A few irritations with Horse Lords

[CaptainPolyp]

[Oups sorry... This thread may be a bit outdated...]

I agree with the OP on everything

Adding:
I think that the invasion cb should be nerfed... at least for nomads. It gets so incredibly ridiculous when you declare war to a multiple king ruler or multiple duke ruler, with an invasion cb granting you one of the titles (kingdom or duchy) but you end up occupying every single county in the entire realm of the ruler, effectively taking all of the titles in the realm (even vassal ones)... With a single war for a duchy, you can wipe out a powerful realm.
Worse, against strong defensive pacts, you have to occupy a lot of counties, sometimes beyond the target title to achive a sufficient warscore. The AI still refuses peace whereas it begins to lose far more than the targeted title. I just wanted the Crimea part of a strong Hungary kingdom but was forced to conquer (and gain) 4 additional counties in the western part of the kingdom (the de jure part)... (I finally left a strange independant mongol-buddhist realm in the middle of Hungary, but it could have been less painful for the king of Hungary ^^)

A reasonable nerf: limit the titles gained from occupation to the titles within the targetted kingdom or duchy.
That would slow down the nomads.

If the goal is to ensure very fast nomad expansion, then the invasion cb is fine but the stability of the nomad government should be nerfed so that it is hard to keep et very large realm for too long (making it more realistic with how nomadic khanate were). Just now, it is very easy to keep multiple kingdoms and empires while having >80 clan sentiment with every vassals and >70 opinion with the vassal khans (-100 opinion from feudal vassals but they are irrelevant).

The last thing:
I regret having no solutions to vassalize nomads (and include them among you nomadic vassals even if they don't have the same culture). it would slow down a bit the culture wipe out.

 

[Harassercat]

I haven't played as a nomad yet but am already a bit irritated with Horse Lords that I recently bought and installed. Two reasons: for one all the AI nomadic realms are very weak now and get steamrolled by Bulgaria (867 start), Khiva or whatever feudal power is next to them. The other reason is tributary wars, which are an interesting (though somewhat exploitable) option to me as a player but apparently AI powers all over the world now love to attack each other to get tributaries, including all the big Catholic kingdoms. All in all the tributary wars make the game easier for me while the weakness of the AI nomads makes it less historical and less immersive.

That said, I like the idea to form a huge nomadic power and then eventually invade a good kingdom, adopt the local religion (and perhaps culture) and settle down. Very historical and immersive, great RP. I'll likely try that in my next playthrough.

 

[Dr Gonzo]

I haven't played as a nomad yet but am already a bit irritated with Horse Lords that I recently bought and installed. Two reasons: for one all the AI nomadic realms are very weak now and get steamrolled by Bulgaria (867 start), Khiva or whatever feudal power is next to them. The other reason is tributary wars, which are an interesting (though somewhat exploitable) option to me as a player but apparently AI powers all over the world now love to attack each other to get tributaries, including all the big Catholic kingdoms. All in all the tributary wars make the game easier for me while the weakness of the AI nomads makes it less historical and less immersive.

That said, I like the idea to form a huge nomadic power and then eventually invade a good kingdom, adopt the local religion (and perhaps culture) and settle down. Very historical and immersive, great RP. I'll likely try that in my next playthrough.

I agree with what you're saying about the weakness of the nomads. The problem seems to be making it so the AI is still viable while human players aren't totally OP. I do think they need to be stronger right now though.

 

[CannotresistDLC]

I agree with what you're saying about the weakness of the nomads. The problem seems to be making it so the AI is still viable while human players aren't totally OP. I do think they need to be stronger right now though.

Yeah, starting with population at... 1/3 of maximum? 1/4? Does make nomads kind of vulnerable to any feudal neighbors right when the game starts. Makes starting as a nomad with a small realm really tricky, too. You want to be close to all that wealth for raiding but don't want to be curbstomped...

 

[Harassercat]

I agree with what you're saying about the weakness of the nomads. The problem seems to be making it so the AI is still viable while human players aren't totally OP. I do think they need to be stronger right now though.

Common problem in strategy game design. I was reflecting on it myself today. The only solution I can see is to have hidden bonuses for the AI.

What would make a lot of sense is for nomadic horse cultures to have a very significant terrain-specific bonus for their mounted units. Mainly for horse archers in steppe terrain. Perhaps the bonus should just be specific to the unit but it would make sense to have a government- or cultural bonus too.

Historically the nomads dominated the steppe throughout the time period of CK2. It's not until the early modern period, with massed armies with firearms, that the power of the steppe horsemen was broken. Therefore I find it really sad and unimmersive to see 9th century settled kingdoms like Bulgaria and Georgia steamrolling across the steppe and nomadic powers melting into non-existence within a few decades. It almost breaks the game for me tbh, particularly if I were playing in that corner of the world.

 

[Griff Lancer]

The horde AI is a travesty, they won't even pillage

 

[Dr Gonzo]

The horde AI is a travesty, they won't even pillage

I had the idea that they do but only in rare circumstances. I might be imagining it though.

 

[Griff Lancer]

I had the idea that they do but only in rare circumstances. I might be imagining it though.

No, they don't I played with the code, AI just won't do it.
My Vanilla Overhaul mod has them do it sometimes, but I'm not all that satisfied with it. Wish a dev would do something with them. Especially because nomads will just hand over feudal lands over to lords and not really do anything with them beyond that. Non-nomads can build on empty holdings while nomad AI will never pillage.

 

[Hiiri]

Razing is particularly boring and painful process at the moment. It's just repetitive clicking on a scale that drains all the joy out of the game. Much better solution could be to have razing be a monthly tick that slowly disintegrates holdings.

Not to mention you can accidentally "Settle as feudal" if you lose focus for a second when clicking the alert at top.

 

[Dr Gonzo]

No, they don't I played with the code, AI just won't do it.
My Vanilla Overhaul mod has them do it sometimes, but I'm not all that satisfied with it. Wish a dev would do something with them. Especially because nomads will just hand over feudal lands over to lords and not really do anything with them beyond that. Non-nomads can build on empty holdings while nomad AI will never pillage.

Yeah in my own overhaul I've built in events which make holdings lose buildings when they're captured and it seems to work well for keeping the nomadic areas realistic. I had the theory they were doing some of it themselves though.