Are the nomads too OP? (AI Nomads)

[Emperor 1997]

Your edit explains why you're getting so many disagrees, yeah they are too strong right now. I think the issue is higher dominance gives too many free cbs that result in stable vassals that won't revolt (granted land or cowed by dread). By the time peace treaties are up/succession happens the main herd is insanely large which means a massive army which means conqueror trait which means no revolts

So nomads trend toward large sizes in the Western steppe (where there are a bunch of weak states to prey on) but instead of large tributary networks and loosely controlled direct vassals you get a stable engine that produces an army that grows the engine and the player has to break the blob every time

Anecdotally though I just saw a starting viking conquer all of Scandinavia and mainland Europe from the Pyrenees to Bulgaria including all of the Karling lands in a single lifetime while the Khazars struggled to subject all of the Rus in the same period so I don't think they're overly busted when it comes to tributary wars

The Issue here could be, that the Devs have decided to reduce the ai_war_cooldown by 50% and increased the chance for the AI to declare an War by factor 2.

    character_modifier = {
        steppe_travel_danger = steppe_high_danger_reduction
        plains_travel_danger = steppe_high_danger_reduction
        drylands_travel_danger = drylands_medium_danger_reduction
        mountains_travel_danger = mountains_medium_danger_reduction
        steppe_cancel_negative_supply = yes
        ignore_negative_opinion_of_culture = yes
        county_fertility_decline_add = -15
        movement_speed = 0.1
        movement_speed_land_raiding = 0.1
        the_great_steppe_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_arabs_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_horn_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_sahel_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_sami_supply_limit_add = 10000
        domain_limit = -1
        ai_war_cooldown = -0.5
        ai_war_chance = 2
        men_at_arms_maintenance = -0.5
        supply_duration = 1
        county_opinion_add = 25
        title_creation_cost_mult = -0.5
    }

You will always get the same result for any Government, Trait or Modifier, if you do this.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

The Issue here could be, that the Devs have decided to reduce the ai_war_cooldown by 50% and increased the chance for the AI to declare an War by factor 2.

    character_modifier = {
        steppe_travel_danger = steppe_high_danger_reduction
        plains_travel_danger = steppe_high_danger_reduction
        drylands_travel_danger = drylands_medium_danger_reduction
        mountains_travel_danger = mountains_medium_danger_reduction
        steppe_cancel_negative_supply = yes
        ignore_negative_opinion_of_culture = yes
        county_fertility_decline_add = -15
        movement_speed = 0.1
        movement_speed_land_raiding = 0.1
        the_great_steppe_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_arabs_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_horn_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_sahel_supply_limit_add = 10000
        game_rule_extra_nomads_sami_supply_limit_add = 10000
        domain_limit = -1
        ai_war_cooldown = -0.5
        ai_war_chance = 2
        men_at_arms_maintenance = -0.5
        supply_duration = 1
        county_opinion_add = 25
        title_creation_cost_mult = -0.5
    }

You will always get the same result for any Government, Trait or Modifier, if you do this.

Is this all people with nomad gov?

 

[Secret Master]

I noticed something else about large nomad realms.

I made myself greatest of khans today and fought a gigantic war of defiance against the Khazars. The Khazars basically ruled everything from Athens to the central steppe. Their ruler could call upon 100,000 in troops to defend his realm (with another 100k from defiance war allies that joined him), and he had 76k in herd.

It took me 13 years to beat him. But his herd size and army size wasn't what made him powerful. It was herd growth that dragged out the war.

Basically, every 24 months I'd stack wipe 60-100k of his troops with very few of my own casualties. Do some carpet sieges and do the general steppe war thing. He would reconstitute his armies and I'd have to stack wipe him again. Over the course of the war, he never stopped conjuring up armies of 60-90k every 24 months, and his herd never dipped below 40k.

As for my armies, I raised up my 75k horde riders on top of my MAA. I started the war at my herd cap. Within 24 months, I hit the herd cap again while all those riders were deployed (with the corresponding temp loss of herd from calling them up). While I never had to spend that much herd replacing losses, I could have easily replaced massive casualties while keeping my herd population up. And this wasn't during a good season, either.

