Help needed for playing nomads

[Lorekeeper88]

Hi there, I just received the nomad expansion as a gift and have returned to CK2. Some help for understanding the new concepts would be appreciated.

How exactly does manpower grow and what influences it? I am wondering because of the humiliate cb which I used successfully on my larger neighbors, was stable at some 13k, but still got destroyed by a clan of another neighbor who managed to somehow get 20k manpower, even though he only had 4 provinces to my 5, and I had 2 vassal clans of the same size.

My other question is about the combat, why doesn't the AI attach their troops to mine when in combat, I had some serious losses when they decided to run away from a favorable fight.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Manpower does not directly increase when you conquer land. Both Manpower and Population grow over time (each months).

- Max population depends on the number of empty holdings you own
- Population growth depends on the difference between your Population and your Max population (the bigger this difference, the bigger your Population growth).
- Max manpower is a proportion of your Population (25%).
- Manpower growth depends on your Manpower and your Max manpower the same way than for Population growth.

Humiliate CB directly increase your Population, so it increases your Max manpower a bit, increasing Manpower growth (but not directly your Manpower). I don't think it decreases the Manpower of the defeated opponent.

Buildings in you nomadic holding capital allow to increase these parameters. In my playthroughs, I ignore buildings increasing Max population in the early game since it makes it harder to hit the Population threshold to unlock Invasion CBs (Population above 90% of Max population) and instead, I focus on Population growth (this is my second priority along with taxes, the first priority being the trade post building).
Adventurer and Mercenary tradition traits increase the Manpower growth (and it is frequent that Khans have Mercenary tradition).

Maybe your neighbour had provinces with more empty holdings, so that his Max population is higher than yours and thus, his Population and Manpower increased faster than yours.
Another thing: If he had 4 counties from the beginning while you had less and conquered a few new counties (up to 5), then he had a better Manpower growth than you at the beginning, and thus, built up a higher Manpower when you fought him.

Basically, the most important to increase Population/Population growth/Manpower/Manpower growth is get as much empty holdings as possible.

 

[Lorekeeper88]

Thank you so much, I'll get back to it and try out the advice.

 

[RagingJaws]

Also, for your horde units, don't use Horse Archers at all. A good split for troops I've found in my last few Nomad games is 10% HC and 90% LC.

My current Horde units are comprised of 15 light riders, 12 light vanguards, and 6 heavy vanguards. That is a stack strength of 8.25k, perfectly capable of dealing with either Nomad or Feudal armies. You can always toy around with the composition, I'm sure mine isn't ideal as it's something I put together after a particularly late night of pillaging and just wanted to make my troops look neat/even before the next session.

Never toyed around with Camels or Elephants so I have no advice there.

 

[Aries666]

Also, for your horde units, don't use Horse Archers at all. A good split for troops I've found in my last few Nomad games is 10% HC and 90% LC.

My current Horde units are comprised of 15 light riders, 12 light vanguards, and 6 heavy vanguards. That is a stack strength of 8.25k, perfectly capable of dealing with either Nomad or Feudal armies. You can always toy around with the composition, I'm sure mine isn't ideal as it's something I put together after a particularly late night of pillaging and just wanted to make my troops look neat/even before the next session.

Never toyed around with Camels or Elephants so I have no advice there.

I would be interested to know if there is a 'best' composition. In my current game I settled on 10 horse archer with 10 heavy vanguard for a strength of 5000 which would hunt in stacks of two. I have noticed too that these stacks often win when outnumbered (because I wasn't paying attention to the 10k angry Indians sneaking up on me whilst pillaging Europe )

 

[Sir Garnet]

First early start as Mongols in the far east. Started with feuding tributaries and vassal Khans plus towns in the south boxing me in. Tributaries were calling me in when attacked by another tributary, and being cautious I answered calls so as not to get a "treaty breaker" reputation (matters?). But I just raided to get slow cash, and made more tributaries as the blood brother khan was getting superior strength and I want to avoid trouble with him. Got more tributaries, but I really need more open range to allow more population.

Can you explain the CBs and strategy for using these, including the currently locked ones. It seems like getting pop over 10,000 is a priority, and it sounds like a horde with a Humiliate CB against it is a good thing to go for.

What's the best thing to do with all the small urban counties to the south. Tributary or is there an easy way to enable pillaging down to the ground for more range.

Also, what value is there in creating duchies or Kingdoms as a nomad? Is there any way to swap open range counties to adjust borders other than revoking and regranting?

