[Suggestion] Nerf westernized Steppe Hordes

[Novacat]

Indeed, although the Horde CBs really help with that, so AE is generally a mixed bag. My last Timurids game I never had more than 4-5 countries in coalition against me, despite the fact I was in near constant war/expansion mode. I also stayed the hell away from Europe which also likely helped.

Westernized Crimea will never be as good as Muscovy, and significantly more rare. Not sure what the complaining is about.

Westernized Timurids can match Muscovy... but only on the defense, due to Horde's +25% Power bonus on owned Plains/desert provinces.

 

[Riidi]

Everyone seems to be ignoring that Hordes get "-50% Relations Over Time"

This seems minor, but it means that doom coalitions will be sticking with you for a lot longer than usual. It doesn't matter how many dudes you have if ALL OF EUROPE wants to murder you.

That's kind of messed up on its own, though. Like, those doom coalitions won't be threatening you with defeat, dismantling, abdication, and ruin, but ... with making it a massive slog to take the territories you want because the warscore required shoots through the roof? That doesn't seem correct at all for a crimean horde staring down and defeating the combined armies of europe, you know.

 

[unmerged(804580)]

Hordes got nerfed in 1.2 already. Now they don't even keep their government form?

There is a historical example of Westernized Horde. Plain Indians in North America. Importing horses and adapting Western military technology did not change their government into monarchies. I am fully aware that this analogy is imperfect and it is not in the EU frame, but just tell me, what does Westernization mean in the game?

Does it involve cultural change as well? Not really, what it does is make your tech go up faster and give you western military units. Your culture remains the same, you don't start dressing you like a European and start speaking Portuguese. Why can't the Hordes just remain Hordes with their hard-earned Western military technologies?

Please don't change this again. Give us a more special government form for the Hordes to upgrade, and I think I can accept that if it moderates Horde benefits / penalties instead of just removing them altogether. Roaming the Steppes, pillaging and murdering everyone and getting feared and hated by everyone else including each other, THAT is what makes a Horde worth playing. Changing the Hordes into ordinary monarchy upon Westernization would not only NERF them, it would KILL a playstyle.

Excuse me, I need to start a few new Horde campaigns and Westernize ASAPly before Paradox patches it again. Or... I will just ignore your decision and mod it back.

 

[eugene171]

That's kind of messed up on its own, though. Like, those doom coalitions won't be threatening you with defeat, dismantling, abdication, and ruin, but ... with making it a massive slog to take the territories you want because the warscore required shoots through the roof? That doesn't seem correct at all for a crimean horde staring down and defeating the combined armies of europe, you know.

I disagree completely. You're a European nation, and some big scary horde of savages is amassing huge armies nearby. You and your neighbors agree that due to the extraordinary threat, you'll band together to stop it from spreading. The Steppe Nomads were absolutely terrifying to Europeans.

People are yelling 'nerf', but the tendency to get coalitioned to death is a balance in itself

 

[Riidi]

I disagree completely. You're a European nation, and some big scary horde of savages is amassing huge armies nearby. You and your neighbors agree that due to the extraordinary threat, you'll band together to stop it from spreading. The Steppe Nomads were absolutely terrifying to Europeans.

People are yelling 'nerf', but the tendency to get coalitioned to death is a balance in itself

What I'm saying is that if you're playing that game as a steppe horde and Europe bands together against you to stop your mighty horselords ... and then you defeat the combined armies of europe ....... your reward is, probably, like three trivial border provinces, if that.

 

[Novacat]

I am perfectly fine with the current horde bonuses/penalties, even westernized. If I were to recommend a reformed government at all, it would remove Horde CB and random events generating claims, but also remove the tribal succession crisises, pretenders taking over on regency, and pretender revolts spawning at peace. I would keep the -50% Relation decay because even a reformed horde being scary and expanding rapidly should have the same reactions from the neighbors, reformed or not.

Hell, you wouldnt even need a new government type for this. You can use the current Steppe Horde Government and just add conditions on the aformentioned events/decisions and CBs.

