Cuman Help (VH/VH)

[Vaz]

Hi guys, just wondering if I could have a bit of help. I've played the Cumans once through on E/E just to try it out, and did well. However, I tried VH/VH, and within 17 turns, was destroyed, the Khwarezmi, Kiev, Novgorods and Seljuks ganging up on me, and unable to get the trade up quick enough.

Just wondering if I could have a bit of help on getting this empire running - I understand that they get Cash Boosts while as AI, but they do so successfully otherwise, it's hard to see where I can improve.

[Staffen]

To be honest: as far as the Cumans go I don't have a clue. There's hardly any (early game) potential in either their units, generals, location or territory that can lead them to greatness, IMHO.

[Kazuhiro]

What campaign are you playing, and with what submods?
With RC or BYG's mod, the Cumans are impossible unless you go late campaign, when their better units come up.
Dismounted Cuman Nobles and cossack gunners are fantastic units, but in most other categories you will be bested.

If you're using normal ss 6.1 they are still a tough faction, but do-able.
I would not recommend cumans on HARD unless you're a very good player.

[Vaz]

Haha, looks like I better start again then

What factions should give me a challenge? I don't want to play any of the potential superpowers - so no HRE, Khwarezm, Fatimids or Seljuks - but would enjoy trying out some others

[Kazuhiro]

Norway, Sicily, and Portugal are my personal favorites. They dont start off strong, but they have awesome units.

[Misery]

Try some of the less played, Hungary, Poland, Aragon, Moors can be hard but fun, Lithuania was most fun for me.

[Vaz]

Norway, Sicily, and Portugal are my personal favorites. They dont start off strong, but they have awesome units.

Sicily? I've heard bad things about Norman Knights - unless that's just the AI?

I'm thinking of giving Poland a go - Poor Infantry and Horse/Light Cavalry at the start sounds good for me Thanks for your help guys - a mod can close this if they wish

[Kazuhiro]

Misery's idea is a good one. Lithuania has the same feel as the cumans, being pagan, and you get crusades thrown on you. It's a real challenge.

Sicily? I've heard bad things about Norman Knights - unless that's just the AI?

I'm thinking of giving Poland a go - Poor Infantry and Horse/Light Cavalry at the start sounds good for me Thanks for your help guys - a mod can close this if they wish

Norman knights don't have a problem, except maybe the ai script spawns them every two turns or so. They are actually a terrific unit that you get early on.

[meese]

Norman Knights and Dismounted Norman Knights are typically better than anything when they're first made available and are still very effective when the more heavily armoured knights start appearing. I know in 6.2 and presumably the latest RR/RC, they have higher attack and morale than Chivalric Knights, for example, and are available much earlier. Plus they look better!

[cedric37]

Lithuania is a big challenge i confirm (just read my post and you can see the difficulty is here^^), and i once played kievan rus for great fun too (and i could build an immense empire with my kievan palace guards who are unstoppable). Kwarezm in late is also a big challenge as you are already at war with mongols and turcs are not very friendly... not speaking of jerusalem kingdom. But once you can make peace and ally mongols, you have very good units (ghuuullaaammmms !!!!!) and you can conquer the rest of the world quite easily ^^
Also Venice/Genoa/Sicily may be fun as you have to fight against many factions that would like to control the big 5 in italy.
One of my greatest fun was to play as the teutons... you have not that much power at start and East is (very) poor. I crushed lithuania then kievan rus and finally novgorod at start. Then i turned on scandinavia and conquered it, then i conquered Cumans territory and at the same time send armies on crusade in egypt and took most big cities there including jerusalem (= lot of cash). After that i could turn on kwarezm and mongols and defeated them.

[Caesar Clivus]

Cumans are getting an overhaul in the next RR/RC release

[Vaz]

Ooh you tease. SS = Good, RC/RR = Good, SS/RC/RR = Very Good =)

[Point Blank]

Its out today

[HighLord z0b]

Cool, can't wait to try them in the new RR/RC compilation.

As far as Cumans on SS 6.1 VH/VH, here's some advice:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...an#post3644763

[Petar]

My main problem playing with cumans is economy.. just one advice - don't rush south of Caucasus, aim for the Black Sea trade routes as the mainland cuman regions can't sustain enough troops. This can give you more than enough funding to wipe Kiev and Asia Minor later. As for diplomacy, Try having the Mongols and Novgorod rus as allies, as well as the Byzantines. Used this strategy on my second try and it ended up pretty well...

[RollingWave]

I had a campaign a while back where I basically took everythign up to the baltics , destroyed the Kiev Rus and Novagods, and were starting to make head ways against Lithunia and landing in Sweden.

The key to playing the Cumans

1. RUSH! : you start out with nearly nothing, but also no one would really bother comming at you since you have nothing. so rush foward, I generally pick on the Russians. it makes more sense due to your style of warfare which...

