Either expand MAA or nerf the Mongols

[Monty]

Are there plans to change or expand the MAA system? It's OP in the early game and p1ssweak late-game.

Without exploits, is it reasonably possible to compete with the Mongols' special troops?
I had an army of 60K+ with maxed MAA get slaughtered while defending in mountains by a Mongol army half the size (approx 25% levies...), and this is with respectable religious/cultural units.

I get that Mongols being beatable isn't historically accurate, but neither is my tech-capped rich AF Perso-Brahui multi-empire. Any known changes in the works?

[Lonesomepoet]

There are MAA mods you can get to help with this issue

[PostalGibbon]

Your army should be composed with following troop stacks: Armored Horsemen, Armored Soldiers and crossbowmen and siege equipment. Ditch other MAA crap to trash bin.

AND have your holdings built with right military building that stack bonuses to unit that is garrisoned there. Example with right military buildings stacked your armored horsemen can have more than 500 attack strength.

Do not attack when defending army is in mountains in defense.

Mongols do not need nerfs they are complete joke to defeat.

When you compare Mongol invasion with measly 60k men to something more frightening like Abbasid Great Jihad with more than 800k men.

[Monty]

What you're describing is completely re-specing all your MAA and holdings which would be slow, tank my economy, and doesn't take into account the fact that you're still only going to have a fraction of their non-levy troops.

[Monty]

Originally posted by Lonesomepoet:

There are MAA mods you can get to help with this issue

I'll check it out, ty
I play ironman tho, which could narrow it down

[identity]

With the right stat stacking, it's certainly possible to beat them... but tbh, there's not a good enough reason to not just submit and be a vassal for awhile. They eventually break up.

[Corona]

stack crossbowmen to counter mongol, stop using light infantry

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by Monty:

Are there plans to change or expand the MAA system? It's OP in the early game and p1ssweak late-game.

Without exploits, is it reasonably possible to compete with the Mongols' special troops?
I had an army of 60K+ with maxed MAA get slaughtered while defending in mountains by a Mongol army half the size (approx 25% levies...), and this is with respectable religious/cultural units.

I get that Mongols being beatable isn't historically accurate, but neither is my tech-capped rich AF Perso-Brahui multi-empire. Any known changes in the works?

If you have such issues, you clearly screwed up your culture and infrastructure build up. Mongols are super weak and easily beatable without even raising levies by the time they appear. It doesn't even matter whether you go for a warrior culture or an administrative one specialised in merc recruitment, because with the former you just roflstomp them with overpowered knights and hyperboosted MAA and with the latter you swarm them with discount mercs.

Originally posted by Monty:

What you're describing is completely re-specing all your MAA and holdings which would be slow, tank my economy, and doesn't take into account the fact that you're still only going to have a fraction of their non-levy troops.

Yeah, maybe it's like that for the current run, but for future reference, you should still keep in mind, that it's not MAA that are weak, but you simply did a very bad job at building your empire. MAA and knights are absurdly overpowered to the point of making levies irrelevant after 100-200 years of gameplay. If you think MAA are strong in early game: it's absolutely nothing compared to late game MAA with over 300+ % stat boosts and led by 600+% efficiency knights. The AI simply rolls over and dies to this. Mongols included.

So what can you do better?
1. Dedicate counties for military. Even better, if its a couple duchy holdings.
2. Don't forget to transition away from weak MAA as soon as your economy allows it. LI, camels and archers are absurdly powerful in early stages, but get phased out later. HI, HC and crossbows are what you want. Pikes are situational. LC only viable with a single regiment for pursuit.
3. Bait high prowess knights into your court with matrilinear marriages.
4. Investing 4 perk points into the Gallant line is extremely powerful at every stage of the game. You really want those efficiency and knight limit upgrades.
5. Dedicate accolades to your MAA of choice.
6. Specialise your MAA. You want at most 3 different types (plus siege engines) and every single one of those covered by a corresponding accolade. Crossbows are especially of note here, because they are totally busted due to being buffed by the archer AND crossbow accolades.

All those points don't take culture into equation, because frankly, going warrior culture is overkill. If you wanna toss around the AI like a helpless toddler though: warriors by merit, only the strong, martial admiration, belliclose ethos and creating a warrior centric religion will go a long way supplying you with 30-50 prowess knights on a steady basis (you will have literally infants starting out with 12-20 prowess without any education received yet), that will slap the living daylights out of pretty much any type of opposition. Add a blademaster and contender accolade for the extra ooomph. Then you can beat half the world ganging up on you at once without breaking a sweat.
If you really wanna break the game, hold only duchy capitals (10, or however many you can hold) and build military academies in every single one. The opinion penalty from your vassals won't matter, because the extra 20-40 knights (depending on your tech level) with the extra 250-500 % efficiency will easily win you every civil war.

A fully dedicated mercenary culture is also possible, but it kind of requires you to somehow get your hands on malleable subjects from the Anadulisian culture. Without that, it's substantially weaker.

[Monty]

Thanks for the advice.

After reading through the replies here and trying to find some more info about what I'm missing, I've realised that I've completely ignored all the building changes that came in with the tours and tournaments update.
To put it simply, I'm more of a dynasty and realm builder than a map-painter in CK3, and tend to avoid warfare in favour of strategic marriages, factions, schemes etc.

You guys seem pretty knowledgeable, can you recommend a guide or two that explains the "stationed" bonuses and knight effectiveness in a bit more detail?
I'm struggling to understand the stationed thing in particular, ie if I construct a X-buff building in a county where no X are stationed, does it have reduced effect, or no effect?
Is knight effectiveness another buff that's tied to buildings..?

