Planned Host Invasion Ruins Game

[Damedius]

So I'm playing a game where I started as a count in England. Became King of England, owned most of it and a couple counties in Ireland.

All of a sudden out of nowhere a planned invaion host of 30k men invades me and ruins my game. I have no chance against them as I can only field 10k troops.

Talk about a kick in the balls.

[jamie]

u could of clicked on the planed invadion and killed the guy the invadtion would of gone away

[Evil Crusader]

You had a year or two to prepare yourself, start assassinating, and generally brace yoursefl for impact. ^^

[Jormundgand]

Let them come; when you win (not if), you imprison the leader. Banish for an instant cash bonus.

Play smart when it comes to war. Let them siege holdings to lose troops, make them attack your (large) retinue in favourable ground and see them crumble. Really, going against an invasion force 3x times your own should not be a problem (this is also true for the defender when you're the invader btw).

[ShadoWwolF]

england is also an island, use that to your advantage. thet'll get a huge penalty when attacking you from a boat. if that fails then retreat to ireland and make them cross over to attack you. They will get a large penalty there too

[Jormundgand]

Also remember that they can't raise more troops; I have yet to see a host hire mercs, so every time you do damage to his forces, they are gone for good. Your force on the other hand replenish (even if it is slow going). Unless you very few units of retinue and have a lot of holdings, retinues replenish faster than normal levies.

The AI is pretty stupid when it comes to war. Often armies are split to cover more ground or hunt down your forces; using that to your advantage can make you wipe out his armies very quickly, even if you're vastly underpowered.

[Mr. Bulldops]

All of your comments are condescending and miss the entire point. Sure in 1250 when you have enough retinue cap to field a force large enough to even engage an invading host that is the way to go. Or when your gold generation is high enough that the cost to assassinate is low relative to income, this isn't the case before the 1066 start.

I tend to start from 867 and regularly see hosts with 25K+ invading for duchies when the Byzantine empire can barely raise that many men.

Regardless of how you can deal with it, there is absolutely no logic to 99% of them happening. If it was brothers/cousins invading against a weak King that would be good. But I've seen a very mediocre Norse adventurer raise 30K troops to take the Duchy of Thrake from a genius 15 stat+ across the board Byzantine emperor that had been ruling for 20 years. Where did some random pagan find the men and material to assemble that force? No logic what so ever.

[Evil Crusader]

It is at least as condescending as saying 'reason must trump gameplay reasons', forgetting that the game has to be balanced - and that the overpowered doomstacks have their raison d'etre for the abovementioned reasons.
Wanna have more? Okay, let's suppose they go with 3k men. That's big, right? He got 3k men to follow him. Now, to the point - even the weaker kings can match that force. Let alone the genius Byzantine Emperor who would have scoffed at them, being capable of repulsing them with Constantinople alone. Is that any better? I frankly doubt so.

[Mr. Bulldops]

You are defending bad game design with ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ logic. The threat to large empires/kingdoms should come from inside as it did for the vast majority of history. The game has many mechanics by which this occurs most notably the faction mechanic. This allows for logic and planning to be used to avoid the issues rather than random doomstack of death.

If you have a single historical event in mind where a landless person commanded more than 5,000 men I would be amazed and if you do it will be part of a mercenary group.

[guy01]

you just suck, you lack planning and paitience, people give you really good advise and you find it condesending, so you dont even want help, just complaining about how bad you are.

[horrid74]

@coowhipp

The numbers of men that materialize under command of random landless adventurers are ridiculous; Most of the numbers particularly late game when I create doomstacks from the entirety of my realm to combat middle eastern stacks are pretty sad and detract from the feel/veracity of the game.

To a degree technology applies modifiers to troop capabilities but I wonder if there had been a larger modifier attached to the quality of troops that the weight of numbers game might have been reduced to something that felt more plausible.

