Are nomads over powered?

[CyaN]

It's not just that. I suppose you could play with clans, though I don't know why you would, but even with them the fact that they get rapidly reinforcing monotype units and are basically unassailable leaves them way, way overpowered.

Just played the Uyghur start mentioned earlier, 20 years later and I own Arabia, most of that time being spent walking because starting in the northeast corner is SLOW. Did it in ironman, here's what it looks like.

The main reason they're overpowered is their troops - after conquering the Abbasids I decided to destroy Byzantium, here's what the decisive battle looked like. Not very good commanders, attacking over a river and an equal numbered force with troops I can easily replace that would take many years for Byzantium to get back.

Over vassal limit, full of wrong-culture wrong-religion feudal holdings, and your steppe counties are rebellious. Seems like there's just 1 problem with that situation: steppe rebellions should be much more dangerous and wreck you if you're ignoring the nomad system.

 

[Eslin]

Over vassal limit because I conquered it and then quit - you get under it by revoking the feudal vassals and burning everything down. Of course the steppe counties are rebellious, that's why there are a few thousand horsemen back home running around giving me free prestige, and the holdings will stop being wrong culture, wrong religion and feudal once they're burnt down and give me ridiculous amounts of free money and tech while the horsies run around destroying any rebellions that pop up while I do.

Only reason I didn't do that is well, why would I? 20 years in, took over the Abbasids, declared war and beat Byzantium immediately after, there's no challenge.

 

[CyaN]

Over vassal limit because I conquered it and then quit - you get under it by revoking the feudal vassals and burning everything down. Of course the steppe counties are rebellious, that's why there are a few thousand horsemen back home running around giving me free prestige, and the holdings will stop being wrong culture, wrong religion and feudal once they're burnt down and give me ridiculous amounts of free money and tech while the horsies run around destroying any rebellions that pop up while I do.

Only reason I didn't do that is well, why would I? 20 years in, took over the Abbasids, declared war and beat Byzantium immediately after, there's no challenge.

That's the problem. You shouldn't be able to quell all rebellions with a few thousand troops. Obviously there's a miscalculation there if ignoring the clan system is a viable strategy.

 

[Eslin]

That's the problem. You shouldn't be able to quell all rebellions with a few thousand troops. Obviously there's a miscalculation there if ignoring the clan system is a viable strategy.

That's one problem, there are plenty of others. These include:

• Heavy cavalry, elephants and horse archers being costed the same manpower as light cavalry - broken because the rest of the game is balanced around more powerful units costing more than less powerful units.
• An army consisting entirely of monotype units - broken because monotype units get much better tactics, observe losing 100 units while Byzantium lost 5000 in an equal fight.
• An army which reinforces incredibly quickly on the field - broken because everyone else must replenish their losses with large amounts of time or cash.

Additional things that should be advantages nomads have, but are rendered icing on the bullshit cake because nomads are already stronger:

• Incredibly asymmetrical land acquisition, nomads actually gain from acquiring enemy land, reaping large quantities of cash and then instantly converting them to their culture and religion while feudal realms must slowly convert them and take a long time before lands become useful - a huge advantage, but would not be broken if it were offset with other weaknesses. It isn't, the nomads have strengths where they should have weaknesses, so broken.
• No penalties for army maintenance, while other realms have to disband their armies to reinforce them properly or take years to reinforce for retinues, a nomad army stays at full strength and actively reinforces without need for retirement - a huge advantage, but would not be broken if it were offset with other weaknesses. It isn't, the nomads have strengths where they should have weaknesses, so broken.
• No fear of conquest, while a feudal realm has to spent thousands of gold upgrading their holdings if a nomad loses land they can just grab more and that land starts being useful instantly - a huge advantage, but would not be broken if it were offset with other weaknesses. It isn't, the nomads have strengths where they should have weaknesses, so broken.

A nomadic empire should be able to race through and conquer the Abbasids, no question, but in order to do so they should need to build up an empire of equal power, and if they lose thousands of horsemen that should be a crippling blow, not something they get over in a few months of reinforcing.

