Nomad Army Composition?

[Eslin]

Hello paradox people; it's been quite a while. Sorry for the thread necro but this seemed like the right place for this.


I'm confused by this; am I reading the Combat Tactics page correctly? If I'm reading it right, having more than 65% HA disqualifies you from "Swarm" or "Harass Swarm", leaving only Disorganized Swarm and General Skirmish as available tactics. That would make HAs pretty terrible outside of the Pursue phase.

Assuming you can muster up an Altaic leader of Martial 12 or greater, it seems like the optimal HA flank would have between 50% and 65% HA, with at least 30% light cavalry for the rest. This would give you a good chance at Harass Swarm (good for both HA and LC), the same chance of Swarm (bad for LC, still pretty good for HA), and a small chance of Disorganized Swarm (junk) and general skirmish.

That's not a perfect skirmish breakdown, but the upshot of this build is that when you go to melee you roll "Retreat and Ambush" and get back to skirmish basically every time. That's what you want since HA are junk in melee (and that's also why you probably shouldn't mix HC and HA). You could have as low as 51% HA and still have the same tactics, but the HAs are much more useful than the LC in this build so you'd want to push up closer to 65%.

Oh, and these guys are useless in forest, woods, mountain, jungle, or marsh, and bad against opposing LC. All in all... yeah it's not perfect by any stretch, but I think it's the best you can do with HAs, and it's pretty strong on flatlands against non-LC.

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Similarly, pure LC armies would roll "Disorganised Harass", which is a pretty bad tactic. If you have access to Camels, then a mix of LC and Camels is great because you can get under 75% for both, and roll Harass in Skirmish and Raid in Melee almost all the time (assuming Martial 12). That's a pretty perfect tactic combo for them; about the only possible upgrade would be to look for a Cruel leader so that you get the "Charging your own Skirmishers" tactic when you charge, but that's kind of a side detail.

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HC are the one mounted unit that does seem to work fine by itself. it seems like the best trait to look for is a M14+ Defensive/Inspiring leader, as this makes Inspired Defense trigger most of the time in skirmish phase. If you have an Aggressive/Brave/Cavalry leader, try to sprinkle in at least 1% Light Cav to enable Heroic Countercharge, but keep it under 20% LC to prevent Raid from triggering. If you have a leader who has a trait from both Defensive/Inspiring and Aggressive/Brave/Cavalry, then you would want between 1% and 5% LC, so that you can trigger Heroic Countercharge in melee but don't roll Harass instead of Inspired defense in skirmish.

Oh, and if you can get a Frankish, Occitan, Norman, German, or Breton leader, just do that (and run pure HC for the insane Couched Lance Charge tactic. Preferably defensive/inspiring leader so you can go from Inspired Defense to Couched Lance Charge.

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So, in conclusion, the best nomadic army breakdowns appear to be, starting with the best:

1. Pure HC (with a small percentage of LC if you have certain leader traits)
2. Split of LC and Camels (at least 25% of each) with M12 leader
3. A little under 65% HA with the rest LC; M12 Altaic Leader

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding things since I'm still learning the game. But that looks right to me. So if you have access to HC go that way. If you have access to Camels but not HC use the LC/Camel mix. If you have neither, use the HA/LC mix unless you're fighting in forest, woods, mountain, jungle, or marsh.

They changed how combat tactics works between your reply and the last comment before it.

 

[doktarr]

The best mix for nomad is 3 Heavy Vanguard : 4 Light Cav per flank.

You'll get a total of 450 (25.7%) HC : 1300 (74.3%) LC, Total 1750,

With a Commander of 16, you'll likely trigger Harrass 80% of the time, which is great against most Nomadic armies with HA.

On Melee, you'll likely get Charges.

Have fun trashing Byzantine and Abbassids

Why would you want that? You'll get three times as many Raids as Charges and your unit composition is terrible, pure heavy cavalry is far superior to that. As soon as you can get it, there's no reason not to use pure HC.

Totally agree that pure HC is looking like the best the more I look at it, but frequently you won't have access. In the absence of pure HC hordes, the above composition gives you just enough HC to get Harass instead of Disorganized Harass, and with 75% LC you don't hate rolling Raids in melee.

