Horde Bonuses and strategy

[zlamaj]

I never played as a horde for some reason. Never knew about their 100% cav ratio allowance or their bonus when fighting on their plains. Am I missing more bonuses? Is fielding all cav actually doable, financially? Sounds cool.

I did some reading on the wiki, but some of the stuff is outdated and don't know what was taken out in AoW

 

[drayath]

The two biggies you missed are free troop reinforcements (I.e. Don't have to pay double maintainance to replace casualties) including i belive for merceneries, and the double money from looting. Combined means constant war with active looting should pay for your full cav armies (hint loot ming).

 

[Achanei]

no reinforce cost works for mercenaries, indeed.
Another thing worth mentioning is the no child can be khan event that keeps you out of regency (will kill your underage heir and give you a new ruler) and a number of similar events that can help you replace a bad ruler/heir - especially early when you can allow pretender rebels to win in a reasonable timeframe. Some of those events even give you an average or higher ruler guaranteed.

Also nice is the automatic CBs against all neighbors.

 

[Stategem161803]

Horde looting is so powerful that I can solo Ming as Mongolia is 1450. Other than that, definitely take advantage of "No Child can be a Khan." No heir is a GREAT heir because this event gives you a 3/3/3 or better every time. I've played games all the way to 1821 as a horde (in previous patches) and you can get 4/5/5, 5/6/5, etc. rulers all game long.

 

[Seraphithan]

The two biggies you missed are free troop reinforcements (I.e. Don't have to pay double maintainance to replace casualties) including i belive for merceneries, and the double money from looting. Combined means constant war with active looting should pay for your full cav armies (hint loot ming).

The free reinforcements are part of the horde NI, not of the government or techgroup. Hordes with unique NI like the Timurids have to pay full price.

 

[zlamaj]

So pretty much everything is geared to constant wars. In other words, if you reach the 1550s and you don't have a huge empire, you pretty much failed.