Hi again folks! It's a big day today with the release of the Common Sense expansion for EUIV! Naturally, we are releasing a patch for CKII in tandem, in order to keep the save game converter up-to-date.

Patch Notes here:

Spoiler

- Updated government calculation to be up to date with EU4 1.12
- Fixed the localisation issues on Mac and Linux with country names
- Ibadi is now its own main religion like it should be

NOTE: We are aware of an issue on Mac and Linux caused by EU4's recent engine upgrade, which broke EU4's ability to find the exported games from CK2. For now, you have to manually copy the exported save from eu4_export/mod to EU4's mod folder but this will be fixed ASAP by the EU4 team.

Now then, this time I thought I'd talk about the internal dynamics of the nomadic hordes. As I mentioned last time, Nomads use population and manpower rather than relying on levies and taxes from Holdings, so they tend to have a lot fewer normal vassals than other realms. To compensate for this, Nomad hordes rely on a variable number of member Clans instead. The Clans are similar to regular vassals in some respects, except that they also employ Manpower and Population (oh, and you are allowed to play as a vassal Clan too, of course), and each Clan has a special opinion called Clan Sentiment of the other Clans, separate from that of its chief. As a horde grows, it will be encouraged to increase the number of member Clans. Likewise, you can have too many Clans for the amount of available land.

Effective management of the Clans takes some effort due to their infighting and Sentiments. We have added a new screen to give you a proper overview of the situation. Red lines between the Clans indicate an ongoing "Blood Feud" and green lines a "Blood Oath". A Clan can only have one "blood brother" Clan, but many feuds. Feuds are started either by simple declaration, or by raiding one of the other Clans in the realm... Yes, even though you might all be serving same Khan, nothing stops you from raiding a fellow Clan's land! Blood Oaths are similar to marriage alliances; they last as long as both of the Clan Chiefs are alive, but they are only type of alliance that allows you to call another Clan to war in internal wars (and that includes the Khan!) Blood Feuds are much more persistent and can only be settled with a payment of blood money... or by the other Clan's extinction.

Another twist to the Oath and Feud status is that actions taken against one Clan will affect the Sentiment of its enemy or blood brother, as appropriate. For example, an oath-bound Clan will also become hostile to whomever is raiding you, and will dislike any clans you are in Feud with for as long as the Oath lasts. Feuding parties are allowed to freely declare outright wars against each other, fighting over the grazing lands in a single county.

Clans can be a bit tricky to manage, not just because of their own infighting but also because they don't follow any system of laws like the Feudal realms do; they are more about frankly expecting and demanding things from their Khan. If they view the Khan as weak and pathetic they are quite prone to attempt to have him replaced with another Clan chief (usually through membership in a special Faction.)

Apart from proposing Blood Oaths and declaring Feuds, the Khan also has access to a number of special actions against the other Clans. He can demand that they split in order to maintain balance within the tribe, or even absorb them; unless they refuse, of course! Clans are also free to adopt the religion of another Clan, should they like it better for some reason (steppe nomads are fairly open-minded about religious matters.)

I am sure there is more I should mention about Clan management, but since I really need to get back to work, I'll leave you with this. Next time; Tributaries, Nomad succession and dynamic mercenaries!

 

[Zolotaya]

I don't think Seljuks will use Nomad system in Horse Lords. Like Ghaznavids, they were settled Turko-Persian Islamic states.

Cuman Khanate (Kipchaks), Kara-Khitan Khanate, Golden Horde will use new mechanics in HL, I think?

The generated events should be revamped to portray the Seljuks moving as a tribe into their targeted homelands. Most of the prior events (Ghaznavids, Magyar) should be revamped from their current form with this dlc. Hopefully Pdox has taken the time to do so.

 

[Olav III]

The early seljuks were certainly nomadic Turks. Unless you were talking about the 1066 start, in which case I agree.

Of course, I was talking about 1066 start. That is my favourite starting date, so I forgot 769 and 867 for a moment.

 

[totalkrieg]

The early seljuks were certainly nomadic Turks. Unless you were talking about the 1066 start, in which case I agree.

But then who migrated into Asia Minor? I want my horde Seljuks

 

[riadach]

I wonder when Groogy said he migrated to India, is he talking about an actual migration mechanism, or the migrating people do to get from Scandinavia to India.

 

[totalkrieg]

I want to WC with my horde Seljuks They would smash Mongols as well if they didn't disintegrated like all nomads are prone to after death of a powerful monarch Still, Mamlukes in Egypt kicked Mongol ass, they were Kipchaks as well (one of Turkic peoples). So you think Norsemen are tough Then you never saw a nomad! We, masters of horses, will pillage your ducats, take your women and teddy bears! Because it's so dark in tents at night

 

[Groogy]

I wonder when Groogy said he migrated to India, is he talking about an actual migration mechanism, or the migrating people do to get from Scandinavia to India.

