Are the Cumans really worth playing with?

[Zenith_Zenith]

It always seems to me that the Cumans are very weak, have a horrible position (besides the fact that they are far from the rich territories), are pagan - which is hard for them if they want to conquer something, and the Independent Settlements allow them to expand in the beginning only north. Not to say that they have TOO FEW units.

I like the idea of having a faction that likes to use bows (mounted and foot) and to be in the early campaign, but the cumans just seem to me too... weak... and with too few units (non-AoR).

Does anybody have other opinion? Somebody who likes playing with the Cumans? perhaps he can convince me that it's worth playing with them after all.

[Asterix]

i created a favorite faction poll some time in the past and the cumans got 0 votes. I personally think that they should be axed in favor of a new middle eastern faction, b/c the cumans rarely do anything but sit around and conquer rebel settlements far away in areas of the map that don't concern most players. Yes, they are weak, but i don't think they were meant to be strong in the first place.

[Zenith_Zenith]

yeah, perhaps the SS team should do something about it: the Cumans are a faction for the players to play it, yet no one likes it!

[Mihajlo]

Try to play cumans on late camp. +gracul ai+bigGIV. Some interesting campaign could be there, if you like some challenge
But yes, I agree, perhaps remove them and get some other faction in game instead...

[Zenith_Zenith]

I'd rather like to see the cumans stronger, or with the potential to become a strong faction.

[ash874]

cants say you are wrong
since i never played cumans myself

but im not sure its because of the position or units
as far as units go the most fun i had in this game was to repel heavily armored lithuanian units with russian crappy starting units (the ones with the 1 1 1 stats)
and as far as strategic position the most fun i ever had was with the templars on 6.1 with 1 wooden fort a crappy army and the worst placement possible - between 3 juggernauts

no those things just make the game more interesting
i think its about the fact that you cant relate to the cumans
the same reason most of us (my personal assumption) dont play with the moors

so unless some tatars from russia will flood the forum this faction will be pretty much not used
but than again what can you do? another western european faction in central asia?

[Zenith_Zenith]

well, the moors seem very weak as well. at least if you compare it to Portugal, Spain, France and all of Europe. Besides that, I hate their color (that orange color), every time I played with them it seemed to me that I was in the middle of the desert, no matter what settlement I conquered, and because they are weaker than all the factions around make me feel that I play with some retards: the settlements that I conquer seem to degenerate rather than evolve.

I liked the idea with the cumans at first, but when I've seen how weak they are and how weak potential they had, I gave up. I like the idea to have strong mounted archers and strong foot archers, but you can recruit the good ones only later, they cost a lot of money to train and the upkeep and it lasts a lot of time until you can recruit them again. Besides the fact that they don't have good infantry AT ALL, and have to rely A LOT on AoR units (that is, units like tartars, that you can recruit only in certain places). And by the way, relying on mercenaries isn't nice either.

[Gigan]

well, the moors seem very weak as well. at least if you compare it to Portugal, Spain, France and all of Europe. Besides that, I hate their color (that orange color), every time I played with them it seemed to me that I was in the middle of the desert, no matter what settlement I conquered, and because they are weaker than all the factions around make me feel that I play with some retards: the settlements that I conquer seem to degenerate rather than evolve.

I liked the idea with the cumans at first, but when I've seen how weak they are and how weak potential they had, I gave up. I like the idea to have strong mounted archers and strong foot archers, but you can recruit the good ones only later, they cost a lot of money to train and the upkeep and it lasts a lot of time until you can recruit them again. Besides the fact that they don't have good infantry AT ALL, and have to rely A LOT on AoR units (that is, units like tartars, that you can recruit only in certain places). And by the way, relying on mercenaries isn't nice either.

Moors dominate in my campaigns.

[ash874]

Moors dominate in my campaigns.

my point exactly
its not the weakness of a faction
the moors have an awesome position
not a single great power anywhere near
cool colour
units not worse than any iberian ones
same skirmisher/horse archer stuff

it all boils down to lack of sympathy

[Zenith_Zenith]

Moors dominate in my campaigns.

well, then it means that I've remained with that impression since I've played in vanilla. Anyway, I hate camels!

[Caesar_1991]

I have played the Cumans. Now yes, they're not the strongest faction but, they have a pretty good starting position. Most of the roster consists of variouse kinds of HA. The first faction war is against the Rus. Most of their armies are foot so you can conquer them pretty quickly. So they are a fun faction to play with.

