$0.02: Cumans (XL)

[Roark]

- Bashkorts: These guys dominate!! Lots of fun, and a genuinely unique unit (good vs cav + missiles). It seems like Vikinghorde has increased their range to higher than that of normal javs, too, although I may be wrong. There's nothing like watching a frontal charge of otherwise-frightening Armenian Heavies melt completely in the face of some volleys from mid-valour Bashies.

- Cr@p Heir Syndrome: Did anyone else experience this? I haven't seen so many inbred lunatic heirs since I played the HRE.

[Maloncanth]

Bashkorts are a nice unit but I find I can't control them well enough to really make anything melt although they do do nicely as pseudoflankers. I find that overall they're a little fragile for my tastes even for Eastern units.

As for crap heir syndrome, I'll start a Cuman campaign and see.

What REALLY makes the Cumans unbalancedly powerful though, is Cuman Heavy Cavalry!! Cuman Heavy Cavalry is as close as you get to totally invincible in early and its tech requirements are basically dicko. They can come out of a Keep! There is absolutely nothing in Early that can stop player controlled CHC's. Kataphracts will lose to them, Boyars get minced by them, I've charged them frontally at spearmen up a shallow incline on Expert and had the spearmen break up beneath them. CHC's deplete the ozone layer as part of their upkeep. Every time CHC's charge into something in Early, a kitten dies. They are THAT powerful :p. It turns Cumans from a good Steppe faction into the heralds of pagan havoc. Considering the ease with which you can manufacture CHC's compared to MHC's I'd rate them better than Mongols DESPITE their access to Koreans. Power overwhelming indeed.

[Roark]

Yeah, I've been restricting myself to Cuman Heavies only for Royals and top-ups for Royals.

As you so eloquently and hilariously stipulated, they are indeed killing machines.

For my rank-and-file cavalry, I use Wallachian Merc Cavalry, Steppes & Steppe Heavies.

[Roark]

Whoops. Just noticed the other Cumans thread...

[Martok]

- Cr@p Heir Syndrome: Did anyone else experience this? I haven't seen so many inbred lunatic heirs since I played the HRE.

Well as I recall, when Banquo's Ghost posted his Cuman epic in the Main Hall last year, quite a few of his Khans and their sons/brothers were of less than stellar quality at first. He often had to do quite a bit of battling and building to get their stats and traits up to something more worthy of their stature.

Of course, that still doesn't prove anything, but it may indicate a trend. You could always ask Digital as well to see what his royals have been like in his current Cuman campaign; perhaps he's had better luck?

Whoops. Just noticed the other Cumans thread...

No worries, mate. It's not really the same topic anyway.

[Digital]

Only two of my royalty have the Unhinged Loon vice, but I can find 4 of my royalty with the gluttony vice. I find that if you have a prince about to reach 15 years of age, keep your influence as high as possible to give him a good start in command stars. You should also involve your Khan in battle as often as possible so that he gain some battle related virtues, which some of his sons may attain when they reach adulthood. Moreover, the faction leader's troops get replenished automatically.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Well as I recall, when Banquo's Ghost posted his Cuman epic in the Main Hall last year, quite a few of his Khans and their sons/brothers were of less than stellar quality at first. He often had to do quite a bit of battling and building to get their stats and traits up to something more worthy of their stature.

To my recollection, they were awful and even when building them up, often returned to awfulness. You do get quite a lot of them though (I think there was only one Khan who failed to breed a football team) and so judicious thinning is an option.

There was a couple of generations of elephant philanderers, which is always distressing for one's influence in European courts.

[Maloncanth]

I haven't noticed anything yet with my Cumans. What I HAVE noticed is that the AI's hate you. A lot. You're the HRE of the East and you don't get the sort of generalship of the Byzantines. That said, you don't get anything stellar either. I've been mostly dealing with 3-stars and 1-feathers.

[Bill Westwater]

Ive played quite a few campaigns on high as the Cumans, and the range of heirs is usually around 3 or 4, but quite often there is a 5 or a 6 star in there too. It is not vital to have heirs with high command because they have to fight numerous battles and it is quite easy for them to gain stars. On the other hand there is nothing more frustrating than to see within a couple of turns, two or more heirs come down with unhinged loon or always drunk. Things do tend to even themselves out though. There is nearly always at least one 4 star, which is acceptable.

[Roark]

There was a couple of generations of elephant philanderers, which is always distressing for one's influence in European courts.

I found that my Cuman rulers had an inordinately low influence, despite me conquering the Russkies, Kievans, Lithuanians, and Volga-Bulgars (and taking all of their lands, obviously) in damn short order.

Every time I had a succession, my heir would inherit the throne with no more than 3 stars of influence, despite owning everything from Poland to Georgia and North on the continental mainland. Didn't seem fair, to be honest.

Is it perhaps a hard-coding thing to represent how reviled pagans were in this period?

In my Genoese campaign, as a comparison, my heir inherited and rose to succession with 4 influence, despite me owning far fewer provinces and his father NOT engaging in Crusades for quick influence plusses.

Weird...

