It's time for the weekly dev diary and this time it's a biggie, as we proudly announce Horse Lords, the new Crusader Kings II expansion! So what makes the proud rulers of the endless steppes unique? Well, in short, their relative lack of permanent settlements. This expansion gives the nomadic peoples of the steppes a unique type of gameplay which is not centered around Castles, Temples and Cities at all. Playing as a Nomad, you are allowed to conquer and even own normal Holdings, but they are worth little to you except as vassal cash cows. What you really care about is more grazing land for your sheep and horses. Thus, nomad hordes simply have a total population, which grows relative to how many empty Holding slots exist in your provinces (steppe provinces are best, but some other terrain types are also acceptable).

A large fraction of your total Population counts as your Manpower, which is used to raise your regiments (much like the Retinue system.) Of course, if all your fighting men are dead, it will be a while before your Manpower replenishes! War on the steppes is fast and fluid; you only occupy an empty province for as long as one of your armies is standing there, or if you build a fort there to lock it down... and even then, you do not get much war score from the open wastes.

This brings us to the one Holding that actually means a lot to the hordes; their capital. Each nomad clan can only one of this special holding type, but there are more upgrades for it than any of the regular types, and these improvements have more unique effects too... To really defeat a nomad horde, you need to occupy their capital (or decisively beat them in battle, of course.) However, Nomads are allowed to move their capital around often; and that means they actually pull up stakes, 'buildings' and all, and move the whole thing to another location!

Another special twist to the nomadic hordes is that even in defeat, they are still dangerous. Should a horde lose its last province, the tribe will still exist, and may use its remaining armies to conquer another land in which to settle. Naturally, nomads can choose to settle on a more permanent basis, by completely switching over to a Feudal, Tribal or Republican lifestyle. This is done by special decision, reminiscent of how Tribes work.

Now, as the astute among you might have wondered, Crusader Kings is largely about managing your turbulent vassals, so what replaces that important gameplay aspect for the Nomads? The answer to that, my friends, is the Clans, and that will be the subject of next week's dev diary! Until then...

 

[Carmilla]

Or better, sack entire Delhi in 3 days.

That's what Timur did and this extremely wealthy, jewel-laden Indian city was suddenly turned into a haunted, 90% ruined ghost town with no living thing to be seen for miles with all gold and jewels plundered. It remained deserted until the next month when people slowly started returning.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, within 75 years the city was again huge and extremely wealthy just as it used to be as if nothing happened. Weird, isn't it?

Not surprised at all. If the city is in a good spot and has ambitious people then the old saying "where there is a will, there is a way"(I may be butchering it since I don't recall exactly how it was said) is very much true. Doesn't always happen granted.

 

[victimizer]

The sacking mechanism doesn't just represent the destruction of the cities and the looting of their wealth. Ck2 already has a system which depicts that in the pillaging system. Rather, nomads turning holdings in to pastures means just that; they raze all the farms, drive the peasantry out their villages and let the fields turn into meadows for their livestock.

As such, it depicts a much deeper and profound destruction of settled capital than the sacking of a little city. Most of the wealth in a medieval society wasn't found in the city, only the most liquid funds were easily acquired by sacking cities.

When timur sacked Delhi, he didn't uproot the peasants from their lands en mass. The city recovered easily, because it was merely a small sector of a larger rural economy that surrounded it.

 

[Ols]

When it comes to being a destructive maniac and a nomadic enemy of settled civilisation, Timur was clearly more like a small boy riding a pony dressed in silk robes and menacingly brandishing a cheese knife. Not burning the fields or slaying the peasants, Timur? What kind of a wannabe tyrant are you if you don't take the time to sow the fields with salt and put all the livestock to the sword?

0/10 - would not Timurid again.

 

[pyrusmole]

No

Actually, a little dissapointed. I think the new hoard mechanics would be a great benefit for decadence revolts, as the decadence system is meant to model strong muslim nations becoming complacent and getting broken up by hordes anyways.

 

[classicist]

EDIT: I forgot to mention, within 75 years the city was again huge and extremely wealthy just as it used to be as if nothing happened. Weird, isn't it?

Indeed. The thing worth bearing in mind is, of course, that the literary evidence of these sacks has always been liable to exaggeration. It's not only in the case of Delhi that the recuperation of the urban centre belies the extent of the carnage.