[soulson]

i created a favorite faction poll some time in the past and the cumans got 0 votes. I personally think that they should be axed in favor of a new middle eastern faction, b/c the cumans rarely do anything but sit around and conquer rebel settlements far away in areas of the map that don't concern most players. Yes, they are weak, but i don't think they were meant to be strong in the first place.

this.

[Ichon]

I like Cumans but the problem is their position... they have very easy early campaign with all HA rosters against low armor enemies and an incredibly tough late campaign. So either I have to choose really easy (boring) or really tough(almost impossible without migration). With BGR it can be even tougher as facing Mongols then becomes a nightmare unless just move far west and give land to Turks or something.

I've tried them 3 times... first was really easy, the late campaign was only campaign so far in MTW2 I was forced to migrate in 6.3- just couldn't get enough troops to defeat 20 stack of Mongols while keeping starting positions.

Best campaign was early when only did some raids into E Europe then migrated S into K-Shah and Turks, Fatimids before Mongols arrived... still have that one saved to complete but was some very interesting battles.

However I could maybe put them in the top 5 for the diversity of enemies they can fight relatively early, I just like Genoa, Turks, Portugal, Kiev more... but Cumans or Lithuania I could put in #5 spot.

[Polycarpe]

The current unit roster is moderate I agreed but Rollingwave works on a new and better roster for the Cumans.

[Donkey Khan]

i created a favorite faction poll some time in the past and the cumans got 0 votes. I personally think that they should be axed in favor of a new middle eastern faction, b/c the cumans rarely do anything but sit around and conquer rebel settlements far away in areas of the map that don't concern most players. Yes, they are weak, but i don't think they were meant to be strong in the first place.

Or axed in favor of Ireland's return IMO. Ireland has just as many units as the Cumans, are moderate in strength (though they're a little easy once you get a horde of Saethwyre and Muire), and theyir starting position may not be that great but they get a good chance to take over the Isles, and then Iberia and Brittany, so they would work out as a good replacement for the Cumans.

[Asterix]

Or axed in favor of Ireland's return IMO. Ireland has just as many units as the Cumans, are moderate in strength (though they're a little easy once you get a horde of Saethwyre and Muire), and theyir starting position may not be that great but they get a good chance to take over the Isles, and then Iberia and Brittany, so they would work out as a good replacement for the Cumans.

problem is, the AI ireland just sat on their island and took up time and space. if the AI faction doesn't do anything, the general consensus is to axe it. obviously a player will actually make their faction, no matter how pathetically small and weak, do something proactive, but that kind of thinking could lead us to form ridiculously underpowered, obscure, and usless factions, for example Pisa or the Abbasid Caliphate, who were too weak historically to merit a valuable faction slot alongside far more capable and powerful empires like the HRE or the Fatimids.

[RollingWave]

Cumans were very important historically in the early period, there's no reason to not have them, if you have a campaign starting after the late 13th century though it make sense to remove them. For example... Cumans were one of the primarily reason that the Latin Empire of Constaninople never got anywhere... as soon after the Crusaders took the City they were utterly wooped by a combined army of Bulgarians and Cumans in Adrianpole with the Cumans doing most of the fighting. to the point where their Emperor was captured.


For my uppcomming roster, the Cuman's roster is genreally...

Basic : Chabani (long range weak hitting slow moving HA), Dismounted Chabani (long range light archer)

Core : Chabani Baghatur (warriors) (short range but very hard hitting HA and also has bonus against other cavs in melee)
Dismounted Chabani (light macemen, fairly good stats though)

Feudal : Bek Baghatur : same as Chabani version but better armoured / stats
Dismounted Bek Baghatur : heavy archer / swordsmen

Exceptional : Khagan Retinues (also same type of unit, but exceptional level stats)
Dismounted Khagan Retinues ( Long Spearmen, very tough)


My roster change will also generally open up more units to AOR (and also some new units... like a slavic swordsmen), which should make a faction like Cuman much more practical to play. they'll probably need to rely on the AOR units quite a bit for their infantries. As their only two pure infantry, one of them is fairly light the other is very high up on the tree and impossible to mass.


For my Moors roster right now I have...

Feudal : early -> Murabitun Cavaly and Spearmen (both exceptionals)
high onward -> Shaykh Cavalry and Dismounted Shaykh (elites) + Arabian Faris and Arabian Rijal (superiors)

Infantry : Berber Infantry (javelin / spear ) . Abid Spearmen (like ole nubian spear but larger shield) . Andalusian Militia (Urban Militia) Berber Spearmen (2 hander). Andalusian Infantry (Heavy spearmen) . Saqaliba Guards (ole Christian Guard now with mace) . Black Guards (Exceptional two handed swordsmen)

Archer : Berber (desert) Archers. Crossbowmen (ole Turkish crossbowmen). Ramy (Sicilo-Muslim Archers). Ramat (late heavy archer). Granadine Arbalester (late)

Cavalry: Khayyal (Arab Cav), Berber Cavalry, Andalusian Jinetes (now better stats), Saqaliba Cavalry (slightly different now), Granadine Lancers (late) , Ghulam Horse Archers (considering, Almohads had an elite Turkish Contingent.)

