Steppe horde mod for Divine Wind.

[birdboy2000]

So back in the HTTT days, some of my favorite nations to play were the Central Asian hordes. Succession crises were annoying, but they just added a challenge.

Then when Divine Wind rolled around Paradox decided to change them from challenging to unplayable, making them nations fit only for colonization. At first I set out to simply roll back things to HTTT days for horde purposes, but on the other hand, a nomad tech group made *sense*. And then I got to modding. And found more things to alter. And didn't stop until 1:26 AM.

And then months later I found a way to work hordes (occupied revolt risk to 3 instead of 1, tribute to 100 instead of 50 in defines.txt) came back and finished my old changes.

Also, note for future reference ('cause I'm guilty of not checking these forums as often as I should) that you should feel free to incorporate any of this work into mods of your own. Would like credit and notification, but don't feel like you need to wait for a response on notifying: I have a habit of not checking the forums when I'm not on a grand strategy kick.

New version at http://www.mediafire.com/?otdccricd9ondhe, old, lite version at the bottom. New version is for 5.1 final only, I think - I modded defines and static modifiers, so that usually screws things up with earlier versions.

Changes:

Version 2.1: Bugfixes.  Sorry for not maintaining this better.

Version 2:

I think I figured out how to work the horde system, so hordes are back!  How?  Tribute.  If tribute is set to 100% instead of 50%, the AI will only refuse peace when they actually want to colonize you.  And don't think you can colonize without stationing an army there - occupied provinces gain revolt risk at three times the rate of vanilla.  The earlier, horde-free version will remain up for those interested.

History!  Lots of history.  The three Kazakh juz, Kalmykia, Khoshuts, Nogai migrations, and I might have forgot to mention something.

But don't think the starting situation hasn't changed either.  Oirats get their own culture - they didn't get along that well with the Mongols, after all.  Everything west of Moghulistan starts as shamanist, but you can't just annex shamanists like they're Aztecs anymore.  (Yeah there are knock-on effects in North America.  GOOD ONES.)  There are decisions to convert, though, if they plunder enough that shamanism ceases to be the majority religion.  Kazakhstan and Nogai given to the Golden Horde.  GH gets cores on Kazan and Astrakhan, but will have to deal with 50 years of rebels in Sibir, Kazakhstan, Nogai, and the Crimea.  Jurchens divided in three - thanks chatnoir!  All three are steppe hordes, but the Jalayirids are sedentary again, to save Arabia from anachronistic plundering.

VERSION 0.21 (though really more of a version 1):

1) Manchu now in Altaic culture group (East Asian is a silly group to begin with, and although their language might not be related, the other nomads all are) and have knowledge of Korea and sea zones.
2) Horde forcelimit bonus reduced to 0.75.  Hopefully this will keep inflation and blobbing in check a bit (the Qara Koyunlu got ridiculous in a test game of mine from 1453) while keeping them able to stand up to the sedentary states.


Version 0.1

- Nomads now tech at 0.6, not 0.1.  Their government form doesn't have a technology malus, either.  (It might be overpowered now for players.  Haven't played any long games yet.  On the other hand, TSCs are NASTY.) I chose this speed because it put them above India (which did end up conquered by the Mughals) and China (likewise with the Manchu) but below Muslims and Eastern Orthodox.  They have units, too - excellent cavalry, weak infantry, all copypasted from other units and the names changed.  No descriptions, because central asian military history is not my strong suit.
2) The Manchu and Jalayirids are now nomads, as are all the altaic culture-group nations which appear after 1399.  Steppe nomad is valid for new governments, too, although if it appears outside the actual steppe I wrote an event to switch them to tribal despotisms.
3) The DW horde system is gone.  I liked the concept, but the AI was prone to perpetually occupy nomad lands instead of accepting tribute, so I had to axe it.
4) The Qasim Khanate and Zaporozhian Host now have their historic cultures (Tatar and Ruthenian, respectively) instead of the cultures of the provinces they form in.  This might make them never form and only occur from late start dates, but the alternative was sillier.
5) Remember the Golden Horde, that unified Tatar nation-state which rampaged across Europe and Persia and the like?  Well, don't.  Historically they were in perpetual anarchy in the timeframe and made the Timurids look stable before they fell apart. Consequently, Crimea and Kazan now have cores and state cultures (Crimean Tartar and Volga Bulgarian) and the GH has twelve or so non-core provinces for a lot of TSC fun!  Overcome the challenge of holding the horde together, instead of just having a pretender and new provinces rise whenever the Khan passes away. 
6) Included is a decision I wrote a while ago to restore the Mongol Empire.  It requires owning the major steppe capitals while still being a horde.  Gives you a lot of cores and (if you didn't form it as them) changes your tag to the Mongol Khanate.

