+1 can confirm this is best strategymonks + petards
petards + monks
skirms
a lot more skirms
one furious the monkey boy
gl hf
Mangudai should be the bulk of your army in any case. In 1v1 you should make some hussars to go in front but if you have a teammate to make paladins that's way better. In 1v1 you should go siege rams with drill and in tg once you have trade going siege onagers as well. Going light cavalry isn't usually a good idea since it will slow your imperial time down for a relatively weak unit. Onagers are nice but usually you shouldn't make them until you have the rest of your army setup nicely.
You should pretty much never make dark age army with mongols because their scout rush is so strong. It is kind of silly to drush when the hunt bonus makes it so you can go up and make scouts almost as fast.
Standard mongol build is fast feudal between 9 and 10 minutes, make several scouts, then you can either transition to archers/xbows or you can go castle age and switch to kts. If you're pocket on tg you really need to make kts but as flank and in 1v1 it's nice to do xbows because you'll need the same upgrades for mangudai eventually. If you can imp with a lot of xbows mongols do get arbalest so they can be really good while you are getting your mangudai started. Don't make any mangudai in castle age as they are a pretty lousy castle age unit. Instead focus on getting a good economy going so you can imp faster because that is when you can crush everything. A few minutes before clicking imperial you should start taking stone so you can build castles on the way to imperial age. Obviously you want to get upgrades and start making mangudai as soon as you possibly can.
In the long run what almost always decides the game with mongols is who can keep their castles alive longest. If too many of your castles go down you can't make mangudai anymore and it's game over.
You have to judge when to make hussars, it might be better to make siege rams first, it just depends on the situation. And in TG you shouldn't ever have to make them but if your ally isn't able to help you they are necessary.
Don't forget the upgrades that apply to mangudai, there are 12 of them.
Research at the blacksmith:
Archer range upgrades: Fletching, Bodkin, Bracer.
Armor upgrades: Padded Archer Armor, Leather Archer Armor. (ring archer armor applies to mangudai but mongols don't get it)
Research at archery range:
Thumb Ring.
Parthian Tactics.
Research at stable:
Bloodlines.
Husbandry.
Research at university:
Balistics.
Chemistry.
Research at castle:
Elite Mangudai.
Brainless said:monks + petards
petards + monks
skirms
a lot more skirms
one furious the monkey boy
gl hf
Ideally you would make both but do siege rams first since they are cheaper. It's not always worth paying for the onager upgrade.Oh, i didn't know that chemistry help too. So i should recruit more siege rams ? Or should i stick with onagers ? Or it's just depend ?
Anyways, thanks a lot for your guide. Lots of helpful advice!