Why nerf hordes more

[DevastatingTech]

To answer OP's question ("why nerf hordes more") there are three compelling arguments why this has to be done:

1. They aren't white Europeans (who are the best group of people in Europa Universalis - genetics, man!)
2. They aren't Christians (and Christianity is the religion of the world which deserves best bonuses, amirite folks?)
3. They are far away from Sweden (which is a centre of civilisation as we all know and the further away you go the less important things become)
4. They aren't Norse (VIKINGS! BEARDS!)

Plus they are primitive barbarians whose only point of existence is to be devoured by blobbing Russia and Ottomans (and perhaps Spain during Spanish conquest of Siberia), so they really don't deserve any attention. /s

Seriously though I think that Paradox is just nerfing them into oblivion to charge for a DLC later, I see no other explanation seeing how much attention every corner of ROTW got in AoW.

This is the answer.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This is just plain wrong.

I've experimented with it. At equal tech, you lose your edge pretty quickly in terms of unit pips, but because you're fighting the AI, you can still stack cavalry + use basic movements to handle it until the tech 13-16 range. Until then, you do lose in the fire phase but the multipliers aren't too ruinous yet and arty is pretty trashy until 13 and not really strong until 16. As a result, your equal #shock pips with home field shock and a good general in that stat can still out-damage the other side if it's AI.

After that, the casualties you take in the fire phase start getting really, really bad.

 

[Novacat]

I am still right, though. He is talking about lategame, which is miltech 25+, even if you stack every mil idea together and tech it to full, horde troops will still get readily stackwiped against any European power.

 

[Squirrelloid]

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.

Also you're saying that horde commanders that conquer a more advanced territory will suddenly have the knowledge of all the tactics, equipment, and logistics behind the military of the previous owner. So you're saying if some Siberian horde manages to take over some far-flung Russian Siberian province late in the game, it makes sense that these Siberians, who were previously fighting as an unorganized horde of cavalry archers, suddenly know how to drill their soldiers in the use of Napoleonic infantry/cavalry tactics, the use of Napoleonic-era equipment, and also be aware of the organization and logistics behind Napleonic military regiments. You're also saying that the Siberians will be 100% willing to abandon their own possibly sacred military customs and culture in favor of modern military culture.

I can only see justification in hordes being able to suddenly train cannons because it makes sense that they'll subjugate the local smiths and force them to build cannons. Its more believable that they could figure out how to use those on their own.

Hordes rarely slaughtered those who surrendered, and frequently tried to integrate them (often moving closer to the natives in the process). See Genghis Khan taking control of the Chinese state, or the Ilkhanate in Persia, or virtually every other khanate that controlled civilized lands. My argument is perfectly historical - the khans rarely, if ever, compelled conquered peoples to adopt steppe tribe organization - they made use of the conquered peoples as they were.

Cannons require considerably more expertise to use well than handguns, in any era. Your argument is nonsense.

And its not that the horde up-and-abandons its own tactics. You can still hire your own troops in your own territory. It's that they also employ local troops trained in local methods and under local commanders, who do have all that know-how that you're saying the hordes lack. They just conquered people who know!

(Further, the total stasis in horde troops is ahistorical - they adopted firearms shortly after their opponents started using them).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am still right, though. He is talking about lategame, which is miltech 25+, even if you stack every mil idea together and tech it to full, horde troops will still get readily stackwiped against any European power.

I said that too earlier in the thread. I was just giving the actual cutoff point from my experience. It's way before "late game". In the actual late game, being down so many fire pips just mows your front lines and saps too much morale/return damage, even if you have the arty. You can still beat Asian nations due to having .5 or more tactics lead but that won't cut it in the West.

 

[Beagá]

Word.

@wiz hordes had guns.

I saw Qing Era pictures of battles (XVIIth century) where you could see Qing troops battling against muslim hordes, in many of those you see firearms on both sides, and in one picture you see camels carrying canons on their back.