That said - the demonstrable tragedy-mongering of some literary accounts does not preclude the existence of cases in which the damage done has been not only of catastrophic intensity, but also long-lasting or even epoch-making. Some cities never recovered. And yet again, there are many other cases in which the literary sources insist that a sack did take place (such as the plundering of Delphi by the Celts in 279), whereas archaeological and circumstantial evidence alike strongly points to such a sack having been wholly or almost entirely concocted.

 

[Secret Master]

Rather, nomads turning holdings in to pastures means just that; they raze all the farms, drive the peasantry out their villages and let the fields turn into meadows for their livestock.

Yep. This is why it would take a long time.

You are more or less fundamentally changing the society and the land it occupies. It's not instant by any means.

 

[Ols]

Actually, a little dissapointed. I think the new hoard mechanics would be a great benefit for decadence revolts, as the decadence system is meant to model strong muslim nations becoming complacent and getting broken up by hordes anyways.

The Horde mechanics represent Altaic/Turanid Hordes (yes I'm aware those are loaded terms) rather than the tribal structures we'd have seen amongst Bedouins or other unsettled peoples during this timeframe. Whilst I'm sure Nomadism could be adapted to them, it'd require substantial extra work and would look fairly different. I'm not sure it's worth it as an immediate design priority, might end up being added in a later patch for free.

 

[pyrusmole]

The Horde mechanics represent Altaic/Turanid Hordes (yes I'm aware those are loaded terms) rather than the tribal structures we'd have seen amongst Bedouins or other unsettled peoples during this timeframe. Whilst I'm sure Nomadism could be adapted to them, it'd require substantial extra work and would look fairly different. I'm not sure it's worth it as an immediate design priority, might end up being added in a later patch for free.

I'll admit i don't really know a lot about the cultures in question (although I'm all on board the hype train), and therefore whether the new mechanics would actually represent them. I'm just hoping to create a more organic decadence mechanic that better represented uprisings by nomadic tribals.

 

[Ols]

I'll admit i don't really know a lot about the cultures in question (although I'm all on board the hype train), and therefore whether the new mechanics would actually represent them. I'm just hoping to create a more organic decadence mechanic that better represented uprisings by nomadic tribals.

In non-cultural terms it's about the kind of land they were adapted to and the reasons for their migration. Bedouins were adapted to very low yield lands and hostile terrain, and were often living between major settlements that proverbially cut their civilisation in two. They were in effect what the rural class would be in any place where farming or grazing is impossible over the vast majority of the land area. So in their case they didn't form a continuous independent state even though they were often the de facto rulers of large stretches of open land. It'd be unusual to allow them to enter a specific province and rule is as 'nomads' when their way of life didn't specifically require constant movement when resources are plentiful. When a nomad rides from the desert, they aren't seeking to burn Baghdad and march everyone into the inner Levant to die of dehydration. Their struggles are better represented by landless adventurers, although we can't switch to them (or to other forms of rebels ingame) because we play as the dynasty, and not the nation.

On the other hand, the 'Altai' are a collective term for people like the Turks and the Mongols, both cultures and ethnicities that arrived from Central and East Asia over a period of nearly 1000 years.Their way of life has included the creation of continuous political units, rarely with any particular settled capital or any settled subject people inside. This is why they warrant this sort of treatment, as their way of life is largely incompatible with the life enjoyed by their neighbors. Paradox takes this a little further, included the 'Turanid' peoples (although not under that nationalistic term) which are a broader grouping of nomadic nations that appeared from a variety of places, often displaced by other nomadic entities or the effects of natural climate change. We've noted before that Uralic peoples like the Magyars adapted their practices to favour nomadism when climate change turned their original homeland into grassland. This was a wholesale change - they could not shelter around oases or river basins in the way that the Proto-Semites (ancestors to the Arabs and others) would have done when their settlements in the modern Sahara Desert became inhospitable. Nomadism involves a degree of essentialism, as many of these cultures need to use the practice to survive and will discontinue it if they are no longer able to utilise it (often because there is insufficient grazing land for their horses). It's somewhat likely that a Bedouin would simply settle locally if they installed a new Emir, or at least they would not seek to disrupt urban life in the way that a nomad might. Historical accuracy is a little stretched by suggesting that all cities could be razed and turned into grazing land, but in no sense would burning a city like Damascus to the ground improve access to key resources for the Bedouin in the same way that burning Sarkel or devestating a large portion of the Kievan Rus might for the Mongols.