Basically, once a nomad realm gets to a certain level of herd with enough yurt upgrades, they have both the money and herd to infinitely replace losses. Their income doesn't decline because their herd is never in threat of a serious demographic decline.

 

[Emperor 1997]

Is this all people with nomad gov?

All Rulers with the Nomad Government get this and I guess, the 50% reduction for Men-at-Arms Maintenance has also an big Role, why AI Nomads are too overpowered.
This Government is completly broken with the Modifiers they have.

Not even Admin Government has that many and large positive Modifiers.


Nomads don't even get any negative Opinion from others, while having a different Culture, which is huge benefit for them too.

 

[ArynI]

I'm sorry, what's the problem here?

These are tributaries, it's the Cumans forcing the Seljuks and Byzantines into paying up tribute.
It's not conquest or vassalization, it's a kind of relationship where the settled nations could stop paying tribute as soon as they build up their strength again, it just looks funky on the map and can get weird if the Byzantines start getting called into the Cumans' wars or the Cumans come to defend the Byzantines if someone attack them, but aside from that I really don't think it should be weird that a large Nomadic realm can force even huge empires into paying tributes to them for some years.

That's, like, actual real history.

I dont want to comment on gameplay since I didn´t play with update, but regarding concepts - the tribute you mentioned is not tributary in CK sense. Romans for example paid of small germanic tribes at the height of empire just to keep them focused on themselves. If your logic was applied then whole empire would be colored after that small Suebi tribe. The tributary in new patch seeems like vassalisation-lite and that is debatable if both Seljuks and Byzantines could realistically be part part of it.

 

[Benismann]

Yeah, I know and get that.
But it's the AI that did all the Cuman stuff within 50 years. Not a player min-maxing it to hell.

Oh, as if the player ever has to "min-max it to hell" in this game to do ludicrously OP stuff in this game

 

[Benismann]

It took me 13 years to beat him. But his herd size and army size wasn't what made him powerful. It was herd growth that dragged out the war.

Basically, every 24 months I'd stack wipe 60-100k of his troops with very few of my own casualties. Do some carpet sieges and do the general steppe war thing. He would reconstitute his armies and I'd have to stack wipe him again. Over the course of the war, he never stopped conjuring up armies of 60-90k every 24 months, and his herd never dipped below 40k.

Actually im not sure if stackwipes do anything to steppe rulers at all. They just re-raise everyone back because the ratio is fixed. You always have 15+% of your herd as an army. If it gets wiped - just raise 15% of what remains and repeat! Devs should probably look into this....

 

[Bisonmask]

I dont want to comment on gameplay since I didn´t play with update, but regarding concepts - the tribute you mentioned is not tributary in CK sense. Romans for example paid of small germanic tribes at the height of empire just to keep them focused on themselves. If your logic was applied then whole empire would be colored after that small Suebi tribe. The tributary in new patch seeems like vassalisation-lite and that is debatable if both Seljuks and Byzantines could realistically be part part of it.

Hopefully we get a proper "pay tribute" setup with the China expansion so there's no chance the Pechenegs defend the Byzantines against the Seljuks

 

[Secret Master]

Actually im not sure if stackwipes do anything to steppe rulers at all. They just re-raise everyone back because the ratio is fixed. You always have 15+% of your herd as an army. If it gets wiped - just raise 15% of what remains and repeat! Devs should probably look into this....

Having been subject to stack wipes myself in my first 20 years of nomad gameplay, I can say that reconstituting your MAA can cost a substantial amount of herd. And when my riders were wiped, raising them again cost more herd because none of the lost "manpower" returned to the herd pool. I even tested it, and losing 45000 riders resulted in those animals not going back to the herd when I ended the war. (I let them starve for a few years in northern Siberia.)

When I manually disband riders, the herd goes back up from the returning animals. In fact, with really fast herd growth, you can easily raise your basic riders, run around and do stuff, then disband them and be over your herd limit.

 

[Benismann]

Hopefully we get a proper "pay tribute" setup with the China expansion so there's no chance the Pechenegs defend the Byzantines against the Seljuks

They dont. That's a special check-box in the tributary contract