Great Horde - How to?

[Peregrinus]

Up until very recently, I've only played in western Europe. Then I tried a game as Japan and it was fun and I got colonies in the Philippines, Alaska, and California. But then I wanted to try one of the hordes as they seemed very interesting and unique. I chose the Great Horde since it's considered much easier than Mongolia for the Great Khan achievement.

Firstly, I probably started at least 10 games before I could advance through the first 20 years without having someone declare war on me which I could not defend against. But now that I finally have a game that is in 1563 with a decent start, I worry.

As you can see, I am just really behind on tech. My diplomatic and military techs are only 1-2 levels behind everyone else, but my admin tech is really behind (6/10/11). I've been spending a lot of admin power on coring so that explains that, but I have hardly spent anything for diplo/military power yet I'm still so far behind.

I have no DLCs so it really sucks that I cannot develop my provinces to speed up institution spread.

And I have not been able to ally the Ottomans this whole game, as I've always been at about -10 points for the alliance. Persia is allied with the Ottomans and Novgorod is allied with the Commonwealth, both of which I need for the Great Khan achievement. And Ryazan is my vassal.

My only course of action that I can take in the near future is to take over Perm and reak my alliance with Nogai and take their land. But I don't have any strong alliances and I worry that Novgorod+Commonwealth will wreck me if they choose to do so. And Persia has me rivaled and is allied with the Ottomans while I only have a royal marriage with the Ottomans.

I only have the first three ideas of Humanism and that's it. Any advice on how to catch up on tech would be highly appreciated.

 

[Ironside121]

Hordes are best played with the Cossacks DLC. The ability to raze any province you take is immensely helpful, it makes them cheaper to core and gives you free monarch points, it's an easy way to keep up on tech.

I can't actually comment on your campaign however, as I've never touched the Great/Golden Horde, only the Timurids but I just thought I'd mention the DLC.

 

[Peregrinus]

Hordes are best played with the Cossacks DLC. The ability to raze any province you take is immensely helpful, it makes them cheaper to core and gives you free monarch points, it's an easy way to keep up on tech.

I can't actually comment on your campaign however, as I've never touched the Great/Golden Horde, only the Timurids but I just thought I'd mention the DLC.

So I have to buy DLC to "unlock" other regions to play in? The game which I bought is turning into a lite version of the full game? I somewhat denied the fact that EUIV's more recent updates were leaning towards this direction, with the ability to spend points to develop provinces, or with being able to transfer occupation to allies in a war (it's still frustrating to have an ally occupy provinces that you want but they have absolutely zero desire in ever having). Things like these are more than minor game changers which should be in the basic game. Period. But if the Cossacks DLC is what makes or breaks the Hordes, then this is utterly stupid.

It's like buying a brand new car, and then a few years later the manufacturer/dealer forcibly removes the tires off your car, saying you must buy them if you want to be able to continue driving normally. Or don't buy them and have a horrible driving experience. Seriously, what was so bad about the whole idea of being able to westernize as a non-western nation that it was entirely replaced with institutions? Which you need, what was it, the Common Sense DLC (?) to be able to take advantage of institutions?

Another thing that's really been bothering me now which I did not notice until just recently when I saw a video, is that on my diplomacy window, I have the tabs for "Show Diplomatic Actions" and "Show Opinions of XX", right? Except, in my DLC-free game, there is an additional third tab that becomes 'unlocked' with a certain DLC which allows you to set your attitude against a nation. Really? How lazy are these developers that they can't make the 'free' game at least look like a full game and not a Lite version of the full game. Do NOT show me this third tab that is a placeholder for something that I get with a DLC.

 

[Nirmara]

So I have to buy DLC to "unlock" other regions to play in? The game which I bought is turning into a lite version of the full game? I somewhat denied the fact that EUIV's more recent updates were leaning towards this direction, with the ability to spend points to develop provinces, or with being able to transfer occupation to allies in a war (it's still frustrating to have an ally occupy provinces that you want but they have absolutely zero desire in ever having). Things like these are more than minor game changers which should be in the basic game. Period. But if the Cossacks DLC is what makes or breaks the Hordes, then this is utterly stupid.

