Why nerf hordes more

[Stategem161803]

TMIT never insinuated that the devs were lying about the patchnotes. He said the "patchnotes were lying."

This is important because it is the difference between insinuating that the devs made a conscious decision to mislead people by placing inaccurate information in the patchnotes and insinuating that they made an honest mistake.

I believe the main source of frustration with regards to patchnotes is the sheer significance of the inaccuracies. Things such as warscore cost scaling for example.

TMIT's frustration regarding hordes is exactly the same as my own. This is the FACT that there is no empirical historical evidence to support the devs design decisions regarding hordes. Native Americans, who were less civilized than hordes by any objective standard, get upgraded units with tech regardless of reforming their government or not. As does every other culture group in the game.

I believe there is a word for people who believe that a group of people belonging to a certain cultural group are inherently inferior to another. I'm not insinuating the devs feel this way, but rather that this is the effective result of their design decisions.

 

[Novacat]

If you forget something, you would probably be pretty annoyed at someone calling you a dishonest liar and reminding you of it every chance they got, for months, even predicting the same 'dishonesty' in the future.

With that said I don't like that TMIT is banned, but I can reasonably guess he was banned due to his approach to talking to people (it's generally a bit more blunt than anything else, and some with sensitive skin might get upset by that).

I have criticized the EU4 devs even more harshly and bluntly than TMIT for far longer yet I never got warned or banned for it. He definatly got banned for doing/saying something we are not aware of. My guess is that he said something stupid like promoting piracy (for a lot of forums this is an instant permaban) or posted some nazi flags or something.

Recruit cavalry, yes. Hordes do have a -20% land maintenance modifier and free reinforce though, so its cheaper for Hordes to regularly field cav than the for the English.

Not much cheaper. Infact Sweden, if it gets the Land Reorganization event, gets cheaper cav than hordes in spite of the -20% land maintenance NI.

Horde marches are only useful for about 100 years. After that they're downright harmful for the overlord except for the CB (which might or might not be available).

Horde marches would be stupid. You just want ordinary horde vassals so you can plump them up with that lovely Horde CB then annex them when they get big enough.

 

[Haccoude]

TMIT never insinuated that the devs were lying about the patchnotes. He said the "patchnotes were lying."

This is important because it is the difference between insinuating that the devs made a conscious decision to mislead people by placing inaccurate information in the patchnotes and insinuating that they made an honest mistake.

I believe the main source of frustration with regards to patchnotes is the sheer significance of the inaccuracies. Things such as warscore cost scaling for example.

TMIT's frustration regarding hordes is exactly the same as my own. This is the FACT that there is no empirical historical evidence to support the devs design decisions regarding hordes. Native Americans, who were less civilized than hordes by any objective standard, get upgraded units with tech regardless of reforming their government or not. As does every other culture group in the game.

I believe there is a word for people who believe that a group of people belonging to a certain cultural group are inherently inferior to another. I'm not insinuating the devs feel this way, but rather that this is the effective result of their design decisions.

I don't really disagree with anything you said in this post. In fact, this is exactly what I've been saying myself (with the sole exception of me misunderstanding what TMIT said about the patchnotes).

 

[Big Blue Blob]

Steppe nations had cities and settlements. They simply did not have enough of them to become great powers at the end of the EU4 timeline. That does not mean they had none at all, or that they were one trick ponies who could only fight. Trade was also very important to these nations, especially the Timurids.

It should be substantially cheaper to raise cavalry on the steppes than in Sweden.

 

[Novacat]

Steppe nations had cities and settlements. They simply did not have enough of them to become great powers at the end of the EU4 timeline.

By the end of the EU4 timeline you hit Victoria, which is when Europeans really dominated the globe due to the Industrial Revolution and the technological advancements stemming from it.

 

[oblio-]

Horde marches would be stupid. You just want ordinary horde vassals so you can plump them up with that lovely Horde CB then annex them when they get big enough.

1. Horde marches early game actually sound great for the first 100 years if you are playing a nation with no military national ideas.
2. I doubt that they will give access to generic CBs such as the tribal ones, Expansion, Exploration, Religious. Otherwise you'd just skip some idea groups - Expansion without the CB especially is relatively weak.

 

[Tacticus101]

This thread appears to have turned into the meeting for the TMIT fan club....


On a relevant note, does anyone have a list of Hordes that actually survived beyond 1600, the date where their armies start to be seriously outclassed?

Because from what I can see:
-Timurids fell apart and became the Mughals or Persia
-The Golden Horde and all the Russia hordes were conquered or became vassals
-Crimea became a vassal/protectorate of the Ottomans
-The Uzbeks formed Bukhara
-The Manchurians formed Qing
-The Buddhist hordes mostly reformed or were conquered/vassalised by Qing or other nearby powers
-Some hordes in Siberia arguably remained independent, mainly by being a long way away from major powers.

