Too many manhunters = Floris too easy in early game?

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futurehermit

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First off, this mod is incredible.  Huge thumbs up!

One observation though -- compared to native, it is much easier to assemble a manhunter band early on.  There are LOTS more manhunters and, as a result, a lot more manhunters available to rescue and add to your warband early on. 

Combine that with the fact that manhunters can up your prisoner management by 3 = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ early.

Once you have a ton of $$$ invested everywhere, then you can afford to field a strong warband and then it goes from there.

I only had 3 in prisoner management, but with the manhunters I was up to 6, which meant I could carry 30 prisoners per time compared to 15. 

In addition, having more mid-tier troops available for capture meant that those 30 prisoners were generally bringing me in $4-5k per pop.  Two trips of prisoners = a dyeworks.

I've never ramped up investments this quickly and am now in a position to start going after a strong army quite early in the game.

Just wondering if this is intended and also if there is any way to tweak the number of manhunters on the map?  I'd rather see them be spice in my warband, or take more effort to assemble, rather than just being able to spam them early on.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts
 
Intended. This is random though. Some people complain that there are too many bandits and not enough manhunters, making Floris "unplayable" or at least excessively difficult in early game.

Basically you've gotten both a lucky strike and figured out an early game means of making money, which a lot of people also struggle with especially early on. You can tweak them if you want but there's definitely more bandit parties than manhunters, especially later on when you start running into named bandit parties with them 1200+ troops. You'll probably find that even kingdom war parties can't protect their lands. I say just let it play out.

I suggest you explore other parts of the world. Where they spawn is randomized so you might've hit a place where 3 manhunter parties spawned while there were only 2 looter parties or something, where in other places it would've been 5 regional bandit parties or something.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

Indeed, just last night I encountered my first named bandit party.  I was like LOL!!!  :grin:  That was a huge army that I ran away from Monty Python style.

I've got over 500 hours logged on this game, so, while not a pro by any means, I'm an experienced player.  I focus a lot on the early game, emphasizing pathfinding and surgery, and prioritizing building a strong economy before building up a dominant army.  So, I guess I was just surprised to find an easier experience than native when most mods I play usually make games harder, lol :smile: 

Don't get me wrong, I haven't explored everything this mod has to offer, especially sieges, so I'm curious to see how those will go now that my usual huscarl + vaeger archer combo isn't as straightforward :smile:

And, I just have to say, I got my first slaver chief elephant -- so excellent! :grin:

 
Ok, well, lol...I have to say that advanced military is proving a lot harder in this mod than building a strong economy  :mrgreen:

That is to the good for sure

I'm swimming in money now with land investments on top of productive enterprises everywhere.  I'm closing in on the 1 year mark I think somewhere around 250 days +/- 50 days. 

However, building a strong military is proving quite difficult overall.  I'm a Nord vassal after starting in Swadia.  The Nords reduced the Swadians down to 1 castle VERY early on and have left them in their one castle since then.  I managed to snipe Sargoth, and I traded my other village for Kwynn, so I have a good home base for raising and storing troops.  I have some mid-ish tier infantry in the town and am trying to build up a strong cavalry force.  I'm going with Swadian troops and getting them past Ecuyers and Chevaliers is definitely tough.  I think I've managed to stockpile around 20ish Chavalier Bannerets since I switched out my strategy to stockpiling them once they hit that point, since preserving them in my personal guard wasn't proving sufficient to safeguard them against death (despite very high surgery score too, sigh). 

I also spent a LOT of time before that trying to build up a top tier spear/xbow Rhodock army and eventually gave up because: 1) I didn't have anywhere to stockpile veterans yet; 2) the lower tier troops kept getting wiped with ease even against bandits; and, 3) the Nords kept going to war against the Rhodocks making it tricky to be a merc for either the dominant Nords (then can't raise troops) or the weaker Rhodocks (risk facing Nords a lot through most of the Northern part of the map).

Of course, getting party wiped against a desert bandit king and his horde didn't help that one time  :facepalm:

I'm up to around 140ish party size now and have finally built up the cavalry army to be almost all cavalry (at least ecuyer).  I have about 80 Ecuyer, 30 chevalier, 20 pages, and me+companions.  I'm at the point now where I can handle most non-king lords, though Rhodocks with top-tier troops still threaten to wipe my party, and I also got party-wiped once against a really powerful Khergit army.

And, I have to say, wow Khergits are no longer the laughing stocks in the hands of the AI.  They own the Southwest part of Vaeger-ville, Dhirim, and I think they recently took Ahmerrad.  They have a sprawling and stable large empire rivalling that of the Nords.  Pretty impressive work by the AI there.

Kings are sitting north of 500 troops now and I've seen bandit kinds with 400+ troops surrounded by other bandits with 400+ troops.

I'm definitely feeling the need to increase the quality of my troops.

Very fun game.  So much better than native.  Just wish the economy side was still tightened up a bit, but that is still carried over from Native's limitations I think.  Here's to hoping a M&B sequel will give a stronger native economy.

