CUMANS (Cuman-Kipchak Confederation)

[Jurand of Cracow]

I. General information

This thread is meant to gather all information about the faction and to conduct discussions on the faction related issues.
The entries should be developed by both the SSHIP team and the interested players.

The UNESCO book on Central Asia contains information about Kypchaks that is a good start for playing this faction.

There is a very pertinent thread in for the Broken Crescent mod dealing with Bulghars, Cumans and Alans.

A very useful book on military in 12-14th centuries is available in open access:
I. Vásáry: Cumans and Tatars. Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1186–1365. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2005

This can be very useful for names:
An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples

For the Polish speakers, there's a very good recent book on the Pechengs - Pieczyngowie. Koczownicy w krajobrazie politycznym i kulturowym średniowiecznej Europy

[Jurand of Cracow]

II. Strategy & gameplay


To be developed in due course. If you've played the game with this faction and have insights how to help fellow players, please write a proposal for this section.

[Jurand of Cracow]

III. Provinces

The provinces that have historically been assigned to this faction are listed here - it's usually defined by the "faction_creator" in the "descr_strat.txt" file.

Catholic: "Comes" or "Dux". However, I hesitate if the Greek names shouldn't be used in some cases (Chersonezos, Tmutarakan, Azaq). Please comment, if you know.
Orthodox: generic English: “Knyaz” + name + "skyi". The exceptions: Chersonezos and perhaps Azaq, Tmutarakan and the steppes - with the Greek names.
Muslim: generic "Emir".

I obviously admit having little knowledge of the Cumans so if somebody has better ideas, I'm open to advice and proposals. I haven't reviewed the names of the provinces yet.
Coats of arms: haven't been reviewed: I'd welcome a volunteer doing it.


Iasi (Moldavia)
PT: Voivodae Moldaviae - Moldavia emerged as the voivodae appointed by the Hungarian king split in 14th century from that country. However, for the most of the time, they kept the title (and it was also the case before).
CoA:
Settlement name: Iasi
Province name: Moldavia (I think it's ok)

Sharukan (Chazaria)
PT: Comes Chazariae - due to to the name of the province.
PT orthodox: not worked on.
PT muslim: not worked on.
CoA:
Settlement name: Sharukan
Province name: Khazaria (I think it's ok)

Azaq (Lower Dnieper)
PT: Comes Tanais - the name for Azaq used by the Italian merchants from 13c. onwards was Tanais, as it was in the ancient times. (I hope the case in Latin is ok: -is, -is)
PT orthodox: not worked on.
PT muslim: not worked on.
CoA: obviously wrong as there's a hammer :-) If anybody knows what should be there, please drop a link here.
Settlement name: Azaq
Province name: Kypchak Steppes


Sarkel (Don Basin)
PT: Comes Scythiae - there's a tradition of the Latin and Greek medieval authors calling this part of the world Scythia.
PT orthodox: not worked on.
PT muslim: not worked on.
CoA:
Settlement name: Sharkil
Province name: Scythia


Tmutarakan (Kuban)
PT: Comes Bosphoris - according to the ancient tradition, even if it's now on the other side of the strait.
PT orthodox: not worked on.
PT muslim: not worked on.
CoA: ?
Settlement name: Tmutarakan.
Province name: Kuban (I've got no idea if it was used in the Middle Ages...)


Saqsin (Volga Delta)
PT: Comes Saqsinis - following the name of the settlement.
PT orthodox: not worked on.
PT muslim: not worked on.
CoA: ?
Settlement name: Saqsin (seems ok).
Province name: Volga Delta (sounds ok, but may be changed into Atil Delta (or simply Atil) to follow the Turkic name of the river)


Kiçi-Saray (Aktobe_Province)
PT catholic: Comes Sarachanchae
PT orthodox: Strategos of Sarachancho
PT muslim: Emir of Sarāijūq
CoA: ?
Settlement name: Kiçi-Saray (in Turkic), Sarāijūq (in Persian), Sarachancho (in Italian). In 097 the position of the city has been changed to a right on (next to the Ural river, not somewhere far in the north as current Aqtobe is located).
Province name: Kazak Steppes.


Bulgar (Volga Bulgaria)
PT catholic: Dux Bolgharis - following the name of the province, but upgraded to Dux since this was the land of a powerful, well-established folk and their state. However, If somebody would find an alternative name in the sources, I'd be willing to change it.
PT orthodox: not worked on.
PT muslim: not worked on.
CoA: ?
Settlement name: Bolghar (good). Only in the late era it can be changed into Kazan.
Province name: Volga Bulgaria (right one).

