Horse Archer Retinue Overpowered

[FieserMoep]

Hi,

my current game is somewhat a "world" domination game and everything is going fine. Its okay if hordes of counts seek for independence with a positive approval rating of 30-40 (Though I do not get why).

But my real problem are those horse-archer retinues that are getting spammed. It is not the problem that I can not kill them but at the moment the AI spams 3 Stacks of them with a Manpower of around 30k+. I never had this before the retinue addon. But as I said I still kick their ass but I have another horrible problem. They are so friggin fast. They do not siege, they assault everything into the ground. My problem is, they do not suffer from attrition so I have 30k+ doom stacks in 20k areas which is a pain in the ass for my own death stacks. But okay, I have around 60 Knight Retinues by my self, if I reenforce them they hold their numbers up in the attrition areas. Additional I can raise nearly 150k Soldiers by my levies, at least they do not care for attrition if I am willed to sacrifice hundreds of the to make thousands arrive. All fine? No.

In the time I needed to run around (i did not even take the time to stack them up) the enemy had filled up the war score to 100% just with those 3 death-stacks that assaulted everything.

So I was getting owned by an independence rebellion (30 or 40% rating) that has rushed unimportant, fresh conquered areas of loyal vassals without any strategic meaning (That is why I was not able to raise enough troops in this area) in just a few months without any fight between the rebellious scum and the emperor of Francia, who has unified half Hispania, France, the HRE, Italy, Hungary and parts of the ERE?

With the new retinues the siege/assault balance is getting ad absurdum, especially if you have those retinues that do not suffer from attrition.

I know that I could split my own retinues as a "peace" keeping force but then I have the problem that they are getting wiped in the skirmis-battle-phase by those horse archers when I am not lucky enough to raise levies fast enough.
But this is only something against the sympton, not the problem.

Some Retinues are to strong. Hell, you can even gather them up, send them to to a province you want to attack, and one day before they arrive you declare war. This way you can instantly attack after a declaration of war, assault the provinces and get a warscore of 25-50% in the first month. Or you rush trough his country, intercepting his levies when they try to form an army and kill all his small stacks before they are a risk for you. But the strongest of them all are the attrition immune ones. The supply is a basic balancing mechanic that tries to give even those countrys a chance that cant raise that much soldiers but still can maintain a death-stack. But they simply ignore this mechanic. Its okay if this happens as an event for the pwnage of the golden Horde but when now everyone can raise such ownage stacks as long as he has the right culture I want a feature to eradicate such dangerous elements in my country.

If they play horse-riding-vagabund I want to eradicate them the tyrant way without that hard penaltys for my civilized nobles.^^

 

[kraussda]

Are you sure these are the retinues belonging to the revolting lords? My instincts would say, based on the size and attritionless nature of these armies, that they are the stacks summoned up by the event that sometimes fires upon a faction rebellion provided gobs of free troops that are based on the size of the force you can field. If they are, I agree with you, that event is ridiculous. Below is the event in question:

# Faction Revolt - Rebels flock to your banner
character_event = {
id = 45000
desc = "EVTDESC45000"
picture = "GFX_evt_battle"
border = "GFX_event_normal_frame_war"

is_triggered_only = yes

trigger = {
war_with = FROM
}

option = {
name = "EXCELLENT"

hidden_tooltip = {
FROM = {
character_event = { id = 45001 }
}
}

capital_scope = {
tooltip = {
ROOT = {
spawn_unit = {
province = PREV
owner = ROOT
match_character = FROM
match_mult = 0.125
}
spawn_unit = {
province = PREV
owner = ROOT
match_character = FROM
match_mult = 0.125
}
spawn_unit = {
province = PREV
owner = ROOT
match_character = FROM
match_mult = 0.125
}
}
}

 

[FieserMoep]

Well, now that you mentioned it that can be it. When I am thinking about it you should be able so see the retinue all time? But these appeared from nowhere, I did not know about this Event and because there were such huge amount of horse-archers in I guessed it could only be a stack of retinues.

But never the less, its horrible. ATM I have the troops of my own demise nonstop fielded and my Knight-Retinues organized as balanced Fast Response Force but somehow I think 1200 it quite to early for the Franco-German Brigade, right? xD

 

[Yxklyx]

I've never had a major problem with these large rebel peasant armies. Yeah, they are pretty surprising at first but once you levy everyone in your Kingdom/Empire they can be put down. They are a nice challenge.

 

[kraussda]

I agree that the event makes factions more threatening, I just wish they had provided a better justification than "peasants flock to the rebels banner". Yeah, the peasants are TOTALLY into fighting for seniority succession in the kingdom vis-a-vis primogeniture. Where are these thousands of peasants when your lands are being ravaged by holy war lol? You'd think they'd care a bit more about that. I wish it were something like "faction leader contracts mercenary groups". He does pay for the troops after all (I checked).

 

[FieserMoep]

It would be okay if they were just threatening, but ATM I get a Golden Horden spawned right into my country, fighting for some vassals that had no chance without them. But they dont help him, they create a nearly auto-win situation for him. And even the fact that he has to pay for them can be neglected when the war only lasts two months. This mechanic is simply rediculus and you just said it. Why should some peasants fight against an emperor to make their own "one-county" liege independent when they know that I will send my own troops to conquer them back, burn their villages, take their women and plunder their land? And how the hell can this peasants be some elite force like horse archers? I mean, make them all Light Infantry and this would still be a nice support. But no, they are elite troops with expensive horses that cost more gold than they could make in three life-spans. (I dont talk about the heavy infantry etc...)

In my opinion the Faktion-Mechanic is just okay, it makes rebellion a lot easier for Vassals because they can gather up even Vassals with a good relation to their liege. But why the heck are they awarded with some bad-ass extra troops? I mean this special count was the rebellion leader because I destroyed the title of his liege (Kingdom of Hungary) He was not able to raise this shitload of troops to defend his country, but now when he is a single count he can raise the second wave of the golden horde? Even if I count all the professional soldiers the whole kingdom had before it would not reach 90k+. Even a Retinue must be trained over time. But no, those peasants just say "Lets kick some emperors ass for the honor of the other noble that abused us to give independence to another noble that will abuse us too." Then they take their Warhorse (Lets be honest, everyone has a warhorse just as everyone has a tank today) and assault every province around.