I hope you enjoy this mod. If you have any suggestions for overhauling the steppe, either for historical accuracy or game balance, I welcome them; if I had more knowledge and flags I wouldn't mind making this region as detailed as the HRE.

[Trin Tragula]

4) The Qasim Khanate and Zaporozhian Host now have their historic cultures (Tatar and Ruthenian, respectively) instead of the cultures of the provinces they form in. This might make them never form and only occur from late start dates, but the alternative was sillier.

You should probably change the Timurids and Mughals from Uzbek as well then. Babur would be turning in his grave if he knew that people would consider him an uzbek prince

Having a culture different than the one of their provinces would in HTTT, after the betapatches, mean that they cannot be released as a vassal but can revolt (and using event commands they can be created with the release command but not the release_vassal one). Provinces other than the ones that formed the country initially will prefer to form another revolter rather than defect to your wrong cultured countries though.
Not sure if this has changed for DW (this was changed around a lot during the betapatches for HTTT atleast).

[birdboy2000]

I know Uzbek doesn't quite fit given the various wars with the Shaybanids (though he was born in modern-day Uzbekistan) but what do I change them *to*? Wikipedia doesn't make it obvious and I confess I haven't read much on the subject.

[Trin Tragula]

I'm far from well read on this either but it's my understand that Timur and Babur would be of Chagatai decent but I think the culture of the Timurid empire should probably be that of Transoxiana (ie the area beyond the Amu Darya in which Samarkand and Bukhara lies). This is where it gets complicated in EU3 terms.
In 1399 there should still not be any uzbeks (or atleast not an uzbek majority) in that area but it starts out with uzbek culture. The Uzbeks would in fact not come there until later on and would then drive away the many timurid factions from the area (their origin is not as I understand it entirely clear but they did invade from the general area of Khazakstan around where the EU3 Turkestan province is). That's why Babur spent so much time trying to reclaim the area before giving up and going to India instead (in the end a prudent choice for his dynasty but Babur himself was never happy with it).

In my mod I renamed the Turkmeni culture to Turkoman (to make it a bit more generic, the general culture of the areas with that culture and Transoxiana/Mavaranahr was as I understand rather similar at that point anyway) and then added a way for the Uzbeks to move into the area later from the north.
Another way of doing it might be to rename uzbek to "Chaghatayid", "Turkic, "Turani", "Turco-Mongol" or "Transoxianian" or somesuch and just ignore the different peoples moving around in the area. After all, while the Uzbeks would be a new arrival in the area they did not kill or forcibly remove the entire existing population, in very general terms the culture likely remained the same. This is really the route chosen by paradox, though they used the name Uzbek (presumably for familiarity) even though it's not normally used until the Uzbek tribes move into the area and form their state.

Having first the Timurids and then the Mughal empire as Uzbek does look odd atleast to me though. Especially considering how several Baburs descendants would from time to time try to reclaim the area he left and fail against their ancestral enemies with that name Babur spoke old Chagatai his entire life (and his autobiography is written in the language), in time the Mughals would adopt Persian as their court language instead but they never did speak Uzbek as far as I know.

