Fixing bad retinues through modding

[Ragingnorman]

Paradox just hate Heavy Cavalry for some weird reason. During the middle ages, knights with premium equipment were expensive as f@, but even a small group of them could turn the tide of a battle by breaking the formation of the enemy's foot troops or chasing down light armored horsemen. In CK2, knights are slightly more durable than your average pikeman and are known for forcing your flank to fire the wrong tactics (because you don't have enough freedom to form a flank with heavy cav only).

I play with CK2+, it's pretty much balanced IMO, with every retinue costing more gold and nerfed in numbers (pikemen and heavy infantry took the greatest hit, they are the two most OP vanilla retinues), but still have some flaws. I changed the 00_retinue_subunits.txt file to improve my experience with Iberians and Norman/French/Germans. It's really easy and you can experiment with any culture (I just didn't bothered to change the rest because 1) It was already balanced in my opinion or 2) I don't play them at all).

Occitan/Norman/French/German/Breton: 250 HC and 50 LC
- Reason: Enough Light Cavalry to Harass during skirmish phase, but not enough to Raid during melee, your Heavy Cavaly flank will now always charge during melee, like they should.

Iberian: 200 LC and 100 LI
- Reason: Enough Light Infantry to negate Disorganized Harass during Skirmish phase and they also get bonus damage with Raid during melee, you need both Light Infantry and Light Cavalry to use the Clever Ambush tactic. This reflects how praised Jinetes, fast movement and hit-and-run tactics were during the Reconquista.

Unfortunately Horse Archers are bad tactic-wise, so fixing retinues of horse archers would need some alterations to combat tactics (which is something with far worse side effects than modding retinues). Camel Cavalry also need some love after Conclave.

If you don't know CK2+ or aren't sure if it's worth downloading, give it a try! It made the game more balanced (trade routes, army size and maintenance cost, more challenging, more interesting RP-wise (leading your own army, dealing with factions) and with many new interesting events (Carolingean Empire, the Great Schism, Rollo settling at Normandy, not going to spoil everything).

 

[szmik]

Imho each retinue should get a unique tactic to complement. Why devs didn't think of it is beyond me.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Oh look... another "Everyone should be playing CK2+" shill.

In reality knights (and other heavy cavalry) are great - until they run into bad terrain, come under heavy missile fire, or get their charge stopped by weight of numbers. Then they're simply very dead people in swanky armour.

As for events that pre-determine history? They're a bad idea. We're not playing to re-run history as it happened. We're playing to re-write history, or see "what if?". Why under those circumstances are events that make things happen "historically" a good idea?

 

[Ragingnorman]

They were great as a unit that would charge out of nowhere and break the enemy formation, a small number of knights was enough to do the trick, being able to utilize this manuever was a huge advantage in an open field battle. Obviously they wouldn't be so scary during a siege or a fight crossing a river but in CK2 they suck even if the battle is happening in open field and that makes no sense. If only I could place all of my HC levies in the same flank, under a single commander (which would be the most appropriate simulation of how they used this tactic during the middle ages) but no, we can't, so I had to do it with retinues.

Events that pre-determine history are good during the 760-1066 because we lack bookmarks (we can only choose between Charlie start or Sons of Lodbrok start), but they should be something that you could turn off at will IMO. The possiblity to never let the Schism happen is an interesting "what if?" event and some of those pre-determinated events sometimes generate more plot-twists in history than the randomness of Vanilla (for example: It's not that rare to see Shia overpower Sunni, or crusader/jihad independent kingdoms to form, Pagan holy orders, Carolingean Empire vs Umayyad Hispania, random dinasties usurping the Arabian Empire from the Abbasids, England actually becoming a kingdom) if you chose earlier starts.

 

[Kumicho]

Oh look... another "Everyone should be playing CK2+" shill.

In reality knights (and other heavy cavalry) are great - until they run into bad terrain, come under heavy missile fire, or get their charge stopped by weight of numbers. Then they're simply very dead people in swanky armour.

As for events that pre-determine history? They're a bad idea. We're not playing to re-run history as it happened. We're playing to re-write history, or see "what if?". Why under those circumstances are events that make things happen "historically" a good idea?

Somewhere (way down) on my to-do list is to revamp the military aspects of CKII. Add more cultural buildings (for additional culture-specific troops), and add bonuses/maluses for things like terrain, etc. So the French/German armies would be more heavy cavalry-centric, and those armies would perform best on plains, farmland, etc. However, they'd be severely hindered in the mountains, in jungles, in forests and so on.

On the flip side Camel Cavalry would perform best in the deserts, and not so well in the mountains of Scandinavia (and maybe additional penalties based on winter?).

The biggest problem I've been realizing is that "mountains" (and other areas) are pretty ubiquitous throughout the map, so you can have mountains in Africa that would obviously perform differently than mountains in Norway.

The other problem is trying to figure out how to balance all of this.........

 

[Ragingnorman]

Somewhere (way down) on my to-do list is to revamp the military aspects of CKII. Add more cultural buildings (for additional culture-specific troops), and add bonuses/maluses for things like terrain, etc. So the French/German armies would be more heavy cavalry-centric, and those armies would perform best on plains, farmland, etc. However, they'd be severely hindered in the mountains, in jungles, in forests and so on.

On the flip side Camel Cavalry would perform best in the deserts, and not so well in the mountains of Scandinavia (and maybe additional penalties based on winter?).

The biggest problem I've been realizing is that "mountains" (and other areas) are pretty ubiquitous throughout the map, so you can have mountains in Africa that would obviously perform differently than mountains in Norway.

