Unkillable Horde Factions

[TinCow]

The total lack of a connection between the population of a horde faction's last town and the size of their new horde is really starting to annoy me. In my current WRE game, the Vandals have begun new hordes three different times, the Goths twice and the Roxolani twice.

I have spent countless time, money and men defeating stack after stack of Vandal and Goth horde troops, only to have them capture a rebel city with their last stack and re-horde to 4-5 stack level and move off again. Horde generation does NOT draw upon the population of the last town, like it should be doing. The horde is simply generated spontaneously and is about the same size, whether coming from a 20,000 population town or a 2,000 population town.

This is getting EXTREMELY frustrating as it means I have to chase down and eliminate every single family member in the field before they can capture another town. So far this has proved impossible for three of the four hording factions I am fighting. CA needs to fix the horde-not-from-population problem ASAP.

[parcelt]

I very much agree, Tincow. Actually, I think best would be for a horde-faction having to decide to go horde before you lay siege to its last town. If they don't (and don't manage to break that last siege), they're simply finished.

That would remove the need to eliminate hordes in the field, which makes really no sense: I am besieging your last 1,000 population village, and being the romans that also means I will kill all inhabitants once I get through the walls (I read somewhere that the romans would have mercy on an enemy's civil population, granting them free pasage, etc, until a siege actually started; then, the only outcome could be total annihilation). Nevertheless, once I conquer the village you are able to form a horde of 15,000? Didn't I just kill all 1,000 of you in the siege? Come' on, this just grants a longivety to the hordes they really do not deserve and is frankly becoming quite annoying. I don't want to go kill the Goths a third time... sigh.

[Orda Khan]

Annoying , yes they can be but they can be eliminated too. I just had around 5,000 Ostrogoths lay seige to my capital. After an epic struggle, my army killed 2,200 of them after first losing, then regaining the town centre. 183 Ostrogoths limped back to their leader, who promptly attacked with the other half of his horde, this time they succeeded and my General died a heroic death. My Conquering Hero and his army had narrowly missed getting back to save the situation but now he was able to attack the Ostrogoth heir who was still camped outside the walls. The leader came to his son's aid but had to watch him killed ( a son for a son...revenge is sweet ) and only barely escaped with his own life. My General was not satisfied and hunted him down. He died in a savage battle the following turn and with him, his Ostrogoths

.......Orda

[Garvanko]

Same here, I thought I killed off the Roxolani early on in my Hun campaign.. i.e. wiped out all the family members. Expected it to rebel, but four stacks appeared.

What does it take....

[TinCow]

Ok, but tell me if this makes sense. Random Horde is reduced to one full stack of about 1,000 men. Random Horde takes and settles Roman city of population 10,000 and garrisons it with all remaining troops. The next turn the town is besieged by the Romans who lost it. Two turns later it is taken and now 5,000 to 8,000 Random Horde troops appear. One year was enough to convert half to two-thirds of the city to Horde culture and prompt them to go on the rampage against their former nation?

This doesn't even take into account the pure fact that small towns can produce hordes that are larger than their population and the fact that a town's population isn't reduced by the creation of a horde.

Strangely, the people of a horde don´t come from the city that generated the horde. If you start with the Goth, you have one city with 11507 inhabitants. Your troops are 302 in the city and 196 in a stack nearby on large units. That makes 12005 people under your rule.
I did horde immediately and got several horde stacks that amount to 5586 men in total. But the city I just abandoned had still 11507 inhabitants! I retook the city and the number of inhabitants rose to 13061. The increase was taken from the horde stacks. I still had 4032 men in stacks. If you add that to the people in the city, you get 17093. Thus, by abandoning the city and immediately retaking it, my population increased by 5088 people. Where did they come from??

So, although a horde is supposed to be 'a people on the run', its members are not taken - unlike normal soldiers - from the population resource.