[birdboy2000]

Renaming Uzbek culture to Chagatayid seems to make the most sense. I should also flip Chagatai from Kyrgyz in that case, along with some if not all of their provinces. (Altishar and Uighurstan at least, as Uighurs speak a language descended from Chagatai Turkish. Dzungaria would become the center of the Oirat state so I'd like to leave it Mongol. As for the Kyrgyz provinces, I'm not entirely sure what to do with them, but I'm leaning towards switching them to Chagatai as well.)

[highsis]

Is there any way to do major overhaul on steppe system while keeping new features from DW? Horde system is one of only three new features added in DW, yet it's horribly unbalanced...

Say, it is possible to allow horde retake provinces they have cores on, make default status as peace instead of constant war, and make it really hard for Ming to streamroll hordes?

I still love your idea and this mod. But it would be great if we could somehow leave the new feature while balancing horde problems.

[birdboy2000]

It should be simple to allow hordes to retake cores by writing a province defection event. I can't find an event to make the default status war, so I don't know how to fix it short of axing the system entirely though there could be workarounds, like free units or a tiny WE limit, which could give them a chance to survive *in* perpetual war.

The main problem I ran into was that of occupation. Quite simply, Ming doesn't *want* to peace out with the Oirats or Mongols. Likewise anyone against the GH or Timurids if they get overrun. And I'm not really sure how to overcome that, although I welcome any suggestions.

[highsis]

1. I think colonists bonus must be removed

2.How about adding a relationship deteriorating modifier to steppe government so its relation with neighbors always decreases, to simulate frequent wars like DW? To prevent it, neighbors will have to send 'Tributes' constantly, or their relationsihp will run towars -200! It will be pretty much like DW, without steppes getting ass kicked.

We already have 'neighbors at peace' +1 modifier, right? Editing it to negative value just for steppe government would be great.

3. Does deleting Steppe = yes from gov.txt remove special effect steppe government has like shock bonus?

[birdboy2000]

1. Colonist bonus should certainly be lowered if not removed outright, but this alone doesn't stop perpetual occupation. As an experiment, I made it so hordes *couldn't* be colonized, and this... got rid of the colonists, but Ming was still content to hold Oirat lands for years.
2. The AI rarely gives gifts, so they still won't be sending tribute. A relationship penalty does sound interesting, though - how do I code it in the government? (I don't see anything in the effect list, but I might be missing it.) Alternatively, I could use events to lower relations, but that seems like a path to event spam.
3. I... honestly don't know. Test it out yourself I guess, but I'm not sure where the shock bonus is.

[highsis]

EU3_1.jpg


Playing Korea till 1541. This is so awesome, Ming does not blob, and there are 'MORE' nations in east asia since nomads were not really nations... This makes playing as Korea and Japan so much more interesting!! moreover, Ming does not fall apart even if it loses mandate of heaven because it did not overextend itself! (notice Wu was created but Ming didn't fall apart?)

Everybody who considers playing Asian country should use this mod! I love it so far.



ps. One thing I noticed is this mod deletes Nomad raid event. It's weird because nomad event occurs when Korea is bordering Manchu or Ming, it shouldn't have anything to do with nomadic government.

[birdboy2000]

I didn't mean to delete nomad raids? I don't know what's going on there - I added one event, and it doesn't have the same ID, and the triggers for the nomad raid event don't *seem* to depend on Manchu's government type or tech group.

Glad you like it! Ming did fall apart in my game, but from rebels, not overextension, though as the Oirats I was all too happy to pick up a few provinces in the aftermath.

[DominusNovus]

I tend to give the hordes a big morale boost (and severe magistrate and missionary penalty, to balance). Seems to help a little bit.

Edit: Eh, meant to post this in different thread about the vanilla DW hordes. Oh well. I do like your plan, though.

[highsis]

EU3_2.jpg



because of culture difference, Manchu immediately switches to despotic_monarch as soon as the game starts... and they don't have vision of Korea. Should they have vision of neighbors?

[birdboy2000]

Weird, I put in "culture = manchu" into the event as an exception and everything. Switched them to altaic culture because it makes more sense, which should fix the bug. (Also gave them knowledge of Korea, as per your suggestion). Check the new version and see if it works better.

