Oirat Horde

[timujin]

Have anyone had an experience playing with one of the horde nations on iron mode?

i tried 3 times with golden horde but always failed for approx 1600 ottomans or moscow would bring me down.

4th attempt was with Oirat Horde, it was dodgy at the beginning but eventually i got enough critical mass to grow above 70 provinces, take down ming and be
ready to core in the new world next to a western nation.

although not done on ironman and i did reloaded several times mostly after realisig that i did a bad peace deal or some game mechanic surprises.
more over i must say i was lucky with my second war with manchu and my first war with ming, if one of those were lost i probably would be in a dire state.

When playing with a horde i run into some major problems
1) playing as a horde means your units don't scale with tech. at all. you have same units as those you started with all game
2) you can't westernize without reforming government
3) you can't reform government without 90 legitimacy.

you can easily drop 70 legitimacy if your ruler dies when your heir is a child and that is random and beyond your control, in my current game i have 8 royal marriages and 90+ prestige in an attempt to bring my legitimacy back to 90.​

4) you can't have peace, if in peace (not having a truce) you will have pretenders rising yearly, some times couple of times a year.

i would like to hear some experience of how to deal with those things...

 

[mattekillert]

Play as Manchu become Qing. Use horde ideas to conquer your neighbours.

 

[Rya]

I tried Golden Horde at first, and even though it was easy to beat Muscovy right at the start, I found Crimea/Ottomans too much to handle. No experience with Oirats, but I did a horde game with Crimea and it was easier than I expected. Allied Ottomans, conquered Georgia (GOLD!), took all Azerbaijani culture provinces, worked on the other Hordes and got very lucky with a PU with Uzbeks... currently stretching from Poland to Pacific, Polar circle to Punjab, Persia has my dynasty and I'm just waiting to add another P to my collection. Fully westernized too. That legitimacy requirement is really harsh, I agree. Had a succession crisis early on and it dropped to 10, else I would have westernized by 1550. I literally waited 50 years just get my legitimacy back and it was always very close with my heirs turning 15 and bam, parent died.

 

[timujin]

I tried Golden Horde at first, and even though it was easy to beat Muscovy right at the start, I found Crimea/Ottomans too much to handle. No experience with Oirats, but I did a horde game with Crimea and it was easier than I expected. Allied Ottomans, conquered Georgia (GOLD!), took all Azerbaijani culture provinces, worked on the other Hordes and got very lucky with a PU with Uzbeks... currently stretching from Poland to Pacific, Polar circle to Punjab, Persia has my dynasty and I'm just waiting to add another P to my collection. Fully westernized too. That legitimacy requirement is really harsh, I agree. Had a succession crisis early on and it dropped to 10, else I would have westernized by 1550. I literally waited 50 years just get my legitimacy back and it was always very close with my heirs turning 15 and bam, parent died.

cool
you are in a safe zone now

 

[StatikShocker]

timurids, release persia vassal, assault delhi ruthlessly, form mughals, recover cores in qara qoyunlu, conquer world

I wonder the best way to westernize. sometimes the europeans don't make it to india at all really.

 

[timujin]

timurids, release persia vassal, assault delhi ruthlessly, form mughals, recover cores in qara qoyunlu, conquer world

I wonder the best way to westernize. sometimes the europeans don't make it to india at all really.

actually that makes sense, they start up strong and have the potential to cut south and colonize africa for westernization.

 

[Isaios]

timurids, release persia vassal, assault delhi ruthlessly, form mughals, recover cores in qara qoyunlu, conquer world

I wonder the best way to westernize. sometimes the europeans don't make it to india at all really.

Best way is to conquer into Egyp from Iraq and take a foothold in Italy for instance. You can also nab something from Crimea so as to border Genoa if you're able, but that's harder.

 

[Novacat]

You dont. Hordes are essentially on the same level as the New World and Africans on playability now. Reform fucks you over because you lose horde government and horde ideas get replaced with generic. Timurids and Manchus are playable only because they can easily reform and they have their own NIs but for that reason are not considered real hordes. In a nutshell, hordes are not really viable anymore for anyone other than masochists whom enjoy trying to make superpowers out of countries that the game decides must die.

 

[timujin]

In a nutshell, hordes are not really viable anymore for anyone other than masochists whom enjoy trying to make superpowers out of countries that the game decides must die.

lol, that's me that what kept me motivated to try golden horde three times and fail
but hey, practice makes perfect, so i got it going well with oirat on the fourth attempt.

 

[Novacat]

lol, that's me that what kept me motivated to try golden horde three times and fail
but hey, practice makes perfect, so i got it going well with oirat on the fourth attempt.

