Pagan loot spam

[Kinkness]

Is out of control.

Playing as a Republic in Italy, I am having literally having 3-5 ships non stop for the last 300 years every month dropping looters on my Rome area... Are you serious? I think every pagan with a port has visited me about 300 times in the last 300 years, and it's a constant influx spam of looter ships.

Are you seriously telling me, that pagans are sending their ships all the way around Denmark, through the English Channel, past England, and France, around Spain, and past North Africa to spam me with looters 24/7? as of this moment, in just this 1 year alone 178,456 looters have been to my shore to say hello.. Of course not all at once, but the spam of 4-5 groups of soldiers from 4-5 different pagan factions every month quickly adds up. It's insanely annoying as well. I of course ignore them completely and they go away with minimal effect to me because my faction is rather large, but this spam has been happening since before I was even an Empire or anyone of worthy.

It's as if every pagan leader is hell bent on sending every soldier and ship they have for the rest of eternity to my shores as if the sun won't rise the next morning unless they have a constant stream coming to my door..

 

[thevmag]

The game uses an uber-complex algorithm to ensure that 9/10 of all looters exclusively target player provinces, and multiplies intensity of looters by 500% of the player has his armies at war elsewhere.

Event_584967243509682734065: humon player sent his troops to spain, gib 50,000 event raiders to all vikings

 

[Sunspawn]

Is out of control.

Playing as a Republic in Italy, I am having literally having 3-5 ships non stop for the last 300 years every month dropping looters on my Rome area... Are you serious? I think every pagan with a port has visited me about 300 times in the last 300 years, and it's a constant influx spam of looter ships.

Are you seriously telling me, that pagans are sending their ships all the way around Denmark, through the English Channel, past England, and France, around Spain, and past North Africa to spam me with looters 24/7? as of this moment, in just this 1 year alone 178,456 looters have been to my shore to say hello.. Of course not all at once, but the spam of 4-5 groups of soldiers from 4-5 different pagan factions every month quickly adds up. It's insanely annoying as well. I of course ignore them completely and they go away with minimal effect to me because my faction is rather large, but this spam has been happening since before I was even an Empire or anyone of worthy.

It's as if every pagan leader is hell bent on sending every soldier and ship they have for the rest of eternity to my shores as if the sun won't rise the next morning unless they have a constant stream coming to my door..

As a viking myself, I always make sure to loot the rich areas - and Italy is such an area. And you know the mantra - if the player does it and it makes sense, then why the heck should AI not do it?

 

[Fimconte]

As a viking myself, I always make sure to loot the rich areas - and Italy is such an area. And you know the mantra - if the player does it and it makes sense, then why the heck should AI not do it?

Because it's an annoying mechanic that cannot be reasonably countered ('go conquer all the germanics' is not reasonable) due to the lack of naval combat.

 

[LACKADAISICAL]

This'd be less annoying if the pagans were more willing to accept missionaries, but it is nearing the 13th century in my game and pagans still imprison everyone I send their way.

 

[Kumicho]

Because it's an annoying mechanic that cannot be reasonably countered ('go conquer all the germanics' is not reasonable) due to the lack of naval combat.

It's easy as anything to deal with raiders:

1) Ignore anyone who's raiding your vassals. Screw them, let them deal with it themselves.
2) Have Duke or higher vassals. If they have 3 counties, they can recruit enough troops to chase them off.
3) When raiders land in your demesne, raise troops, crush invaders, disband. No problems...
4) Keep 1500 retinues somewhere that can raise 15 boats. When raiders appear, raise boats, embark retinues, land on top of the raiders, poof, no more raiders..,

Seriously, it's not that hard. And if you kill them off, they can't keep raiding you.

 

[Fimconte]

It's easy as anything to deal with raiders:

1) Ignore anyone who's raiding your vassals. Screw them, let them deal with it themselves.
2) Have Duke or higher vassals. If they have 3 counties, they can recruit enough troops to chase them off.
3) When raiders land in your demesne, raise troops, crush invaders, disband. No problems...
4) Keep 1500 retinues somewhere that can raise 15 boats. When raiders appear, raise boats, embark retinues, land on top of the raiders, poof, no more raiders..,

Seriously, it's not that hard. And if you kill them off, they can't keep raiding you.

Never said it was hard.
All the things you listed are tedious.
When I'm wiping Abbasid stacks on the other side of the map, I don't want to have to deal with random 700 men troll squads.

Reality is that there are very limited set of tools the player can use to disable raiders.
These do not include:
Being obscenely powerful (3K+ realm size) that any raiding party would know that retribution would be that their homes are burned to the ground and their families sanitized.
Bribing the raiders.
Allying with the raiders (only a real issue in MP, vassals will still raid).

As for killing them, that does not work.
You can wipe dozens of raider stacks, they're back next year with the same 700 men annoying microstack.

Unless you meant killing their realms.
In which case, see my previous comment.