On another note, I've read up a bit on central asian history, and found some places where Paradox's version could use a change, i. e. modeling the Kalmyk migration, or the fact that Kazakhs should not be around in 1399. Already modded the version on my comp a fair amount in that regard. Should I include them in this mod, or would you guys rather I keep this alteration of the vanilla setup separate?

[highsis]

Weird, I put in "culture = manchu" into the event as an exception and everything. Switched them to altaic culture because it makes more sense, which should fix the bug. (Also gave them knowledge of Korea, as per your suggestion). Check the new version and see if it works better.

On another note, I've read up a bit on central asian history, and found some places where Paradox's version could use a change, i. e. modeling the Kalmyk migration, or the fact that Kazakhs should not be around in 1399. Already modded the version on my comp a fair amount in that regard. Should I include them in this mod, or would you guys rather I keep this alteration of the vanilla setup separate?

If my personal opinion dose carry anthing worth, I would say don't take out nations unless they can added during gameplay through events. (In other words, don't take um out if you can never see tham by starting from 1399)

I know Japanese history, and 4 daimyos that represent Japanese civil war in DW were ALL GONE BEFORE 1399. By the game's timeframe, they did not exist at all. We only have a few nations outside of Europe that it really hurts to have less nations... But if you could somehow make them popup while playing, sure, why not?

Thanks for a quick fix. Now I will go play Manchu



ps. would their be any way to depict that a Nomad is not acually one naiton but is composed of tens of, sometimes hundres of different tribes? So all nomdas are like one-province-minors, but when it comes to conquering foreign land, they come under the same flag like Japanese daimyos. Even without daimyo like systems, if we have a bunch of one-province-minor nomads, that would be a hell lot of fun, just like plaing Europe.

If it is possible to 'group' them in a league that is relatively free from outsiders, so outsider cannot gaurentee/warn these minor tribes...



ps2. it seems like 1845 - Uiji.txt is missing from visible Korea for Manchu. It's not a big deal, but hidden province in border restricts usage of spies, so please fix this 1845 - Uiji.txt is a new province added in divine wind, so the number is far apart from other Korean provinces.


ps.3 Manchu needs to have vision of coastal provinces of Korea and Manchu to use its navies at all. (it starts with a lot of ships which can't even sail out of ports)

Also, all other nomads have sights of neighboring uncolonized province, where as Manchu doesn't.

I edited files for me but since my uploader list is full and I can't seem to delete them, I can't post it here; sorry. And for my game, I didn't reveal uncolonized provinces around Manchu. Russia will be striped naked if I do so, but it's your call

[birdboy2000]

Fixed Uiji.

I don't know about an OPM in every province, and I'd have no idea how to do a Daimyo-like system, but the existing confederations could certainly be shrunk at some points in the history files. The major Oirat tribes after Esen Taishi's death, the three Kazakh juz, and the Yeren/Haixi/Jianzhou Jurchens come to mind. The big problem with adding them in, at least for the Jurchens and Oirats, is that not only are flags hard to find, but because China doesn't have municipal/provincal flags, I don't even have anachronistic flags to use.

[chatnoir17]

The big problem with adding them in, at least for the Jurchens and Oirats, is that not only are flags hard to find, but because China doesn't have municipal/provincal flags, I don't even have anachronistic flags to use.

How about using one of 8 banners of Qing dynasty for Jurchen clans? It is ahistorical though.

[nuffen]

Love this mod, solves like everything that annoys me with DW, and that also apply to when I play with non-hordes. Love it!

[highsis]

you need to give sea province visions around Manchu/Korean Peninsula to Manchu... Otherwise they start with navies that can't ever leave their port. I believe that would be the last adjustment needed in this mod, so please upload a fix!

[birdboy2000]

Can't use Manchu banners, because they *weren't* based on tribal boundaries.

As for sea zones, how much should I give 'em - just the immediately adjacent ones, or let them circumnavigate Korea?