[professorspatula]

Well I'm sure the settlement size does matter. This is pulled from the descr_sm_factions.txt file:

horde_min_units 60
horde_max_units 100
horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde 20
horde_unit_per_settlement_population 300
horde_min_named_characters 4
horde_max_percent_army_stack 80

In theory, for every 300 people in the settlement, 1 horde unit is created. I think that's what it means. So if you have a settlement of 30,000 people, 100 Horde units are created (the max amount). If you have a settlement of 3000, 10 units should be created, however there is a minimum horde unit number of 60, the equivalent of an 18,000 sized city. There's obviously a reason why CA opted for a high minimum amount of units - perhaps to suggest much of the horde comes from the surrounding area and not the city itself, or it's done just to make sure the horde always has a big push effect whenever it forms. Or maybe I'm just completely wrong. Either way, the horde system isn't perfect.

[TinCow]

Ah, that minimum certainly explains part of the problem. The real issue I see here is that Hordes aren't supposed to be massive disposable armies used for capturing anything in their way. CA even said in the manual that it is important to keep your horde units alive because they are the people that will settle your new homeland. This isn't even remotely accurate. If you horde up, lose everything except 100 troops and then capture a 1,000 population town you will instantly be able to horde again with at least 4 stacks. That defeats the very purpose of the "horde" unit.

[Spino]

I understand people's complaints but I really don't see this as being a problem. I don't own BI but based on the numerous posts here and in www.twcenter.net it's not as if the Hordes in BI are so overpowering as to be unmanageable. In fact, as far as I can tell the way CA has modeled Hordes for the barbarian factions in BI seems alot closer to reality than the way barbarians were represented in vanilla RTW.

There's obviously a reason why CA opted for a high minimum amount of units - perhaps to suggest much of the horde comes from the surrounding area and not the city itself, or it's done just to make sure the horde always has a big push effect whenever it forms. Or maybe I'm just completely wrong. Either way, the horde system isn't perfect.

I would agree with this. Most barbarians did not live in large towns and cities but were scattered throughout the countryside in numerous villages and small towns, most of which were established along tribal lines and reflected their reliance on family run, substinence level farms and the like (contrast this with Rome's reliance on massive plantations owned by the wealthy few who used slaves instead of citizens for labor). Take this contrast one step further with nomadic steppe peoples like the Huns whose culture and civilization were the least dependent on the establishment of fixed dwellings, let alone major population centers.

[Bob the Insane]

I suppose their is one good thing to come from this, at least we know the mechanics of why the horde does not detract from a settlement's population. It is generated based on the settlement's population and some defaults. I guess modders could play with those defaults to see what the in game effect would be...

We do know that taking a settlement as a horde does add to the population of the settlement.

Also because it generates a set number of units, rather than a number of people, the size of the horde is entirely dependant on base unit size you are playing with...

On Normal a horde may average around 6000 (max 10000), where as on Huge it wades in at 12000 (max 20000)...

I have to agree with Spino, while it appears odd, i don't see how people can really abuse this. And surely we are not complaining about something that makes the game harder for the player?

[A.Saturnus]

I would agree with this. Most barbarians did not live in large towns and cities but were scattered throughout the countryside in numerous villages and small towns, most of which were established along tribal lines and reflected their reliance on family run, substinence level farms and the like (contrast this with Rome's reliance on massive plantations owned by the wealthy few who used slaves instead of citizens for labor). Take this contrast one step further with nomadic steppe peoples like the Huns whose culture and civilization were the least dependent on the establishment of fixed dwellings, let alone major population centers.

This doesn´t explain the fact that you can increase the population of a city infinitely by repeatedly going horde. It would be acceptable parts of the horde units would come from elsewhere but then the units would also have to disband not into the city. That hordes can by resurrected is even more unrealistic than the ever-reappearing factions in MTW. Apart from the annoyance of having to fight the same horde over and over again, this is really bad for immersion IMO.

[TinCow]

And surely we are not complaining about something that makes the game harder for the player?