 

[aitaituo]

I like to think that raiding Constantinople is a eugenics program and rite of passage practiced by the Norse. Make it back alive and you are a man! And/or can run really fast in armor.

 

[MishaTX]

When I'm wiping Abbasid stacks on the other side of the map, I don't want to have to deal with random 700 men troll squads.

This, and the fact that the raiders seem to be psychic. I swear, whenever I, as England, click on the "Raise Levies" button in order to go to war, viking raider longboats materialize instantly off the coast of every single one of my counties.

"Hey, Sigurd, I felt a tingling in my left toe. That can only mean that the King of England mobilized his troops to press a de jure claim against Dyfedd. Hit the teleport button!"

I "fixed" it by handing off all of the coastal counties to vassals and making up my personal demesne of the rest. My vassals never pay me much in taxes as they're constantly burned to the ground by looting Star Trek Teleporter Vikings, but at least I don't have to deal with the micromanagement.

 

[Quaade]

Park retinue in your province, had nearly no raider activity during my playthrough there.

Only when at war when my castles were easieItalian province get did they come. Since you're at war with abbassid I'm guessing that's the case. Which in fact is quite logical and realistic. I especially loot high-prized kingdoms when they are at war, since they won't do anything about my raiders. Don't ask for the game to be easy, it's just the way of life.

On a sidenote, letting raiders get away with gold... understandable that they keep coming with their friends ''hey Thorvald, this Italian provinces just let us take their gold and ladies. Let's not do that next time, it's no fun''

 

[geminus]

I totally agree with the OP.

Dealing with raiders is not hard, it's just extremely tedious.

Trying to play a game as either Holland or Flanders will turn your game into a constant raising and dismissing of levies, due to never-ending pagan raiders spam. Even if you annihilate a stack of raiders, they still get away with all loot as well as turning up with a full force next year again. Rinse and repeat. Multiply this with all the pagan rulers that raid you, and your game is turned into this raise-and-disband-levies-mania.

I have earlier suggested some changes to raiding, a kind of reputation you can get by repelling and killing raiders. As this reputation increases pagan will be less likely to target your lands, as well as having a negative morale modifier in case they do.

Beating a raiding party should also drastically reduce the loot they gained from it, ideally returning all gold back to you if you completely destroy them.

 

[Latheloi]

I am a Roman empire controlling the majority of the Mediterranean seaboard. Vitrually no vikings have survived raids on the coast from Genoa down to Rome (my heartland) in 300 years.

I have now had to settle 2200 man retinues all of the way down that coast to deter them (which does work), as it is the ONLY way I can avoid the pointless micromanagement of raising my demense (occassionally the full 20k, if I am REALLY annoyed with the raid) and crushing them mercilessly.

It would be really nice if, say, with sufficient shipbuilding tech you could make a building that prevented the landing of non-friendly troops (to represent your own fleet). At least then I would know the end is in sight!

Actually... going to cross post that concept to suggestions.

 

[MishaTX]

I totally agree with the OP.

Dealing with raiders is not hard, it's just extremely tedious.

Trying to play a game as either Holland or Flanders will turn your game into a constant raising and dismissing of levies, due to never-ending pagan raiders spam. Even if you annihilate a stack of raiders, they still get away with all loot as well as turning up with a full force next year again. Rinse and repeat. Multiply this with all the pagan rulers that raid you, and your game is turned into this raise-and-disband-levies-mania.

I have earlier suggested some changes to raiding, a kind of reputation you can get by repelling and killing raiders. As this reputation increases pagan will be less likely to target your lands, as well as having a negative morale modifier in case they do.

Beating a raiding party should also drastically reduce the loot they gained from it, ideally returning all gold back to you if you completely destroy them.

Completely agree with this. I don't want raiding to go away. As I always say: "If you can do it to the AI, the AI needs to be able to do it to you." It's one of the things I love about CK2: Same rules. Do unto others, and don't be crying when they do the same to you." I love that concept. And raiders are and should be a problem that you have to invest resources in dealing with. But I'm not an AI, so constantly hovering over my realm while I have my army fighting in Outer Bumfark to make sure that I can raise my levies in time, repel boarders, then disband again is a tedious distraction. I should be able to trust people back home to know to raise what levies they have (if they can beat the raiders), fight them and disband on their own. Which is why I like to hand out coastal holdings to vassals, because vassals are AIs and can do that. It costs me in that they can't pay me taxes because of the constant losses as well as the drain on their levies, should I need them one day, not to mention that I can't hold those juicy counties in my personal demesne. And that's how it should be. It should cost me.

I just don't want CKII to be StarCraft the Middle Agening, forcing me to scroll, click, scroll, click, click again, click some more and the scroll again until I need medication to get my stress levels down. Some sort of mechanic to let your realm handle that sort of thing would be nice.

Also, your suggestion that repeated rolfstomps of raids on your part ought to deter future raids would not only be helpful, it would also be extremely realistic. Because that's how I, a human, play. If I get constantly massacred when I try to loot county X, I'll find an easier target. Why should the AI be any different? Again: If it's something you would do, the AI should do it too, but if it's something that you (or anybody else even remotely sane) wouldn't do, why shouldn't the AI take those factors into consideration as well?