Any other hordes?
Almost all the surviving Hordes (and all the Major ones) reformed or were vassals of another power.

For the most part it seems that a falloff date of 1600 is reasonably accurate.


Plus, in my view the idea of Hordes having to rely on vassal armies to succeed beyond early game is reasonably accurate. The golden horde is a particular example of this, but all hordes frequently demanded tribute and soldiers from conquered lands rather than directly occupying it themselves.

 

[Novacat]

For the most part it seems that a falloff date of 1600 is reasonably accurate.

Except that there are other tech groups who fell harder and faster (such as the Native Americans) yet they have units all the way to 1800. It makes no sense to single out hordes.

 

[Stategem161803]

This thread appears to have turned into the meeting for the TMIT fan club....

Well, it is his thread and some of us happen to agree with him.

On a relevant note, does anyone have a list of Hordes that actually survived beyond 1600, the date where their armies start to be seriously outclassed?

Because from what I can see:
-Timurids fell apart and became the Mughals or Persia
-The Golden Horde and all the Russia hordes were conquered or became vassals
-Crimea became a vassal/protectorate of the Ottomans
-The Uzbeks formed Bukhara
-The Manchurians formed Qing
-The Buddhist hordes mostly reformed or were conquered/vassalised by Qing or other nearby powers
-Some hordes in Siberia arguably remained independent, mainly by being a long way away from major powers.

Any other hordes?
Almost all the surviving Hordes (and all the Major ones) reformed or were vassals of another power.

For the most part it seems that a falloff date of 1600 is reasonably accurate.


Plus, in my view the idea of Hordes having to rely on vassal armies to succeed beyond early game is reasonably accurate. The golden horde is a particular example of this, but all hordes frequently demanded tribute and soldiers from conquered lands rather than directly occupying it themselves.

This argument is completely and utterly irrelevant. Just because the countries were defeated doesn't mean they were incapable of updating their military from pointy sticks, bows, and arrows to muskets. The main problem I currently have with hordes is the non-upgrading units. The game is literally saying that this entire culture of people were totally incapable of adaptation. This is both silly and historically untrue.

The autonomy floor doesn't really bother me (assuming all feudal monarchies have the same restriction).

Besides, hordes have plenty of maluses that prevent them from being easy to bring to world power status. 75% tech penalty being chief among them.

 

[gothos]

My first reaction to his ban was confusion and curiosity. I couldn't find anything particularly bad in his recent post history, and yet Paradoxplaza is one the forums where I have never previously witnessed a ban or a thread close I disagreed with, and yet still lacked the outright flamewars and offensive material indicative of neglecful and absent moderators.

So far I'm assuming PM's, deleted posts or something else hidden from us. The mods have generallt done an excellent job and I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt on this one, even if I can't see anything he did wrong.

With that said, you reminded me of TMiT's tendency to express his frustration over woefully inaccurate patch notes as the dev team being liars. I could see that tendency relsting in a ban, but I didn't see a recent post of his doing that, which would have explained the ban.

Still, that doesn't mean he didn't make one, deleted posts are a thing as far as I understand.

Would be nice to see some sort of clarification, at this point with this and troubles with Charlemagne advertising vs reality, I think I'll just hold with buying this DLC until it's on some massive sale. Think I'll just watch some DDRJake streams if I want a bit of EU4 instead...

 

[Tacticus101]

Except that there are other tech groups who fell harder and faster (such as the Native Americans) yet they have units all the way to 1800. It makes no sense to single out hordes.

Considering there were plenty of native American tribes still around in 1800 it makes perfect sense.
In addition, Native Americans keep their unit types when they reform or Westernise whilst Hordes get Muslim/Chinese tech and units.

 

[Stategem161803]

Considering there were plenty of native American tribes still around in 1800 it makes perfect sense.
In addition, Native Americans keep their unit types when they reform or Westernise whilst Hordes get Muslim/Chinese tech and units.

There are still autonomous Native Tribes in the U.S. today. They're obviously all reformed and westernized though. Cherokee didn't till the 19th century though. There were also, arguably unreformed and unwesternized, Native Tribes that used to be in the Western U.S. that actually defeated the United States of America in a war in the 19th century.

 

[Novacat]

Considering there were plenty of native American tribes still around in 1800 it makes perfect sense.

There were plenty of hordes around in 1800.

In addition, Native Americans keep their unit types when they reform or Westernise whilst Hordes get Muslim/Chinese tech and units.