[Jurand of Cracow]

IV. Faction specific features (Crown, Offices, Bloodline, Traits, Buildings)

The Crown of Steppes is discussed in this entry. The map of the required provinces is below.




The Offices are described in this thread (no special system for the Cumans, only the Master of Horse is available instantly to provide mobility in the steppes)

Cumans do not have access to certain buildings but they may get them in the conquered settlements. Actually, they can build quite many buildings but the very existence of the steppes prevent them (and other factions as well) from doing so in their heartlands. In particular, the paved roads cannot be built there, and in the deep steppes even the dirt roads (7 provinces, see the map below). On the positive side, the steppes create huge unrest for factions other than Mongols, Cumans and Turks - thus it'll be extremely hard to control, eg. for the Rus, ERE or Poland (historically the steppes were taken under control as late as 18th century).
Furthermore, the Cumans can build Grasslands (3 levels) in the steppe provinces. They provide free upkeep for their militias, some population growth, some trade income and the possibility to recruit quite a few valuable units. Actually, this is their main recruitment center.



In 097G there're some problems with the requirements in the steppes though (see here), so the above considerations might be disabled for the moment.

Cuman Blood: not checked.

Specific traits: not checked.

[Jurand of Cracow]

V. Starting position in 1132 (incl. settlements, armies, generals, traits, political situation)

to be developed in due course

[Jurand of Cracow]

VI. Units

The Cumans have a quite distinct set of units. They consist mainly of mounted horse archers.

They have a different upkeep system than the other factions. Namely:
- they don't get any free_upkeep for the militia units;
- they get free_upkeep for many of their factional unit (including the landowning elites) in their homelands with the grassland building.

A very useful thread with the nomadic units is to be found in the TGC mod forum, ie here.

Perfect @Macaras! I have the same situation regarding the landowners/noble units, in my kievan rus campaign the cumans are destroying my kingdom and it is difficult to fight against them and with my militia troops... these cumans have quite a lot of Beck Druzhina units (landowners) they are very strong against my troops, I currently only have one Druzhina unit!!! when they in an army of 20 units can have up to 10 or more landowner units... I think the knights/noble units should be less than 1/3 of the composition of an army, except for some exception. They should be mainly militia/lev units and according to their wealth increase the quality of the troops and mercenaries...

The Cumans can recruit their Bekh Druzhina only from the Grassland building line, from the Landowners they get 0.
This should limit their expansion - or make the player's expansion very difficult.

[Jurand of Cracow]

VIII. Reserve

to be used if needed

[Jurand of Cracow]

Some changes for the steppes in the SSHIP 097:

hidden resource "tartars" added to 13 provinces (making the overall number 17). It serves as a proxy of the presence of the steppes were pastoral nomadism was a viable way of living. It enables the building Grasslands for Cumans, Mongols and Turks. It prevents builing of paved roads, while the hidden resource "cumans" prevents also dirt roads (in 7 steppe provinces). Any province with hidden resource "cumans" creates huge unrest for factions other than Mongols, Cumans and Turks - thus it'll be extremely hard to control, eg. for the Rus, ERE or Poland (historically the steppes were taken under control as late as 18th century). Each faction draws some benefits from the Grasslands (population growth, trade) but only Cumans and Mongols can recruit their units.

[Just let me post]

More love for the Steppes, awesome

Btw, can Cumans convert to islam or do they stay pagan?

[Jurand of Cracow]

they stay pagan. But if somebody would delve into the ways how to switch the religion - the Broken Crescent does it, I think - and then make all the necessary coding, then we may implement this switch (and perhaps a similar for Lithuania).

[Just let me post]

4zumi also did it in Total Vanilla Beyond

Mongols start as pagans (can convert to islam)
Norway can convert to paganism (gives them Berserkers as unit)

But I got no idea how to do it, just askin

[Jurand of Cracow]

@JLMP: if somebody would make a submod to convert Lithuanians, Cumans and Mongols into Christianity and Islam, he'd more than welcome.

-----------

Another thing that poped to my mind is: shouldn't we rename the Cuman (or rather Pontic steppes) provinces?
Eg this map shows that rather the Sharkil province, not Sharukan, should be called "Khazaria".

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[j.a.luna]

sship developers, what do you think about adding cuman units as mercenaries so that other factions can hire them? It is true that from the 13th century and especially after the Mongol invasion they settled in the Hungarian lands and served in the Hungarian army but also for a long time they served as mercenaries in other armies such as the Russians, Byzantines, Turks ... Could you add the unit of Cuman horse archers and perhaps steppe foot spearmen as mercenaries in these areas would it be similar to other mercenaries such as the Pechenegs or perhaps you think that there are already many types of mercenary horse archers in the game?

