Khuzait invincible? Council of the commons

[Apocal]

I think there are always methods for the experienced player to deal with the AI. It is just not so easy, you need a lot of micromanagement and it can be risky.

Moving around two separate cav groups isn't difficult and it doesn't require a lot of micro-management. It is just a matter of having an eye for the distances and timing involved, nothing difficult. You shouldn't be losing much against typical AI parties with nothing but mounted units.

Concerning a certain party composition making it easier, why not, if people like it? I don't use horse archers for example, does not fit my background, but that's my problem.

I'm not saying which party compositions people should use. I'm saying that your idea (If shieldwalls and spears would work a bit more effectively, it would be rather suicidal for the player to fight with cavalry alone. So very fast cavalry only parties would be only for a special task, like hunting fast bandits.) isn't how the game works now, unless you play with mostly the Charge command and a single block of cavalry.

I just still do not get it why that all speaks for very different AI party speed, depending on the cavalry percentage in the party? How can an army with cavalry and infantry move faster than an army with infantry alone? And why should they be allowed to act so unrealistically? Because Warband etc. had it, ok, but that does not make it immersive or necessary for the game.

Do you really want to spend 5+ in-game days chasing one party around because you both have nearly matching movement speeds, with wide gaps between infantry, mounted infantry and cavalry? Do you think it would be better for balance if a player with 80 horsemen could move nearly 50% faster than every AI lord on the map?

 

[xdj1nn]

Bannerlord is set in the 600-1000 time period so they're less based on Mongols and more based on the Gokturks, Khazars, Avars and Kipchaks.

Also, the Mongol invincibility meme is just that, a meme. Mongols never conquered more than 1/4 of Europe, and their conquests only lasted for about 20 years. They stopped at Poland and Hungary after the Europeans switched tactics from poorly armed footsoldiers/light cavalry and wood castles to crossbowmen, heavily armored cavalry, and stone castles that the Mongols were not good at besieging. They also barely conquered any of the Middle East thanks to their defeat at the Battle of Ain Jalut.

In terms of the way Bannerlord represents real-life Europe and the Middle East, the Mongols only would have conquered a handful of Empire, Sturgian and Aserai cities.

So the Mongols aren't a justification for the Khuzaits being overpowered. Though I also agree with @Apocal that the Battanians are actually a bigger issue now than the Khuzaits.

this is a subject of much debate tbh. Most theories indicate that the main reason why they've stopped was due to properly fortified fortresses, which they simply couldn't handle. Their armies managed open-field well, but dealing with sieges and proper defenses was impossible for them. So much so that they've only managed to get into Chine when they've adopted new strategies and technologies from foreigners, like ships and infantry, if I'm not mistaken the first counter that China used against them was simply retracting the borders to swampy areas, just by doing that they got wrecked at that time frame.

On a side note, but not less important, though, Khuzaits seem to have ridiculous amounts of HP, I've been dealing 130-140 dmg on some of those ****ers, and they simply do not die (and I'm talking about tier 1/2 trash soldiers)

The Mongols conquered the whole of Song China, a state with more crossbows, stone fortifications and armoured cavalry than in the entirety of Europe, and they conquered all of the "middle east" i.e. Iran, Iraq, Anatolia, the Caucuses, Syria and much of Arabia with the exception of Egypt, which by the time they reached, the Mongol Empire was in a state of collapse and would never again be able to muster large armies.

They weren't "invincible" by any means, but in the period 1100-1300 there were very few states in the world who had the type of society necessary to reliably hinder a full scale mongol invasion. What made them so dangerous wasn't just the fact that they had horse archers (although that was part of it), it was the fact that they weren't limited by season, money or even supplies, so long as they could graze their animals. The people who had the best chance against the Mongols were actually other nomads, but by 1250 all the Central Asian nomads were working for the Mongols.

What "saved" Christendom in the end was mainly the fact that the Mongols mostly didn't care about Europe. It was basically a side project compared to the main prizes of Central Asia and China. The Golden Horde in Russia was probably the weakest and least relevant of the 4 Mongol successor states, and from what I've read about the internal ideology of the Mongol Empire (at least early on), their main targets were other steppe people, and China. Their other conquests were often nearly accidental.