[Kavhan Isbul]

I believe that the influence of a new ruler has little to do with the size of the Empire he inherits, but is claculated based on his stats - command, accumen, dread and piety. A high command heir to the throne usually gets a nice starting influence of 5 or even 6. Then of course, the higher the ruler's influence, the better his heirs turn out. Usually, the first heir that matures does so relatively early during a ruler's reign, when the ruler has been unable to gain influence. It is a problem for all factions that do not start with a high command ruler, but as Pagans the Cumans cannot gain influence from Crusades and Jihads, which makes their royal line a bit harder to maintain.

[King of Bavaria]

In my current Cuman campaign (early, highest difficulty, it's around 1140), I didn't really noticed a "cr@p heir"-problem. The six princes had only one really bad one (1 star etc.), three decent (3-4 stars, 3 acumen), and two good ones (4-5 stars, 4 acumen, no real bad vices).
And my 8 influence Khan was followed by an 18 year old 5 influence heir.

I really like the Cumans, although the AI REALLY hates them. My initial plan was to conquer only some provinces, and turtle until the Horde arrives, but everyone attacks me, even if my army would easily kill every single soldier in a couple of years.
For example, the Byzantines lost Constantinople to the Egyptians. But instead of taking it back (what would have been possible in my eyes), they prefered to attack Wallachia! (Wallachia instead of Con. !!! ).

Now I will have to conquer nearly the whole east and have to finish off the Horde alone.

But the Cumans are nevertheless very nice to play. I prefer to use cavalry heavy armies (CHC, Steppe Heavies, horse archers and Steppe C./Wall. Merc. Cav ) supported by Baschkorts, Cuman warriors and Varangian Swordsmen.
I did never had any real problems in battle.
Even the financial situation isn't that worse any more, having conquered Hungary, parts of Poland, Kiev, Lituania.

[Roark]

Could someone give me the training reqs for Varangian Swordsmen?

[Kavhan Isbul]

Could someone give me the training reqs for Varangian Swordsmen?

Kiev and Novgorod only, 2nd level swordsmith (which requires castle).

[Roark]

Thanks brah.

[Maloncanth]

Just as an update, I can't say there's much of a crap heir problem anymore. Certainly not inbred (which is the only one that REALLY hurts). Having built up an influence 9 khan, I'm now getting 8-star princes although even the best of them can barely read or count but considering the starting khan has 0 feathers, I can't say that's entirely unexpected. Their rulers are about as good as one expects and their troops valor up way more than any faction I've played. I've got at least one unit of solid 10 CHC's that will smash right through anything.

And the AI's hate you and continue hating you throughout the game which in a way, I guess balances the amazing quality of their heavy cavalry. Two on one battles were almost routine at one point but their horse is often good enough to smash one side to pieces and send their stuff running before the second half even arrives. Unfortunately, their need to constantly fight turns into a pretty vicious cycle and I'm going to have to face down the horde alone too. I have no clue how the hell I'm going to do that considering that they have Koreans and I do not, but the steppes are good farmland so I've been building heavily upgraded castles all over the place in the hopes of wearing them down in assaults.

Does anyone know if the Cumans gain anything with High/Late and hence whether I should be building level three military structures? Obviously they were historically destroyed by the Mongols, but eh, who knows. They particularly lack a decent form of spears and Varangians are terribly expensive to fight the horde on flat ground with. I already had some problems with a Turkish revival that came loaded with four stacks of heavy cavalry and I know the Mongols are going to be six or seven times worse.


EDIT: Oh crud, the Varangians went out at High, I thought they'd go away in Late. Guess I really WILL have to meet the Mongols horse for horse.

[Martok]

Does anyone know if the Cumans gain anything with High/Late and hence whether I should be building level three military structures? Obviously they were historically destroyed by the Mongols, but eh, who knows. They particularly lack a decent form of spears and Varangians are terribly expensive to fight the horde on flat ground with. I already had some problems with a Turkish revival that came loaded with four stacks of heavy cavalry and I know the Mongols are going to be six or seven times worse.

I've not really played the Cumans in XL, but IIRC I don't think they get any new units after the Early period. You might try PM'ing Banquo's Ghost to make sure, however -- his Cuman campaign went into the Late period, so he can probably tell you one way or the other.

[Maloncanth]

Right. Well, it's nothing urgent now as the defense against the horde turned out much better than I expected it would, thanks to the enormous valor and command stars I had to throw behind my CHC's, proving that really, nothing can stop those things properly used. I smashed the horde to pieces with my magic horses at Volga Bulgaria and actually managed to send them into a withdrawal, resulting in about three thousand dead (I slaughtered the prisoners) and an additional fourteen hundred captured because they had nowhere to retreat to as it was the first wave.

They took Khazar proper with twenty stacks naturally (never intended to hold that) but for some reason, when I fought them at Lesser Khazar (again, just smashing everything solid apart) after I killed the Khan there was no heir and the entire horde just stopped dead in its tracks in Khazar and Georgia on its second turn. My lines of static defenses remained largely untested though they did pay dearly for the upgraded castle at Khazar.

The only problem of course, is what to do about the stacks of rebel horde. Since this is XL, I don't really have the money to buy them all. :p