This probably isn't the best explanation, but those are my main thoughts on why the Bedouin tribesmen present in a decadence revolt might not be best represented in the same way as Central Asian nomads.

 

[TheDungen]

Yep. This is why it would take a long time.

You are more or less fundamentally changing the society and the land it occupies. It's not instant by any means.

Well the destruction would be near instantaneous, it being useful for grazing is what would take time.

 

[TheDungen]

In non-cultural terms it's about the kind of land they were adapted to and the reasons for their migration. Bedouins were adapted to very low yield lands and hostile terrain, and were often living between major settlements that proverbially cut their civilisation in two. They were in effect what the rural class would be in any place where farming or grazing is impossible over the vast majority of the land area. So in their case they didn't form a continuous independent state even though they were often the de facto rulers of large stretches of open land. It'd be unusual to allow them to enter a specific province and rule is as 'nomads' when their way of life didn't specifically require constant movement when resources are plentiful. When a nomad rides from the desert, they aren't seeking to burn Baghdad and march everyone into the inner Levant to die of dehydration. Their struggles are better represented by landless adventurers, although we can't switch to them (or to other forms of rebels ingame) because we play as the dynasty, and not the nation.

On the other hand, the 'Altai' are a collective term for people like the Turks and the Mongols, both cultures and ethnicities that arrived from Central and East Asia over a period of nearly 1000 years.Their way of life has included the creation of continuous political units, rarely with any particular settled capital or any settled subject people inside. This is why they warrant this sort of treatment, as their way of life is largely incompatible with the life enjoyed by their neighbors. Paradox takes this a little further, included the 'Turanid' peoples (although not under that nationalistic term) which are a broader grouping of nomadic nations that appeared from a variety of places, often displaced by other nomadic entities or the effects of natural climate change. We've noted before that Uralic peoples like the Magyars adapted their practices to favour nomadism when climate change turned their original homeland into grassland. This was a wholesale change - they could not shelter around oases or river basins in the way that the Proto-Semites (ancestors to the Arabs and others) would have done when their settlements in the modern Sahara Desert became inhospitable. Nomadism involves a degree of essentialism, as many of these cultures need to use the practice to survive and will discontinue it if they are no longer able to utilise it (often because there is insufficient grazing land for their horses). It's somewhat likely that a Bedouin would simply settle locally if they installed a new Emir, or at least they would not seek to disrupt urban life in the way that a nomad might. Historical accuracy is a little stretched by suggesting that all cities could be razed and turned into grazing land, but in no sense would burning a city like Damascus to the ground improve access to key resources for the Bedouin in the same way that burning Sarkel or devestating a large portion of the Kievan Rus might for the Mongols.

This probably isn't the best explanation, but those are my main thoughts on why the Bedouin tribesmen present in a decadence revolt might not be best represented in the same way as Central Asian nomads.

Also the areas they would inhabit would be either part of provinces really controlled by bigger nations or the wastelands of the game. And since wastelands don't have holding slots the mechanics for the steppe nomads would fit badly for them.

 

[Will Steel]

Indeed. The thing worth bearing in mind is, of course, that the literary evidence of these sacks has always been liable to exaggeration. It's not only in the case of Delhi that the recuperation of the urban centre belies the extent of the carnage.

That said - the demonstrable tragedy-mongering of some literary accounts does not preclude the existence of cases in which the damage done has been not only of catastrophic intensity, but also long-lasting or even epoch-making. Some cities never recovered. And yet again, there are many other cases in which the literary sources insist that a sack did take place (such as the plundering of Delphi by the Celts in 279), whereas archaeological and circumstantial evidence alike strongly points to such a sack having been wholly or almost entirely concocted.

That's true. But there are many contemporary sources that give evidence of a really harsh sack and plunder having taken place in Delhi. And as you said, it actually had wider effects. Delhi Sultanate's western army was shattered and this prompted many of their governors and vassals to rebel. They never managed to recover the lands in the south, and Bengal (and the Jaunpur Sultanate) slipped out of their control.

