How to fight nomads

[RichardTheHorse]

I'm a slavic pagan ruler and I started a war for county woth tradepost against some nomad empire. On emperors character page was said that he can gather an army of 9000 strong while I had 20000. But then somehow he got 5000 extra troops (not mercs) amd managed to beat my 20K amry while I had defence bonuses. So how to fight the nomads?
Cheers

[Trickadeus]

If I'm guessing right, the extra troops came from vassal allies. If you look at his troop count on his portrait, and hover over it with the cursor, you'll see a breakdown of his troops (levies, vassal levies, horde), but also a "Potential Vassal Ally" troop count that isn't included in his main troop count. I've found nomads to be somewhat challenging and op, even when you outnumber them. Their horse archers and cavalry just tear through troops, especially light infantry.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1830297693

Oftentimes its a good idea to make sure you bring over twice his troops and try to use terrain and generals with good bonuses to your advantage when you can. Set up forts to hold his territories without holdings and try to avoid attrition. I've had wars go well early on, only to have my troops whittled down by attrition. Even after splitting them up and keeping them in adjacent territories, they still take a hit due to lack of supply in winter and end up getting steamrolled when he regroups and rolls back through. Plus, I've found they like to do hit and runs, taking territories back and sieging border counties, then running off to deal damage elsewhere when you return to deal with them. Organizer trait might help in running them down.

Other than that, wait until he's already in the middle of a war and distracted before declaring war yourself. Bring allies and mercs for overwhelming numbers to be safe, but keep en eye on county supply limits and avoid attrition when possible. Try to strike fast and take capitol holdings.

[Malus]

like you war anyone else + creating forts on occupied territory

[Michael]

Siege his home county to capture his heirs, let them take it back, then do it again. Nomads are very susceptible to having their entire family captured. They also often have large families. Capturing his heir is 50% warscore, every other family member is 5%.

If you are tribal, you need to fight smart. Your troops are inferior to theirs in direct combat, so you need to use defensive terrain to your advantage. It helps to have commanders that have movement speed bonuses to reach ideal terrain before them and force them into a disadvantage. But even this might not be enough if your commanders aren't good enough... because you are tribal. Your 20000 tribal troops just aren't worth as much as 9000 nomad troops all things being equal.

[Das Boot]

I was able to conquer a lot of nomads as Perm, even forming an Empire. One useful thing is that, unlike feudal rulers who must build a city or castle to avoid a conquered nomad county breaking away upon the ruler's death, tribal rulers only need to build two buildings in the tribe.