It's like buying a brand new car, and then a few years later the manufacturer/dealer forcibly removes the tires off your car, saying you must buy them if you want to be able to continue driving normally. Or don't buy them and have a horrible driving experience. Seriously, what was so bad about the whole idea of being able to westernize as a non-western nation that it was entirely replaced with institutions? Which you need, what was it, the Common Sense DLC (?) to be able to take advantage of institutions?

You don't need to buy DLC to play in any region, it's just that you will get more or less the vanilla experience (when Eu4 got released) rather than the new one. Considering that theses mechanics were not in the game when Eu4 got released and have been developed much later, the car analogy is invalid.

As for the quality of life changes, most of them are only ways to reduce brainless micromanagement. I do agree that not being able to transfer provinces can really be annoying and that it could have been given in the patch.

 

[Peregrinus]

You don't need to buy DLC to play in any region, it's just that you will get more or less the vanilla experience (when Eu4 got released) rather than the new one. Considering that theses mechanics were not in the game when Eu4 got released and have been developed much later, the car analogy is invalid.

As for the quality of life changes, most of them are only ways to reduce brainless micromanagement. I do agree that not being able to transfer provinces can really be annoying and that it could have been given in the patch.

Yes I can still obviously choose to play anywhere in any region. However, why does a DLC, such as Cossacks, make such a huge gameplay difference? To the point where without it, I am suffering greatly in terms of monarch power as noted in my original post. But with it, as I've seen in the one video and in the other reply, it allows for the razing of provinces which grants a considerable income of monarch power. Why? Therefore, the hordes are essentially 'locked' behind a DLC now.

The ability to spend monarch points to develop provinces annoyed me when it was initially launched. Sometimes I would end up in situations where I reach the point cap but the next tech is still too expensive, so I end up wasting points every month. But with the ability to develop provinces, then you will never end up in situations where you are wasting monarch power. That also came with the limit to the number of buildings in a province, locked to its development level. That is a large game changer which the basic game should have.

I never fully realized how much I was missing with these 'must-have' DLCs until I started playing online with friends that had the DLCs. The game feels so much more fleshed out and overall better to play. I remember how confused I was for getting occupation on provinces I hadn't touched in wars, which lasted for at least a few multiplayer sessions before I finally understood the mechanic of transferring occupation. I thought it was a bug originally.

 

[Threshold]

You might also consider playing in 1.18 (before hordes got hit with a reinforcement cost nerfbat), or even 1.14 (where it was possible to have effectively infinite manpower via some vassal trick I don't quite recall) for your first foray into hording. They're really not very effective right now.

As a more general bit of advice though, you should consider letting vassals core land and diplo-annex them, rather than coring it all yourself directly. That'll hopefully help you keep up better on adm tech, albeit causing a somewhat larger lag in dip.

Unfortunately institutions really bone you without Common Sense. There are ways around it, but quite frankly it's a royal pain even so.

IMHO 1.19 is a broken patch, and while 1.18 isn't much better in that respect (see: institutions breaking everything), I like RoM too much to move back further, myself.

 

[Peregrinus]

You might also consider playing in 1.18 (before hordes got hit with a reinforcement cost nerfbat), or even 1.14 (where it was possible to have effectively infinite manpower via some vassal trick I don't quite recall) for your first foray into hording. They're really not very effective right now.

As a more general bit of advice though, you should consider letting vassals core land and diplo-annex them, rather than coring it all yourself directly. That'll hopefully help you keep up better on adm tech, albeit causing a somewhat larger lag in dip.

Unfortunately institutions really bone you without Common Sense. There are ways around it, but quite frankly it's a royal pain even so.

IMHO 1.19 is a broken patch, and while 1.18 isn't much better in that respect (see: institutions breaking everything), I like RoM too much to move back further, myself.