What are the requirements for having the pure HC horde unit available? I had heard it was having a capital in Southern or Eastern Europe, but I fired up the 867 Magyar start (capital in Terebovl) and no pure HC available. The most HC-heavy horde unit available is the 150-HC, 100 LC Horde.

 

[Dragatus]

I believe you need to have a capital in South or Western Europe. Eastern Europe doesn't count.

 

[doktarr]

I believe you need to have a capital in South or Western Europe. Eastern Europe doesn't count.

Wow. Why do they even bother? Seems like that's really just a gamey option for players who want to try to exploit stuff, as the AI will so rarely get there.

I don't have the game files at hand and the region info isn't in the wiki; what's the closest province to the Steppe in Southern Europe? Does any of Hungary/Bulgaria qualify?

OK, one last try for the best spammable options are (from best to worst):

1. If you have access to All-HC horde unit: Use it as it is the most efficient use of your manpower. Best leaders:
   • Defensive/Inspiring, especially if M14+ (enables Inspiring defense in skirmish phase)
   • French/Occitan/Breton/German (enables Couched Lance Charge)
   • If not one of the above cultures, then M14+ Brave/Aggressive/Cavalry Leader (enables Heroic Countercharge) - this requires adding some LC, but keep it under 20% to avoid rolling Raid (or under 5% if you have a defensive/inspiring leader, to avoid rolling Harass in skirmish).
   
   
2. Brave/Aggressive/Cavalry leaders: Use HC-heavy units with the rest Light Cavalry, with the aim of getting Harass in skirmish, then Heroic Countercharge (along with Raid and Awesome Charge) in melee. Best breakdown to maximize Heroic Countercharge depends on the leader's Martial rating:
   • Martial 15 or less: just spam the 150 HC/100 LC unit, as anything less than 60% HC will give you your best chance. You're right on the edge of having too much HC if your martial is 12-15, but more LC should die in battle than HC so you should be OK.
   • Martial 16+: add enough LC so that you have less than 50% HC.
   Heroic Countercharge becomes much more likely at M14+, making this build a lot better. If you have vassal or mercenary units that don't have a lot of Light Cavalry, putting enough of them in other flanks to reduce the army's total Light Cavalry percentage to below 30% will cut down the chances of Raid firing, giving you more Heroic Countercharges.
   
   
3. Altaic leaders fighting on flatlands against non-Horde opponents: Mix and match to get to 64% HA + 36% LC. Err on the side of less HA and more LC (more HA gives you the Disorganized Swarm tactic). Swarm and Harass Swarm in Skirmish, then Retreat and Ambush in melee. Note the qualifiers there as they are all important:
   • If you are in forest, woods, mountain, jungle, or marsh, Swarm and Harass Swarm can't fire, which kills your power in skirmish.
   • If your leader is not Altaic, Retreat and Ambush can't fire and you will be eaten alive in melee.
   • If you are facing a Light Cavalry heavy army, Harass's huge bonus against Swarm and Harass Swarm will hurt.
   
   
4. All other times: 74% LC + 26% HC. Harass in skirmish, then Raids 3/4 of the time in melee, Awesome Charging the rest of the time.

 

[Eslin]

Bulgaria qualifies. Started a game as Magyars, 25 years later I owned everything from Normandy to Afghanistan. Nomads are less broken than they were (now that they ruined cavalry), but they're still way overpowered.

 

[Dragatus]

Western Europe consists of: all of Britannia, all of Francia, all of Hispania, the kingdom of Pomerania, and the Holy Roman Empire without the duchy of Carinthia.

Southern Europe consists of: the duchy of Carinthia, the kingdoms of Italy, Sicily, Papacy, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, and the European part of the kingdom of Greece (Krete still counts as Europe, but Aegean Islands and Rhodos already count as Asia Minor).

This is assuming default de jure borders in 1066.

 

[doktarr]

I messed around with the heavy cavalry horde a bit this weekend (Magyar 867 start, snagged Constantia in the initial war, switched my capital there after burning it to the ground). After using it, I don't really think that pure Heavy Cavalry is optimal. I ended up thinking that I should only have one or two all-heavy flanks for special purposes, and the rest of my flanks should be about two thirds light cavalry and one third heavy.