Well, an interesting trick I learned is that, if you can fight and beat Ming to 100% warscore, you can force Ming to release Zhou, Xi, and Shan. It will take three wars. Then you conquer one province, and release Ming as vassal. Than you continuously DOW Shan, Zhou, and Xi until all their cores are returned to Ming, although personally I conquer and core their cores in Yunnan/Beijing trade nodes for myself. You get a powerful ally, no AE, no coring (aside from the provinces you decide to annex yourself), and it puts the most powerful country in the east under your thumb. You can probably pull off something very similar against Japan but I never tried personally.

I also recommend letting yourself get overrunned by Sunni zealots. Not only is Sunni a much better religion than Confucian/Buddhist in terms of bonuses, but when you do reform you will get Muslim tech and units instead of Chinese tech and units which will allow you to dominate the far east pretty well. As for Westernization, you are stuck waiting until the Europeans show up since the nearest western outpost, Crimea, is too far away and will likely be conquered by the time you reach it.

 

[unmerged(815621)]

timurids, release persia vassal, assault delhi ruthlessly, form mughals, recover cores in qara qoyunlu, conquer world

I wonder the best way to westernize. sometimes the europeans don't make it to india at all really.

There is no reason to release Persia. More money + more manpower means more fighting. 2 wars to take all of Delhi. During that time, you can vassal much of India (or capture for that matter). The key is to not overextend to where Delhi gets in a coalition.

The easiest way to westernize is to border Venice. I got lucky and Venice took Cyprus. While I was beating up the Mamaluks for fun, this allowed me to westernize fast. Even before this, I owned most of India, cut into the Hordes around me, took out part of the Mamluks, weakened the Ottomans by using them as cannon fodder then took some of their land. By the time I westernized, I had my fill of conquest.

 

[ryak2002]

You dont. Hordes are essentially on the same level as the New World and Africans on playability now. Reform fucks you over because you lose horde government and horde ideas get replaced with generic. Timurids and Manchus are playable only because they can easily reform and they have their own NIs but for that reason are not considered real hordes. In a nutshell, hordes are not really viable anymore for anyone other than masochists whom enjoy trying to make superpowers out of countries that the game decides must die.

I can assure you that African nations are not impossible to play

 

[Mr. Methyl]

Having a lot of fun with Oirat recently. Didn't love the ideas, but was easy to ally Timurids and get to India and find Portugal by about 1600. Westernized and made all Hordes vassals pretty easily, owning a huge chunk of Asia, though it's looking like I'm going to have to keep Muscovy from becoming Russia forever, and the Austrian HRE is about to Renovatio, with a PU on Portugal who is the runaway colonial power all over Asia. We'll see.

 

[Novacat]

I can assure you that African nations are not impossible to play

Not impossible to play, much like the Native Americans and Hordes you will do pretty well until a European country sees you and decides you would make a delicious meal.

Having a lot of fun with Oirat recently. Didn't love the ideas, but was easy to ally Timurids and get to India and find Portugal by about 1600. Westernized and made all Hordes vassals pretty easily, owning a huge chunk of Asia, though it's looking like I'm going to have to keep Muscovy from becoming Russia forever, and the Austrian HRE is about to Renovatio, with a PU on Portugal who is the runaway colonial power all over Asia. We'll see.

Muscovy must have hit some really bad luck (possibly time of troubles), in my 1.2 Timurids game by the time I even reached Russia in conquests they had already formed Russia and reached critical mass.

 

[timujin]

Muscovy must have hit some really bad luck (possibly time of troubles), in my 1.2 Timurids game by the time I even reached Russia in conquests they had already formed Russia and reached critical mass.

that's actually why i preferred the oriat, getting expansion as my first idea i colonized siberia and met russia above the Caspian sea, therefor preventing their ability to reach critical mass.

moreover, colonizing allowed my to reach critical mass without a risky war with ming by colonizing Asia, philipines etc.. and a bit of north america.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=192819350
actually colonizing is a bit OP for asian countries, while europeans can colonize they dont receive optimum revenues from the provinces they take due to overseas penalties.
asian countries can colonize provinces of the same continent receiving full benefits.

 

[Novacat]

that's actually why i preferred the oriat, getting expansion as my first idea i colonized siberia and met russia above the Caspian sea, therefor preventing their ability to reach critical mass.

Taking east Siberia is not going to stop Russia from reaching critical mass... all of the most 'valuable' provinces are in Muscovy/Novogorod territory, those provinces alone let Russia field 60K troops easy, conquer a few of the western hordes like Golden Horde and Kazan and suddenly they can easily field 100-150K troops.

Also, Timurids is in a really good position to cut the Russians off. All you need to do is conquer Uzbek, than colonise that single uninhabited province. However, that gives you a border with Russia and generally Russia takes very strong exception to having its frontier taken away from it.

 

[LordofTurtles]

Will Manchu or Timurids give the achievement?

 

[Novacat]

Will Manchu or Timurids give the achievement?

Yes.

 

[beckermt]

I really enjoyed playing Kazan.

 

[Isaios]

I really enjoyed playing Kazan.

Because of the pretty, pretty flag of awesomeness? That's why I like them ^_^