I've certainly done some amount of vassal feeding. I vassalized Gazikumukh(?) and then fed them Circassia, Orthodox Crimea, and bits of Georgia before without letting them hit 100 development and letting them deal with most of the religious conversions. Now I have Ryazan at 68... I still don't know why they decided to make coring so expensive many patches ago. A large element of fun was removed when they made it expensive to core. And now with the corruption, it sucks even more that I cannot really fall behind too far on admin tech while I'm coring provinces.

 

[Zelius]

Yes I can still obviously choose to play anywhere in any region. However, why does a DLC, such as Cossacks, make such a huge gameplay difference? To the point where without it, I am suffering greatly in terms of monarch power as noted in my original post. But with it, as I've seen in the one video and in the other reply, it allows for the razing of provinces which grants a considerable income of monarch power. Why? Therefore, the hordes are essentially 'locked' behind a DLC now.

Not really? You can select them and start a game, the game is playable and you can even remain a horde reasonably well - when I did Great Khan, Nomads only had their starting unit type and couldn't raze.


Hordes are relatively hard compared to the majors in Europe or isolated Japan. Frankly, you needed to expand east into the steppes, into provinces of your religion and culture group, as these are the best value. GH's all about leveraging your army in the early game and crushing a rising Muscovy and feeding their Orthodox lands to a vassal while you take Sunni land, all the time growing, declaring wars simply to loot + demand reparations and cash.

Your military at least needs to be on par. How are you so far behind in tech? You should get Feudalism quite easily from your neighbours, while allowing Genoa's province to remain will snag you Renaissance too. At the very least, why are you behind other hordes?

Ignore the Caucasus region. It's full of nations with +Hostile Core Creation cost, are heretics or heathens, and contribute nothing to trade. Plus, gives you border friction with Ottomans. At most, declare war on them periodically for loot.

 

[Peregrinus]

Oh yeah, another thing as well: with one of the DLCs, you can have a casus belli on a nation if a vassal has a claim on them. This way you can continue to vassal feed without bordering the target nation.

I recently had started a game with Aragon where I got Austria under a PU. It was great and all until I realized that Austria will forever remain the same until I got borders with the HRE so I can start feeding them. Same thing with Naples under the PU: I can only feed them nations which are on the western coast of Italy. I thought it was stupid that I could not use their claims on inland (or eastern) Italian provinces to feed them.

 

[Dakka]

@RedBstrd should be able to help. He just finished a 1.18 campaign as Golden/Great Horde and actually has a YouTube series on it.

 

[Peregrinus]

Not really? You can select them and start a game, the game is playable and you can even remain a horde reasonably well - when I did Great Khan, Nomads only had their starting unit type and couldn't raze.


Hordes are relatively hard compared to the majors in Europe or isolated Japan. Frankly, you needed to expand east into the steppes, into provinces of your religion and culture group, as these are the best value. GH's all about leveraging your army in the early game and crushing a rising Muscovy and feeding their Orthodox lands to a vassal while you take Sunni land, all the time growing, declaring wars simply to loot + demand reparations and cash.

Your military at least needs to be on par. How are you so far behind in tech? You should get Feudalism quite easily from your neighbours, while allowing Genoa's province to remain will snag you Renaissance too. At the very least, why are you behind other hordes?

Ignore the Caucasus region. It's full of nations with +Hostile Core Creation cost, are heretics or heathens, and contribute nothing to trade. Plus, gives you border friction with Ottomans. At most, declare war on them periodically for loot.

If I ignore the Caucasus region, then surely the Ottomans will beat me to the Persian regions? And even with my attempt at trying to expand quickly through the Caucasus, the Ottomans ended up with one Persian province.

 

[Threshold]

Oh yeah, another thing as well: with one of the DLCs, you can have a casus belli on a nation if a vassal has a claim on them. This way you can continue to vassal feed without bordering the target nation.

Art of War, yeah. The one expansion worth full price, even though the features it brought really should have been in the base game to begin with.