There's a few reasons:

1. If you are Tengri, the bonus for Light Cavalry is pretty huge.
   
2. Light Cavalry are cheaper to buy and (much more importantly) cheaper to maintain and reinforce. Money is pretty tight for the Horde, unless/until you are too strong for it to matter.
3. Skirmish phase is pretty important in horde battles. A stack that's between 50% and 75% light cavalry (with the rest heavy cav) and a M16+ leader is going to throw Harass 84% of the time. Unless the opposing army is much bigger or is unusually strong, those boosted light cav will end up routing most flanks in the skirmish phase. By contrast, Heavy Cavalry will just kind of hang out until the melee phase - at which point they do ridiculous damage and rout everything, but the opposing army does get to wear you out more. That, again, means more attrition and more reinforcement costs.

Heavy Cavalry shines more in the situations where you are *not* dominant. When facing 5500 Byzantines with 1800 Magyars, most of their army made it into melee phase, and the Heavy Cavalry was what saved my bacon. One other upside of Heavy Cavalry is they are really good at assaults, which is nice for subduing tribal holdings in Russia for sure.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

In my playthrough, I built mostly pure light cavalery at first (because can be bought with prestige) with a few heavy vanguard, until my income from pillage and silk road trade posts was sufficient (trade tech and trade related buildings were very first priority, plus pillaging all except cities).
When my income was enough and had enough troops, I replaced progressively all the pure light cav by heavy vanguard (a bit expensive by I could sustain it). I did not have the Tengri bonus since I was Buddhist.
This may be not optimized but it was enough to win my wars. But I think that taking pure ligh cav at first is worth it (especially with Tengri); since it costs prestige, you do lose gold when switching to more expensive units (there is the reinforcement cost), but not too much; And at the point where you switch you already have a lot of money and territory.

 

[doktarr]

Overall, you're right that Light Cav wins in the early going on the grounds of just being cheaper.

Still, there's some value in adding enough heavy cavalry to get the light cavalry percentage in your flanks under 75%. If you are over 75% you can only roll Disorganized Harass, giving +100% Light Cavalry offense and -60% defense. If you ger your LC percentage under 75% you replace that with regular Harass, which gets +300% offense and -40% defense. So a 70% Light Cav stack is going to do significantly more damage in Skirmish than a 100% Light Cav stack will (about 1.5x as much, accounting for the small contribution of the Heavy Cav), while taking less damage.

I guess it comes down to whether you are more pinched on manpower or on cash, but unless you are extremely cash-strapped I'd probably include about a quarter Heavy Cavalry from early on.

If you have a castle holding that doesn't have any militia training grounds (i.e. no archers), then the levy from that can substitute for the 26% Heavy Cavalry and allow you to roll Harass instead of Disorganized Harass. You will occasionally roll Advance in melee as a result, but the goal is to win in Skirmish anyway.

 

[Dragatus]

One thing to note here is that adding HC will make you trigger Charge more often so you spend less time in skirmish phase. I still think getting proper Harass instead of the "Disorganized" version is worth it, but this effect makes the difference smaller than one might expect.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

Overall, you're right that Light Cav wins in the early going on the grounds of just being cheaper.

Still, there's some value in adding enough heavy cavalry to get the light cavalry percentage in your flanks under 75%. If you are over 75% you can only roll Disorganized Harass, giving +100% Light Cavalry offense and -60% defense. If you ger your LC percentage under 75% you replace that with regular Harass, which gets +300% offense and -40% defense. So a 70% Light Cav stack is going to do significantly more damage in Skirmish than a 100% Light Cav stack will (about 1.5x as much, accounting for the small contribution of the Heavy Cav), while taking less damage.

I guess it comes down to whether you are more pinched on manpower or on cash, but unless you are extremely cash-strapped I'd probably include about a quarter Heavy Cavalry from early on.

If you have a castle holding that doesn't have any militia training grounds (i.e. no archers), then the levy from that can substitute for the 26% Heavy Cavalry and allow you to roll Harass instead of Disorganized Harass. You will occasionally roll Advance in melee as a result, but the goal is to win in Skirmish anyway.