2. play horse archers the right way! : Read, you should deploy 100% horse archers on EVERY field battle. ALWAYS, (except for your generals guard of course) . this is the Cumans' advantage. take use of it, their basic horse archers require just a basic temple to build, and cost very little for a fairly effective HA. take advantage of that, in battle, just group your HAs into several different group and run circles around your enemies until ALL your shots run out, keep your generals with your high star light HAs and/or heavy HAs, they are your reserve charge troops when necessary. (usually my biggest problem are seige engines) lose formation, keep running, shoot from all sides, keep them from being able to charge at any particular direction.

3. Avoid seige like a plague : because of 2. you should NEVER assualt a stone walled city. and you should generally avoid defending it too! keep your field troops IN THE FIELD as much as possible. leave the little infantries you have at the city, if your seiged, come back with your field army and force a battle outside or reseige the city if it got taken.

Generally, the Kwarz have no real interest in going after you, so an early alliance is quiet possible, the Turks might get into the mix eventually, but again try to stay diplomatic with them. going deep into the mid east is not what you want to do. your goal should be to head for the baltics, where you can a. get sea trade and b. leave enough strategic room for the Mongols. something you can't do if your whole region is on the west edge of the map.

Crusades shouldnt' be a huge problem until after you destroyed all the Russians and start playing with the Poles . your never going to have particularly big armies, but a couple of elite HA army is simply devastating in the right hand on the field .

Remeber, the key to HA is
A. always shoot at flanks / rear if possible. shooting at front should be only a lure, the real damage happens when you shoot from the side /rear . it also disrupt their formation badly if they have units going every direction.

B. pace your self! if enemies are firing back with their own HA and archers, go into loose and start running! you wont take a whole lot of damage this way. if they're commign with their melee guys just run away, and seperate them from their range guys, then you can just overrun them with your other groups of HAs, now they have no range power at all, you can just start trotting and only run if they get really close. another trick is that by this time, say if you have 3 group of HAs , then run circls aroudn them with 2, and have the 3rd just hold fire (or just move out of range) and REST. rotate with the 3 group, when your TOTALLY out of arrows , you should have 3 group of pretty fresh horsemans versus their COMPLETELY exhausted melee. a charge (from all sides) should rout them.

Basically, the thing to remember about the Cuman is that DEFENSE DOESN'T MATTER!, you can recruit men with very little infrastructure, just keep going and killing, if your really running up against a huge army just retreat . if you can't retreat, then focus on luring out and destorying their cavalry and then keep running circles around the map until time runs out. NEVER let your main field army get caught inside a seige. if you pull this adequetly you should pretty quickly have SEVERAL ENTIRE ARMIES of GOLD STAR HAs. which would be virtually unstopabble in the open. Never risk your main HA army for a city , let them have the city and just reseige it. Remember that out in the open Russian plains , NO ONE should be able to beat you with a field army.

[RollingWave]

To elaborate a bit more, there is basically only 2 units you need, the Cuman HAs, and the Cuman nobles,

Cuman HA: the beauty of this unit is that it can be build in ANY town, it's building req is amazing, either a basic shrine or a basic stable, which means that almost any low level town can chunk these out, that you can chunk them in a couple of turn after taking any city. and never really worry about running out. The Cumans start out with plenty of towns (4 or 5 IIRC with a few other that you can take quickly) and none are in any immenent danger of being hit, so it is more than concievable to form a full stack of HA after just a couple of turns.

Cuman Nobles: These are basically the basic HAs on roids, they aren't as easy to get, as they require a fair amount of buildup stable to acquire, but they really solve the one problem your normal HA have, H2H, they have a pretty solid armor piercing H2H attack, which is perfect for carving up those dumb generals that break away from their infantries in an effort to chase you.

So under your normal army, ideally you want

Your general (duh)
3-4 stacks of Cuman Nobles
the rest is all Cuman HAs.

obviously if your rich as hell then going all Cuman Nobles is great too. but unpractical. I generally like to seperate my army into 3 group, the key center (general + Nobles) and the two flanks (two group of light HAs)

In practice, the most common tactic when faced with the usually mixed army is to appraoch in loose foramtion (either with all 3 group of just the ligth HAs) and harrase them with arrows. If the enemies show no intention of moving (unlikely) then keep closing in and focuse on hitting the ranged (or generals) until they have a reaction . if they're ranged troop is so adequet that you will loose the shoot out and still have no chance of winning an all out charge. then considering disengaging. (unlikely though) remember to keep moving and try to hit their rears by moving the 3 groups in different directions.

In normal circumstances, their melee unit will start comming after you, particularly their cavs. in this case keep falling back, leave one group of HAs to harrase their infantry if you must. then just lure their heavy cavs so far away from their infantries while stil shooting them down in the process. when they're completely out of reach of their infantry and sufficently weakened, charge in first with your Noble / Generals and follow up with the light cavs if you must. you should be able to carve them to shredes

After you carve up their cavs. then the infantries is easy picking, just repeat the process and lure their melee away from their range. then charge and rip apart the range units. now all that's left are the melee. which should be morally devastated and exhausted to the point whre even a light cav charge will easily rout a dismounted knight.