Holy… tackling the Historical Battles I see this one, in particular, got some changes, such as
Spoilers
the unlimited fishing got removed, your starting units replaced with some knights and a light cavalry with Khorasau arriving later so it is more difficult to harras the Hun Raiders early on as well as protect the Persian villagers, the very first resource pile changed into a greater amount of gold, the Silk Road no longer requiring towers and instead just requires general defence, Savarans can only be bought once (it seems) and finally the Zoroastrian temple is more accessible but only has one relic and that’s just at a glance…
All that aside, which while it makes the mission more challenging, I am having a bit of difficulty in repelling the White Huns… horde after horde of Siege Onagers, Siege Rams(with Drill upgrade!) Trebutchets, Cavalry Archers and Mangudais, there’s just so many that my walls do not survive line, what I manage to pump out simply gets mopped up by the next horde. It’s difficult to expand because there’s always some archers loitering which makes me deplete my coffers in a short time… and all of this is on Moderate difficulty.
I am honestly stuck at this point because it’s a stalemate (I’m trying to avoid allying with the Gokturks for the achievement) but has anyone else tried this, any problems or what can I do just to break out from this ■■■■? 
it’s one of the harder missions, but if you keep paying off the tribute, at some point the bad guy stops asking for it. The important thing to realize is that as long as you don’t hit Imp or stop paying the tribute, you have infinite time to prepare a fatal blow. Pay the tribute, mass an army, advance to Imp when ready and as soon as you reach Imp make sure you also have resources to get Imp upgrades (cavalry armor, capped ram and so on), You should try to destroy the Mongol adversary by killing as many of his Castles as possible and production buildings/villagers. While he does rebuild, it won’t be incredibly fast and the main threat in his army is Mangudai and Trebs anyway both of which come from Castles. If you blitz him like this + repopulate the army after you lose the initial one, beating him is easy.
You should also ally with the guy north, who occasionally harasses the Mongols. Though it’s not a strong harass, it’s better than nothing and he distracts them at least a bit. Later on after you destroy 2 Castles I believe he betrays you but he doesn’t put up as much of a fight as the Mongols, I believe he mostly sends heavy CA to your TCS and Persian Skirms, even lacking Bracer have full armor upgrades so they will hold him very well.
As for units, you should be making mostly Skirms and Cavalier/Paladin and I guess Rams to run down the Castles are your best bet (since the Mongols declare war on you when you hit Imp, Rams is the only siege you can start massing in Castle Age.
Overall I’d say your army should be like 20 Skirms, 30+ Paladins, 6-7 Rams. Feel free to mix in Hussar although Paladin is better as long as you have gold. There is also a big patch of gold in the South corner of the map, if you place a TC there you should be able to get some of it even if you get harassed as long as you do the other stuff in this description right.
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