Well, I agree with you. I bought some pure LC and some heavy vanguard (but less than LC) at the beginning. Since I began around samarkand and expanded in persia, I could not buy pure HC and was aiming for heavy vanguard. My post was just to highlight that pure LC can really make the early game easier... I think this little detour is worth it. Of course, preparing for a switch to more expensive troups later have to be considered at some point.

 

[doktarr]

One thing to note here is that adding HC will make you trigger Charge more often so you spend less time in skirmish phase. I still think getting proper Harass instead of the "Disorganized" version is worth it, but this effect makes the difference smaller than one might expect.

Interesting. We're really talking about what happens on day 19 here since you stay in your previous tactic until then. At that point, an all-LC flank would have about a one in three chance of staying in skirmish with Disorganized Harass, while a 30% HC flank charges something like 75% of the time. However, this only applies if the opposing flank hasn't already forced things into melee, right? If you're facing a standard mix of levy units, they probably shieldwall for 12 days and then flip over to melee. In that case you don't get the chance to roll another skirmish tactic, right?

I feel like this is passing into the realm where there's so many variables involved that just mathing it isn't really going to cut it and you're better off simming it if you want real answers. But my instinct is that this only really makes a big difference against other skirmish-happy flanks.

Well, I agree with you. I bought some pure LC and some heavy vanguard (but less than LC) at the beginning. Since I began around samarkand and expanded in persia, I could not buy pure HC and was aiming for heavy vanguard. My post was just to highlight that pure LC can really make the early game easier... I think this little detour is worth it. Of course, preparing for a switch to more expensive troups later have to be considered at some point.

One option is to start by getting some of the 250 LC horde units. Then later, when your cash flow improves, bulk out by adding the 150 HC, 100 LC horde units. Combining those in a 1:1 ratio gives you 70% LC, 30% HC, which is a pretty nice ratio, and you never have to disband anything to get there.

 

[Dragatus]

Yes, if the enemy switches to melee, then you're stuck in melee yourself. A typical levy will have a chance to trigger most tactics, or at least the ones that don't require any Horse Archers or Heavy Cavalry. They still often stay in skirmish for a second tactic, but rarely for a third.

 

[CaptainPolyp]

So if I understand well, light vanguard (or armies with more LC than HC) seem overall better than heavy vanguard (or armies with more HC than LC)???

 

[Dragatus]

HC is still stronger, but LC might be more cost-effective. LC is also especially useful against other hordes (who may be using Swarm tactics that are countered by Harass), while HC shines more in battles against feudal armies (who like to charge into melee anyway as their 2nd or 3rd tactic and never use Swarm tactics in skirmish - unless they're Byzantine or Persian).

 

[doktarr]

There are definitely some ideal ratios between light and heavy cavalry, but which of those ratios is best is kind of situational.

Pure LC is dirt cheap to create, relatively cheap to maintain and reinforce, is good against opposing hordes, is fairly strong in skirmish in general, and will often stick around for a second skirmish tactic if given the chance. It's bad in assault.

Tossing in 26% Heavy Cavalry ups the price, and doesn't really take advantage of the heavy cav, per se. But it does significantly more damage in all phases than pure LC, by improving the skirmish tactic and just being better at melee. When you consider supply limit and manpower issues, I think this is pretty clearly better once you can afford it.

Upping that to 40-45% Heavy Cav is great for a M14+ Brave/Cavalry leader, because Heroic Countercharge is good. This gives a flank that does very balanced damage in all phases. This is a sweet spot for those Brave/Cavalry leaders.

If you have access to pure Heavy Cav horde units, you can up that all the way to 96% HC or so; this will take Raid out of the picture and make Heroic Countercharge fire as often as possible. If your leader can't do Heroic Countercharge then just run pure HC. These HC-heavy builds crush in melee and are good at assaults too, but do nothing in skirmish. (Look for an Inspiring or Defensive leader so you can roll Inspiring Defense in skirmish.)

(Note: running the 60% HC, 40% LC horde unit is bad for Heroic Countercharge. This basically maximizes the chances that you will get either Raid or Awesome Charge instead. If you don't have pure Heavy Cavalry horde units, the best percentages you can get for Heroic Countercharge are found with less than 50% Heavy Cav.)

