Is this intent or not?

viruscarrier said:

Yes, it is an exploit that has a basis in gameplay balance rather than historical accuracy. The entire reason you must lower your levies before marching to war is due to the fact that there are no military access treaties. Without forcing the player to lower their levies, they could easily destroy an entire nations armies at the outset of war. The fact that mercenaries are the only group not included in this restriction has no real basis and only serves to allow them to exploit game mechanics.

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Which the AI has no problem doing. Or have you not seen the 120k Mongol horde on your border. Those are essentially 'free' mercs that the Mongols get together to whoop your ass, if you play in E. Europe. You probably, only understand it from the point of view of a player who plays in the W. part of the map. But me, I like to do my little games in the East and its a lot more loosy goosy on that side of the map. And if the AI gets to do it, then I should, too.

SonofWinter said:

Which the AI has no problem doing. Or have you not seen the 120k Mongol horde on your border. Those are essentially 'free' mercs that the Mongols get together to whoop your ass, if you play in E. Europe. You probably, only understand it from the point of view of a player who plays in the W. part of the map. But me, I like to do my little games in the East and its a lot more loosy goosy on that side of the map. And if the AI gets to do it, then I should, too.

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If you really want to do it as well, find the event that spawns those 20K mongol doom stacks. There are 3 I believe, one for the Golden Horde, one for the Ilkhanate and one for the Timurids. It's rather fun holy-war-ing the Arabian peninsula as a one-province Irish Earl.

justin6477 said:

If you really want to do it as well, find the event that spawns those 20K mongol doom stacks. There are 3 I believe, one for the Golden Horde, one for the Ilkhanate and one for the Timurids.

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You haven't finished this thought and I don't know what you were going to say?

Anyways, the Hordes don't get 20k doomstacks. They start with 6 20k doomstacks, of 120k total mongols. And these guys are out for blood. So, sometimes I'll pop an army of 40k mercs, move them to the border and declare war on the Mongols, just to bring one of these 20k armies down and wipe it out, so that I don't have to face them 3 generations down. Especially since the Mongols get 1-2 more 20k armies with each new ruler. So, if some Mongol Khan dies and then his successor dies. They can go from 120k to 180k in 10 years.

viruscarrier said:

Yes, it is an exploit that has a basis in gameplay balance rather than historical accuracy. The entire reason you must lower your levies before marching to war is due to the fact that there are no military access treaties. Without forcing the player to lower their levies, they could easily destroy an entire nations armies at the outset of war. The fact that mercenaries are the only group not included in this restriction has no real basis and only serves to allow them to exploit game mechanics.

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I think there is another gameplay reason for excluding the mercenaries in the requirement, which is that you have to pay a fee to recruit mercenaries, but you can freely disband and raise levies as much as you want. I agree that the tactic being discussed in this thread is cheap and they should see if they can prevent it somehow, but hopefully there's some solution that's not just requiring mercs to be disbanded. Maybe require that they be inside your realm.

viruscarrier said:

Honestly, this just screams exploit. There really isn't any reason that you should have to lower your own levies to declare war but not fire the mercenaries. I'd wager Johan and the gang simply missed this when designing the game.

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SonofWinter said:

Not really an exploit. Unless you can tell me when in the history of Europe you had to disband your entire army before you could declare war on an enemy.

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viruscarrier said:

Yes, it is an exploit that has a basis in gameplay balance rather than historical accuracy. The entire reason you must lower your levies before marching to war is due to the fact that there are no military access treaties. Without forcing the player to lower their levies, they could easily destroy an entire nations armies at the outset of war. The fact that mercenaries are the only group not included in this restriction has no real basis and only serves to allow them to exploit game mechanics.

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I agree with virus; this is clearly an exploit they missed and likely will be fixed in future patches.

The problem is total lack of military access mechanics. In medieval times, people would notice - and messengers would be sent to their lieges - that an army has entered their territorry; no noble, even more a king, would allow such thing. Hostilities would be sure to happen. In CK, there's no such acknowledgement: you could station your troops abroad without a problem. In reality, you could muster your forces and then invade; your problem would be entering unnoticed in the defending nation, since they would quickly muster their forces as well. This would either require a military access mechanic - something that I never liked in medieval games - or create some kind of war deterrant: a CB like subjugation from V2 from the defending side or a massive prestige hit for DoW with raised armies inside your enemy's borders.

Edit: Also, the way the mongols work is justified because they're a horde; they're not a common european noble. They must have this kind of event going for them. Specially because ERE is usually intact or blobfied when they arrive, making short work of those 120k doomstacks.

As the super-awesome-guy originally mentioned, let me reply to the comments.

"Sounds like the type of guy that would learn how to mod just to give himself a gazillion soldiers and a super-ruler for free too."

So, the guy who is able to completely roll through England is one of those guys who "needs" more help. What? How do I need help, I'm completely owning this game IN MY FIRST WEEK! Yes, clearly I want it to be EVEN EASIER!

I'm one of those guys who builds mass huntresses in Warcraft3 because they're broken. I don't need to cheat to win, but you do need to fix your game if I'm just winning without even trying.

