How do I beat nomads??

[Narvait]

This question now bothers me as well. I play 1200-ish bookmark in East Europe, when lot of lands are owned by Golden Horde. They are way weaker than Ilkhanate (no event troops anymore), but still quite powerful and I am not sure how to destroy them.
Recently they took Duchy of Novgorod too. They do not attack me (Lithuania) yet, but I need to take Briansk from them (alternatively Rugen from HRE... which is way too impossible) to reform Romuva.

 

[La Es]

Yeah, I agree that Horse Lords is not realistic at all when it comes to the early "nomads" but it does make that part of the map more interesting and can lead to Byzantine/Abbasid collapses - so it's like Sunset Invasion in that regard.

Maybe I don't understand your point about collapses, but in my 3 recent games Crimea, Taurica and mostly all Tartaria in common were conquered in holy wars by Bulgaria, Byzantines, Abbasids, Saffarids and so on. In game previous game Mongols took small territory at east and then lost all doomstacks in war for Mesopotamia.

 

[Tapio]

To be honest... you don't. Not as a tribal leader. Not unless you're bringing 100,000 troops to the battle. Tribals are mostly light infantry, whereas nomads are mostly heavy cavalry and horse archers

They're mostly light cav and horse archers.

 

[Tapio]

You win against them by only engaging with highly superior numbers and by taking their capital. Do sneak attacks with mercenaries rushing to their capital holdings when they are busy fighting someone else.

 

[Raczynski]

Maybe I don't understand your point about collapses, but in my 3 recent games Crimea, Taurica and mostly all Tartaria in common were conquered in holy wars by Bulgaria, Byzantines, Abbasids, Saffarids and so on. In game previous game Mongols took small territory at east and then lost all doomstacks in war for Mesopotamia.

These posts are from January. Under the recent patch the nomads are much weaker, at least with the AI leading them.

 

[Muhammad adnan]

1) Take advantage of defensive terrain, especially mountains
2) Use retinues and mercenaries
3) Try to get commanders with the organizer trait so you can lead enemy armies on big chases toward defensive terrain and major rivers.

 

[Narvait]

I solved my issue with 2 assassinations of Great Khagan after which adult men of ruling clan ended and way weaker clan took over
Proper ck2 way of problem solving.