[soulson]

Important historically maybe, but if no one plays as them or if a very small percentage do then why keep them? As for the title are they worth playing, give it a shot I guess.

[RollingWave]

Important historically maybe, but if no one plays as them or if a very small percentage do then why keep them? As for the title are they worth playing, give it a shot I guess.

That's self defeating logic, by that logic we could remove all the Muslim factions too since just about no one plays them.

That's kinda saying if a car has problems, we should just walk to work from now on , instead of you know... trying to fix the car.

[Ichon]

Even if not as many play the eastern factions as the western ones most of the people playing the western factions would like somewhere to Crusade to or have a Jihad or the Mongol invasion come from. Cumans usually only gain control of 8-12 regions but provide good enemy for Kiev, Byzantines, Hungary, Novgorod, Lithuania, Poland, Teutons, K-Shah, and Turks.



Personally I don't like the current Mongol script made with 6.3 very much but of the possible options its probably ok and Mongols are something to fear at least but it could be done better. I'd rather Mongols spawned armies near important regions at certain dates and didn't cost the huge upkeep of slowly moving west with massive armies.

Also historically the Mongol invasions often focused on the strongest area of resistance and then came back later and mopped up other areas. For westerners the Mongol armies appeared to come out of nowhere and the speeds they moved at is so much faster than portrayed on current campaign map. If for example in 1239 4 full stack Mongol armies appear near Kiev- its going to be difficult for human player or AI to stop especially if near the same time like 1242 Mongol armies spawn in Poland, Hungary, and near Vienna. Whether the Mongols hold all of the gains or not... but the capture and sack could happen. If earlier in 1235 some Mongol armies appeared near Bulgaria/Crimea as well. So basically an expanding succession of spawns that are more difficult to stop at a line of rivers or hills etc but also not the huge amounts of full stacks that Mongol gets in 6.3- more like 4-6 Mongol stacks per major Mongol campaign so Mongol might have a chance to be defeated in some places if player has armies ready or AI is particularly good but sudden appearance and weird AI could make siege of Kiev not happen and the Mongol AI marches those spawned armies towards Constantinople or something rather than attack Kiev.

Original force- 8 stacks + shamans against Persia at normal spawn time as when Mongols emerge now(1220?).
4 stack Persian reinforcements in 1228.
4 stacks vs Cumans in 1230.
Pause as Mongols focused on war vs Jin.
4 stacks in Crimea in 1235.
4 stacks near Kiev in 1239.
4 stacks near Hungary 1242.
4 stacks near Poland in 1242.
2 stacks near Vienna in 1242.
Pause as Mongols organize and assimilate conquests. Then...
4 stacks reinforcements in 1245 near Caspian that AI can use vs remnant Cumans or Persians.
6 stacks east of Baghdad in 1255 to capture Baghdad or finish K-Shah.
3 stacks in 1260 near Kiev as reinforcements for Mongols in Russia.
3 stacks near Baghdad in 1260 as reinforcements and last wave of Mongol expansion with Kublei.

48 full stacks spawned total but much more spread out and also appearing much more quickly than now. Plus whatever armies Mongols can build from captured areas. Should make the huge debt Mongols get harder to happen and also the Mongol attacks are fast and furious but have a chance to be defeated locally however Mongols should still succeed in capturing wide area and become powerful faction. Also gives players playing some western factions a chance to actually fight a few Mongol armies and have a heroic defense but not have to totally focus on Mongols as soon as they appear at it is now Mongols arrive in Europe about 50-60 years later than historical and as a massive blob. More fun if Mongols attack earlier in rapid fashion and are only again a threat much later as a coherent faction centered somewhere in steppes/Crima/Persia.

After these free stack spawns the Mongols should get only whatever their captured regions can produce. Its more realistic with Mongol armies moving quickly all over but there being also relatively untouched pockets of resistance etc and the Mongols need almost 100 years to stabilize their regions and then either Timurids emerge or 2nd wave of Mongol reinforcements to simulate Timur in Caucus and Persia in 1380s. Also would make Mongols late campaign more interesting to player as they have to use those free spawns to expand quickly when they appear but not have to think about disbanding them just so crushing debt is avoided.