In Bannerlord, it really bugs me that these clearly nomadic people have the exact same society as fully settled people. It would be so much more interesting if the Khuzaits didn't have static settlements at all, with their lord parties having manpower and resources attached to them. Defeating all of them in battle would basically wipe them off the map forever, but catching them would be difficult, and fighting them in the field would be disadvantageous.

the Chinese fortifications were much simpler (I'd say extremely different as a better way to put it) and way more scattered, they would rely more on open fields and other shenanigans. As I've mentioned before, their first move against the mongols was to retract their borders to swampy areas, and it worked, the only thing that allowed the Mongols to conquer them was the local coalition they've formed with foreigners, Mongols were not "Medieval Chuck Norris", and if they had entered Central Europe, they'd probably get their asses handed to them due to amounting factors, including the military culture from the HRE, France, Bohemia... I doubt they'd ever be able to reach Rome or the Iberian peninsula, at all...

 

[Apocal]

As I've mentioned before, their first move against the mongols was to retract their borders to swampy areas, and it worked, the only thing that allowed the Mongols to conquer them was the local coalition they've formed with foreigners,

That was the Northern Song and while marshlands were the single best counter to nomadic cavalry, they signed away the right to create moats and swamps in a treaty with the Liao, decades before the Mongols (or even Jurchens) began to fight them in earnest. By time the Mongols came for them, much of the territory where that was an option had been overrun.

 

[geala]

...

Do you really want to spend 5+ in-game days chasing one party around because you both have nearly matching movement speeds, with wide gaps between infantry, mounted infantry and cavalry? Do you think it would be better for balance if a player with 80 horsemen could move nearly 50% faster than every AI lord on the map?

That's a bit theoretical. Removing the faction and cavalry speed modifiers will not make all parties move with the same speed.

I want that other factors than the cavalry and mounted infantry percentage are important for party speed. I want that some factions don't have constant movement advantages because of the typical army composition. I want that bigger parties of some factions because of typical party composition are not exempt from the normal rule that smaller parties can evade much larger parties.

It is total nonsense from a logical point and countering historical facts that armies with cavalry parts can/could, as a compact body, move faster than armies only with infantry. It is sad that game balance is affected by a speed increase just because some of the party ride fast horses and beam the rest of the party to the battle location.

 

[Apocal]

That's a bit theoretical. Removing the faction and cavalry speed modifiers will not make all parties move with the same speed.

It isn't theoretical; you can check the detailed map speed effects by hovering over the speed. The single biggest differentiators for parties are the Cavalry/footmen on horse bonuses and it is not a close contest. Outside of that, every party gets about the same speed because they operate similarly: a few prisoners, Cargo within capacity penalty (very mild), Base party speed never being reduced by party size, etc. Sometimes they are temporarily slower than usual -- right after a battle, with lots of wounded and way over-capacity on prisoners, for example -- but that's situational.

If you really want proof of how similar party speeds are, the Cavalry and footmen on horses bonuses aren't difficult to disable. I can do that, let the game run for awhile and compare AI party speeds to show you how much differentiation is lost if you enforce breakpoints on the speed bonuses.

 

[five bucks]

My entire counterargument is that most historical people who fought (and defeated) nomadic cavalry didn't rely on crossbows paired with strong fortifications. We have a wealth of history (more than two invasions) to look towards to see that Chinese states, not only the Song, with inferior cavalry forces performed poorly relative to those states that could maintain strong cavalry forces, in the face of serious steppe confederations.

But the argument is actually about the Mongols and their way of waging war specifically, not all cultures who ever happened to use nomadic cavalry. Because those unnamed cultures and the Mongols may well be different in the ways they waged war other than both having nomadic cavalry. Out of the people who actually fought and defeated the Mongols and won, you have listed two examples, which is good, except that neither of them are relevant to the argument.