[Cephalophore]

Another thing that poped to my mind is: shouldn't we rename the Cuman (or rather Pontic steppes) provinces?
Eg this map shows that rather the Sharkil province, not Sharukan, should be called "Khazaria".

It isn't really possible to give authentic Cumanic names for these regions, because of a lack of literature. There is the Codex Cumanicus, but to my knowledge there is no references to cities or regions within. I don't even know if there is an fully translated edition in English. I do think there are Russian and Polish though.
http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carr...oy-2/cam2.html

However, there might be Oghuz or other Turkic inscriptions that give explicit reference to these regions and cities. I haven't really looked thoroughly. Worst comes to worst, finding out what the Ottomans called these regions and cities is probably the most accessible, but not most accurate way to discover more appropriate names.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@J.A.Luna
I like the idea.. Perhaps Orthodox factions have them included in the mercenary barracks..

[j.a.luna]

@J.A.Luna
I like the idea.. Perhaps Orthodox factions have them included in the mercenary barracks..

if this is so, it would be the most suitable. Anyway I think that the "mercenary barracks" building is very appropriate to give other factions mercenary units in the area and to be able to recruit them from the settlements, the only bad thing would be its recruitment time which would be at least 1 turn, not instantaneous like on the campaign map.

[k/t]

Well, sending someone to talk to them and negotiate the contract takes time.

How do you make units have free upkeep only in some areas? Usually, they have free upkeep wherever they can be recruited. I didn't know there's a way to change that.

[umbracatervae777]

Well, sending someone to talk to them and negotiate the contract takes time.

How do you make units have free upkeep only in some areas? Usually, they have free upkeep wherever they can be recruited. I didn't know there's a way to change that.

Some units have free upkeep attributes, if you check file "export_descr_units" in mod data folder.

[Gigantus]

Free upkeep is dependent on that attribute PLUS the presence of a building where the unit can be recruited, doesn't apply to free upkeep in forts, there any unit can use a slot. Which means the only working 'regional' approach would involve building restrictions. An example: primary 'regular' recruitment building only possible in Spain and secondary building only possible in Armenia that only has a retraining setting (max pool below 1). Free upkeep will happen in both.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Free upkeep is dependent on that attribute PLUS the presence of a building where the unit can be recruited, doesn't apply to free upkeep in forts, there any unit can use a slot. Which means the only working 'regional' approach would involve building restrictions. An example: primary 'regular' recruitment building only possible in Spain and secondary building only possible in Armenia that only has a retraining setting (max pool below 1). Free upkeep will happen in both.

Indeed. Only the Cumans and the Seljucs can build Grazing Lands, and these are buildable in

;------- Grasslands -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

building grasslands
{
convert_to grasslands
levels grasslands nomad_encampment nomad_headquarters
{
grasslands requires factions { cumans, mongols, turks, } and not building_present_min_level farms farms+1
{
convert_to 0
capability
{
trade_base_income_bonus bonus 1
population_growth_bonus bonus 1 requires factions { cumans, mongols, turks, }
happiness_bonus bonus -1 requires not factions { cumans, mongols, turks, }


cavalry_bonus 1
free_upkeep bonus 1 requires factions { cumans, mongols, }

recruit_pool "Dismounted Cuman Militia" 1 0.1 2 0 requires factions { cumans, } and hidden_resource cumans
recruit_pool "Dismounted Cuman Militia" 1 0.05 2 0 requires factions { cumans, } and hidden_resource turks or hidden_resource russia or hidden_resource kievan_rus
recruit_pool "Cuman Horse Militia" 1 0.08 2 0 requires factions { cumans, } and hidden_resource cumans
recruit_pool "Cuman Horse Militia" 1 0.04 2 0 requires factions { cumans, } and hidden_resource turks or hidden_resource russia or hidden_resource kievan_rus
}
material wooden
construction 6
cost 1000
settlement_min village
upgrades
{
nomad_encampment
}
}

Well, sending someone to talk to them and negotiate the contract takes time.
How do you make units have free upkeep only in some areas? Usually, they have free upkeep wherever they can be recruited. I didn't know there's a way to change that.

k/t, do you keep on moding and working on your RR/RC? What do you think about the new typology for the SSHIP?

[Gigantus]

The above EDB quote will mean that the listed militia units (cumans only) will receive free upkeep only in regions with at least one of the 4 hidden resources, provided the units themselves have the free upkeep attribute. The building itself can be build anywhere by cumans, mongols and turks and provides one universal free upkeep slot (fort like) but only to cumans and mongols.