Size of the Golden Horde

[Lord Cazaric]

I've played several games where I've held Khazar in 1230 and had to face the onslaught of the Golden Horde. In one of them, there were up to 20 (possibly more) full banners of soldiers.

Yet in my current game, as the Almohads, I sent an emissary to Khazar just to see how the People of Novgorod would fare in their defence. I was surprised when the Golden Horde only attacked Khazar with two banners of soldiers.

I would like to know - what determines the size of the Horde's army?

[Martok]

I would like to know - what determines the size of the Horde's army?

It's mostly determined by the size of the garrison defending Khazar and the other provinces where the Mongols appear -- the larger the garrison, the larger the Horde.

I *think* the difficulty level factors in as well, but don't quote me on that.

[Roark]

If you have the VI expansion installed, the numbers are significantly larger, too.

[Martok]

If you have the VI expansion installed, the numbers are significantly larger, too.

Oh, definitely! In vanilla MTW, it was pretty rare in my games for the Horde to show up with more than 15,000 men. Usually it was even less than that, around 4000-8000. With VI installed, I don't think I've ever seen the Mongols appear with less than 20,000 men, and they usually start with over 30,000 now (at least in my campaigns).

[edyzmedieval]

They don't have Camels. Thus, they do not count.

[The Unknown Guy]

But they have huge moustaches. And unless you´re a border power in the east, they kill your enemies. So, the more, the better. If you can invade Georgia or other GH emergence province, improve it, and keep a huge garrison to strenghten their numbers when they emerge, so much for the better: you withdraw, keep your troops, and, hopefully, get instapeace by losing the border once you withdraw the ship. And maybe afterwards you can ally up with them

[Caliburn]

Well, they kill your enemies, but in the future you'll have to fight endless, similar battles as you conquer the Horde's area. I'll rather fight the Byzantines for example.

[The Unknown Guy]

The Byzantines take GA points. The Golden Horde doesn´t. Hence I like to encourage GH and Papal expansion at the expense of competitors in the GA race. Plus, the Golden Horde tends to be somewhat ephimeral, even when it doesn´t exahust itself çuickly. In a Byzantium game I abandoned last week, they carved out a somewhat stable empire in Russia, meaning they had a decent sized army, good infrastructure, and many heirs, so I kept them as allies. They lasted about 80 years as strong. Then they started having trouble holding Kiev from poles and russians, and at the same time the Russians started getting their northern provinces. About that time they suffered a serious setback in their Russian war, and a Civil war, which left them with just Georgia (I got tired about this point because my war with Egypt was becoming long and pointless. The Egyptians did not want peace despite being pushed back over and over -in long battles against huge numbers of troops- and suffering civil wars, and I, on the other hand, yearnend to be able to forget them and turn my offensive to the west, taking Naples, Sicily, and Malta in a succesion, which provides you with a very safe and very profittable place from which to strike at the rest of Europe, but couldn´t because my fleets and offensive armies were occupied with nullifying the Egyptian navy and razing their coastal provinces)

Speaking of GA points: isn´t the number of GA points the russians get by conçuest too hyped, specially since they already have a number of grand achievement missions which other factions, such as Sicily, Byzantium, or Poland lack(notice that all these get a paltry number of GA points for conçuest) and many of their surrounding territories are Rebel? even the golden horde doesn´t account for them, as despite some initial defeats, they tend to vançuish it and take their lands (In every single game I´ve played I´ve seen them do it. The only difference was "when)

[Deus ret.]

Speaking of GA points: isn´t the number of GA points the russians get by conçuest too hyped, specially since they already have a number of grand achievement missions which other factions, such as Sicily, Byzantium, or Poland lack(notice that all these get a paltry number of GA points for conçuest) and many of their surrounding territories are Rebel?

Yes, the number is high in any case, and provides a special challenge when starting in Late (see this thread). However this problem mainly exists in vanilla and isn't too much of an issue in those mods which include GA (XL, MedMod).

[The Unknown Guy]

(Switching to that thread to avoid pirating this one)

[gaiusjulii]

I have noticed that the golden Horde dont always hit just kazaar I have seen the horde arrive in syria and Muscovy and spread their forces pretty wide so maybe it seems there is less than there actually is