The only alternative is that, if Paradox really does plan on pushing through forcing hordes to lose their government type on Westernization, than Horde NIs would need an overhaul and substantial buffing to make up for this.

 

[Musthavename]

Frankly I think the instant conversion to being a monarchy makes little to no sense. Either reforming the government should be a prerequisite for westernising, or westernised hordes should have various negative events which hurt them.

If they do change though, it'd be nice to get "reformed horde" NIs instead of the generic ones, or at least keep the old ones. Part of the flavour for me in playing a horde was their ideas, even if they weren't the best.

 

[Mann42]

People are yelling 'nerf', but the tendency to get coalitioned to death is a balance in itself

Interestingly, very few people in this thread are yelling for, or even agreeing with, the Johan announced nerf. As many have pointed out, it has plenty of maluses to offset its strength, and it will never compare to a Muscowy Russia.

But regardless of fun, flavor, or playstyle, Johan has said they're nerfing the Hordes, and since they seem so intent on homogenizing potential strategies and playstyles, the consensus here means little to nothing.

 

[Novacat]

Paradox is fairly receptive to feedback, when people were upset over gifting vassals provinces (If you can recall, Vassals were originally going to refuse provinces unless they were cored or claimed), I think Paradox did a last minute change so that Vassals will only refuse provinces they do not have a direct land border with. We will only know for certain when 1.3 comes out.

 

[unmerged(652342)]

Westernized horde is oxymoron, it need to go.

 

[Novacat]

Westernized horde is oxymoron, it need to go.

Then buff up the Steppe Horde NIs so that they can take on Russia.

 

[WeissRaben]

Westernized horde is oxymoron, it need to go.

Nah. We just never saw one. Those who survived ended up reforming the government, but they didn't westernize right away, either.

 

[unmerged(652342)]

Then buff up the Steppe Horde NIs so that they can take on Russia.

- 1. im not dev to buff things. 2. their NI's are fine. 3. any nation can "take on Russia".

Nah. We just never saw one. Those who survived ended up reforming the government, but they didn't westernize right away, either.

- yep, i can imagine picture of line infantry raiding neighboring village for womens and cuirassier cavalry grazing livestock on pastures, yep westernised hordes. They probably even invented some social science class for their "westernised horde" universities - "science of neighboring village raiding and livestock grazing in metallic cuirasses" and "political thought behind pretender rising because khan is a pussy".

 

[WeissRaben]

- 1. im not dev to buff things. 2. their NI's are fine. 3. any nation can "take on Russia".

- yep, i can imagine picture of line infantry raiding neighboring village for womens and cuirassier cavalry grazing livestock on pastures, yep westernised hordes. They probably even invented some social science class for their "westernised horde" universities - "science of neighboring village raiding and livestock grazing in metallic cuirasses" and "political thought behind pretender rising because khan is a pussy".

While it is NOT going to be "let's sack all the stuff", you can still have a pretty solid society with an extremely strong military focus (as in militarily meritocratic aristocracy), societies based around the cities, guaranteeing the trade routes and so on. Pulling a Timur, all in all.

 

[Jormarn]

While it is NOT going to be "let's sack all the stuff", you can still have a pretty solid society with an extremely strong military focus (as in militarily meritocratic aristocracy), societies based around the cities, guaranteeing the trade routes and so on. Pulling a Timur, all in all.

But that's not a 100% "horde government" anymore. Maybe they deserve a new type of goverment for their westernization.

 

[balmung60]

Westernizing changing the government makes sense. A horde or a tribal government is not a "civilized" government and Westernization is not just getting a better tech rate and shiny new units, you also have to think about why you get those. When you westernize, you change how your country thinks, acts, administrates, and generally does things to be similar to how western Europeans do, and part of that would naturally involve changing the government to a more "civilized" and structured government, such as a monarchy or republic, or even a theocracy.