Somalis use assault rifles.

Doesn´t mean they

1- have the Science to create them
2- have the Science to IMPROVE them.

Reform or die makes complete sense, and not only for hordes, through I Always suggested that reformed government for Hordes should give them a better tech group. Crimea > Muslim or even Ottoman, Manchu > Eastern asian and so on.

 

[AKronblad]

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...

+1. Maybe late game hordes should be extremely difficult to play.

And these pictures seem to indicate that a nerfing is not that dramatic.

.

 

[Zwirbaum]

+1. Maybe late game hordes should be extremely difficult to play.

And these pictures seem to indicate that a nerfing is not that dramatic.

So beacuse DDRJake posts his screenshots of Ryukyu WC, does it mean that Ryukyu should be hit with nerfbat, because screenshot of succesful WC with them? Also screenshots are done BEFORE 1.8 which will bring another batch of nerfs to already severly nerfed hordes.

 

[Morwys]

I support this change. I couldn't care less about hordes survivability without modernization. I never played any of them without future plans for modernization, never had any problems to wait for legitimacy and never recruited foreign units. To me, this is fixing an exploit, nothing more.

 

[Novacat]

Somalis use assault rifles.

Doesn´t mean they

1- have the Science to create them
2- have the Science to IMPROVE them.

Yes, they certainly do, especially since guns are piss easy to design and create. They just never use them because theres far more existing guns/ammunition than is used, but if there was actual risk of a weapon shortage than expect local arms production to happen.

PS: Infact, valid counterpoint: North Korea. North Korea is pretty much the worst managed illiberal state on the planet yet they still somehow manage to develop and manufacture guns, ammunition, and even tanks and aircraft.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So beacuse DDRJake posts his screenshots of Ryukyu WC, does it mean that Ryukyu should be hit with nerfbat, because screenshot of succesful WC with them? Also screenshots are done BEFORE 1.8 which will bring another batch of nerfs to already severly nerfed hordes.

Correct, his quoting me missed the point. Bookshelf was claiming you'd reform before hitting 32. However, if you're hitting 32, it's irrational to expect that hordes would still be using starting units; literally nobody else in the game does. The game functionally does not treat them as human beings.

 

[solamyas]

Damn it! I postponed my horde play and again it will be imposible before I played. Note to self: Play with hordes only don't ever try other nations until first patch of EU5.

 

[Morwys]

Correct, his quoting me missed the point. Bookshelf was claiming you'd reform before hitting 32. However, if you're hitting 32, it's irrational to expect that hordes would still be using starting units; literally nobody else in the game does. The game functionally does not treat them as human beings.

Are you saying that PI believes steppe people are lesser human beings?

 

[Novacat]

Are you saying that PI believes steppe people are lesser human beings?

What paradox believes or not is irrellevant, what matters is that the game functionally does treat them as lesser human beings.

 

[Clownie]

I am still right, though. He is talking about lategame, which is miltech 25+, even if you stack every mil idea together and tech it to full, horde troops will still get readily stackwiped against any European power.

I'm speaking from experience, so I'm afraid our points of view are irreconcilable. I have great respect for TheMeInTeam's horde play, and I appreciate his arguments in this thread, but you're being downright disrespectful. My experiences come from my own Great Khan playthrough. I'll go make some screenshots of it, although unfortunately I can't exactly experiment with combat in the save since it's 1821 — and the only screenshot I have of combat from that game is one I found cute purely because of the numbers, but which would be rejected out of hand because I was defending in hills and the enemy crossed a river and was behind in tech (and the province was Kham, so everyone would accuse me of lying when I claim I defended in hills, too). Anyway, I'll getcha some screenshots and supply some anecdotes that I unfortunately won't be able to prove since they are in the past.

 

[Vishaing]

Somalis use assault rifles.

Doesn´t mean they

1- have the Science to create them
2- have the Science to IMPROVE them.