Looking at the "Old Gods" period comparisons could be made between saxon fyrds and proper danish fighting men. While even numbers might have suggested pitched battle a seasoned raider might have been a match for 3, possibly 4 "conscripted" farmers. If I had the know how I'd consider making a mod that capped the size of forces but made experience more telling.

In order to make something like this work the game would probably have to assign ranks in increments by season for armies that remained active. Attrition of armies and reinforcements would diminish the modifier. The whole thing would probably end up a bust because people who come up with all sorts of gamey solutions to your initial complaint would just figure out a way to keep armies on the board indefinitely and roll the whole map because they missed the point of the game in the first place.

All this being said I feel your pain and just because there is a gamey solution to a frustrating mechanic and I apply it and don't "lose" the game I still feel disappointed.

[guy01]

Funny how people complain about unrealistic things in the game that goes against them, the game is full of unrealistic things that work for you.

[Xandurz]

Originally posted by Damedius:

So I'm playing a game where I started as a count in England. Became King of England, owned most of it and a couple counties in Ireland.

All of a sudden out of nowhere a planned invaion host of 30k men invades me and ruins my game. I have no chance against them as I can only field 10k troops.

Talk about a kick in the balls.

A kick in the balls you should have noticed coming when you banished someone with a claim (even a weak one, like a 4th uncle/son/grandson) or let them escape from your realm when you tried to imprison them.
it is not just some "random adventurer" (even though the game calls him that) it is a dispossesed King/Prince who comes to take back what is righfully his from his evil Uncle/Stepfather/GenericEvilDude.

Keeping all claimants on your stuff either in your court or dead is the best way to avoid situations like this.

[Zeetarb]

The adventurer's don't have to be claimants, some random person anywhere on the map just about can declare they want to invade your land and raise an army in excess of yours. The scaling is definitely off, particularly so the earlier you go back.

I understand at some point levies were reduced but the size of adventurer's armies weren't, and so they went from something which will only succeed once in a while to something that almost always defeats the AI and can often be impossible for the player to handle.

[Jormundgand]

Originally posted by Zeetarb:

I understand at some point levies were reduced but the size of adventurer's armies weren't, and so they went from something which will only succeed once in a while to something that almost always defeats the AI and can often be impossible for the player to handle.

I have never had any problems with hosts -- never. And I'm not a particularly good player. I have beaten several hosts with armies larger than my combined levies + retinues at the same time, while also fighting generic rebellions, conquering new lands and fighting vassals for independence (blasted traitors wants to steal the lands my grandfather stole.. ehh.. aquired lawfully). The AI is beyond stupid when it comes to combat -- if invaders are causing you problems, you're doing something very wrong. The only advantage the AI has in combat is numbers; and they dissappear very quickly, especially when you can't raise new troops from holdings or can't hire mercs or holy orders.

[Zeetarb]

Originally posted by Clearer:

Originally posted by Zeetarb:

I understand at some point levies were reduced but the size of adventurer's armies weren't, and so they went from something which will only succeed once in a while to something that almost always defeats the AI and can often be impossible for the player to handle.

I have never had any problems with hosts -- never. And I'm not a particularly good player. I have beaten several hosts with armies larger than my combined levies + retinues at the same time, while also fighting generic rebellions, conquering new lands and fighting vassals for independence (blasted traitors wants to steal the lands my grandfather stole.. ehh.. aquired lawfully). The AI is beyond stupid when it comes to combat -- if invaders are causing you problems, you're doing something very wrong. The only advantage the AI has in combat is numbers; and they dissappear very quickly, especially when you can't raise new troops from holdings or can't hire mercs or holy orders.

Depends where you're playing though, if you're playing early on in a very small realm they can scale to a point where you're too small for retinues, don't have enough income for serious mercenary hires, and don't have the close relatives available for alliances you can be completely stuffed. One game I had a de Hauteville show up with a host for my 2 county Irisih duchy ruled by an infant ... regent stole my gold, too young for alliances with no relatives close enough; basically had no chance.