Nomads have a province decision to abandon a province if they want to.

 

[riadach]

Nomads have a province decision to abandon a province if they want to.

Now we're sucking diesel.

What happens to the province they leave behind?

 

[Es57]

Now we're sucking diesel.

What happens to the province they leave behind?

I guess it is granted to a randomly generated ruler of the province's culture and religion ?

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Is that actual rulers or just courtiers though?

Whole tribes apparently:
"Christians were so prevalent amongst the Turks at this time that, when the plague broke out, it became the practice to tattoo a cross on the forehead to ward off that dread disease, a fact discovered by the Byzantines when some Turks captured by the Persians were turned over to them in 581." There's even a suggestion that the early Seljuks were Christian prior to their conversion to Islam.

There is that nestorian mongol khagan of the golden horde. I forgot his name though...

Sartaq. A few of the Ilkhans were/may also have been Nestorian.

 

[riadach]

I guess it is granted to a randomly generated ruler of the province's culture and religion ?

Or maybe someone with a claim, de jure or otherwise.

 

[klopkr]

You can play as any existing religion if you are a Nomad and have Horse Lords. However, you will not be able to become feudal if you are of a religion that is locked by a DLC you do not own. And some of the flavor events for the religion you are playing might also be DLC locked.

That's very cool thanks for clearing it up!

There is that nestorian mongol khagan of the golden horde. I forgot his name though...

Whole tribes apparently:
"Christians were so prevalent amongst the Turks at this time that, when the plague broke out, it became the practice to tattoo a cross on the forehead to ward off that dread disease, a fact discovered by the Byzantines when some Turks captured by the Persians were turned over to them in 581." There's even a suggestion that the early Seljuks were Christian prior to their conversion to Islam.

Sartaq. A few of the Ilkhans were/may also have been Nestorian.

Interesting so some clans might start off christian.

 

[Jamey]

Was actually a thing that happened when we were tweaking the AI, QA came and complained that they were being raided by Hindu elephants that had traveled to Arabia by boat to raid.

That sounds awesome.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Exactly. The steppe will be tribal without Horse Lords. The new steppe provinces will still be there however.

For the purposes of modding, does this mean that the game will automatically make any empty province have a tribal capital instead? Is it possible for a province to be completely unowned in the history files, and if yes, how does the game handle this if there are no nomads when you start it up?

 

[That one guy]

What's the North Korea Mode?

It's when a player holds all titles in there realm so imagin the HRE emperor Holding ever city church and castle in ever county
Or in short 0 vassals

 

[Coldfire4134]

If a nomad looses all of his provinces does this mean he doesn't have a diplomatic range?

 

[Dakilla TM]

I'm in love right now! As an Uyghur, it's great to see my ancestors in a game like this! I can't wait to play as the Uyghur Khaganate!

With that aside, this seems very interesting with its mechanics! And can Manichaenism be its own religion? Or at least have its own unique mechanics?

 

[Jorlem]

It's very technical and hard to explain in the layman terms. Easiest way I guess would be to say nomads are not generated unless you have the expansion

Will this be the case for total conversion mods? That is, will said mods that choose to include nomads have the nomads autoconvert to tribals or whatever if a player doesn't have the expansion? Or will all mods that want to use nomads be forced to maintain two versions, one for players with Horse Lords, and one for players without?

 

[mrstevehazzard]

I'm a little disappointed that Manicheism isn't getting anything to flesh it out at all, since as of right now it has no special mechanics and is barely a step up from playing Hellenistic. Considering that it was an important religion for hordes in the earlier start dates, even just giving it a feast day and a head of religion would give it something. The expansion sounds amazing, don't get me wrong, and even if nothing is added for religions I'll still play it and love it, but this would be a good chance to give Manicheism a slight bit of extra depth.

 

[zbyrne]

so it sounds like this clan system is designed to prevent the steppe / mongol hordes from ever being big enough to actually do anything, by creating and encouraging constant in fighting - at least until some great man unifies them (yes I'm talking about Genghis Khan).

If so, then that sounds like a pretty good system, but I am openly pondering (I doubt there'd be an official answer anyway) is this event driven, and only once per game, if it is the AI, and similarly if it is the player. I don't want it to be the case that once every century or so, the hordes unify and conquer vast sways of territory.

In fact I'd go as far to suggest the hordes shouldn't even be technologically able to attack any fortified peoples before the 13th century, as they'd have no siege tech, considering they didn't really even manage that by the time they were conquering entire continents.

 

[muki]

The DD looks great, but I'm not sure if clan is the right term for this mechanic?
Shouldn't they be called tribes instead?

I always thought of Eurasian peoples as who had a tribal government form, this was also the case in EU. Not sure where the idea of naming them clans come from. Of course they share the meaning, but I have rarely seen "clan" used in that place and time.