Why nerf hordes more

[ABookshelf]

Because they are that advanced themselves, having teched all the necessary concepts, and are just adapting equipment.

Isn't that what the 75% penalty was to make harder?

Except they're not, they're hordes so they have a huge tech malice and are still running around with low tech. I mean maybe you got god-monarchs and have invested heavily in tech and reformed, but then you get units on par with Europeans anyway (right now maybe slightly weaker but in AoW they should be equal) so there's no controversy there.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Might be okay for you.. But you're a player of a completely different league and balancing things around the small elite shouldn't be done ;D

For the majority for players, hordes are a suicide ATM.

Let's not overstate the issue. The only horde in consideration for top 20 difficulty is Mongolia, and that isn't from being a horde.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Except they're not, they're hordes so they have a huge tech malice and are still running around with low tech. I mean maybe you got god-monarchs and have invested heavily in tech and reformed, but then you get units on par with Europeans anyway (right now maybe slightly weaker but in AoW they should be equal) so there's no controversy there.

tech 32 is not low tech.

 

[ABookshelf]

It doesn't. But it makes more sense then Hordes being permanently and arbitrarily locked in the Middle Ages.

In reality technology naturally diffuses through repeated contact and the Hordes incorporated firearms into their armies without much difficulty. After all they were already used to using ranged weapons from horse and camel-back.

Unfortunately Paradox remains married to a rigid and inflexible technological model that is largely divorced from reality, combined with a unit type model that is pure fantasy and which fails miserably to represent any of the strengths or weaknesses of multi-ethnic states in particular. Their extremely simplified manpower and force limits model exacerbates these flaws considerably.

But alas, we're not seeing nearly as many improvements to warfare as I hoped an Expansion entitled "Art of War" would include.

Then something should be done about that big horde tech malice. I think its reasonable that the horde countries getting run over by Eastern-tech Russia and maybe Ottoman-tech Ottomans shouldn't be the most backward group with no tech hope, or should at least have a unique path towards modernization. After all some horde rulers did have an affinity for science (Ulugh Beg).

But people are arguing that it makes sense for hordes otherwise to be suddenly raising napoleonic-era infantry which is a little ridiculous. You're losing sight of the actual problems when you complain that this nonsensical exploit is being removed.

 

[Stategem161803]

Have the devs said anything about recruiting foreign mercs? That could possibly make the changes at least somewhat bearable.

Otherwise, I don't see how you'd survive without huge western marches in the late game.

 

[ABookshelf]

tech 32 is not low tech.

You would've reformed by the time you get to this point in the game so you should now be getting on-par Chinese/Muslim units anyway.

 

[Incompetent]

I'm by no means saying the current design is perfect, just that you don't solve design issues through bugs and loopholes. This is part of my design philosophy, and I doubt it's going to change.

I agree that recruiting foreign units was a silly mechanic and needed to go. But I think hordes need some kind of unit upgrades as a stopgap measure, as the almost immediate obsolescence they hit at the moment (something even sub-Saharan Africans are spared) is too extreme. When exactly did the Crimean Khanate's military become a joke in real life, for instance? At what point did they give up on the slave raids and so on, and just become a boring old 'Muslim tech' settled state? My impression is that they were only finally crushed when Russia was able to bring large armies and particularly artillery to the party (ironically, the one kind of unit for which hordes don't suffer crippling unit type penalties).

Steppe hordes were indeed unsustainable in the long run, and needed to 'reform or die'. But it wasn't their military tactics that were uniquely terrible - after all, the Cossacks who played such a large role in conquering them used quite similar tactics, as did desert tribes in Arabia and North Africa, plains tribes in North America, and so on, and were quite effective in sparsely populated, open areas until the 19th century, much more so than some more conventional military powers that genuinely became inept (such as the Chinese or the Ottomans). Rather it was things like the constant infighting and plunder-focused economy that meant that they could never keep up long-term with a stable agrarian society. This is already represented in the harsh tech penalty and the horde instability mechanics, but you could throw in more economic penalties if you think it's necessary. Motivating hordes to reform by making them suddenly acquire completely different military units (with a forced switch to an infantry-based army, in the case of the Eastern hordes) doesn't make any sense. The only cases where hordes transformed themselves into conventional military powers are the Mughal and Qing empires, and those are already modelled by the country formation mechanics.

 

[lucaluca]

how have they been nerfed exactly?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You would've reformed by the time you get to this point in the game so you should now be getting on-par Chinese/Muslim units anyway.

Especially with the autonomy nerf, hordes really need reasonable reform reqs and/or units of their own.

 

[lucaluca]

the existing design on hordes is that they should reform or die, pretty much. You can argue that design should change, but leaving an exploity workaround (recruiting in foreign cores) is not the way to go about it.

yes i agree!!!! Finally wise words in this thread.

 

[Stategem161803]

how have they been nerfed exactly?

You might try reading the thread, but the main nerf that people are most frustrated about is the fact that nobody can recruit foreign-nation units anymore from their cores.

Edit: I just saw about the autonomy nerf as well. Jeez

 

[lucaluca]

You might try reading the thread, but the main nerf that people are most frustrated about is the fact that nobody can recruit foreign-nation units anymore from their cores.

i never used this anyways...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

yes i agree!!!! Finally wise words in this thread.

See Wiz? Now you KNOW you're wrong .

...

<3.

Seriously though, post-defining features as bugs as a handwave gesture is questionable. Nations used foreign regiments historically. The bias against hordes well beyond reality is really obnoxious.

i never used this anyways...