"In the meantime, by pre-placing his armies, he will prevent the AI from raising those levies. Which means longer sieges. Which means he's paying more in upkeep than if he had just let them raise their men and fought them in the field. Personally, I think it's a silly strategy"

Money is easy to get and Mercs aren't that hard to maintain esp if you use them like the fodder they are and get them murdered so I can hand out fewer paychecks. Mercs are also SUPER CHEAP in mid game. It costs like 50 gold to go on a grand hunt. Mercs cost 150. I can pay an entire army with what it takes to hold a feast and go hunting. That isn't expensive, that is the deal of a lifetime!

Also, I don't have to "camp" my mercs. They can move, murder everything, then I can form my own levies at my leisure and win.

"Sneak attacks are sneak attacks. "

Yes, It is a sneak attack that I'm marching over 3000 troops into your capital city while you watch. Then afterwards, send a messenger to inform you they are hostile.

"And the rest as they say, is history."

Funny, I remember history being full of really bad things happening when Mercs are disbanded. In fact, isn't most of the "100 Year War" just Mercarcies refusing to go home because France was beaten and they could just keep looting and doing whatever they wanted. It's a game, which requires balance. Otherwise everytime I crush you with mercs, any unclaimed lands should be taken by the mercs.

"Not really an exploit. Unless you can tell me when in the history of Europe you had to disband your entire army before you could declare war on an enemy."

Yes. Expect you have to disband the parts of your army that have peasants in them.

"Mongols"

What are you talking about, I can't play them.

Anyway it's also really cool that something isn't total cheese against the AI, but is total cheese against humans.

SonofWinter said:

You haven't finished this thought and I don't know what you were going to say?

Anyways, the Hordes don't get 20k doomstacks. They start with 6 20k doomstacks, of 120k total mongols. And these guys are out for blood. So, sometimes I'll pop an army of 40k mercs, move them to the border and declare war on the Mongols, just to bring one of these 20k armies down and wipe it out, so that I don't have to face them 3 generations down. Especially since the Mongols get 1-2 more 20k armies with each new ruler. So, if some Mongol Khan dies and then his successor dies. They can go from 120k to 180k in 10 years.

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There are events (I've uh, fired them by accident) that say "The great Khan has sent us reinforcements", or something to that degree. Anyways, point being they spawn 20k men on the far right side of the map with a freakishly powerful general.

After discovering this, I spawned many, many doomstacks and had a lot of fun picking on the Caliphs. I believe my largest army was some 300 thousand strong, or 15 doom stacks. Events 6004, 6005 and 6006 for Ilkhanate, GH and Timurids in that order.

edit. Uh, that's 60004, 60005, and 60006. Forgot a digit. Sorry for that.

TBH Scottland is a joke Kingdom anyway. Even someone like Brittany can beat Scottland with a little bit of timing.


I do feel like this is a bit gamey though. Realistically you should be able to declare war no matter what , even with personal levies raised , so long as they are all within your borders. But never should you be able to march an army through someone else's territory and than instantly war them. I thought in those days you had to get permission to cross borders , and i thought they decided against that design (it would be tedious) and instead went with inability to declare war with raised levies. Because realistically , if you saw a 5k army marching through your lands unannounced , you'd send your own army to crush them immedately. What reason could they possibly have to "stroll" through Scottlands countryside? there isn't even a destination beyond it lol.


With that in mind , yeah its probably an exploit (as far as player mentality goes , but certainly not by design). There are many in the game though which can , if abused , make things stupidly easy and for me atleast boring. You can't fault the Guy for doing it , PI didn't add anything to stop or prevent this kind of thing (as is the case with alot of the gamey tactics). However i gaurentee players that abuse the poor designs will get less out of the game than those who don't.

I think the reasons levies cannot be raised is that this was an exploit in the original game where players could raise their entire realm for war, march to the border, declare war and wipe out their enemy before they had prepared.

As for mercenaries/holy orders, they should have to be in the capital. I think that is a fair compromise. I have no doubt an oversight.

Stratagyfan101 said:

I think the reasons levies cannot be raised is that this was an exploit in the original game where players could raise their entire realm for war, march to the border, declare war and wipe out their enemy before they had prepared.

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Well, that or they'd need to get rid of the whole "levies raised for too long business" which I honestly think pops up way too soon. I mean, it's a bit of a nuisance when levy size is relative to vassal opinion, and having a standing army drains your vassal's opinions. Especially if you get targeted a lot.

justin6477 said:

Well, that or they'd need to get rid of the whole "levies raised for too long business" which I honestly think pops up way too soon. I mean, it's a bit of a nuisance when levy size is relative to vassal opinion, and having a standing army drains your vassal's opinions. Especially if you get targeted a lot.

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"Levies raised for too long" doesn't happen if you're fighting a defensive war.

fivex said:

"Levies raised for too long" doesn't happen if you're fighting a defensive war.

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Sadly rebels don't count as a defensive war.

And I thought I had seen it pop up when one of my vassals rebelled for independence. Maybe it was just a hold over from rebel whacking.