Except if the Native Americans kept up in tech with their European neighbors, they would be able to beat the Europeans while unreformed. Especially considering the huge number of bonuses unreformed Native Americans get:
-53% Stability Cost
-50% Land Maintneance Modifier
-20% Build Cost
+25% Global Tax
-2 Revolt Risk/Unrest
+3 Diplomatic Reputation
+50% Relations Decay (AE Decay basically)
+1 Colonist
+10% Land Morale
+1 Leader Shock
+33% Land Force Limit
-20% Land Attrition

Their only penalties? +150% Tech cost and unable to fabricate claims.

There are still autonomous Native Tribes in the U.S. today.

Autonomous Native Tribe would just be represented as a colonial province with higher local autonomy... an independant native would be sovereign.

 

[Tacticus101]

This argument is completely and utterly irrelevant.

Wow, you got me there, excellent point.

Just because the countries were defeated doesn't mean they were incapable of updating their military from pointy sticks, bows, and arrows to muskets. The main problem I currently have with hordes is the non-upgrading units. The game is literally saying that this entire culture of people were totally incapable of adaptation. This is both silly and historically untrue.

The Crimean Khanate was still using bows and swords when it fought Russia at the end of the 16th century, using armies entirely of cavalry. So it isn't that untrue. Although, the real issue in that respect is how much pips increase by, European cavalry shouldn't be that much better by tech 16 (late cavalry get more similar in style to Horde cavalry in tactics), though that might be changed in the patch (they didn't say there was more pip rebalancing).

Ultimately though, the game does allow them to adapt, they just have to reform. It is just a slightly different form of adaption since it requires setting down and moving from a nomad lifestyle rather than just technological advancement, which is accurate since being Nomadic is a significant obstacle to organised armies.

The autonomy floor doesn't really bother me (assuming all feudal monarchies have the same restriction).

Cool. Bare in mind colonised land has the same penalty (worse even) and that hordes will find it easier to grow now since autonomy also makes provinces easier to take.

Besides, hordes have plenty of maluses that prevent them from being easy to bring to world power status. 75% tech penalty being chief among them.

They also have a lot of bonus' to help them get to world power status, incredible ideas, the strongest early game cavalry, free CBs being chief among them.

 

[itsuart]

This whole "Nerf Hordes!" business made me curious about them in that time period, so I bought http://www.amazon.com/Russias-Steppe-Frontier-Colonial-1500-1800/dp/0253217709 book. According to first few chapters in it:
* There were "full-nomad" hordes: Nogai, Kazakh and (possible) Oirats (AKA Kalmyks) and semi-settled ones, that were having cities and sizable portion of population of theirs was peasantry.
* Nobility had independent power base, so local autonomy thing has it's basis.
* Raiding and slave trade / ransoming of western hordes was important part of their economy. Scale of raids could be tell from the fact, that Muscovites levied special tax (from 1551 until 1679) dedicated to ransoming captives.
* Cavalry was mostly shock based, but they did bought firearms: Oirat from Russia, Crimeans and Kuban Nogais from Ottomans and Kazakh from Bukhara and Khiva.
* However nomadic armies were slot to adapt to modern warfare, change tactics or deploy and use firearms efficiently. So nerfing fire pips seems plausable.
* By late 18th century nomadic military proved to be completely helpless against Russia's modern military. So, making "fall off" in late 18th century is plausable too (but isn't it covered by 75% tech?).

However we should not forget, that whole idea of EU is *alternative* history.

 

[josh127]

I believe the main source of frustration with regards to patchnotes is the sheer significance of the inaccuracies. Things such as warscore cost scaling for example.

And that patchnotes are about the only documentation we get on anything. So when you play a strategy game and try to build a nice strategy only to have it fail because you were given false information, yeah it kind of sucks. Paradox focuses on technicalities too much, and forgets things that have to do with gameplay. Then they refuse to admit they were wrong with the information, or that it was missing. It's supposed to be a strategy game, and when you build your strategy around misinformation it's not really fun.

 

[mgoetze]

TMIT never insinuated that the devs were lying about the patchnotes. He said the "patchnotes were lying."

This is important because it is the difference between insinuating that the devs made a conscious decision to mislead people by placing inaccurate information in the patchnotes and insinuating that they made an honest mistake.

Nonsense, TMIT has clearly insinuated multiple times (more in other threads than in this one) that devs are intentionally dishonest rather than just careless with their patchnotes. I'm not surprised at all that he got banned. I do often agree with him about game mechanics but the way he expresses his opinions is inappropriate.

Meanwhile, about the topic at hand: The thing is that Hordes had an actually unique style of play, and people are upset that devs seem to be taking that away. The devs should take note that thousands of national ideas that in the end all consist of extremely minor bonuses do not actually lead to unique experiences and instead consider how they can make more groups of nations truly different to play.

 

[Tacticus101]

There were plenty of hordes around in 1800.