Even actually good nations like Portugal could make use of it, as could Muscovy, Poland, and Muslim tech nations. It was even more important in 1.5 and before, when you could mop people with god-mode Ottoman units even as nations like BYZ, getting several unit pips this way.

 

[Clownie]

There seems to be a prevalent idea that unreformed hordes are militarily hopeless in the lategame. Whence does this idea come? Taking all the military idea groups handily offsets your pip-penalty and makes you able to easily stack wipe even France on plains in the endgame. Sure, you're gimping yourself in terms of internal stability and potentially diplomacy, but don't come here and say hordes can't fight lategame.

 

[Knibis]

See it this ways, its a challenge, i mean all i see here and on r/EU4 is people showing their huge lands so playing the hordes will make for a challenging game imo...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There seems to be a prevalent idea that unreformed hordes are militarily hopeless in the lategame. Whence does this idea come? Taking all the military idea groups handily offsets your pip-penalty and makes you able to easily stack wipe even France on plains in the endgame. Sure, you're gimping yourself in terms of internal stability and potentially diplomacy, but don't come here and say hordes can't fight lategame.

No. While general pips will keep you up a long time, eventually they have 20 pips to your 6, with 0 in fire. Even with a 6/6 general, you're sitting on -4 constantly in the fire phase, and losing the shock phase also. Even in an ideal scenario, flatlands to you are like permanently attacking across a strait into the mountains.

Players with aristocratic can put up a real fight well into the 1600's, but by late game it's not happening without certain tricks that Wiz would consider more "exploity" than anything discussed here thus far.

 

[unmerged(463193)]

If that's the case you should at least remove the legitimacy/lower the needed amount. That's a purely luck-based mechanic easily screwing your game.

yup. the legitimacy requirement is just silly considering how luck based (how little control a player has over legitimacy) this mechanic is.

 

[josh127]

Let's not overstate the issue. The only horde in consideration for top 20 difficulty is Mongolia, and that isn't from being a horde.

The majority of players would find a whole lot more than 20 nations difficult. However, difficulty level really isn't the reason I hate this change. It's because this created an alternative option for someone who didn't want to reform, and it just got nerfed without adding other alternative options. Yet again you're railroaded to play in one specific way.

Of course, the better answer is to just have increasing levels of units like everyone else and then this is a non-factor. Your tech pace should be holding back your unit level, not the simple fact that you're a horde without perfect legitimacy.

 

[Novacat]

There seems to be a prevalent idea that unreformed hordes are militarily hopeless in the lategame. Whence does this idea come? Taking all the military idea groups handily offsets your pip-penalty and makes you able to easily stack wipe even France on plains in the endgame. Sure, you're gimping yourself in terms of internal stability and potentially diplomacy, but don't come here and say hordes can't fight lategame.

This is just plain wrong.

Well historically if they were conquered by a horde they were more likely to be slaughtered so now you're not even being historical anymore in your "historical" argument.

Hordes tended to spare those that surrendered. They only slaughtered those that resisted. Infact the Timurids often spared the intelligensia, whom were then moved to the capital of Samarkand, which is why Samarkand became a place of higher learning.

 

[Zwirbaum]

There seems to be a prevalent idea that unreformed hordes are militarily hopeless in the lategame. Whence does this idea come? Taking all the military idea groups handily offsets your pip-penalty and makes you able to easily stack wipe even France on plains in the endgame. Sure, you're gimping yourself in terms of internal stability and potentially diplomacy, but don't come here and say hordes can't fight lategame.

If you take all the military idea groups and fill them, I doubt you could reach tech 32, and even if you did reach tech 32, you could probably experience serious shortage of mil points for other things as re-rolling generals (because when you have guaranted 1 Fire/ 3 Shock general you always get 1/3 ) occasional harsh treatment or whatever. Also when you compare top cavalry units -
Latin Lancer
Fire 0/2 (Reduces damage in fire phase, meaning enters combat with fewer casaulties), Shock 6/4 (Deals way more damage and receives less damage) Morale 6/4.
Look at Eastern Swarm
Fire 0/0 Shock 2/1 Morale 2/1.
Western Infantry - Napoleonic Square Fire 4/4 Shock 4/4 Morale 4/4.
Muslim Archers - Fire 0/0 Shock 1/1 Morale 1/1

And now, are you aware that fire phase comes before shock? So with advantage of enemy fire, your regiments will be damaged more than your enemy, and as such they will deal less damage. Now, in shock phase you also have much lower shock pips, so in fact you will deal even less damage than your enemy. I doubt that +25% shock damage modifier would swing that much in your favour in case of that phase. And after shock comes fire again...

During my Great Khan playthrough I was stackwiped by Sweden. I had same tech, or even 1 tech ahead, had two mil ideas groups filled (Offensive + Aristocracy) decent general (2/5 or something like that), and I attacked enemy on my plains. Few days later I had to rebuild one of my armies after being stackwiped.

EDIT: Also on pip disparity - If you compare two units like Lancers and Eastern Swarm, to overcome Lancer defensive pips (so that your "attack" value is not reduced below roll) you have to have AT LEAST general with 2 more shock. And with late game generals running around more or less being 4/4 5/5 6/6 or any combination of these values, it is hard to get 8 Shock general to overcome this disparity. If both generals have same shock value or there are no leaders around then you can treat Lancers as the same unit as eastern swarm but just attacking as if they were led by Shock 4 general. And you attack them into the mountains (-2). Are you still saying that you can stackwipe france with plain unreformed hordes without any more advanced units?