How to avoid hordes

[Morty]

I remember when I was a noob to hordes and after experiencing my first one I swore that the next faction would not horde...

Plan of Doom@tm: I focused on family members until the only ones left over were in the in the last settlement then I sieged and sacked... Bingo a horde

Ok I need to use better "stratergery". http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...rm=stratergery

The next faction had all its family members in that factions last holding. After reviewing the "tapes" (read: reloaded turn with fow off) from faction #2's demise I came to the conclusion that the reason the 2nd faction horded was due to the fact that some harlot offspring from the factions family was out roaming around. Which in fact meant that not all the family were in the last holding...

Plan of Doom@tm take 2: Recruit many spies & diplomats and track down any hussies that might be roaming the continent. Once found, create an assasssin and handle the problem. THEN take out the last settlement. Yep you guessed it... Bingo a horde

You can kill off every single agent, family member, standing army, garrison and settlement of a faction but they will STILL horde. Unless you know of a few certain methods... Muahahaha

First off princesses are not part of the problem. Its all about the number and location of their last settlements and their last male family members. You have to kill/assassinate every single last family member in one turn AND "they still have to have at least one settlement". This last settlement will go rebel but the garrison is usually wimpy in comparison to other rebel held settlements.

Bait and Switch: Bait their family members from hiding behind walls by stationing an army in the province but out of 1 turn attack range. This army has to be wimpy enough to invite the cowards to attack/siege you. For those provinces that are too small to allow this leaving behind almost no garrison in a neighboring settlement works as well. Once the bait is taken perform the switch by moving an overwhelming Army of Doom@tm you had covering stack 1/settlement 1 into range and handle them.

Crouching Tiger: While performing family member annihilation methods on the faction, create an army that has at least 2 ballista+ (depends on what level his walls are really) in it along with some wall taker types. This army does not have to be full strength. It must be within 1 turn move range of the settlement you want to perform the coup de grace with though. Alternatively 2 very good spies vs. ballista works as well since they will 100% open the gates for you.

Patience Grasshoppa: At times you will be afforded the luxury of a really old opposing faction leader. Use this to your advantage by waiting for him to die of natural causes. Then launching your own Plan of Doom into action.

Assassination: Assassins = good. More = better. They will have a very slim chance to take out heirs, not recommended, but a decent chance at "regular" family members. Leaders are out of the question. An assassins chances are based off the targets highest stat rating, for generals its their command rating + any anti spy/assassin trait he might have. Kill their high command generals with normal methods and use the assassins for the newbies that invariably replace them. Easy pickings

Coup de Grace: Try to save 2 settlements of the faction alive. Use the above methods to remove any family members from one settlement without taking the settlement. When there are non left in it you are free to peform the coup de grace by sieging his other settlement in 1 turn with your crouching tiger.

By using a combination of these methods you can easily kill 3+ family members in 1 turn, ensuring a small factions (2 provinces or less) demise, but most importantly ensuring there will be no subsequent horde. All family members dead + the faction controls at least 1 settlement = no horde.

Morty

[Leonnidas]

I always use the my elite assassins to eliminate the indesirable family mambers.

[Sarkiss]

all this horde business sounds very annoying... i wish only nomad factions could horde.

[Taiji]

I fight hordes and I enjoy it. I really don't get why someone would deliberately try to avoid it, but each to their own I suppose...

The same goes for the garrison script, trying to avoid it firing seems a bit... lame.

The dark ages on the other hand... that's not a challenge that's just rape. Losing your entire family in a couple of turns is worth trying to avoid.

[Kjertesvein]

Ahhh I love hordes!

Horde as a weapon:
You play as France, and your enemy Spain, is a hard nut to crack. This is what you do:
Battle any light weight faction, like Flanders and make sure they have 1 settlement left. Send in a raiding party in the heart of Spain. Capture it and give it to Flanders. The next turn, you take down the last Flemish provinces in north western europe.
Now, all the flemish forces will march to their last stronghold aka. capitol in spain. Even if the Spanish armada defeat the new Flemish capitol, all the Flemish forces will focus on Iberia.

This is what happening to me, right now, I'm playing as Norway. I gave the Crusaders a Baltic castle. Then, their orginal capital in Levant got caputered by the turks. Their new Baltic capitol went rebel and they all horded. Where? Yes, in my back yard(the baltic castle). I'm now their neighbour and had to feel the pain of 4 combined stacks. One of those are a full stack of mounted knights...

[Xtiaan72]

Morty,


You should make some contributions to the SGFNPS man!

[Morty]

If you look at all the effort it takes to avoid a horde and time it, those methods actually take longer, and cost more (due to the time sink) than just a straight forward march on their last settlement with 2 stacks. One stack for his last settlement and the other to take on the ensuing horde.

I personally dislike hordes not for their PITA factor but that they are illogical to me.

In regards to the garrison script not firing. Is this what you are talking about? Example: If I siege a large town with 20 units in it, typically town and spear militia types, the garrison will not be created unless there is room in the town for them to "arrive". In a full town I would like the garrison to arrive but next to the besieged town, or failing that, for the AI to disband the wimpy units to make room for the more robust units. Garrison script makes sense to me and I've come to enjoy them. Frankly I wish the garrison script could be tweaked to make it a tad harder.

I also play alot of RTS (Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Dawn of War etc.) games and I wish programmers could make AI's that actually perform at different levels vs. what 95% of them do, which is to scale the AI's economy & production up or down depending.

I've come to learn that making a game "harder" actually means make the game more and more economic centric vs. better peforming battles or strategic moves. I wonder if those chess game guys could enhance RTS's and turn based strategy games.

Morty

[Snipe]

I dont mind the hordes personally, it adds that something extra you need to think about when destroying a faction. And a little more challemge when blitzing the smaller ones

[Harry Lime]

There is a really easy way to avoid hordes, you know. Just remove the horde entries in descr_sm_factions. Back the file up before doing this

[Morty]

There is a really easy way to avoid hordes, you know. Just remove the horde entries in descr_sm_factions. Back the file up before doing this

Schweet!!!

Morty

[Desley]

i always attack them with all my troops and lose...

[Morty]

i always attack them with all my troops and lose...

Know thy enemy and come prepared.

Every single horde I've faced has at least one Stack of Doom@tm. This stack has lots of heavy cavalry. Typically 2-4 generals bodyguard + 1-2 named generals + 1-3 of that factions best heavy cavalry type and of course some elite infantry and a couple of that factions best missile units to round out the stack.

Knowing this, bring lots of your best spear types and units that can deploy stakes if you want a infantry based army. If you use an infantry centric army to fight them let them come to you. Play defensively and watch your rear, especially if your using BB 2.2. The BB 2.2 AI will definately avoid stakes and flank/rear charge you.

Alternatively bring your own horde of cavalry.

Morty

[Taiji]

My favorite horde fight is when I play Venice and try to kill Milan off before 1200. The milanese horde is seriously horrific and I usually only have militia and peasant archers to cope with them.

I literally bring 3 armies to the battle and expect to lose 2. The last time I tried it, my first army (2800+ men, ai controlled) to make contact got annihilated in a single charge by the famiglia ducale. I managed to arrive in time to make use of the destruction of my second ai army. In all I lost over 5000 men (even after healing) in a single battle, fantastic!