Your first example was the Muscovites (assuming you're talking about Kulikovo). They defeated the Mongols in a battle where the Mongols were fighting on foot totally contrary to their usual manner, so that example isn't relevant to this argument. (Faulty logic: "S is better than F, therefore: C must not be better than L against M.")

Your second example was the Mamlukes (assuming you're talking about Ain Jalut). As they defeated the Mongols in a battle with similar tactics and similar numbers they are not a good example of comparative effectiveness of tactics. (Faulty logic: "M1 is better than M2, therefore: C must not be better than L against M.")

My examples of Poland and Hungary are good examples because they did worse when they tried to use light infantry and light cavalry against standard Mongol field tactics, and they did far, far, far better after adopting crossbowmen and heavy cavalry and stone castles, in otherwise similar circumstances. And you even have eyewitness accounts that crossbows were particularly effective. Therefore, this makes them a very good example of comparative effectiveness of tactics against the Mongols. (Solid logic: "L is worse than M, C is better than M, therefore: C must be better against M than L is.")

Those were not an exceptionally strong counter because of operational limitations, not tactical flaws. That's my position.

What you meant by this isn't exactly clear to me, if you could re-phrase it that would be great.

As for why I use whole conquests and campaigns as my examples: because is standard methodology in the field? Because when discussing things broadly, you necessarily take a broad look at things. Especially when it comes to the interplay between weapons and outcomes, looking at events in isolation can produce a distorted understanding because almost every battle, movement or siege is shenanigans on one level or another. So the usual way is to look at trends.

Sorry but I totally reject that it is "standard methodology in the field" to outright ignore all other potential variables in an empire falling, and without any evidence decide that a single certain variable was the reason they fell, compared to the many other possible variables.

I agree looking at a single example can lead to distortion. But you're victim to distortion yourself because your argument boils down to correlation equaling causation. "Because the Song had crossbows and fortifications, and they lost an empire to the Mongols, therefore the crossbows must be faulty/ineffective." But you have no control example to compare the Song to in order to demonstrate that it was the tactics that were the reason, and not, say, the Song's MASSIVE INCOMPETENCE.

Hungary/Poland vs. the Mongols is a great example because the former and latter invasions are highly similar, with a main difference being more crossbows, stone fortifications, and heavy cavalry being introduced. Therefore, you can safely draw conclusions because you have a control example. You can't do that with the Song. If you were to provide multiple battle examples of crossbows and stone fortifications being the reason the Song lost, then they would count as evidence for your argument. Until then, they do not. They are an example of an empire falling due to poor morale, military inexperience, and severely ingrained bureaucratic inefficiency.

This case is exceptional in almost every way. Xiangyang was carefully designed to be unsiegeable by 1268. It had massively thick walls, reinforced with clay and thick shrouds, with enough supplies gathered within to hold out for literal years. It was surrounded by a wide moat (more than 100 meters), ringed by mountainous terrain and secured on one flank by the Han River.
As an aside, I didn't mention the Persian siege engineers at Xiangyang in 1273 because the investment would have worked without them; the city was written off by 1272.

Sure, the Mongols would have prevailed eventually, but that's critically missing the point. The question is how good the Mongols were at besieging stone fortifications, not if they were capable of doing it at all. The conclusion we can draw from Xiangyang is that they were not good if it took them years of trying to knock down walls that Ismail and Al al-Din could reduce in days. Emperor Duzong decided to write off the city because he heard of the Persians' new siege engines reducing Fangcheng, and even then the defenders of Xiangyang still continued to resist until the Persians' new siege engines began reducing the previously-untouched wall turrets of the city itself. There is no way anyone can argue the introduction of the Persians wasn't a major hastening factor.

But as for why this is a distortion? Because it wasn't the first time it had happened: Xiangyang also fell to the Mongols in 1236, in a matter of weeks.

They surrendered without resistance. Like a huge number of other Song settlements due to the inexperience of their commanders, and overall poor morale in the empire. See, this is why the Song are a terrible example of their tactics supposedly being the issue. Can't execute tactics if your generals either A: don't want to fight the enemy, B: don't have the experience to carry out the tactics, or C: outright JOIN the enemy.

Which Han conquest are you referring to?

