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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).

Crusader Kings II - Nomad Population.jpg


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.

Crusader Kings II - The Empty Steppe.jpg


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!

Crusader Kings II - Raising Hordes.jpg


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...


Khaaaan.jpg
 
Perhaps they should fight on top of bears instead?
Isn't the bear a more russian thing? Now it's been a while since I read Kalevala but I don't remember many bear references.
 
France would be a more reasonable goal, especially since the Alans actually settled there.
True but following the king arthur movie a few years ago the reference to sarmatian knights will eb understood by a lot more people.
 
Isn't the bear a more russian thing? Now it's been a while since I read Kalevala but I don't remember many bear references.
Bear is more finno-ugric than russian thing. They are closely associated with forest god Tapio and there are many religious stories and customs associated with bears. Kalevala, while deeply based on Finnish\Karelian folk lore, is still a Lönnrots own story and should not be taken as accurate or complete representation.
 
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Will the Arab and Berber tribes benefit from these changes?
 
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Groogy, is it possible to mod the whole world "unsettled" for ultimate shattered world unciviliced > tribal > feudal experience?
 
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Groogy, is it possible to mod the whole world "unsettled" for ultimate shattered world unciviliced > tribal > feudal experience?

I'll jump the gun on this one and say yes. I can't see how the settled/unsettled divide could be hardcoded, especially since I plan to mod in Pictish and Iranic nomads to the Winter King as soon as the DLC is released. I suspect the type of holding will be set in the province file, and I assume a realm with no settled holdings will automatically be a horde.

Bear is more finno-ugric than russian thing. They are closely associated with forest god Tapio and there are many religious stories and customs associated with bears. Kalevala, while deeply based on Finnish\Karelian folk lore, is still a Lönnrots own story and should not be taken as accurate or complete representation.

I was thinking about the coat of arms of Perm, even though that derives from a Finnic rather than Ob-Ugric culture. Any Finno-Ugric tribe living in that area will have had sustained contact with bears.
 
So secret bears?
 
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Not horse, Fenno-ugrics fight on foot, in snow, shooting their enemies before they even see them. "You're in the arrows way the white deaths prey, say goodbye"

If a finno-ugric tribe wants to get to somewhere Romania, they almost certainly have to become nomad first. Hungarians were heading south from the urals, and met with turkish cultures, which helped us become a nomad tribe, fit for living in the steppes we were more and more heading into(making horses a base of our society), that was 1200 BC. It was another 2000 years till we got to somewhere Romania. The steppes are all about cultures pushing each other mostly towards europe.

By the time you could get there this way, I would be almost sure, your finno-ugrics used horses.

By the way, its just the paradox studio's pretty sketchy culture placement, quite many hungarians were left behind not so far south of the urals till the mongols started subjugating everyone. It is based on historical proof, hungarian adventurer friar julianus discovered them.
 
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It would be great if dispossessed nomad tribes could somehow become mercenaries for the Abbasids.

Even the Cumans, I believe, were recruited and settled by the Hungarians after the Golden Horde dispossessed them of their grazing grounds..

Some of the Cumans were; the ones that fled with Khan Kuthen and pledged to convert to Christianity. It's partially from the Hungarian king's lack of acquiescence to the Mongol's demands to stop sheltering the Cumans that gave the pretext to the Mongol invasions in Hungary.
 
Some of the Cumans were; the ones that fled with Khan Kuthen and pledged to convert to Christianity. It's partially from the Hungarian king's lack of acquiescence to the Mongol's demands to stop sheltering the Cumans that gave the pretext to the Mongol invasions in Hungary.

I wonder could there be a sort of subjugation cb against non-landed nomad groups that turns them into a vassal military order. Would give us Ghilmans and Mameluks and maybe even an Anarchy at Samarra.
 
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I wonder could there be a sort of subjugation cb against non-landed nomad groups that turns them into a vassal military order. Would give us Ghilmans and Mameluks and maybe even an Anarchy at Samarra.
It would be pretty cool if, instead of attacking these unlanded tribes, you could offer them land in which to settle in exchange for their military services.
 
My idea is that you could make "military settlements" with nomadic tribes, if you're a middle easterner. You'd give ducal title to a Turkic chief in return for his nomadic fighters, who would become your retinue.
 
Or use your empty slots as grazing grounds.
Probably a better idea.
However, due to the lack of space, they slowly become less powerful until they give up their traditions and settle so you have to find a new tribe.