 

[CyaN]

That's one problem, there are plenty of others. These include:

• Heavy cavalry, elephants and horse archers being costed the same manpower as light cavalry - broken because the rest of the game is balanced around more powerful units costing more than less powerful units.
• An army consisting entirely of monotype units - broken because monotype units get much better tactics, observe losing 100 units while Byzantium lost 5000 in an equal fight.
• An army which reinforces incredibly quickly on the field - broken because everyone else must replenish their losses with large amounts of time or cash.

Additional things that should be advantages nomads have, but are rendered icing on the bullshit cake because they're already stronger:

• Incredibly asymmetrical land acquisition, nomads actually gain from acquiring enemy land, reaping large quantities of cash and then instantly converting them to their culture and religion while feudal realms must slowly convert them and take a long time before lands become useful - a huge advantage, but would not be broken if it were offset with other weaknesses. It isn't, the nomads have strengths where they should have weaknesses, so broken.
• No penalties for army maintenance, while other realms have to disband their armies to reinforce them properly or take years to reinforce for retinues, a nomad army stays at full strength and actively reinforces without need for retirement - a huge advantage, but would not be broken if it were offset with other weaknesses. It isn't, the nomads have strengths where they should have weaknesses, so broken.
• No fear of conquest, while a feudal realm has to spent thousands of gold upgrading their holdings if a nomad loses land they can just grab more and that land starts being useful instantly - a huge advantage, but would not be broken if it were offset with other weaknesses. It isn't, the nomads have strengths where they should have weaknesses, so broken.

A nomadic empire should be able to race through and conquer the Abbasids, no question, but in order to do so they should need to build up an empire of equal power, and if they lose thousands of horsemen that should be a crippling blow, not something they get over in a few months of reinforcing.

I agree with most of your points. The second one is not a problem in my opinion (sure, they have a better troops/strength ratio than your average army, but that's the pretty much the point of being a horse lord historically so I don't think that should change), and nomad armies have some specific weaknesses, not too difficult to avoid though (prestige troops may lead you to an awful situation if you have too many of them and you are inherited by a character with little prestige; once you go negative, you will keep losing prestige but they won't be reinforced anymore). Some finetuning is definitely needed, and they ARE on the OP side right now, but that's hardly surprising with new mechanics. It's a matter of making some numbers a bit smaller or bigger, I think. Let's see how new patches address it.

BTW, I opened a thread in Bug Report about this because if NK-mode was an exploit, then clearly no-clans Nomad is also an exploit, so I wanted the devs to be aware of the issue. Feel free to weigh in.

 

[Eslin]

I agree with most of your points. The second one is not a problem in my opinion (sure, they have a better troops/strength ratio than your average army, but that's the pretty much the point of being a horse lord historically so I don't think that should change), and nomad armies have some specific weaknesses, not too difficult to avoid though (prestige troops may lead you to an awful situation if you have too many of them and you are inherited by a character with little prestige; once you go negative, you will keep losing prestige but they won't be reinforced anymore). Some finetuning is definitely needed, and they ARE on the OP side right now, but that's hardly surprising with new mechanics. It's a matter of making some numbers a bit smaller or bigger, I think. Let's see how new patches address it.

BTW, I opened a thread in Bug Report about this because if NK-mode was an exploit, then clearly no-clans Nomad is also an exploit, so I wanted the devs to be aware of the issue. Feel free to weigh in.

Why would you use the prestige troops though? The best troops are lancers or camels, both of which are gold dependent. And it is surprising that they're too strong, most of the reasons they're too strong are easily determined with very basic arithmetic, I am genuinely baffled regarding why they decided to do things like costing heavy cavalry the same as they cost horse archers.

 

[Robert II]

Why would you use the prestige troops though? The best troops are lancers or camels, both of which are gold dependent. And it is surprising that they're too strong, most of the reasons they're too strong are easily determined with very basic arithmetic, I am genuinely baffled regarding why they decided to do things like costing heavy cavalry the same as they cost horse archers.