Also, I need to point out that the fact that everything seems to have to be compared to Russia would seem to indicate not that [Thing that is not Russia/Brandenburg/Sweden] is underpowered, but rather that Russia (and its ideas), and maybe also Brandenburg and Sweden, is in fact, somewhat OP, and thus might well need a nerf to bring it into line. And why nerf instead of buff? Because given a choice between nerfing one country and buffing all the others, nerfing one is much easier.

 

[WeissRaben]

But that's not a 100% "horde government" anymore. Maybe they deserve a new type of goverment for their westernization.

Which is what I proposed - with reduced (25%?) boni to force limits and manpower, no succession crisis, but STILL the -50% to relations improvement.

 

[unmerged(652342)]

While it is NOT going to be "let's sack all the stuff", you can still have a pretty solid society with an extremely strong military focus (as in militarily meritocratic aristocracy), societies based around the cities, guaranteeing the trade routes and so on. Pulling a Timur, all in all.

- in ancient times - yes, in medievil times - maybe, in modern times - hello monarchy. Horde is a horde - they are nomads and nomads cant build modern society. Westernised horde is oxymoron, people who defend this atrocity in EU4 are just want to keep their facerolling dev oversight. And if you pulled of Timur i can only
remind you that "Timurids" latter became Mughals in India, classical monarchic state without nomadic bullshit with pretender risings and village riding.

Westernizing changing the government makes sense. A horde or a tribal government is not a "civilized" government and Westernization is not just getting a better tech rate and shiny new units, you also have to think about why you get those. When you westernize, you change how your country thinks, acts, administrates, and generally does things to be similar to how western Europeans do, and part of that would naturally involve changing the government to a more "civilized" and structured government, such as a monarchy or republic, or even a theocracy.

Also, I need to point out that the fact that everything seems to have to be compared to Russia would seem to indicate not that [Thing that is not Russia/Brandenburg/Sweden] is underpowered, but rather that Russia (and its ideas), and maybe also Brandenburg and Sweden, is in fact, somewhat OP, and thus might well need a nerf to bring it into line. And why nerf instead of buff? Because given a choice between nerfing one country and buffing all the others, nerfing one is much easier.

agreed

Which is what I proposed - with reduced (25%?) boni to force limits and manpower, no succession crisis, but STILL the -50% to relations improvement.

- classical despotic monarchy will suffice =P

 

[WeissRaben]

- in ancient times - yes, in medievil times - maybe, in modern times - hello monarchy. Horde is a horde - they are nomads and nomads cant build modern society. Westernised horde is oxymoron, people who defend this atrocity in EU4 are just want to keep their facerolling dev oversight. And if you pulled of Timur i can only
remind you that "Timurids" latter became Mughals in India, classical monarchic state without nomadic bullshit with pretender risings and village riding.

Pretending that government forms didn't evolve is bull. Did we ever see the evolution of a horde while staying a horde? No. Does it make it impossible? Hell no. Democracy is possibly the most primitive sort of government ever, at its roots, and monarchy doesn't lag much behind. The Mughals reformed because they ended up almost assimilated after having conquered a high-population land, just like the Norse did in Russia (there it was more a matter of them being few, but the point stands). In the steppes, the Golden Horde is going to assimilate to...who?

 

[Novacat]

- 1. im not dev to buff things. 2. their NI's are fine. 3. any nation can "take on Russia".

1. Yet you are calling for nerfs.
2. Their NIs are fine with the Steppe Horde government. Without it, they are weak.
3. No, they cannot. Russia gets +125% Global Manpower, +50% Land Force Limit, -10% Tech cost, +0.5 Army Tradition, +10% Production cost, -50% Infantry Cost (this reduces infantry maintenance by 50% as well, FYI), +10% Manpower Recovery, and -15% Core Creation cost. Steppe Horde NIs, even the Timurids, has nothing that can compete with this.

But that's not a 100% "horde government" anymore. Maybe they deserve a new type of goverment for their westernization.

The only problem I have is that current Horde governments are very balanced... Hard to see how they can be changed without either gimping them, overpowering them, or making them more bland and vanilla. Unless normal hordes start out at 100% Manpower and Land Force and get downgraded to 50% after Westernization.