Steppe hordes

Horde ideas

Notes:

For steppe nomads.

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Traditions:

−10% Aggressive expansion impact

−5 Years of separatism

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The Life of a Steppe Warrior

−20% Land attrition

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Traditions of the Great Khan

+20% Cavalry combat ability

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Horse Supplies

−5% Land maintenance modifier

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Steppe Leaders

+1 Land leader shock

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The Tradition of Conquest

−25% Core-creation cost

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Logistics of the Khan

+20% Manpower recovery speed

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The Glory of Conquest

+25% National manpower modifier

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Ambition:

−10% Stability cost modifier

Steppe hordes are countries that use Steppe Nomads government reform. All hordes are located in the territory of the former Mongol Empire and are essentially successor states to it. These nations usually have a large number of low development provinces with steppe and desert terrain, which makes peacefully increasing their development costly. Steppe hordes have access to a variety of horde-specific mechanics added with Patch 1.14 along with the Cossacks DLC, such as several unique casus belli, succession crises, horde unity, razing and significant bonuses to cavalry and warfare in general.

General information

In 1444, the steppe nomads are the preeminent military powers of Central Asia and southern Russia. Their military units have more pips than those of their sedentary neighbors and, thanks to their government type, they have a high cavalry to infantry ratio. This makes them well suited for early warfare, whether for money from looting and war reparations or for new territory. However, they will quickly lose their advantage as neighboring countries develop and build on their more valuable province and embrace institutions, which are more likely to spawn and better able to spread in provinces that aren't controlled by hordes.

Government

Main article: Steppe Nomads

Most of the hordes' unique features derive from the Steppe Nomad government reform, which has the following effects:

• +20% National manpower modifier
• +20% Land force limit modifier
• −5 Years of separatism
• +50% Looting speed
• −15% Institution spread
• +20% Movement speed
• −50% Reinforce cost
• +25% Cavalry to infantry ratio

• Always have casus belli on neighbors: Tribal Feud (a targeted conquest CB against fellow hordes) and Tribal Conquest (a superiority CB as powerful as Holy War against everyone else) below.
• Bonus +25% or penalty −25% to damage in the shock phase of combat depending on whether the terrain is flat or not. See Steppe shock bonus below.
• With The Cossacks DLC, use horde unity instead of legitimacy, and may raze non-core owned provinces for monarch power and loot.
• Can reform the government to become an a Monarchy, a Republic or a Theocracy via the governmental reform mechanics

Horde unity

Horde nations have horde unity instead of legitimacy. Like legitimacy, horde unity provides scaling bonuses when it is above 50 and penalties below:

Variable	0%	50%	100%
National unrest	+2	0	−2
Discipline	−5%	0	+5%

Horde unity is gained and lost as follows:

• Base −2 per year
• −0.01 per 2 total development the country owns, limited to −3
• Tribes estate Loyalty below 30:
  • Influence below 20: −1 yearly
  • Influence at least 20 but less than 40: −2 yearly
  • Influence at least 40 but less than 60: −3 yearly
  • Influence at least 60: −4 yearly
• Looting: +1 per 4 ducats looted
• Razing: +1 per 2 points of province development before razing
• +0.1 yearly per point Revanchism (+10 at 100)
• +0.005 yearly per point of power projection (+0.5 at 100)

Several ideas and polices increase horde unity:

	Traditions	Ideas	Bonuses	Policies
+1.0	—	Golden Horde idea 1: Legacy of the Golden Horde Ilkhanid idea 1: Restored Ilkhanate Manchu idea 4: The Later Jin Oirat idea 3: The Four Oirats Timurid idea 4: Chagatai Literature	—	Administrative-Aristocratic: The Licensing of the Press Act Diplomatic-Plutocratic: Mandatory Service
+0.5	—	Jurchen idea 2: The Queue	—	—

With Rights of Man DLC enabled, hordes can gain horde unity in exchange for military power by strengthening the government on the Government tab. Spending 100 military power will increase horde unity by 10.

Horde ideas

Hordes have access to the Horde idea group instead of the Aristrocratic idea group. It combines several of the bonuses from the Humanist idea group with bonuses more typical of military idea groups.

Diplomacy

Casus belli

Steppe hordes have access to two unique casus belli: Tribal Conquest and Tribal Feud. Neither requires claims on an opponent, and neither gives unjustified demands penalties for conquering unclaimed provinces.

Tribal Conquest

Main article: Tribal Conquest

Steppe hordes automatically gain this casus belli on all neighboring countries other than steppe hordes.