Like? Give me "plenty" of examples of independent hordes that were around in 1800 without reforming (and preferably not tiny nomad groups in Siberia)

Except if the Native Americans kept up in tech with their European neighbors, they would be able to beat the Europeans while unreformed. Especially considering the huge number of bonuses unreformed Native Americans get:
-53% Stability Cost
-50% Land Maintneance Modifier
-20% Build Cost
+25% Global Tax
-2 Revolt Risk/Unrest
+3 Diplomatic Reputation
+50% Relations Decay (AE Decay basically)
+1 Colonist
+10% Land Morale
+1 Leader Shock
+33% Land Force Limit
-20% Land Attrition

Their only penalties? +150% Tech cost and unable to fabricate claims.

They only get those bonus' by investing monarch points in ideas rather than technology, 500 Monarch point per idea isn't it? Plus the tech cost is +250% until they get the ideas that reduce tech cost. Considering Europeans will have the tech and their own idea groups to choose from, they can get just as much from their own idea's and be far Richer.

Plus, how are you intending to keep up in tech with a Western nation whilst investing that many Monarch points in ideas and having a +150% penalty? Why would you even try when with all those ideas filled you have the perquisites for reforming ready anyway?

It is hardly a valid example since it is a situation that will never happen.

 

[Novacat]

The Crimean Khanate was still using bows and swords when it fought Russia at the end of the 16th century, using armies entirely of cavalry. So it isn't that untrue. Although, the real issue in that respect is how much pips increase by, European cavalry shouldn't be that much better by tech 16 (late cavalry get more similar in style to Horde cavalry in tactics), though that might be changed in the patch (they didn't say there was more pip rebalancing).

No suprise, considering that bows and swords were superior for cavalry troops than firearms. Firearm superiority to the bow and arrow did not happen until the 1800s and the widespread introduction of integrated cartridges and breech-loaders. It is no accident that Tech 28 Napoleonic Lancers have only 2 offensive fire pips and nothing else, while having 6 offensive shock pips and 4 defensive shock pips. The hordes that did field infantry used firearms, such as the Timurids.

Ultimately though, the game does allow them to adapt, they just have to reform. It is just a slightly different form of adaption since it requires setting down and moving from a nomad lifestyle rather than just technological advancement, which is accurate since being Nomadic is a significant obstacle to organised armies.

The Steppe Hordes were hardly the only 'nomadic' states of this time period. Infact, beating on the above example, a vast percentage of Native Americans were also nomadic.

Cool. Bare in mind colonised land has the same penalty (worse even) and that hordes will find it easier to grow now since autonomy also makes provinces easier to take.

He is not aware that feudal monarchies do not have the same penalty, they can reach 0% autonomy in 1444.

They also have a lot of bonus' to help them get to world power status, incredible ideas, the strongest early game cavalry, free CBs being chief among them.

No.

Incredible ideas? I can point out a few European states with better ideas, their ideas are good but hardly top-tier.

Strongest early-game cavalry? Their cavalry is only strong in the first 50 years of the game... their infantry is surpassed by 1466 and cavalry by 1479. By 1518 fire pips start showing up which means even with plains advantage steppe hordes start having harder and harder time.

Free CBs... yes, that one does fit. Although the only really amazing CB is Tribal Feud which only works on other hordes. The conquest CB is basically a slightly nerfed Expansion CB. The Expansion CB being better because it has 50% warscore cost in addition to the 50% AE and 0 dip cost that both CBs get.

Like? Give me "plenty" of examples of independent hordes that were around in 1800 without reforming (and preferably not tiny nomad groups in Siberia)

Quick wikpedia search. None of them are even in Siberia.

They only get those bonus' by investing monarch points in ideas rather than technology, 500 Monarch point per idea isn't it? Plus the tech cost is +250% until they get the ideas that reduce tech cost. Considering Europeans will have the tech and their own idea groups to choose from, they can get just as much from their own idea's and be far Richer.

My point is still there. Native Americans can still remain viable without reforming. They can still pick normal ideas and research normal techs, and their units still scale to Tech 30.

Plus, how are you intending to keep up in tech with a Western nation whilst investing that many Monarch points in ideas and having a +150% penalty? Why would you even try when with all those ideas filled you have the perquisites for reforming ready anyway?

I generally play European states, but I have read complaints from people who could not reform because their European neighbor was not far enough ahead of them.

 

[mgoetze]

By the way, here's a thread from the 1.5 timeframe: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...face-does-not-display-all-possible-unit-types

The quick build interface currently offers you (for regular units) only the unit types that you can build from your own cores. I'd like it if it also displayed the unit types you can build due to foreign (different tech group) cores on your provinces.

Hey, I know that information about this is lacking in the game but this is WAD and more of a feature request than a bug. However, we will have this in mind if we decide to change this in the future.

So back then recruiting units off foreign cores was not a bug/exploit ... it was WAD - but only for experienced EU veterans, not for noobs!