 

[Zelius]

If I ignore the Caucasus region, then surely the Ottomans will beat me to the Persian regions? And even with my attempt at trying to expand quickly through the Caucasus, the Ottomans ended up with one Persian province.

IMO you should've never allied Nogai, and instead taken their nice, Sunni, same-culture-group provinces and gone that way around the Caspian. Jumping the Ottomans later and taking any Persia-region provinces they hold is also relatively easy, if you focus on taking China first.

 

[Peregrinus]

I can't start a new game by going to war with Nogai because they always ally with the Timurids.

Ugh everyone makes Great Horde seem so easy to play with. They load up, start playing, and everything goes their way. I need to restart so many times to get the right rivals list, then pray that my targets don't ally Timurids, etc. I saw someone in a different thread who had probably twice my development at about the same year as in my screenshot. Like how in the absolute bloody hell. I was trying to expand as fast as possible without getting instability or running to large of a deficit, etc...

 

[Peregrinus]

Omg so I started a new game and guess what: Kazan (along with Crimea and Timurids) goes to war with me (and Uzbek). Great Horde is nearly impossible to play what the bloody hell.

 

[Peregrinus]

I don't understand why but going through Nogai DOES NOT WORK FOR ME. That is why I must go through the Caucasus. I need Nogai as a starting ally. Which brings me back to my original post.

 

[durbal]

I don't understand why but going through Nogai DOES NOT WORK FOR ME. That is why I must go through the Caucasus. I need Nogai as a starting ally. Which brings me back to my original post.

No you don't. Nogai is a waste of time. Muscovy is your only early contender until you can get a decent powerbase. You need to be smart about looting and baiting them into battles that are crushing defeats for them, but in my GH run I basically took Muscovy out of the running right after eliminating Crimea. You can usually take Ryazan right away. Core it. Muscovy will declare war on Novogorod right as you're finish up on Crimea. Let Novgorod spam mercs and keep weakening Muscovy then you can march right onto Moscow (grasslands, good for horde) and once you take it just keep siege baiting them when they try to retake it. It can be a tough war and will probably cost you a decent amount of loans, but you can make that back easily from the little moneybags in the Caucacus. Core their land, accept Muscovite as a culture (easier to convert) and embrace Feudalism. Now begin as if you were any country with a large powerbase surrounded by easy targets.

You don't really need any DLC for this since it's actually probably better to NOT raze Muscovy's lands since they generate a lot of money and are very wealthy states (which you'll be short on).

 

[Peregrinus]

Welp, this game failed and was a total waste of my time. Novgorod declared war on me and there is absolutely zero chance I can win. I was unable to ally the Ottomans this entire ****ing game.

 

[durbal]

I'm actually surprised Novgorod beat Muscovy. They normally get crushed even if they don't get tag-teamed by Denmark.

The fact that it shows it was 1578 and you have little more than starting lands tells me you weren't aggressive enough. For a successful GH run, you'll want to have those same lands by 1500 at the absolute latest. Realistically, probably 1475 after a second war with Muscovy (although you really only need one to eliminate them as a regional power and can finish them off when needed).

Also, allying Nogai cut you off from expansion toward Persia where there's lots of money to be made when the Timurids collapse.

The reason the Ottomans didn't ally you is because you were weaker than them the whole game. If you need to ally the Ottomans you weren't aggressive enough. If they want to ally YOU, then you're doing well.

 

[Peregrinus]

I'm actually surprised Novgorod beat Muscovy. They normally get crushed even if they don't get tag-teamed by Denmark.

The fact that it shows it was 1578 and you have little more than starting lands tells me you weren't aggressive enough. For a successful GH run, you'll want to have those same lands by 1500 at the absolute latest.

No, it's because I did attack Muscovy early in the game. Then it was a race between me and Novgorod to finish off Muscovy.

And not aggressive enough? How is spending almost every single admin point on coring not aggressive enough? My admin is only level 7 with 3 admin ideas, the rest of the points went into coring.