part of the map, with another two Siege Workshops at the northwestern part of the map, having a few Gaia Bombard Cannons. As you enter their base, you will encounter a few militia and archers. There are also a few Gaia villagers, a Gaia mangonel and a Gaia Battering Ram in their base.


 * Jin (Chinese) is at the eastern part of the map, being walled up. They will build a wonder when the game has exceeded 2400 seconds (40 minutes), and have the right amount of resources and market price (they might sell food, buy or sell wood, and buy stone, in order to prepare the necessary materials).


 * Hsi Hsia (Chinese) is at the southern-central part of the map, and also controlling the Great Wall of China (consisting of fortified walls and keeps), which is separating you and the Engineers from the other players.


 * Tanguts (Chinese) is at the western-central part of the map. Once the player obtained the Gaia 'engineers', the Tanguts would immediately tribute, , and  to Jin.


 * Sung (Chinese) is the weakest player, at the southwestern part of the map. Unlike its allies who have full defended bases and a small army, the Sung start out the same way all random map games start having only a town center, 3 villagers and a scout, having to build their bases from scratch.

Strategy/Tactics
Genghis Khan must defeat four Chinese factions, the Tanguts, Hsi Hsia, Jin, and Sung. To do it, destroying the Wall of China is required. This gets easier after attacking a tribe of Engineers which allow the Siege Workshop to be built. While the former Engineer base is a good place to start off and build an army, the area lacks crucial resources. A better location to establish a camp is just south where your original army started out with. This area offers enough resources to sustain an army to take down the Great Wall. However, the Jin will build a Wonder if you take too long to defeat them so defeating them should be a top priority. While a navy composed of Cannon Galleons can be useful to take down Guard Towers that patrol the shoreline, it is more time consuming than offloading troops north of the Jin city which is undefended. After the Jin are defeated the other factions can defeated in a fairly straightforward manner. In the far west of the map, within the wall, are a few Bombard Cannons that can be captured.

Another strategy is to build a dock and a transport ship and move all your units east to Jin's territory. The first transport you find cannot reach the water to the east without being destroyed by towers. This is a good tactic since the Jin will start to build a wonder soon and you won't have to move your troops across the map later. Also you're not under constant attack by the other three Chinese kingdoms as they all lack docks. Build a Town Center near the eastern corner of the map and start gathering resources. This area has only wood and a couple boars, so it's recommended to fish for food and later transition into farms, selling resources at the market for gold and stone. Advance to Castle Age and build a castle outside Jin's base in range of their walls. Research Murder Holes and arrow upgrades and attack their walls to lure Jin's knights out. As they continue making knights, their wonder will be delayed due to spending all their gold on knights. Use this time to mass trash units (spearmen, scouts and skirmishers) and advanced to the Imperial Age where you can siege Jin's base with trebuchets. Now you have plenty of resources in your part of the map and are completely safe from attacks since Jin's territory is completely surrounded by water.

Notes/Trivia
Gameplay Notes/Trivia Historical Notes/Trivia
 * The Jin wonder is built with more than 30 villagers, so it's constructed faster than all four enemies in the 'Fall of Rome' level in the Attila the Hun campaign, and faster than Cortéz in the 'La Noche Triste' level in the Montezuma campaign, so it's the fastest built wonder in the game.
 * Although the objectives state that you need to defeat only Jin, Sung, Hsi Hsia and Tanguts, the level won't end if the Engineers are still alive.
 * The Sung (960–1279), being referred by later scholars as "Southern Song Dynasty" (1127–1279) for that time, was a militarily "weak" dynasty that was constantly beset upon by its neighbors. Still, it was until 50 years after Genghis died that his grandson, Qubilai, finally conquered Sung and began to rule China.
 * Jin (Chinese: 金) means "gold" in Chinese, which probably suggests the use of the colour yellow in the game.
 * Jin was a Jurchen dynasty and the greatest threat to the Song dynasty prior to and after the Mongol invasion. The descendants of the Jurchens, known as Manchu, eventually conquered China (Ming dynasty) as the Qing dynasty some four hundred years later.
 * The Hsi Hsia or "Western Hsia" was a minor Kingdom founded by the Tanguts to the west of China who had military clashes with the Song. The Tanguts were a group of nomadic people hailing from the northwest of China. The Tanguts and Hsi Hsia should be the same entity instead of separated factions.


 * In reality Genghis Khan destroyed the Jin by allying with the Sung.