The other problem is trying to figure out how to balance all of this.........

Try to add new tactics or change existing ones (Couched Lance Charge for example, would only work outside of rivers/hills/mountains and wouldn't hinder the damage of HI and Pike, they should actually benefit for the opponent infantry breaking formation) that way you can have Camels op in deserts, Knights op in farmlands, archers op in hills and stuff like that, also those tactics should mostly be connected to culture so it's easier to control (unless you want Embolon-formation huscarl raids).

The only problems would be:
1) Balance, like you said
2) Would the AI be smart enough to use commanders + terrain necessary to fire those tactics? I bet it wouldn't

 

[Strangedane]

I absolutely love the German knight retinues.

While their tactics rolls could be weighted a bit better by dropping some of the LC, I wouldn't want to add more HC, make it cheaper and smaller instead. They are the equivalent of tanks, when used right.
A cavalry + Flank commander, with just 3 of these babies will break mostly anything not composed purely of pikes or heavy inf.
This means that against the AI you can roll down stacks of twice your size simply by getting those heavy cavalry into a flank situation, break the opposing flank and completely wrecking the center.

Takes a bit of planning, but it's absolutely disgusting to see in action.
Lategame a retinue flank of 4000 cavalry will destroy anything that's not elefants, Pikes or Scottish heavies.


Cultural tactics for everyone would be super-sweet though.

 

[Ragingnorman]

I absolutely love the German knight retinues.

While their tactics rolls could be weighted a bit better by dropping some of the LC, I wouldn't want to add more HC, make it cheaper and smaller instead. They are the equivalent of tanks, when used right.

At first I was scared about how expensive they would become. In CK2+ 100 HC and 200 LC use 1200 retinue cap, while my alt 250 HC and 50 LC use 1675, not that bad. Obviously they are more expensive (because retinue cap and unit cost are tied), but since heavy cavalry die a lot less than cheaper retinues it pays off in the long run (less reinforcements, less monthy expenses).

Obviously you could just cut it to 125 HC and 25 LC, you would have the same effect (no Raid tactic) but more freedom, it's a personal choice.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

If you don't know CK2+ ....

It has its own subforum here in User Modifications.

Register your game or as if you don't have a key anymore, sync your Owned Items with Steam for access:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...team-account-to-sync-your-owned-items.894506/

Knights should be more deadly until 12th century or so and then be as they are now i suppose, only that combat values don't differ in between
the different eras of medieval times in game, so we are stuck with the comprimise it currently is.
Knights were simply more effective early until mid than late Middle Ages.
One of the problems of a game spanning over such a long time period.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

They were great as a unit that would charge out of nowhere and break the enemy formation, a small number of knights was enough to do the trick, being able to utilize this manuever was a huge advantage in an open field battle. Obviously they wouldn't be so scary during a siege or a fight crossing a river but in CK2 they suck even if the battle is happening in open field and that makes no sense. If only I could place all of my HC levies in the same flank, under a single commander (which would be the most appropriate simulation of how they used this tactic during the middle ages) but no, we can't, so I had to do it with retinues.

You appear to have fallen for the romantic image of majestic knights crashing through waves of peasant foot, routing them from the field even when massively outnumbered. They were generally held back for decisive charges into already wavering foot, or employed to draw out and then shatter foot units who tried (unsuccessfully) to pursue them in feigned retreats. Charging knights into readied infantry was suicidal, since even archers were protected behind emplacements of sharpened stakes, and horses (even well trained ones) are not keen to charge into thickets of spear points or sharpened trees. To be effective knights needed to be able to hit the infantry from undefended directions or once they were drawn out of, or pushed out of, their defensive locations.

In reality, the "3 flanks" system fails miserably at reflecting tactics, since the knights would be a reserve, unleashed to smash weak points, exploit gaps, or to force back enemy pushes, and would certainly not be the entire complement of one flank (since that would mean that flank was otherwise undefended if the knights were pushed back, or pursued enemy troops off of the field.

Events that pre-determine history are good during the 760-1066 because we lack bookmarks (we can only choose between Charlie start or Sons of Lodbrok start), but they should be something that you could turn off at will IMO. The possiblity to never let the Schism happen is an interesting "what if?" event and some of those pre-determinated events sometimes generate more plot-twists in history than the randomness of Vanilla (for example: It's not that rare to see Shia overpower Sunni, or crusader/jihad independent kingdoms to form, Pagan holy orders, Carolingean Empire vs Umayyad Hispania, random dinasties usurping the Arabian Empire from the Abbasids, England actually becoming a kingdom) if you chose earlier starts.

No. Predetermined history is never good - simply because it prevents the player from doing things differently. If the events are changing history - that's a different matter, as they're hardly pre-arranging history, but rather are expanding possible alternate histories.

As for the Great Schism: a strong argument can be made that it had already effectively happened (depending on when you take the proper split from), and that the formality of the split was inevitable. The Eastern and Western churches had difference on liturgy, practice, and theology well before the Schism of 1054, with disputes around the council 692 (rejected by Rome) being particularly significant, although being based on arguments and different understandings of the council of Ephesus 431, and how the earlier council of 325 was to be viewed.

 

[Talq]

I play with CK2+

Strength of CK2+'s units would depend in part on how they have modded the rest of the combat and combat-tactics system, so don't necessarily map to CK2 san mod, or anything other than CK2+. Which is why we prefer these discussions to be instead in that mod's thread/sub-forum. That and mod-shilling is a fine line from spam.