Pagan Bonuses too OP?

[Saphire]

I decided to have some fun with the African gold mines, (which have provided nothing, being shut down since like forever), and started a playthrough in 769 as the duke of manding. Fast forward a bit (like a lot), I've reformed the African religion, have my own warrior lodge bloodline and now control the west and central african regions, as well as some of Magrheb. Btw the Abbassids also decided to take all of Africa, so that sucks.

And then.... THE ATZTECS INVADE. So you know how this is deadly at any point in time? imagine the earliest start date, when everyone's armies are far far smaller than they would be in the future cuz technology and stuff. So my complaints about the Abbasids? Yeah they aren't really that much of a problem anymore.

The aztecs have about 100k event troops still remaining at this point, so I start tossing cartloads of possesed african masks at the Chinese, who declare war with a whopping 110, stack.

They do absolutely nothing with their army - all they do is walk it back and forth. So I, with about 15k troops worth of levies, retinues, and people called to arms, march up north. I proceed to decimate a 60k STACK after sacrificing my son to the gods for power. My bonuses were as follows:
Direct Leader: +20% center
Light Foot Leader: +20% LI
Spirit Leader: +20% LI +20% LC +20% Leading In Desert
Immortal Armor: +15% morale damage
Dark Fetish: +20% morale damage +5% pursuit
Howling Tusk: +10% damage against religious enemies +10% narrow flank
Darkbringer: +15% LFT +20% HI
Strategist: +20% defense
Patient: +20% defense.
Sacrificed my son: +20% moral damage +20% army morale

Now I'm no mathematician, but this is an awful lot of bonuses. Clearly, pagans rulers are far too overpowered. While many of these bonuses are not pagan exclusive, such as some of the leader traits and the smithable artifacts, pagans are the only group that get to take full advantage of them by virtue of being invincible on the battlefield. Again, I shattered an aztec force 4 times my size using mostly LI and archers, which seems extremely unfair.

 

[Xenrek]

anything under player control is pretty unstoppable

but the AI, and new players as an extension, need those bonuses because some 90% of pagans start off as tribals near fairly significant and powerful realms.

lets look at the slavics for instance, hordes to the east, byzantines to the south, and christianity to the west, and rival pagans to the north.

now their only hope is to reform, to actually *obtain* those bonuses, but to do that they first have to weaken their own religion by fighting their neighbors to try and unify all that land to reform, and even after that, have to slowly adopt feudalism and build up castles that the west and south have been building up for a while.

as for unkillable on the battlefield, only Hero ranked fighters are, the rest just receive a reduced chance.

 

[junassa]

This makes me want to get SI now lol.

You say you sacrificed your son? Do you have Bloodthirsty? How did you reform?

edit: btw eventually those mines come in handy, there's an event where you get bonus gold. On reddit someone posted they got 10k gold on that event.

 

[Ixal]

Pagans did receive a lot of love in the past, even in the "Christian" Holy Fury. Some rebalancing is definately in order imo.

 

[SSA]

I think the AI is still not intelligent enough to really benefit from any of the bonuses, and all the benefits are actually for the player.

 

[DPS]

Pagans did receive a lot of love in the past, even in the "Christian" Holy Fury. Some rebalancing is definately in order imo.

Huh?

 

[Tatterhood]

the game becomes easy once you've conquered the entire africa? weird

 

[Saphire]

This makes me want to get SI now lol.

You say you sacrificed your son? Do you have Bloodthirsty? How did you reform?

edit: btw eventually those mines come in handy, there's an event where you get bonus gold. On reddit someone posted they got 10k gold on that event.

I'm not sure how that works, I also saw that post but I've never gotten it, even though I've controlled both mines and have built up the trade posts to lvl 2. Sacrificing my son is just a lvl 3 wrrior lodge thing, I reformed warmongering, enatic (because at the time, my ruler had 8 children, 7 of which were girls, with the male having terrible stats), stability, and hierocratic.

the game becomes easy once you've conquered the entire africa? weird

It was only southern africa, and the whole thing was tribal while I was feudal, meaning I had none of the bonuses where my tribes would join me, and their levies were absolute garbage, so I had to rely on my personal levies and my retinues, which were all basically light infantry, against a foe a metric f*** ton stronger than me. Especially since this was in the 769 start date, where my military and economic tech was so bad that I couldn't build up a strong levy and didn't have the military tech for super retinues. So it isn't Africa that makes this so good.

 

[Naughtius Maximus]

I'm not sure how that works, I also saw that post but I've never gotten it, even though I've controlled both mines and have built up the trade posts to lvl 2. Sacrificing my son is just a lvl 3 wrrior lodge thing, I reformed warmongering, enatic (because at the time, my ruler had 8 children, 7 of which were girls, with the male having terrible stats), stability, and hierocratic.


It was only southern africa, and the whole thing was tribal while I was feudal, meaning I had none of the bonuses where my tribes would join me, and their levies were absolute garbage, so I had to rely on my personal levies and my retinues, which were all basically light infantry, against a foe a metric f*** ton stronger than me. Especially since this was in the 769 start date, where my military and economic tech was so bad that I couldn't build up a strong levy and didn't have the military tech for super retinues. So it isn't Africa that makes this so good.

Pretty sure he meant, you formed any empire and now the game seems easy? Do tell.

Also I don't know why you are complaining about pagans and point to Aztecs in 800s. On top of being an event, Pre 1100 Aztecs are about the only time they are ever actually effective. If they come at their "historical" date they typically get run over by late game cav and heavy infantry.