:party:
 
Khergits usually dominate the Sarranids for me too if the Sarranids are at war with the Rhodoks. I think aside from the Swadians, the Sarranids have the hardest time under AI control due to how much territory they have to ride to cover. If the east side is under attack and their troops are mostly on the west it'll take them so long to get over there to defend. When I play Sarranid I usually have to defend one end all by myself while the marshal's troops are on the other side, or even out taking more territory.

Depending on your play style you don't really need really high tier troops. I usually just go around with tier 3-5 troops. I rarely have anything T6 and up anymore. Not only cuz they're hard to upgrade, but also because my choices in troops at T3-T5 are very congruent. I often have mercenary crossbowmen that shoot in volleys, some kind of flanker/skirmisher unit, which doesn't have to be cavalry, and then a main melee unit almost always comprised of heavy infantry. It's just oldschool tactics really. The impact to enemy morale by the skirmish tactics and the volley fire is considerable and it causes the enemy to break formation and charge alone or to try to flee from the battlefield. Due to the force of the main unit and the solid formation I usually set them up with, any enemy that attacks them in a disorganized manner just doesn't win, even if they're higher tier.
 
In the game I just abandoned, I was surprised to see the Khergits had almost wiped the Sarranids off the map again (They had Barriye, Ahmerrad, and Shariz), and they also had Khudan, Reyvadin, and Dhirim.  All in, they were the largest empire at...Tulga, Ichamur, Narra, Halmar, Barriye, Ahmerrad, Shariz, Reyvadin, Dhirim...9 I guess towns.  I was thinking they had 10, but I don't think so now that I count it out, as Sarranids still had Durquba and Khergits hadn't penetrated any further into the lands of the other empires. 

Pretty sure my Nords were going to declare on them to limit their power at the time I abandoned.  Surprisingly, the Nords had been at piece for a good long while after I had been elected Marshall and subsequently proceeded to wipe out the Vaegirs.  I tried to convince Ragnar to declare on the weak Swadians or Rhodoks, but he wasn't going for it.  Guess he was (rightly) worried about the growing power of the Khergits, though if he had let me wipe out one or both, the Nords would've been in similar position...

Really fun to see the Khergits strong after they were so weak in native.

However, I think it is a product of cav being a bit op overall.  I took a squad of about 150 spears (tier 3-4) into the desert and got wiped hard, despite having them brace polearms against the initial charge, etc.  You would think that would slaughter a bunch of the cav, but it didn't do much, really.  From there, the polearms were modestly effective against desert bandits, but the black khergit knights are insane...
 
I dunno. I'd say it depends on your tactics again. The Khergits are usually super easy for me if I'm playing Sarranid or Swadian especially. I'd say they're the easiest in fact, and I rarely even get any casualties against them. Their cavalry doesn't really use flanking maneuvers so much so it barely matters. Set up your formation before the battle and as soon as you get in, and you'll be fine.

Ironically though I find them to be really tough to besiege. They have a lot of archers, so we take heavy casualties whenever trying to take a castle. About as many casualties as if I'm fighting Rhodoks, who have crossbows.
 
Yeah, don't get me wrong, when I take a balanced army or heavy cavalry army against them, I can take them out pretty easily.  It's just that I find I need good heavy cav to match their heavy cav, because I'm not finding spears to stand up well enough to heavy cav.  Spears are great if you can get cav in hilly terrain and either get them on the incline or down in the valley.  In those situations, spears can just wreck cav.  But, braced spears against a cav charge just doesn't appear to work well at all, so if it's flatland, spears just aren't an effective counter to cav. 

When I'm running around with cav, I always avoid rhodoks on hilly terrain or heavy forest.  I know I'll take casualties there.  But, get them out on flatland and I know I can just romp right over them. 

I'd like to see spears just a bit stronger against cav when spears are braced. 

Charging horses just rules all on the open field.  Nothing can stand up to it pound for pound except other charging horses.  I guess that's somewhat realistic, but, again, I just think braced spears should do a bit better overall.  :smile:

In my current game, Swadians are nearly wiped out (2 castles left, 0 towns), but surprisingly the other factions are staying really well balanced.  Uxhal, Khudan, Narra, and Halmar have changed hands a bit and Dhirim has changed hands the most I've ever seen it.  It's been getting sieged relentlessly to the point where its econ is totally shot.  However, the remaining factions are all sitting at 4-5 towns and it's looking pretty good.  I'm a Sarranid vassal this time to try something different.  I usually end up with the Nords after they wipe Swadia.  Part of it is the availability of wives.  I usually end up with Knudarr's daughter, but there are some other options as well.  It will be interesting this game to see if Rhodoks can hold up.  Them or Vaegirs are usually second civ eliminated after Swadia, who always gets wiped first.  Nords, Khergits, and Sarranids are usually in good shape, unless Khergits start putting a hurt on the Sarranids.  Nords usually end up owning a good chunk of Swadia and Vaegirs giving them a nice hard flank against the Khergits and another against the Rhodoks (mountains in both cases), which puts them in strong position.  Khergits usually have a chunk of Vaegirs and a chunk of Sarranids and usually have Dhirim.  Rhodoks are usually able to hold onto Yalen and Jelkala until pretty late. 
 
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