When you put it that way I feel like a bit of a fool. I guess I just feel somewhat cheated when I spend multiple game sessions fighting battle after battle to whittle down a horde and kill them off, only to have the horde capture a nearly undefended town off the AI and then re-horde with new stacks and half a dozen new family members. That's not 'good' difficulty. That's just making you wade through bodies perpetually for no reason.

[a_b_danner]

The hordes leave a lot of room for modding. I'm working on a small realism mod right now, where the Germanic factions can only effectivly horde one time - making the play have to consider that option a little more closely than they currently do (plus, thier starting province(s) will be more developed, making a sudden move less attractive).

The nomad factions on the other hand (goths, vandals, and slavs), will be able to horde more often, but i'm going to make it so they have a harder time getting established - faction specific military buildings, longer building times than Germanic factions, etc.

I think this suits what they did historically. The Vandals and Goths moved repeatedly, but never very successfully. The Franks, Burgundians, Saxons moved only once (kinda sorta), but left a legacy to this day (country, province names, etc.)

I guess the Vandals expanded our vocabulary by at least one word though.

[Bob the Insane]

When you put it that way I feel like a bit of a fool. I guess I just feel somewhat cheated when I spend multiple game sessions fighting battle after battle to whittle down a horde and kill them off, only to have the horde capture a nearly undefended town off the AI and then re-horde with new stacks and half a dozen new family members. That's not 'good' difficulty. That's just making you wade through bodies perpetually for no reason.

I don't completely disagree with you, it is a bit odd and can be frustrating. As i said perhaps a modder (even me gasp!) could play around with the "horde_min_units 60" value and see what it does to the campaign dynamics...

But overall, for me it does not really cause a gameplay issue, especially if it is a necessary evil to keep the hordes going...

[Taiwan Legion]

hmm..... so you could infinitely increase the population of a town huh....

I'd have to do that with Saxons.

[Magraev]

They can't horde though...

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I haven't played as a Roman faction yet. I've only played as barbarian hordes, so in my mind this is fine with me! For right now, I haven't had much to complain about. If I play as the WRE, I might, but not yet...

[Spino]

This doesn´t explain the fact that you can increase the population of a city infinitely by repeatedly going horde. It would be acceptable parts of the horde units would come from elsewhere but then the units would also have to disband not into the city. That hordes can by resurrected is even more unrealistic than the ever-reappearing factions in MTW. Apart from the annoyance of having to fight the same horde over and over again, this is really bad for immersion IMO.

Ok I agree with you. However, that's an extremely 'gamey' exploit/tactic to employ against an already mediocre AI opponent. The fact that the AI can do it as well is annoying but the AI opponent in RTW:BI isn't much better than the one in vanilla RTW and obviously needs all the help it can get.

I think some clever modding will address some of the horde related issues being discussed here but don't expect a magic modding bullet to come along and fix things. And given that the Horde feature has made RTW:BI much more challenging than vanilla RTW I don't see CA changing it for the sake of realism it in one of the upcoming patches.

[TinCow]

I think a quick fix would be to prevent any faction from hording more than once every 20 turns or so. I don't want hordes to be a one-off thing, they should certainly be able to repeat it if they've been settled for a while. What I would like to avoid is a faction re-hording via loophole when they have legitimately been fought to extinction.

[The historian]

I've taken on and finshed off hordes all you need is one good army(and you as it's commander) and the willigness to chase 'em around a while.
I've managed to take out the huns as the saxons in just such a way and almost wiped out the franks (the romans beat me to it)
But indeed the city size does not seem to realy matter and i think that at least the prevention of hordes should happen when you siege a city into submission or when you exterminate it.

[Taiwan Legion]

If you're one of the roman factions, some people have suggested guarding the river crossings to beat the horde. However, I find that if you think you can beat the horde, leave one river passing open and let them in. Once they are in, you fight, and plug that river crossing back up. And then you just chase around. What I find annoying is that when there's one faction leader unit left, they will just run around and retreat, and it takes forever to push him against a cliff or something.