205BC-200BC.

 

[geala]

It isn't theoretical; you can check the detailed map speed effects by hovering over the speed. The single biggest differentiators for parties are the Cavalry/footmen on horse bonuses and it is not a close contest. Outside of that, every party gets about the same speed because they operate similarly: a few prisoners, Cargo within capacity penalty (very mild), Base party speed never being reduced by party size, etc. Sometimes they are temporarily slower than usual -- right after a battle, with lots of wounded and way over-capacity on prisoners, for example -- but that's situational.

If you really want proof of how similar party speeds are, the Cavalry and footmen on horses bonuses aren't difficult to disable. I can do that, let the game run for awhile and compare AI party speeds to show you how much differentiation is lost if you enforce breakpoints on the speed bonuses.

I know that those are important factors, I use it myself to my advantage, cavalry and mounted infantry add over +1 to the speed of my current party, I can catch much weaker lord parties easily.

But I still don't get it why such + speed from horses should happen in mixed parties. It is totally unrealistic on one hand. From the game perspective it leads to different party speed, but as parties are composed differently by factions, it fundamentally handicaps certain factions. Why is the solution to the need for different speed the unrealistic mounted speed advantage? What's bad if a Khuzait party of 100 with the usually higher mounted numbers would move at same speed as a Sturgian party of 100?

Why should Khuzaits for example be allowed to regularly catch parties of less cavalry focused factions of the same number? If it could be based on reality, I would be more eager to accept, but it is not, as a group of 100 soldiers cannot move faster than infantry speed if not all soldiers are on horses and if they want to appear at a given place as a group.

BTW I tried out a mod which gave parties speed disadvantages in enemy territory. As long as I had it installed, the Khuzait did not conquer much. As soon as I deinstalled, the typical movement happened and the NE was quickly reduced. Can be random as it was just one campaign, and I read that others saw no difference in Khuzait behavior despite speed changes.

 

[Apocal]

But I still don't get it why such + speed from horses should happen in mixed parties. It is totally unrealistic on one hand. ...

Why is the solution to the need for different speed the unrealistic mounted speed advantage? What's bad if a Khuzait party of 100 with the usually higher mounted numbers would move at same speed as a Sturgian party of 100?

Asked and answered: take away the partial bonuses for Cav/mounted footmen and you're going to wind up spending days chasing parties around because you're only a little bit faster. Assuming, of course, you (as the player) don't simply dump infantry entirely and go all-cav. It is just a gameplay thing.

BTW I tried out a mod which gave parties speed disadvantages in enemy territory. As long as I had it installed, the Khuzait did not conquer much. As soon as I deinstalled, the typical movement happened and the NE was quickly reduced. Can be random as it was just one campaign, and I read that others saw no difference in Khuzait behavior despite speed changes.

It is probably random: disabling both bonuses on mine led to the Khuzaits still steamrolling when I tested it.

But you're victim to distortion yourself because your argument boils down to correlation equaling causation. "Because the Song had crossbows and fortifications, and they lost an empire to the Mongols, therefore the crossbows must be faulty/ineffective."

My position from the start: crossbows and stone fortifications were not especially effective at defending from steppe nomads.

But the argument is actually about the Mongols and their way of waging war specifically, not all cultures who ever happened to use nomadic cavalry.

It isn't. I haven't been arguing such and neither have you:

That's why the Chinese specialized so heavily into crossbowmen and went to the effort of building massive stone fortifications, because they knew it was effective against the steppe peoples that constantly raided them.

The Wujing Zongyao, written during the Song dynasty, offers the crossbow as the most effective method of fighting against the steppe nomads...

Both of those pre-date the Mongols, the first by nearly 1000 years.

Your first example was the Muscovites (assuming you're talking about Kulikovo). They defeated the Mongols in a battle where the Mongols were fighting on foot totally contrary to their usual manner, so that example isn't relevant to this argument. (Faulty logic: "S is better than F, therefore: C must not be better than L against M.")