By the time they recovered, it was too late and the Mughals had arrived.

But I agree with you.

 

[Rags17]

Indeed. The thing worth bearing in mind is, of course, that the literary evidence of these sacks has always been liable to exaggeration. It's not only in the case of Delhi that the recuperation of the urban centre belies the extent of the carnage.

That said - the demonstrable tragedy-mongering of some literary accounts does not preclude the existence of cases in which the damage done has been not only of catastrophic intensity, but also long-lasting or even epoch-making. Some cities never recovered. And yet again, there are many other cases in which the literary sources insist that a sack did take place (such as the plundering of Delphi by the Celts in 279), whereas archaeological and circumstantial evidence alike strongly points to such a sack having been wholly or almost entirely concocted.

Well the destruction would be near instantaneous, it being useful for grazing is what would take time.

I've always been a bit wary about the old "sow the fields with salt" meme so I decided to do some research.

To make a field unusable for a crop such as wheat or barley you would need to add around 8,000 pounds of salt to every acre, that is if I am reading this chart correctly - http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/crops/00506.html The average medieval family needed at least 5 acres to meet its basic needs and pay its taxes, so to wipe out one family you would need around 40,000 pounds (20 tons) of salt, for largish city like Carthage with maybe 100,000 inhabitants this would equate to maybe 400,000 tons of salt. I don't think that this is plausible in a medieval or ancient context.

IMHO the old "salt the earth meme" just meant "Here's a handful of salt on the ashes of your poor pathetic city - if anyone tries to build on this site in my lifetime there WILL be consequences !".

The above being said, wiping out whole villages and even provinces doesn't seem out of the question in my book, especially if it entails the wholesale enslavement and shopping off of the locals and or massive razing of the area (see also the Harrying of the North under William).

TL;DR - I fully expect that burning a holding to the ground will be easily doable, especially if undeveloped or small, but razing an entire province may take a fair bit more time and investment of troops (and thus cost), making it unfeasible for all but the most bloodthirsty of nomads (I'm looking at you guy-with-a-limp !).

 

[aitaituo]

Carthage definitely was not salted and no ancient source claims that it was. It continued to be one of the most fertile regions in the Mediterranean for centuries after Rome annexed it.

 

[Ols]

Salting the fields is basically a metaphor, salt was and is too valuable to use in such a way.

 

[Secret Master]

Also the areas they would inhabit would be either part of provinces really controlled by bigger nations or the wastelands of the game. And since wastelands don't have holding slots the mechanics for the steppe nomads would fit badly for them.

Well, you are right, but perhaps this is where abstraction for the sake of gameplay makes sense. We'll see how it works when it is released.

 

[richvh]

Destruction of the irrigation infrastructure that had been developed over millennia was, to my understanding, the major long term effect of the Mongol invasion of the Fertile Crescent, and perhaps other areas.

 

[Will Steel]

Destruction of the irrigation infrastructure that had been developed over millennia was, to my understanding, the major long term effect of the Mongol invasion of the Fertile Crescent, and perhaps other areas.

Exactly. Mesopotamia used to be the richest region in the Middle East, as rich as ERE since that area is a crossroad between east and west. It remained like that until Mongols destroyed the 2,000+ year old irrigation system that had developed, renovated and built up over all this time. Other factors were the closure of the Silk Road by 10th and 11th century which affected trade, and after Mongol Invasion some new trade routes to the east were also found via Russia which took their markets away.

To this day Mesopotamia (i.e. Iraq, Kuwait and parts of Syria and Turkey) has never managed to recover the same level of agricultural wealth and trade as it used to be until Mongol invasion, and many of those irrigation systems are lost to history and no one has figured out how they worked.

 

[TheDungen]

Let's not forget that the irrigations systems of mesopotamia managed to do exactly what we mentioned above and salt the earth. The waters took with the salt (as well as othe rminerals) with them and then evaporated on the fields and over centuries that caused the fields so go saline, eventually leading to the destruction of of the mesopotamian advanced civilisation.

Now I again hold that we can't know what might have happened but another thousand yeas of using those? The mesopotamian basin might have been a salt desert now if that hadn't been destroyed.

 

[drxero]

Will there be a dev diary today?