Nomadism: an endangered way of life

[dleiv]

I've been noticing that, in the latest version, the nomadic nations tend to struggle under AI control. I ran a couple of observer tests and found that the nomadic government type is typically wiped out entirely by the mid 13th century as tribes settle or are invaded by their agrarian neighbors. The Mongol invasion gives nomadism a new lease on life but it has to push through the, now fully settled, steppe instead of conquering and absorbing other horse tribes.

Is this intentional? Is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there anything I can do to fix this?

 

[LordPeter]

I would love to see more feedback from other people on this.

Personally, I have seen the Nomads fail a lot, too - but recently I have almost exclusively played NWO, which changes odds quite a bit.

But if other (historical setup) players are experiencing the same issue, it might be that Nomads need a sligth buff?

 

[TheStrangerOrg]

ive had the same experience.

 

[Carlitos81]

Same. Hordes are honestly pathetic ATM.

 

[palkdme]

I have also noticed this. I have an idea to fix it, that will also inject a fair amount of dynamism into the steppes. An AI decision to adopt nomadism, available only to independent tribal rulers of Altaic culture, whose capital lies in the Steppes region. That would result in those settled Altaic tribes reverting to nomadism once free of any foreign domination. My suspicion as to the cause of the demise of nomadism is that when a nomad province is conquered, a tribe is created that retains the culture of the province. If the tribe then somehow becomes free, it just sits there being a tribe, or maybe even expands at the expense of neighboring nomads. The result is a gradual tendency for nomadism to collapse into tribalism.

 

[Rylock]

We increased the population growth for nomads with this last patch. I'd prefer to see how that works before I start coming up with more solutions.

 

[palkdme]

Ok. So far though, I haven't noticed any difference. I'm less than 100 years into a new game and the Uyghurs, Turks, Karluks, and pretty much everybody else except the diminishing Khazars and 2 small Cuman realms are settled tribes.

Edit:

What would increasing the population growth do for this problem exactly? Making nomads harder for tribals to defeat would only slow the trend. I don't see how it could help. As long as it is reasonably possible for a tribal vassal of a nomad liege to win a rebellion, and no way for those tribals to become nomadic, there will always be a trend towards nomadism disappearing. I don't think you can keep the culture preservation without allowing tribes to become nomadic by decision.

To put it another way, if there are ways for nomads to become tribal but no way for tribals to become nomads, nomadism will gradually collapse into tribalism.

 

[kimsu1]

I agree with palkdme. Altaic tribals in steppe terrain should be able to become nomadic hordes.

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

The population growth rate of a nomadic realm should play a key role in their ability to expand and remain stable. Their taxes are based off the clan's population, same as the maximum manpower the clan can have. For smaller, poorly developed nomadic clans this won't have much of an impact unless they start to expand and can protect themselves, but for larger ones it makes it much easier for them to build and maintain a large army for defense and expansion. If these larger nomadic realms are disappearing still, it's likely an issue that they're either too aggressive or the blood feuds between tribes are resulting in these realms fracturing more frequently than other realms.

 

[Rylock]

Yeah, there are a lot of reasons why nomadic realms could be doing poorly -- and I'm going to be looking for feedback from multiple sources. A single game or two is not really evidence. Even before I changed population growth, the last game I played had the Cumans become enormous until they eventually broke apart following a succession...no danger of nomads disappearing there. Which is, yes, a single game example as well, but I bring it up just to point out that there is no "always" with this, and in my experience overreacting can result in the exact opposite (which would be the vanilla situation of "nomads rule always and expand into giant blobs in every game").

So please give me feedback, preferably based on the most recent changes, but be aware my response is going to lean towards conservatism.

 

[Darth Cloaked Guy]

...n my experience overreacting can result in the exact opposite (which would be the vanilla situation of "nomads rule always and expand into giant blobs in every game").

So please give me feedback, preferably based on the most recent changes, but be aware my response is going to lean towards conservatism.

Isn't that kinda historical for the Mongols to form a big, scary blob? As I recall they conquered all the way to East Europe and Persia. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it just seems like if anything they should be extra scary.

 

[Rylock]

Isn't that kinda historical for the Mongols to form a big, scary blob? As I recall they conquered all the way to East Europe and Persia. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it just seems like if anything they should be extra scary.

The Mongols receive a giant mass of event troops. They will still be plenty scary. In fact, I suspect they're scarier in Plus than in vanilla.