In my game as the ERE, the vandals came, and in the begining I had the danube plugged. But after I got about 2 full stacks, I let them in, fought some hard battles, and basically reduced them to about 1/4 of a stack. Then they start trying to go around finding cities that hey can use to re-horde. However, I've plugged the 3 river crossings of Greece, and basically you just need to spend some time chasing them around after that.

[PseRamesses]

IMHO the "hording" feature it what makes the BI such a good expansion. When taking the historical aspects of the hordes into count there is a reason why the WRE crumbled before theese mass-migrators.
What I DO find a bit annoying is the hordes remainding family members, just cavs so they can´t besiege you, but anyway. I use 6 archers. 4 spears/inf and 4 light cav to eliminate them - works every time!
Holding your bridges is the key to not getting exposed to this kind of problem. If you don´t let them pass your bridges you don´t have to bother chasing their ever retreating cav-units, right?!

[nameless]

Is that how it works? Because I've had several Hunnish hordes attack me in Illyria and after one massive seige on one my of cities I was able to beat them back. Once I had an army in stock then I started going out and killing all of their faction families and leaders. I saved the game prior to killing the faction leader which I thought was the last one and even used spies to check out if there were any other. After I killed him another hunnish leader popped up in the next turn and eventually another one. I basically killed like a dozen family members, is it possible to have family members when your a horde?

I reloaded the save and used the fog cheat to search the map and I couldn't find any other family member except for the one I was aiming for.

Now their besieging a Frankish town and I'm rushing to take them out before they can horde again even though I'm at war with the Franks.

[ChaosLord]

Hordes are great, but not unkillable. I had an encounter with the Vandals at the end of my Saxon game, just as I was finishing my conquest of Spain and preparing to invade Britain. They came through by Massila after ransacking all the Italian pennisula cities for years(all the cities down there are rebel and low pop now). They broke off one stack and sent it to Massila, which my garrison force was able to beat. Then the rest of them headed up north to my capitol.

I had three consecutive sieges, first killing 3300, then around 700, and finally I broke the last siege myself. By this time they were mainly down to Warlords and Steppe Horde Cavalry(all their infantry except for like 100 had died trying to take their city). I isolated their remaining stacks and thanks to all the Saxon Sea Raiders I had gathered for the occasion was able to take out the last of their forces including their commander(who was oddly named Gogodolus(sp?) the Good, a kind benevolent Vandal faction leader who spent his time terrorizing the civilized world).

They came awfully close to actually taking the city on the first siege, I had three or four units fight to the death on the walls. Those Steepe Chosen Horde Warriors are tough to beat back. I thought fighting and defeating the horde was a nice touch to the end of my game, like proving my strength to the rest of the world. Now I think i'll try a horde faction and see how I like sacking the world.

[dismal]

I think a quick fix would be to prevent any faction from hording more than once every 20 turns or so. I don't want hordes to be a one-off thing, they should certainly be able to repeat it if they've been settled for a while. What I would like to avoid is a faction re-hording via loophole when they have legitimately been fought to extinction.

I have read somewhere that a human player can only horde 3 times. The button to horde becomes inactive after the third one. (I have not seen this first hand.)

Speculation being that these parameters limit you to 3 hordes, one with a max of 100 units, then one with 80, then one with 60.

horde_min_units 60
horde_max_units 100
horde_max_units_reduction_every_horde 20

Perhaps this rule applies to the AI as well. Beat them 3 times and they don't come back.

[SpencerH]

Hordes are an interesting idea, but since my current strategy for dealing with them (while still a small empire) is not to eliminate their last city (so as to avoid spawning a much much larger enemy), I have to be critical of the ideas implementation.

[TinCow]

I have found that hordes are easy to elimate with one strong stack and a night fighter general. As such, they're only a serious problem early in the game when you're weak and cannot field such a force. Since this makes the game more challenging and the annoyance factor is simply due to an under-developed empire, I withdraw my complaint.