Thanks

P.S. I was assuming horse archers and some heavy cavalry should be ideal as they are the stereotypical steppe army. Unfortunately did not notice at first that I could raise troops with prestige rather than my limited cash.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Early on, focus on light cavalery as they do not cost gold but prestige.
About strategy, I am not the best to give advices since I did not start in the steppes (I started around Samarkand and Khiva, giving me a lot of things to pillage very early on which smoothed things up. The first challenge I got was winning two wars against the Seljuks and the Gaznavids, which worked... aemaybe with a bit of luck).

All I can say is conquer a bunch of counties on the silk road early on and focus on the trade tech and the yam building to get a good income. Mercenaries can be of good help in the early game. About the feudal realms around the Tarim Basin, you can conquer them for pillage and/or building trade posts. I think that if you plan to build a trade zone, keeping cities increases the income. You can also keep the religious building in order to have counties with two holdings so that your vassals will not ask for more land but you'll keep the empty holding slots to increase your population (they are not counted as nomadic land if they have two holdings).

But I think that having your trade zone around Oshrusana, Samarkand, Fergana, Bukhara (and maybe Kasgar) or North of the Aral and Caspian seas is more profitable... Depends on how you expand tho.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Thanks. What is the best pattern/rhythm for conquest given the Nomad CBs currently available? Leave settlements intact as vassals on the Silk Road and pillage elsewhere, or what?

 

[fleetothemoon]

Considering the way retinues work in the game, having stacks of pure composition works best.

Early on, use pure light cavalry. They cost no money, but will tank your prestige. Obtain prestige by creating titles using the money, or through various other means (e.g., warhorse, etc).

Later on when you can move your capital to a European building, start using stacks of pure heavy cavalry as your gold can afford. A stack of pure light cavalry decimates things and assauts holdings like there's no tomorrow. A stack of pure heavy cavalry is basically the same even better.

Essentially, keep stacks of pure heavy cav and pure light cav, depending on your prestige and gold income.

It's been shown time and time again, that mixed light/heavy/horsearcher composition are just inferior to pure stacks.

 

[Soladept]

Pure light cav has issues due to tactics changes some patches back, thats why theres some reccomendation to mix in 10-20% Heavy Cav so the LC doesnt fire off Disorganised Harass, the tactic that was added, although in the early game the pure LC composition is more important since disorganised harass, while not optimal, wont wreck you compared to other factors.

CM start Mongols has much difficulty since you start as a Tributary to the Uyghurs, walled by the Uyghurs and their other Tributarys, and the Uyghurs/Tributarys are all Manichean while you start Tengri, which means if you war any Manichean Nomads the Uyghurs will side against you due to religous reasons, or stay neutral and never accept the CTA.

one way of mitigating that is to Convert to Manichean, but you lose the Light Cav combat bonuses that the Tengri faith has as a passive(which is actualy a combat edge against the Mani hordes and something all the other Tengri Hordes have.) the other way is clever diplomacy, keeping a good chancellor parked on the Uyghur Khagan will make him more likely to accept CTAs on targets that arent manichean and less likley to intervene in wars with the other Tributarys, and you can ensure the Uyghurs dont intervene if you get them involved in a seperate war, they cant accept CTAs from their other tributarys if they are an active ally in another war.

if you do have the Uyghur khagan intervene, its may not wreck your conflict with the other tributary since the Uyghur khan is fighting by himself without his khans, and at the start the Khagan is weak compared to his Khans

Early targets as the Mongol Bayads are any direct neighbors you have and any tribals that you can subjugate, you used to be able to subjugate the Khotan area but Pdox added restrictions to the CBS that require certian population and prestige levels so you cannot target feudals and tribals easly as a small nomad, although tribals have lower requirements to subjugate.

i think staying Tengri is worth it, as soon as you reach parity with the Uyghurs you can club them over the head with your combat bonuses and maybe some alliances with the Turks, Bolghars, or Khazars

also, for those who dont know about this nomad mechanic, newly created clans get the their nomad tech and buildings from the tech levels of the province you created them in, so if you make a new clah in a Khotan county that has much higher tech compared to Uyghur/Mongolian kingdom, the new clan may start with better free buildings compared to you, always try to create clans with tech levels equal or weaker than yours unless your confident you can keep them appeased.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Does tech level carry over when moving a capital, from the edge of the empire to somewhere more central, say?

 

[CaptainPolyp]

The tech level of you capital is independent from the tech level of the county. So yes, it carries over.
But it also implies that the tech level which is taken into account to improve the holdings other than your nomadic holding in your county capital, is the tech level of the county. Same thing for the trade practice tech for improving the trade posts.
The only way you can improve the tech level of the county is through tech spread. I think that having a holding (other than the nomadic holding) in a county allows for more tech spread. So having a few cities on the silk road is interesting in the locations where you want to improve the trade posts, plus they increase the trade value of the trade zone.