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Horse Archers are best with just a bit under 65% HA, with the rest LC. They are terrible if you are on forest, woods, mountain, jungle, or marsh, and you pretty much have to have an Altaic leader to use them as well. Interestingly, they are a good counter to the unit that is the best against LC in skirmish (archers) and the unit that is the best counter to HC in melee (pikemen). If you have a very large empire, you could make an argument for having some HA around as a counter to these units. But in general, they're not worth it.

 

[Dragatus]

I'm not entirely sure HA are that great against Pikemen. If you have 30% or more of them it makes your army charge into melee as quickly as if you had HC. Sure, they'll go straight back to skirmish phase after 6 days if you're Altaic, but not before getting roughed up first. And if the Pikemen happen to get Force Back during the Charge it's a slaughter.

 

[doktarr]

I'm not entirely sure HA are that great against Pikemen. If you have 30% or more of them it makes your army charge into melee as quickly as if you had HC. Sure, they'll go straight back to skirmish phase after 6 days if you're Altaic, but not before getting roughed up first. And if the Pikemen happen to get Force Back during the Charge it's a slaughter.

Hm, this is interesting. There's a lot to unpack in how this interacts. I guess this is revealing that there are a couple things I don't understand about how the combat system work that don't appear to be clearly answered in the wiki or the combat mechanics thread.

1. When a tactic says "transition to melee" (or for R&A, "transition to skirmish"), does that immediately apply to both the flank and the opposing flank? For example, when HAs charge, does their defense drop from 4.5 to 1 immediately, or after the end of the tactic? What if the HAs are in Swarm tactic when they get charged on day 13? Do they immediately revert to their crappy melee stats for the last 6 days of their Swarm tactic, or do they keep their skirmish stats until it's time for them to re-roll?
   
2. Specific to the Retreat and Ambush tactic, does it revert the day timer?

My guess on answers:

1. The change applies immediately to the flank that changes tactics, but the other flank keeps its stats until it rolls a different tactic.
   
2. The day timer does not revert. So, a 64% HA, 36% LC flank with a M12 Altaic leader would have a ~54% chance of just turning back around and charging in again after finishing R&A. (10.125 weights for Swarm and Harass Swarm, 4.5 for Disorganized Swarm, and 3 for General Skirmish, against 3 for charge of opportunity and 30 for Charge.)

If the second point is true, then I must sadly agree with you that there's basically no good situation for HAs, save perhaps facing down a huge pile of archers. The problem is not the initial charge, as (due to the way the day timers interact) it's extremely unlikely for an opening HA charge to be met with a Force Back. (It would require the HAs rolling two straight skirmish tactics before charging, while the pikes shieldwall three times in a row betore rolling Prepare followed by Force Back.) The problem is that if the combat is still going after Retreat and Ambush completes, there's a better than even chance the HAs will just charge back in instead of using Swarm or Harass Swarm. And as you say, that's very very bad against Force Back.

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Side rant: it seems like the default Horde units that the AI tends to use are often something like 80% LC, 20% HA. This is honestly about the worst ratio possible. Not enough HAs to get you into the Harass tactic over Disorganized Harass, but enough to give you the Swarm tactic and ruin your damage output.

 

[Dragatus]

1. I'm pretty sure that the transition to melee/skirmish occurs for both flanks the moment such a tactic triggers. The combat screen shows the phases of battle for opposing sides of a flank (bow in blue representing skirmish and crossed swords in red representing melee) and I don't remember ever seeing a case when two opposing sides in a flank were in different phases of combat. So when the HA charge into melee the Pikemen will use their melee stats, even if they're still in Shieldwall tactic.

2. I see no reason why the day timer should revert.


What I'm curious about is a follow-up question to #1: Do both sides pick their tactic simultaneously and independently based on what phase of combat they were in at the end of their last tactic? Or does the attacker choose their tactic first and if that tactic switches the combat phase the defender picks their own tactic based on the new phase of combat?


In regard to the side rant, that is indeed awful though even having more than 25% HA wouldn't help them get proper Harass. HA count as LC for purpose of tactic selection. Using any HA at all is an awful choice, unless you go for 51-64%. Then it becomes merely a bad choice.