I absolutely hate these mechanics, but I've sunk too much time and money into CK3 to turn back now.

[ChaosKhan]

There is nothing wrong with avoiding warfare, but you still need to develop your military at least economically and be it just to protect yourself from invasions.

Stationed bonuses are quite straightforward: They only apply to the stationed regiment in the holding. Only the boni from the county capital apply, so military buildings from baronies are irrelevant for stationed MAA. Also, most military buildings are tied to specific types of MAA and they don't apply any boni to MAA that are not listed in the description at all.

Knight effectiveness is also very straightforward. Each point of prowess increases the knights atk by 100 and his def by 10. The effectiveness takes the prowess value and multiplies it by the % number.
So a knight with 10 prowess and 100 % effectiveness will have 1000 atk and 100 def.
A knight with 30 prowess and 300 % effectiveness will have 9000 atk and 900 def.

Knights tend to be routed last, unless they get wounded or killed in battle, so the def numbers are usually of no consequence for their battle performance.

Other means to boost knight and MAA performance are legends and accolades. Now, I don't know whether you own the DLCs, but depending on your starting region and your culture development, you want different accolades. It is also important to note, that accolades boost mercenaries too, so if you have a vanguard accolade that improves heavy infantry, it's imperative to hire mercenaries that field heavy infantry in order to maximise efficiency.

For more information on different topics, here is a nice wiki:
https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/Knight

[Jon]

Originally posted by Monty:

Thanks for the advice.

After reading through the replies here and trying to find some more info about what I'm missing, I've realised that I've completely ignored all the building changes that came in with the tours and tournaments update.
To put it simply, I'm more of a dynasty and realm builder than a map-painter in CK3, and tend to avoid warfare in favour of strategic marriages, factions, schemes etc.

You guys seem pretty knowledgeable, can you recommend a guide or two that explains the "stationed" bonuses and knight effectiveness in a bit more detail?
I'm struggling to understand the stationed thing in particular, ie if I construct a X-buff building in a county where no X are stationed, does it have reduced effect, or no effect?
Is knight effectiveness another buff that's tied to buildings..?

I absolutely hate these mechanics, but I've sunk too much time and money into CK3 to turn back now.

Basically, when you station the MAA at different holdings, they will get buffs from those holdings based on the buildings in said holding. So for instance you put an archer group into a holding that has a militia camp, they will get a 20% increase to archer damage along with skirmishers. If you put your heavy infantry in a holding with a barracks, they get a 20% increase to damage. So on so forth, the buildings will give the info. Same goes for the knight effectiveness, having a blacksmith in many of your holdings will boost their damage by a ton once stacked up.

[kamikadzemore]

You should defend yourself with alliances and crossbows. In a forest not mountains. Mongols SHOULD be fixed and they must be much stronger. Now they are just for most players.
I have 1300hours and have never ever was under mongols. They are too weak I wish that it was almost inevitable to win them or super hard at least without preparations since day 1 pumping your economy and MAA.

[Razorblade]

The Mongols never manage to reach my border, so I can neither confirm nor deny your issue. However, assuming it is an issue, the new DLC should offer a fix. Administrative empires can acquire a significantly larger number of men-at-arms than feudal empires, which should go a long way to help with your issue.

Moreover, you can hire mercenary bands consisting of entirely men-at-arms. Overall, you should realistically be able to acquire as many men-at-arms as you could ever need now.

[ChaosKhan]

I'd also like to add, that no matter your playstile, there are only 3 ways of military build up you can have that remains relevant until the end of the game: MAA, knights and mercs. Specialising in at least one of those menthods is key. A pure learning, intrigue or diplomacy culture without dabbling in either of those, just begs to be subjugated by Mongols or some other empire sooner or later.

Even as a non-warrior culture, you should still put emphasis on having a retinue of powerful knights, a couple counties specialised in military infrastructure and enough cash in your treasury to pull together tons of mercs in case of emergency.

[Сааребас]

Originally posted by PostalGibbon:

Your army should be composed with following troop stacks: Armored Horsemen, Armored Soldiers and crossbowmen and siege equipment. Ditch other MAA crap to trash bin.

Horse archers counter heavy infantry.
Your crossbowmen will be countered by light cavalry, plus you're unlikely to have enough crossbows to counter all the horse archers.

You're composition lacks any form of pursuit making it so you'll have to fight the same army multiple times.
Furthermore do you have a lack of screen making it so that when you lose a battle a massive amount of your troops'll get killed or even stack wiped.

Especially against the Mongols you'll lack in favorable terrain.

Honestly though, a full stack of pikes would be better then this composition.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by Сааребас:

Originally posted by PostalGibbon:

Your army should be composed with following troop stacks: Armored Horsemen, Armored Soldiers and crossbowmen and siege equipment. Ditch other MAA crap to trash bin.

Horse archers counter heavy infantry.
Your crossbowmen will be countered by light cavalry, plus you're unlikely to have enough crossbows to counter all the horse archers.

You're composition lacks any form of pursuit making it so you'll have to fight the same army multiple times.
Furthermore do you have a lack of screen making it so that when you lose a battle a massive amount of your troops'll get killed or even stack wiped.

Especially against the Mongols you'll lack in favorable terrain.

Honestly though, a full stack of pikes would be better then this composition.

To remedy all those issues, you usually want to have a single regiment of LC in your roster. LC is reasonably cheap to maintain and gives you plenty of pursuit to work with. Camels can be a reasonable replacement depending on the region you are in.

Screen on the other hand is useless. You always want to build your MAA in such a way, that they win you the battle, not lose it with grace.