Using this casus belli has the following effects: 75% aggressive expansion, 100% prestige and 100% warscore cost for:

• All provinces
• Monetary reparations
• Enforced vassalage
• Enforced tributary state

Ticking warscore is based on battles won; if one side gains over 10% warscore from winning battles then the wargoal will start ticking in their favor. This can be quite useful in the first few decades of the game due to the early strength of nomadic units.

Tribal Feud

Main article: Tribal Feud

Steppe hordes automatically gain this casus belli on all neighboring steppe hordes. Using this casus belli has the following effects: 75% aggressive expansion, 100% prestige and 100% warscore cost for:

• All provinces
• Monetary reparations
• Enforced vassalage
• Enforced tributary state

The casus belli targets a specific province and ticking warscore is based on control of that province.

Tributaries

Main article: Tributary

Steppe hordes, like nations with Eastern religions and the Emperor of China, have access to a special form of subject type called tributaries. Tributaries retain full diplomatic independence and may start wars and have subjects of their own. The overlord receives a call to arms if the tributary is attacked (unless if by another tributary of the same overlord), but does not have to accept.

Each year, the overlord may demand a tribute of money, manpower, or monarch points. If the tributary pays the tribute, trust increases slightly; if it refuses, trust falls significantly. Either party may renounce the tributary status at will, unless they have a truce.

Tributaries are one of the most powerful parts of a horde world conquest: They take zero aggressive expansion (so fewer coalitions), can core the land their overlord has just razed, and can provide any one of ducats, manpower or monarch points as directed by their overlord.

Hence, with the Tribal Conquest CB that offers zero diplomatic cost for all provinces, the player can demand the target to (1) release the smallest nation, (2) take maximum cash (25% war score) and war reparations (10% war score) as one's loss making horde economy will need it (3) take maximum land (4) immediately make the newly released nation a tributary, then (5) keep all provinces with trade modifiers (i.e. estuary or center of trade) for oneself, destroy enemy forts (for easier conquest next time) and only then raze all these non-cored provinces and hand them to the newly released tributary (they'll hate one for razing their cores, but they are already tributaries) (6) when the razing cool down is done, one can break tributary status and raze them again.

Economy

Hordes are tough to play for beginners as they have little income to speak of in the beginning. All their land is typically low development (high development in fact causes horde unity loss up to a maximum of 3 units per year) and they generally earn no real economic bonuses from their traditions or national ideas.

Therefore, in the beginning, continual warfare is typically required to extract maximum cash (25% war score) and war reparations (10% war score) from all their victims in order to offset the massive negative cash flows they are bound to suffer each month from maintaining a powerful army and fleet and probably from servicing huge loan interest.

With the Tributary strategy as outlined above in the Tributary section one will achieve two critical strategic foundations over a long time:

1. Trade dominance: the player will dominate each trade node as one will own the key trade provinces in each node while having razed the other provinces in that node. In fact, with Wealth of Nations or Dharma, a country receives +1 merchant for each trade company where the directly owned provinces allocated to that trade company make up more than 50% trade power in that node (for this calculation other trade bonuses are ignored).
2. Powerful home economy base: the player is advised to use all the mana points razed from their enemies elsewhere to develop a high development, home culture, same religion home node. The same culture and religion will mitigate penalties to their income generated at home, while the contiguous high development provinces neighbouring one other around trade provinces will spread institutions quickly once the player has spawned them there through focused province development.

Once established, this home node income and the trade income will ensure any cash concessions from victims will be a bonus that can be applied to building as many manufactories (for trade and production income) and soldier's households (for manpower) in one's home node as one can.

Military

Units

Steppe hordes belong to the Nomad technology group. This technology group provides access to strong cavalry units in the early game, with their effectiveness relative to those of other tech groups decreasing later on. Steppe hordes' units will change to Eastern tech if Christian, Muslim tech if Muslim, or Chinese tech if Eastern.

Uniquely, nomads enjoy a +25% Cavalry to infantry ratio, meaning they can maintain a higher number of cavalry regiments within an army before suffering from the insufficient support penalty (provided they can afford the maintenance). Combined with an extra +25% Cavalry to infantry ratio for being Tengri (for eastern hordes) or the additional +10% Cavalry to infantry ratio for being Sunni (for western hordes), it makes for very cavalry-oriented nations.

Tengri hordes (with no syncretic faith) can therefore comprise 100% cavalry, requiring no infantry, and therefore no concerns about insufficient support. This makes merging units after battles very easy. Tied to bonuses for attrition, manpower, manpower recovery and cheaper reinforcement costs it makes Tengri hordes some of the most powerful in the early to mid game. Once cannons add pips from the back row (from tech 13 and certainly from tech 16) the lack of defensive pips on cavalry make them significantly less effective from that point forward.

