Reasons for weak hordes

[Sorenzo]

I heartily endorse this thread. My only suggestion would be to add more units to the Horde tech group. They don't have to be superior to equal-tech Western ones, just significantly more competitive than the starting units. I'm frankly surprised AoW didn't do this already.

 

[EldarPanic]

YES PLEASE and while were at it give them some unit models too please PDX

 

[Arilou]

Hordes are definitely not god-awful. You can argue they peak too early (and I wouldn't disagree) but the no cost for reinforcements+free CB's+Cav bonuses are incredibly strong early-game.

 

[nicechinos]

Hordes are definitely not god-awful. You can argue they peak too early (and I wouldn't disagree) but the no cost for reinforcements+free CB's+Cav bonuses are incredibly strong early-game.

The voice of reason. Horde ideas are incredibly strong with or without reforming, indeed. Units might be tweaked (I'd probably change reforming rules however AI hordes reform every game these days) somewhat but nowhere near close to other techs. I'd wait for DDRJake to conquer something-something with pathetic horde to see this discussion calming down a bit. It started reasonably but went downhill. MOAR great bonuses for hordes because REASONS.
The problem is that people want to play hordes but don't want to play hordes as they are. Instead some super hordes are required for this job (+5% hostile attrition, -3% attrition). I really do not understand what is reforming problem about.

 

[mattkunz]

Hordes are definitely not god-awful. You can argue they peak too early (and I wouldn't disagree) but the no cost for reinforcements+free CB's+Cav bonuses are incredibly strong early-game.

What's the point of military bonuses and CB's, when your units are so weak, that even in the 1500's they get squashed, at the same tech level, with numerical advantage. They don't just peak too early, they also fall waaaaay too far from their peak.

 

[nicechinos]

Replacing no reinforcement costs is good idea. If only to stop mercs being essentially free on top of not using manpower.
Some more ideas:
They tend to buy artillery and hire its personnel. They could make them, but didn't fancied them enough. That's easy to mimic by heavily increasing artillery costs.
Their armies were extremely fast. This could be poorly emulated by free and built in forced mach and +N to manoeuvre stats.
Their armies were very selfsufficient. Heck they really invaded Russia en masse at winter semi regualarily. -1 attrition doesn't feel enough. -3 maybe?
They kept using bows which was superior weapon compared to early muskets. Especially on horse back. Maybe give their units a lot more fire pips instead of shock? It will require yet another rebalancing most of units though.
There was no peace in the steppes with constant raiding each other and their neighbours. Could be emualted with +1 army tradition.
They were able to start total war (as in whole male population could be called to arms) at will. So manpower and FL bonuses are apropriate.

I would replace +25% shock damage home field bonus with something like +5 attrition to any non-horde enemy.

Mate, you suggested yesterday that 30 th Crimeans and 20 th Ottomans died "mostly" from attrition during the Astrakhani raid (which is a natural habitat for Crimeans with at worst mild winter). How does it correspond to your attrition suggestion? The most famous invasion of GH (great stand-off of Ugra) resulted in heavy attrition loses as they had no supplies from home and couldn't loot enough locally due to relatively large army. BTW if you want to incorporate lower attrition as a feature of nomadic warfare perhaps you should also consider a negative -50% defensiveness bonus. The same stand-off story saw complete wrecking of GH homeland by small Crimean-Muscovite squad. Winter warfare was difficult for hordes because they had to get regular food for horses (which was much greater problem for cavalry heavy army).
What justifies heavy attrition for enemies in the steppe?

 

[nicechinos]

What's the point of military bonuses and CB's, when your units are so weak, that even in the 1500's they get squashed, at the same tech level, with numerical advantage. They don't just peak too early, they also fall waaaaay too far from their peak.

The expected level for tech 10 is 1531. That's the level when Eastern tech cav pips become greater than those of hordes (the same for Western; Eastern infantry is better starting tech 9 but who needs horde infantry anyway). Put your focus on military to get the tactics and stomp everybody for almost a century. That's is enough to completely wipe a large nation of the map.

 

[Haccoude]

Hordes are definitely not god-awful. You can argue they peak too early (and I wouldn't disagree) but the no cost for reinforcements+free CB's+Cav bonuses are incredibly strong early-game.

Notice how I'm suggesting cutting down on the CBs in my suggestion. That's because I want them to be not god-awful in the 17th and late 16th centuries, and I'm willing to let them be worse then they currently are early-game if that's what it takes. The purpose of the first post is to list why hordes being god-awful post-early game is historically inaccurate.