This is the first dlc I've got on release and it seems like it just wasn't tested much with how stupidly op nomads are. They're fun but shenanigans

 

[CyaN]

Why would you use the prestige troops though? The best troops are lancers or camels, both of which are gold dependent. And it is surprising that they're too strong, most of the reasons they're too strong are easily determined with very basic arithmetic, I am genuinely baffled regarding why they decided to do things like costing heavy cavalry the same as they cost horse archers.

They're the only sensible choice in many early situations. When you're 2 provinces big in the middle of the steppes far from the Silk Road, you need troops right now and you're not swimming in gold. Money-based hordes are definitely better as soon as you can afford them, though.

This is the first dlc I've got on release and it seems like it just wasn't tested much with how stupidly op nomads are. They're fun but shenanigans

Not really, honestly. Tremendously fun but quite OP, usually, and capable of everything if you exploit them the right way: they're par for the course, vikings weren't any different.

I'm doing a non-exploity game and it's been fantastic, and quite a challenge at some points. The DLC can be enjoyed thoroughly if you avoid cheese, and cheese will probably be removed eventually. As I said, nothing special about it, I rate this expansion very highly myself.

 

[Eslin]

Well yeah, that's how you start the game - spend everything on pure LC, since the AI uses mixed retinues which get their teeth kicked in by LC. Then in a few years once you're swimming in gold from raiding, silk road and burning everything to the ground, start dumping that gold into better retinues. The only conceivable time the prestige thing could hurt you is if you die within a few years of starting, so... just don't start on a really old character?

 

[CyaN]

Well yeah, that's how you start the game - spend everything on pure LC, since the AI uses mixed retinues which get their teeth kicked in by LC. Then in a few years once you're swimming in gold from raiding, silk road and burning everything to the ground, start dumping that gold into better retinues. The only conceivable time the prestige thing could hurt you is if you die within a few years of starting, so... just don't start on a really old character?

I've had a 35 year old Khagan (perfectly healthy too) die on me, when his eldest son was 15 and a half. So not only I lost the top-tier title (for some months) but I also had to dismiss my prestige troops and rebuild the horde . Bad things happen randomly to random people and nomads are no exception, don't take normality for granted. You can design the best possible breeding program in order to have an abundance of super-human heirs, and yet end up with an old and awful ruler due to unlucky deaths.

 

[Pro]

You know you can just turn of reinforment if you don't have the presige, right? I'm also pretty sure that the prestige cost for reinforcing being subtracted even though you aren't getting reinforcements is a bug.

 

[Zolotaya]

... I don't understand. Why would you give out land? That just makes you weaker, and there's no penalty except for easily quashable revolts for holding all the land yourself. The 'absorb clan' button's right there in blue, we were meant to use it.

Just as you are meant to absorb clans, you are meant to give out land. That was the intended design and you can see this by reading the DD's. This is a broken mechanic and it will be fixed.

The other things you use are just as broken ... the costs and tactics of particular units where you spent an entire thread detailing where they are broken is but one example.

Remember when I said you must evaluate ai vs ai when determining OPness? Well, this is why. The ai doesn't abuse mechanics so, when the mechanics and systems are operating as intended you see how the reality should be.

Perhaps you should apply to be an internal beta for CK2. These folks should have caught this stuff and now we are going to need to wait 3 or 4 passes before some of these get addressed.

 

[bkerns]

The AI is really bad at the game. You might look at them and say raiding is underpowered when some idiot viking lands 100 raiding troops directly on your 3000 levy capital. It really isn't a good benchmark for what is broken and what isn't.

 

[Eslin]

Just as you are meant to absorb clans, you are meant to give out land. That was the intended design and you can see this by reading the DD's. This is a broken mechanic and it will be fixed.

The other things you use are just as broken ... the costs and tactics of particular units where you spent an entire thread detailing where they are broken is but one example.

