Is an early crusade against pagans always doomed to fail?

[jtorr]

Relatively new player here, started my third ever game and first iron man game last weekend as William of Normandy. I made Britannia, vassalised the pope and he calls for a crusade against Suomi. I prepare 20k stacks and take half of Suomi in the first few months of the crusade, then everything started going wrong. Neither me nor any of the other Christians had gotten Military Organisation up to level 4 (it was a 1066 start) so the pagan attrition was killing everyone in droves. Then somehow the pagans kept sending 10-15k doomstacks that only I could fight (the HRE had their own Pope that I hadnt gotten to depose yet) but then bam! My ruler who was banned from leading armies dies suddenly of illness at age 32. I then get to play as his 15yo ugly craven son who I was waiting to make a bishop, and despite a 10 year struggle against Suomi carefully balancing my reserve levies against factions in my empire, the war score still can't reach 100 and the pagans still keep somehow making more and more doomstacks that only get bigger as it goes on... I only have the way of life and legacy of Rome dlcs, my main question was - did it turn out this way because I am missing dlc or are pagans just genuinely broken until the late game? Thanks

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

The thing you're missing is organization 4.

Pagans are laughably weak after say, 1200 when nearly everyone has org 4.

Also, build forts on lands to negate attrition. Protect them.

 

[jtorr]

The thing you're missing is organization 4.

Pagans are laughably weak after say, 1200 when nearly everyone has org 4.

Also, build forts on lands to negate attrition. Protect them.

Forts! I never used them but you are right - thanks for the tip

 

[jtorr]

Is there any explanation for how the pagans have been able to raise an overall ~50k or so troops throughout this war? I mean theres maybe a dozen or so pagan rulers involved and they all supposedly only have like 500 or less troops each

 

[jhhowell]

Also, for future reference, if the Pope picks a stupid Crusade target, you can redirect it to wherever you want by spending a modest amount of piety (250 I think, but it's been a while since I played a Catholic...).

Suomi is definitely a bad target. The provinces are terrible, and to quote the wiki:

The principal ability of defensive pagans (Romuva, Slavic, Suomenusko & African) is a tremendous boost in combat when fighting on home ground. All units gain 80% to defense when fighting enemies in a province of the combatant's religion. This applies even when one is the attacker, and on territory held by another lord; Only the dominant religion of the province you are standing upon matters. This means you may invade territory held by another faith, but still gain the defensive bonus so long as the battle takes place upon land of your faith. (Such as reconquering Slavic lands as a Slav from Christians.) This allows defensive pagans to defeat enemy armies twice their size with ease.

I believe Paradox is still giving away The Old Gods for the price of your email address, if you're interested. Highly recommended. Pagans are quite strong in the 867 and 936 starts, lots of fun options to play with.

Edit: in answer to your question about pagans generating a lot of troops, that's their marshal, steward, and/or chaplain at work. Orgainize Raid, Build Legend, and Build Zeal all raise stacks of event troops. If Suomi was so successful that they somehow got a Crusade declared on them, they may have been rich enough to hire mercenaries too. (For pagans, "rich" = "has raided a lot of nice provinces", since as you've seen their own provinces are very poor. Though without the Germanic sea raiding abilities I'm not sure how Suomi would have been all that successful with raiding.)

 

[jtorr]

Thanks jhhowell, yeah only just registered with Paradox so will have to see what I can get in terms of giveaways. I singlehandedly won a crusade for Estonia in my last game as the HRE (albeit in the 1200s) and thought Suomi would be similar but boy was I wrong - I'd love to go back and change targets but alas ironman. I didn't know the parts about pagan combat boosts and event troops - cheers, will have to keep these in mind.

I think while I was making Britannia I inadvertently weakened Sweden and Norway so maybe I contributed to Suomi's rise to power. Never expected this crusade to turn out this way but I am enjoying the game nonetheless

 

[prismaticmarcus]

and just to answer your other question, the game doesn't 'break' because you don't have DLC's

 

[jtorr]

and just to answer your other question, the game doesn't 'break' because you don't have DLC's

I never said that it does?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I never said that it does?

i was referring to 'did it turn out this way because I am missing dlc'

 

[ThePettyQueen]

Is there any explanation for how the pagans have been able to raise an overall ~50k or so troops throughout this war? I mean theres maybe a dozen or so pagan rulers involved and they all supposedly only have like 500 or less troops each

Did you hover over the number of troops they're supposed to have, or just look at it? Because tribals get most of their strength from vassals, and the number you see is just their personal troops. If you hover over that number, you'll also see the "potentail vassal troops" number - which can be in the thousands even if the ruler only has 500-ish.

 

[jtorr]

Did you hover over the number of troops they're supposed to have, or just look at it? Because tribals get most of their strength from vassals, and the number you see is just their personal troops. If you hover over that number, you'll also see the "potentail vassal troops" number - which can be in the thousands even if the ruler only has 500-ish.

Yeah I wasn't including the potential vassal troops in my comment, I was aware of them for Suomi (when I checked they had 2k vassal troops or something) but didn't look through every single pagan in the war so maybe that was also a large part of it. Probably this + the pagan councilor event troops that the earlier commenter mentioned are the big factors.