Reform or die makes complete sense, and not only for hordes, through I Always suggested that reformed government for Hordes should give them a better tech group. Crimea > Muslim or even Ottoman, Manchu > Eastern asian and so on.

Guns aren't some highly technical thing requiring precision machining and complex factories and modern automation to produce. Cottage Industries do Produce large numbers Of Serviceable Firearms in Areas just as chaotic and war torn as Somalia.

 

[Targor]

I understand the concept of reform or die, I just don't see the necessarity to "fix" this in this harsh way.
What was the state before 1.8? You could play without reforming hordes through foreign units. But most people didn't, most people went the normal way of reforming and even westernizing their hordes. So you had a small group of people playing hordes without reforming and having fun with it.
Why was it necessary to be patched? It didn't affect AI Hordes and it's not like unreformed Horde where a problem for MP-Balance.
So why take it away from some players that had fun with it?

 

[Zwirbaum]

Correct, his quoting me missed the point. Bookshelf was claiming you'd reform before hitting 32. However, if you're hitting 32, it's irrational to expect that hordes would still be using starting units; literally nobody else in the game does. The game functionally does not treat them as human beings.

I fully agree. It is even worse that when you realise, after resarching some techs like Bayonets or Line Infantry you gain +shock damage modifier/morale/whatever, but yet you still field Archers fighting with the old tactics. How do you even put bayonet on bow? Either bayonet, line infantry tactics, arquebus etc. are incorporated into the army after tech resarched or not and you just invent them for the sake of invention (which would imply that in fact you pursue science and are not backwards) I also strongly agree to the fact that horde units should get upgrades. If gameplay and design wants you to reform then make it that standard horde units upgrades are less and less effective over time and they would reach pinnacle of their development with 16 pip units or whatever (of course when talking about 1.7.3 pip values). And then after reforming you would get stronger units like you do now, but the difference would not be 4 pips -> 20 pips but 16 pips -> 20 pips.

 

[Clownie]

I'm speaking from experience, so I'm afraid our points of view are irreconcilable. I have great respect for TheMeInTeam's horde play, and I appreciate his arguments in this thread, but you're being downright disrespectful. My experiences come from my own Great Khan playthrough. I'll go make some screenshots of it, although unfortunately I can't exactly experiment with combat in the save since it's 1821 — and the only screenshot I have of combat from that game is one I found cute purely because of the numbers, but which would be rejected out of hand because I was defending in hills and the enemy crossed a river and was behind in tech (and the province was Kham, so everyone would accuse me of lying when I claim I defended in hills, too). Anyway, I'll getcha some screenshots and supply some anecdotes that I unfortunately won't be able to prove since they are in the past.

And here's the screenshots of the game. Granted, the last wars against Austria and France were decades ago, and I don't know how I'd have fared in the 1800s, but my point stands — I beat them well above 20 MIL, as I had to in order to conquer Taiwan (my expansion was slow)

Spoiler

Diplomacy

Tech

Ideas

Religion

Subjects detail

Military

Policies

Cosmopolitaine Taiwan

But please, go on about how I'm "just plain wrong." I must be lying because hordes are just impossible to use without bypassing their tech units, right?

 

[Novacat]

And here's the screenshots of the game. Granted, the last wars against Austria and France were decades ago, and I don't know how I'd have fared in the 1800s, but my point stands — I beat them well above 20 MIL, as I had to in order to conquer Taiwan (my expansion was slow)

But please, go on about how I'm "just plain wrong." I must be lying because hordes are just impossible to use without bypassing their tech units, right?

Your screenshots do not even show the war/battle in question, and your statement tells me you do not even remember exactly what happened during that war. Considering that TMIT's testing also disagrees with your ancedotal statements based on vague events in the past, your argument is not holding any water.

So yes, "Just plain wrong." is the correct term to use. You may not like it, nobody likes being wrong, but it is true.

Im thinking in your case, you had your subjects helping you which likely made up the pip difference enormously.