How to play hordes

[CTHOMP]

I'm trying kazan in 1.17 with the goal of westernizing and snagging any other achievements I can.

I've taken some of nogai and some of the golden horde. My current issues are how too keep attacking if my manpower gets so low. I've been havi g to use mercs and already have one loan.

I think I can hold suffer unity decrease until I can attack Novak again and take rest of their provinces and then raze.

The other issue is muscovy, i tried allying novograd and Lithuania but muscovy got in on a war vs those two when they were in a war with a crimes, timurids, and others so Lithuania looks to be on the verge of collapse, obviously didn't get the union with Poland.

As a horde, how do you keep man power up while constratly warring and avoid a massive muscovy.

[tonypa]

You need The Cossacks DLC.

[CTHOMP]

I have the Cossacks dlc. My nation just collapsed because I couldnt keep up with all the revolts. How do I control rebels if I'm constantly taking provinces?

[Mr.M]

Decrease Autonomy

You raze everything, so the income is gonna be ♥♥♥♥ anyway.

Cossacks DLC allows you to recruit free general, 5 cavalry and a large amount of Manpower every 10 years.

Get a large amount of cavalry

Get AT LEAST a 3-4 shock general

gg

[CTHOMP]

How do you keep manpower up? And afford all the cavalry? Should I have infantry at all?

[brian_va]

a huge drag on manpower is taking stupid attrition, having stacks larger than the supply limit without reason. also, if you need 3000 for a siege, don't place your whole army of 20k on that province. if you are worried about strength, keep them nearby so they can reinforce/intercept if necessary. also, don't take dumb fights. avoid attacking into mountains, river crossings and so on; generally just try to avoid fighting unless it is necessary.


outside of that, use military points to do development, conquer higher development lands, random events give you men, one of the estate actions gives some as well. once you get high enough tech you get a building that increases available manpower, and several idea groups including quantity increase base manpower as well.

[CTHOMP]

Shouldn't I be saving military points to try to get to next military tech as quick as possible?

[brian_va]

ideally. lots of priorities. if you have a good military spec leader and can afford a level 2/3 advisor (get a half price one from the estates) then you can find yourself having more military points and taking tech at +20% cost for being too early seems like a waste to me. of course, going against an enemy that is similarly or slightly better off can warrant taking tech early, especially if it is one that grants tactics.

[brian_va]

hmm, increased tech costs might not be a concern if 1.17 is pre-institutions, cant remember when that came.

[CTHOMP]

I'm playing pre institutions because the achievement is easier to westernized than to adopt all institutions. I'll probably finally do the institutions at 1.19 once I knock this achievement off the list.

[Fellini_Fiend]

If you don’t have it I recommend having Economic Ideas. It can do wonders for you as a Steppe Nomad. I literally take that idea group first whenever I play as a horde. Because a) it improves your economy by giving you more income from taxes, reduces the interest from loans, passively lowers the inflation you will undoubtedly have, makes your troops cheaper with reduction to land maintenance (I also recommend eventually taking Defensive and Quantity Ideas for this same reason and Quantity will also help out with your manpower issue to stack modifiers for land maintenance), and when you finish the idea group developing will be cheaper; and b) it will allow you to reform your government if you grow tired of being a Steppe Nomad (I personally never reform because of the benefits of being a horde are good and it costs quite a bit of Admin points to do so).

Playing as a horde is pretty tricky and may take a few attempts to understand how to balance war time and peace time. Ideally you want to be at war constantly because having your horde unity low is absolutely awful to deal with (this is one of the three big downsides of being a Steppe Nomad, the other two being the tribes estate which can be a pain in the ass to deal with in the early game and the bad events that you get because you’re a tribal government like the succession crisis event or just randomly losing 1 stability because the tribes have gotten restless or some nonsense like that that) but many times like you’ve pointed out it’s hard to be at war so much due to low manpower and stupid pretender rebels or separatists it’s pretty awful at times being a horde but you just have to deal with it.

Also I’ve learned that taking out loans aren’t actually all that bad and as a horde you WILL be taking out loans so don’t feel bad about having one or two loans especially if you’ve taken Economic Ideas that will ease the pain of your debt. And I can’t remember if in that patch you have states/territories but you can easily avoid having separatists by creating states without fully coring them yet and raising the autonomy and then making it back into a territory to be able to raise autonomy without decreasing any of the value that comes with increasing autonomy. If that patch doesn’t have that then you’ll just have to deal with having pretty bad made worse from increasing autonomy because you don’t want rebels to pop up while already at war that’s just a bad idea.

I also don’t remember when corruption was added into the game but in later patches corruption is one of a steppe nomad’s best friends as it lower national unrest in all of your provinces, it increases autonomy sure and costs a bit to lower corruption but is highly beneficial for a nomad.

[Fellini_Fiend]

Originally posted by clthomps:

I'm playing pre institutions because the achievement is easier to westernized than to adopt all institutions. I'll probably finally do the institutions at 1.19 once I knock this achievement off the list.

How do you feel westernizing is easier than just dealing with institutions? I personally remember westernizing as being the worst, I absolutely hated westernizing but it was something you had to do back then because you’d just die if you didn’t. Institutions are way better in my opinion because while you still use the monarch points you would while westernizing you end up with a lot of really valuable land due to developing them and get some nice passive bonuses when you embrace each institution and best of all you don’t have to deal with the awful events you get when westernizing that was probably the worst part of from what I remember.

[tonypa]

I have played several Horde nations but all with latest game version.

* First of, Horde Unity must be at 100 all the time. If it falls too much you must start a war and get it back fast
* You have to use Razing at every province you conquer, before coring them
* While in the war you have to loot every province. This means having your armies occupy a province and then NOT moving to next province until loot bar is empty
* Destroy all the forts
* Peace is bad, you should be constantly in war
* Every battle should be fought in flat terrain, if possible
* If you are not careful with Horde Unity, and you fire Succession Crisis, restart

(again, not sure how much it changes with 1.17)

[CTHOMP]

Westernizing because yuou can do so before 1600 usually. With institutions you don't unlock until way late in campaign .

[Matze3]

Originally posted by tonypa:

I have played several Horde nations but all with latest game version.

* First of, Horde Unity must be at 100 all the time. If it falls too much you must start a war and get it back fast
* You have to use Razing at every province you conquer, before coring them
* While in the war you have to loot every province. This means having your armies occupy a province and then NOT moving to next province until loot bar is empty
* Destroy all the forts
* Peace is bad, you should be constantly in war
* Every battle should be fought in flat terrain, if possible
* If you are not careful with Horde Unity, and you fire Succession Crisis, restart

(again, not sure how much it changes with 1.17)

... why waste time looting everything when razing the province if you conquer it does the same?
succession crisis isn't that bad. no need to restart at once. after all if you're at war your enemy will try to siege the provinces as well...let them spend their mp on the rebels and i wouldn't destroy all forts in the beginning... especially in provinces with a different religion and culture they are useful to slow down rebels because you can't convert them in the beginning.
the first institution is easy to get as golden horde... conquer ryazan and one of the minors in your south and if you didn't increase autonomy you should be able to buy it with the money you got from these 2 wars.
and having 100 horde unity is impossible if you don't win a war every year to raze new provinces... only thing you have to watch out for is going below 50 unity. more often than not waiting for the right time to attack is worth more than the little bonus from more than 50 horde unity. especially with strong neighbours like Poland-Lithuania, muscuvy and eventually the ottomans

[CTHOMP]

One of the goals is the razan achievement. So im playing that.