I do have another question if you can help. I read that tribals can create retinues through prestige - would it also have been possible for the pagans to constantly field more troops by gaining prestige from battles against all the weaker stupid AI christians? They've literally been an endless horde and I feel I definitely need to learn more about the game - maybe if I made a fraticelli pope and I was the only crusader this could have been a simpler war? Of course then I would probably have other issues...

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Yeah I wasn't including the potential vassal troops in my comment, I was aware of them for Suomi (when I checked they had 2k vassal troops or something) but didn't look through every single pagan in the war so maybe that was also a large part of it. Probably this + the pagan councilor event troops that the earlier commenter mentioned are the big factors.

I do have another question if you can help. I read that tribals can create retinues through prestige - would it also have been possible for the pagans to constantly field more troops by gaining prestige from battles against all the weaker stupid AI christians? They've literally been an endless horde and I feel I definitely need to learn more about the game - maybe if I made a fraticelli pope and I was the only crusader this could have been a simpler war? Of course then I would probably have other issues...

it doesn't really work that way. you wouldn't be able to get enough prestige from battles to be able to field large numbers of retinues. they can hire mercenaries, though...

 

[jtorr]

it doesn't really work that way. you wouldn't be able to get enough prestige from battles to be able to field large numbers of retinues. they can hire mercenaries, though...

Ok fair enough. Still quite dumbfounded by a lot of the nitty gritty mechanics in this game haha. Thanks for answering my beginner questions

 

[jonjowett]

Another potential source of lots of troops is "call to glory" from pagan warrior lodges. (Although I'm not sure if warrior lodges are a free feature or locked behind a DLC. And I'm not sure how frequently the AI will use this interaction if it's available.)

 

[ThePettyQueen]

Another potential source of lots of troops is "call to glory" from pagan warrior lodges. (Although I'm not sure if warrior lodges are a free feature or locked behind a DLC. And I'm not sure how frequently the AI will use this interaction if it's available.)

I never saw a warrior lodge until I got Holy Fury, and I played quite a bit of pagans this spring without it.

 

[Kumicho]

Another potential source of lots of troops is "call to glory" from pagan warrior lodges. (Although I'm not sure if warrior lodges are a free feature or locked behind a DLC. And I'm not sure how frequently the AI will use this interaction if it's available.)

Can't defensive pagans raise troops through piety in defensive wars? Or something like that? It's been a while, but I seem to remember that being a recent (last year or two) change?

 

[forfor]

Can't defensive pagans raise troops through piety in defensive wars? Or something like that? It's been a while, but I seem to remember that being a recent (last year or two) change?

Yep. Any pagan can spend faith to raise event troops, similar to the prestige troops. I'm pretty sure they have to be in a defensive war against someone of another religion. (As a side note, if you don't think you can win a war, but have smaller neighbors to steal from, you can raise religious armies, and start a second war with your neighbor. Use the religious armies to take your neighbors territory, and finish that war as quickly as possible. The idea here being to offset the losses you take from being invaded, while faith is largely a useless resource most of the time anyway so it doesn't cost you much)

 

[jonjowett]

Can't defensive pagans raise troops through piety in defensive wars? Or something like that? It's been a while, but I seem to remember that being a recent (last year or two) change?

Yep. Any pagan can spend faith to raise event troops, similar to the prestige troops. I'm pretty sure they have to be in a defensive war against someone of another religion. (As a side note, if you don't think you can win a war, but have smaller neighbors to steal from, you can raise religious armies, and start a second war with your neighbor. Use the religious armies to take your neighbors territory, and finish that war as quickly as possible. The idea here being to offset the losses you take from being invaded, while faith is largely a useless resource most of the time anyway so it doesn't cost you much)

This decision only exists if Legacy of Rome is not activated.

If LoR is activated, tribal leaders are "supposed" to create prestige retinues.

(This is a relatively-recent change that was introduced long after LoR was released. Maybe around the time of HF? Not sure. Anyway, for a long time, @Kumicho would have been correct.)

EDIT: OP has the LoR badge, so LoR is probably active.

 

[DPS]

This decision only exists if Legacy of Rome is not activated.

If LoR is activated, tribal leaders are "supposed" to create prestige retinues.

(This is a relatively-recent change that was introduced long after LoR was released. Maybe around the time of HF? Not sure. Anyway, for a long time, @Kumicho would have been correct.)

EDIT: OP has the LoR badge, so LoR is probably active.

Yeah, the change came with HF, so I thought that it depended on whether or not HF was active.

This change generally makes tribal realms stronger (generally, there are better troops available with retinue than with the prestige or piety decisions), but only if they are roughly medium size or above. A small realm won't have a high enough retinue cap early on to raise anything--just like a small feudal realm.

 

[jonjowett]

This change generally makes tribal realms stronger (generally, there are better troops available with retinue than with the prestige or piety decisions), but only if they are roughly medium size or above. A small realm won't have a high enough retinue cap early on to raise anything--just like a small feudal realm.

Actually, I think that prestige retinues are a straight upgrade for all tribals. (With the possible exception of independent counts that have: no nearby co-religionists, minimal prestige, and no retinues inherited from previous rulers.)

Reasoning:

• The decisions are only available for the primary defender;
• Retinues are available for all tribals;
• Tribals involved in a defensive war tend to call in a lot of secondary tribal participants (eg. vassals, allies, nearby co-religionists)