Steppe shock bonus

On provinces with flat terrain, hordes receive a 25% increase in damage during the shock phase. Positively affected terrain includes Plains, Steppe, Farmlands, Grasslands, Drylands, Coastal desert, Desert and Savannah. However, on provinces with no flat terrain (Hills, Mountains, Highlands, Forest, Woods, Coastline (non-desert) and Marsh), hordes receive a 25% decrease in damage during shock phase. Hordes receive the bonus/penalty whether they are attacking or defending. In a battle between two hordes, they both receive the bonus/penalty.

Razing

Hordes can raze uncored and owned provinces for monarch points at the cost of development in that province. Razing a province:

• Provides all the remaining loot in the province and increases its devastation by 10%
• Lowers the province's development in each category by approximately 1 for every 3 development in that category above 1 before razing (rounded up)
• Provides 25 monarch points in the respective category for every point of development razed, reduced by 1 for every level in military technology above 3, capped at military technology 23 (5 monarch points per point of development razed).
• Provides 1 horde unity for every 2 points of development in the province before razing, regardless of the amount razed
• Decreases opinion of former owner by -25

Once razed, a province cannot be razed again for 20 years.

Total province development cannot be brought lower than 3, meaning that provinces with 1 development in each category cannot be razed at all.

For example, razing Venezia (10/12/5), with total development 27, at military technology 11, would lower its development to 7/8/3, and provide 51, 68, and 34, plus 13 horde unity and any loot remaining.

Razing power gain

There are a few modifiers in the game which further affect the monarch points gained from razing.

	Events	Government reforms	Estates / Religion	Policies
+33%	—	Barbaric Despoilers Tier 5 Tribal government reform	—	Horde−Economic: To The Ground
+20%	Horde idea group event: Blue Dragon Horde idea group event: White Tiger Tribes estate event: Return to the Old Ways	—	Being Tengri and having Nahuatl or Iconoclast as your syncretic faith	—
-25% to -100%	—	—	Disloyal Tribes estate based on influence Level	—

List of hordes

Below is a comprehensive list of all the hordes that appear in the game. Not all hordes, however, appear in the start year 1444.

Some noteworthy hordes are:

• Jianzhou which starts fairly powerful and is centrally placed to form Manchu and subsequently Qing. Unfortunately forming Qing changes a steppe horde to a monarchy.
• Possibly the most powerful path for easy world conquests (comparable to a Mughal run, or an Austria with revoke privilegia vassal swarm), is Oirat which has special bonuses when fighting Ming early on and can form Yuan while remaining as a horde (assuming Ming is fully destroyed before reforming) and then becoming the Mongol Empire.
• Another is Crimea which can take the Byzantium cores and then release Byzantium as a vassal. The player can then play as the released vassal which will start as a tribe with its final reform being the option to become a horde, a Byzantium Orthodox Horde. This route combines the powerful Byzantium mission tree to form Rome, with probably the most powerful religion in the game as well as the powerful horde razing mechanic. Notably, such an orthodox horde would be able to marry Christian monarchs to form personal unions.

Astrakhan
1459

Bashkiria
1444

Chagatai
1444

Chahar
revolter

Crimea
1444

Dzungar
1635

Golden Horde
Formable

Great Horde
1444

Haixi
1444

Jianzhou
1444

Kara Del
1444

Kazakh
1465

Kazan
1444

Khalkha
1636

Khoshuud
1638

Korchin
1444

Manchu
1616 (Formable)

Mongolia
1444

Nogai
1444

Oirat
1444

Qasim
1452

Sarig Yogir
1444

Sibir
1468

Uzbek
1444

Xibe
1444

Achievements

I'll graze my horse here.. And here...

As a Horde, own over 200 provinces producing grain.

Pyramid of Skulls

As a Steppe Horde, raze a province with at least 30 development.

Tatarstan

As Kazan or Nogai, own all Tatar culture group lands.

The Great Khan

As the Mongol Khanate or the Golden Horde, own or have a subject own the Chinese, Russian and Persian regions.

Turning the Tide

Start as a Steppe Horde in 1444 and embrace all institutions.

Gold Rush

Reform the Golden Horde before 1500.

Mechanics

Customization

Nation designer • Random New World

Ages and Institutions

Ages • Institutions

Innovativeness and Technology

Innovativeness • Technology

Defense

Fort • Zone of control