I know that it's a lot easier to ask for than to program. If it wasn't, somebody would have done it already, but it would be so outstandingly unique. Just some way of automating the micromanagement without eliminating the cost of it.

I can dream, can't I?

 

[thevmag]

Being obscenely powerful (3K+ realm size) that any raiding party would know that retribution would be that their homes are burned to the ground and their families sanitized.

Oh they know we can't do anything like that. Can't Holy War them without a direct land border, so generations of the brightest and best-trained rulers of Europe will never get the idea to wipe out the viking threat by force. The AI knows this, and is having a party on our tab

 

[Owl Raider]

My main issue with raiders and navies in general is that there's nothing you can do about them. The game severely lacks warships, which mind you were available since ancient Greece so it's not like they weren't invented yet. Heck, Venice and Genoa were renowned for having powerful galley based navies during CK2's time period which was in fact Venice's golden age. With warships of your own you can deter raiders and actually stop them from returning home with your loot. Sure, warships during the time period shouldn't be that much more powerful than transport ships as they didn't really have cannons yet or anything, ballistas at most. So raiding would still very much be possible with a board ship combat mechanic for transport ships with troops on them fighting warships, but it should be an option.

 

[Kumicho]

This, and the fact that the raiders seem to be psychic. I swear, whenever I, as England, click on the "Raise Levies" button in order to go to war, viking raider longboats materialize instantly off the coast of every single one of my counties.

"Hey, Sigurd, I felt a tingling in my left toe. That can only mean that the King of England mobilized his troops to press a de jure claim against Dyfedd. Hit the teleport button!"

I "fixed" it by handing off all of the coastal counties to vassals and making up my personal demesne of the rest. My vassals never pay me much in taxes as they're constantly burned to the ground by looting Star Trek Teleporter Vikings, but at least I don't have to deal with the micromanagement.

Wait, you might have to leave some of forces at home to protect your homesteads from raiding and invasion? Oh, perish the thought! It's not hard... Leave a couple thousand demesne troops at home while you go off adventuring (and if you can't afford to leave troops at home, maybe wait until you're stronger before invading someone else?). When raiders attack your land, raise demesne troops and instantaneously kill them. When raiders attack a vassal's land, allow them to handle it themselves. A 3 county duke can easily raise enough troops to chase off raiders. And, on the off-chance that they're not powerful enough (and have enough troops to siege holdings), just raise those couple thousand demesne levy troops and send them to the affected area. Done.

Seriously, AI raiders are WAY, WAY WAY less aggressive than I am when I'm playing Norse. The minute that the AI Empire of Scandinavia comes and starts assaulting holdings with 12k+ Skirmish Retinue troops, *then* they might start to have some parity with human players. Until then, just ignore them or learn to deal with them.

 

[nephilim2k]

I found attacking them stops them from coming again.

 

[Tuerai]

Wait, you might have to leave some of forces at home to protect your homesteads from raiding and invasion? Oh, perish the thought! It's not hard... Leave a couple thousand demesne troops at home while you go off adventuring (and if you can't afford to leave troops at home, maybe wait until you're stronger before invading someone else?). When raiders attack your land, raise demesne troops and instantaneously kill them. When raiders attack a vassal's land, allow them to handle it themselves. A 3 county duke can easily raise enough troops to chase off raiders. And, on the off-chance that they're not powerful enough (and have enough troops to siege holdings), just raise those couple thousand demesne levy troops and send them to the affected area. Done.

Seriously, AI raiders are WAY, WAY WAY less aggressive than I am when I'm playing Norse. The minute that the AI Empire of Scandinavia comes and starts assaulting holdings with 12k+ Skirmish Retinue troops, *then* they might start to have some parity with human players. Until then, just ignore them or learn to deal with them.

I agree with this quite a lot. AI raiding is nowhere near how hard I raid, and it's realistic that you can't empty your nation of all military age men and expect to be able to defend your country from coastal raids.

 

[General Karthos]

The inevitable solution in games where I'm on the British isles is to eventually holy war them and destroy them. Or at least convert them. I can see how that wouldn't work as a Mediterranean Empire. Usually though they eventually convert to Christianity and feudal and raiding slows and then stops. Though that's only usually. Sometimes they reform and continue to raid forever, in which case the only way to really solve things is to bring the light of Christianity to them through the sword. If you're not a neighboring Catholic nation, you have to rely on the AI to do so. God help you in that case.

 

[Ilion]

It's easy as anything to deal with raiders:

4) Keep 1500 retinues somewhere that can raise 15 boats. When raiders appear, raise boats, embark retinues, land on top of the raiders, poof, no more raiders..,

Seriously, it's not that hard. And if you kill them off, they can't keep raiding you.

Just keep in mind that as soon as your retinues get on the ships, their morale drops by half.