Remember when I said you must evaluate ai vs ai when determining OPness? Well, this is why. The ai doesn't abuse mechanics so, when the mechanics and systems are operating as intended you see how the reality should be.

Perhaps you should apply to be an internal beta for CK2. These folks should have caught this stuff and now we are going to need to wait 3 or 4 passes before some of these get addressed.

'Never have a composition that isn't 100% made of the same unit' is not a particularly complicated tactic.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

I suggest you relook at the numbers. Starting out as the Uyghurs in 768, you have 3 pretty good counties, with a pop of 4500 and a max pop of 13k, gaining 90 per month. Your manpower starts out at 1100 (which is incredibly weak). Yes theoretically these 3 counties could support up to 4k troops, if I somehow managed to be at peace for the next twenty years. Its only gaining 20 manpower per month at this time, and that will only slow down as pop growth slows.

TBH after seeing your other posts, it seems as though you are massively gaming the system, and then complaining that its broke. I conquered the world in 5 years, but I didn't complain that the game was broken, it was actually the exact opposite, I broke the game.

"Gaming the System" only means that there are inherent flaws in the system which any rational person would "exploit". Telling a person to not "Game the system" is largely equivalent to telling them to roleplay their own defeat/difficulty which is counter-intuitive. If you can "break" the game by doing things which are entirely intended for you to be able to do without using console commands, modding, and whatnot then the game is broken and not because of you.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

I didn't have so much fun since the Vikings.


You really don't see a problem with abusing the system to the point where you have become the new North Korea and complaining that they're too powerful?

Verbal gymnastics aside, because I have already read every possible verbal gymnastics exercise to justify exploiting CK2 and I doubt you could say something new about it, it's obvious that the point of the clan system is to use it. What you describe sounds like an exploit that will be addressed.

Yet this just give more evidence to the claim that the system is broken.

 

[KingNothing]

"Gaming the System" only means that there are inherent flaws in the system which any rational person would "exploit". Telling a person to not "Game the system" is largely equivalent to telling them to roleplay their own defeat/difficulty which is counter-intuitive. If you can "break" the game by doing things which are entirely intended for you to be able to do without using console commands, modding, and whatnot then the game is broken and not because of you.

But this isn't what a rational person would do. I seriously doubt that more then 5% of the people are doing this. This is looking for, and finding an exploit. And then dealing with, literally, constant revolts, actually almost the entire time. Most people would not find that fun, and would not do that.

 

[Eslin]

But this isn't what a rational person would do. I seriously doubt that more then 5% of the people are doing this. This is looking for, and finding an exploit. And then dealing with, literally, constant revolts, actually almost the entire time. Most people would not find that fun, and would not do that.

It is in no way difficult, you just click a rotating path for some light cavalry and forget it. Grab 5 or 10 thousand LC, shift click everywhere in your territory, watch the prestige pour in.

If you have sons to spare, put them in charge, they'll either die or gain traits.

 

[Stars_and_Bars]

It's not just that. I suppose you could play with clans, though I don't know why you would, but even with them the fact that they get rapidly reinforcing monotype units and are basically unassailable leaves them way, way overpowered.

Just played the Uyghur start mentioned earlier, 20 years later and I own Arabia, most of that time being spent walking because starting in the northeast corner is SLOW. Did it in ironman, here's what it looks like.

The main reason they're overpowered is their troops - after conquering the Abbasids I decided to destroy Byzantium, here's what the decisive battle looked like. Not very good commanders, attacking over a river and an equal numbered force with troops I can easily replace that would take many years for Byzantium to get back.

so here we have a battle where the Uighurs had 1.6% casualties out of an army that is 100% cavalry whereas the Byzantines had 23% cavalry and had 69.75% casualties
considering the armies were about equal size I don't consider it to be a tactical exploit. What does seem to be OP though I don't how much people might use it, is that nomads get max gold, tech, and levies from their non-nomadic vassals. I'm very much surprised that the Byzantines weren't able to field a larger army.

 

[bkerns]

It depends on what you mean by exploit. This isn't a bug, just poor balancing.