Your second example was the Mamlukes (assuming you're talking about Ain Jalut). As they defeated the Mongols in a battle with similar tactics and similar numbers they are not a good example of comparative effectiveness of tactics. (Faulty logic: "M1 is better than M2, therefore: C must not be better than L against M.")

Bro, when I said "look at broad trends" that means my examples are whole campaigns and whole wars, not single battles. The Mamluk-Mongol Wars lasted on and off for over fifty years. The conflicts around Mongol/Tartar influence over Muscovy went for over a century, although much more sporadically. In neither case did serious fortification or massed crossbows figure into the result.

Sorry but I totally reject that it is "standard methodology in the field" to outright ignore all other potential variables in an empire falling, and without any evidence decide that a single certain variable was the reason they fell, compared to the many other possible variables.

I agree looking at a single example can lead to distortion. But you're victim to distortion yourself because your argument boils down to correlation equaling causation. "Because the Song had crossbows and fortifications, and they lost an empire to the Mongols, therefore the crossbows must be faulty/ineffective." But you have no control example to compare the Song to in order to demonstrate that it was the tactics that were the reason, and not, say, the Song's MASSIVE INCOMPETENCE.

There was more than one example: I drew directly upon the example of the Han against the Xiongnu previously. To which I add basically every single Chinese dynasty afterwards as almost all of them considered it imperative to maintain large nomadic cavalry wings, to keep a steppe confederation (with large numbers of nomadic cavalry of their own) from becoming an out of control problem. This much was stated outright by their own leaders at the time.

I also argued that the Song were incompetent because they failed in this task and therefore failed to adequately manage the steppes, which was the result of their downfall (not an original proposition). When a dynasty failed to maintain their nomadic cavalry, they fell back upon foot-mobile (duh) armies centered around massed crossbows and stone fortification not because it was "especially effective" (your words, your claim) but because it was all they had to rely upon.

As for evidence, I gave my sources.

What you meant by this isn't exactly clear to me, if you could re-phrase it that would be great.

Operational level versus tactical: whatever merits crossbows had didn't matter because foot-mobile, crossbow-centric armies couldn't operate out on the steppes. If a pursuing army couldn't operate on the steppes, then the nomads could simply fall back in relative safety with their herds, bide their time. and maintain (or rebuild) their strength. Fortifications -- to limit the depth and scale of the seasonal nomadic raids -- had some use in mitigating the damage, but obviously couldn't move and therefore weren't useful in preventing the rise of powerful steppe confederations.

Sure, the Mongols would have prevailed eventually, but that's critically missing the point.

No, it isn't. The point of building Xiangyang to the point it was nearly unsiegable wasn't just to make the Mongols fail at a speed run. It wasn't a delaying tactic. The objective was preventing the Mongols from accessing the Yangtze River via its tributary, at all. Permanently. Any failure, no matter how long in coming, was seen at the time as the doom of the dynasty, so they invested accordingly.

They were also completely correct and most historians mark the fall of Xiangyang as the final bell.

Of course, as I said elsewhere, Xiangyang was truly exceptional and the rest of the Chinese walled cities on the Han River barely amounted to two years' time.

Secondly:

The question is how good the Mongols were at besieging stone fortifications, not if they were capable of doing it at all. The conclusion we can draw from Xiangyang is that they were not good if it took them years of trying to knock down walls that Ismail and Al al-Din could reduce in days.
Emperor Duzong decided to write off the city because he heard of the Persians' new siege engines reducing Fangcheng, and even then the defenders of Xiangyang still continued to resist until the Persians' new siege engines began reducing the previously-untouched wall turrets of the city itself. There is no way anyone can argue the introduction of the Persians wasn't a major hastening factor.

The only place I've seen this claimed is on Wikipedia, unsourced. Emperor Duzong was rather famously the sort to not give a ****, even with the walls falling all around him. At any rate, it is directly contradicted by other sources which state it was Jia Sidao who wrote the city off, after the failure of the massive summer 1271 relief expedition.

205BC-200BC.

That's a curious timeframe to choose, since it isn't quite the Chu-Han Contention and ends with the Han losing a war to the Xiongnu...

(It also isn't an area anywhere near as big as the Southern Song.)