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scaterry posted:Nah, elephants are overrated. Egregiously overpriced, and worse combat ability per stack than the generic Heavy Cav to boot. Is that counting the jungle bonus/lack of hill malus? Areas that can field elephants tend to be pretty jungle-y. I agree with the general prescription of Heavy Infantry though, it's usually the best and barracks can be built anywhere. Culturally specific HI is almost always the best option if you have some.
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Dec 7, 2021 00:16
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DJ_Mindboggler posted:Is that counting the jungle bonus/lack of hill malus? Areas that can field elephants tend to be pretty jungle-y. I agree with the general prescription of Heavy Infantry though, it's usually the best and barracks can be built anywhere. Culturally specific HI is almost always the best option if you have some. Terrain bonuses are situational, no? War elephants are 3-4 more expensive per combat ability than every other non-heavy cav unit, and twice as much as the other HCs. So with limited income you could field 3-4 times the combat ability by using a different unit. You don't get that much combat ability per slot either-- even in tribal era, Varangian Veterans, Mubarizun, Huscarls, Horse Archers are better per slot. Varangian Veterans are almost best per slot, which is insane for a tribal era unit. (only beaten by Palatini, the Roman late medieval unit) The other HCs also beat war elephants in combat ability per slot, though they come much later. War elephants do counter those aforementioned units hard, so in a try-hard MP session (as a tribal government?) you could field them. But you could also spend the gold saved on mercs.
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Dec 7, 2021 02:28
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Camels man, camels. Same building also buffs knights.
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Dec 7, 2021 04:06
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You really have to be able to invest in war elephants to make them worthwhile. The elephantry building gives an enormous damage multiplier when you upgrade it, which scales well with the elephant's high base damage making them pretty ridiculous.The problem is that you can only build it on jungle tiles, so unless you're starting in southern India or Bengal they're not really worth the effort.
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Dec 7, 2021 08:17
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SlothBear posted:In that situation what I typically do is look at who you’re fighting and pick the unit comp that best counters theirs. Is there a good way to find this out before you actually tussle with them? Of his options, I'd recommend with starting with light footmen and light bowmen. They're quite decent against levies, and can be a real threat with cav or pikemen backing them up.
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Dec 7, 2021 08:25
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Tias posted:Is there a good way to find this out before you actually tussle with them? When you select a ruler you can mouse over their military strength and see what men at arms they have.
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Dec 7, 2021 08:33
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You can talk about all of this MAA composition crap until you’re blue in the face, but the fact is you could actively stack the worst possible unit combos and you’ll still be smashing the AI every time.
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Dec 7, 2021 09:41
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Build ALL SIEGE ENGINES, recruit all siege dudes, siege stuff quickly, profit.
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Dec 7, 2021 10:01
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Speaking abut MaA, in my current game, starting at earlier date as a count in Bavaria, I didnt had heavy cav or any regional MaA (bavarians don have any?). So I went with the regular heavy infantry. In my previous game I was norse so I was a bit disappointed with them. Even building barracks in every county I own they still arent very impressive (I mean, compared to norse heavy infantry who can easily destroy stacks like 5x their size) Now (around 1060) I have the heavy cavalry tech finally. I also have lots of money, is it worth to replace all my heavy infantry with it? edit: whats the buildings for heavy cavalry, by the way?
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Dec 7, 2021 11:15
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Knuc U Kinte posted:You can talk about all of this MAA composition crap until you’re blue in the face, but the fact is you could actively stack the worst possible unit combos and you’ll still be smashing the AI every time. Some people enjoy min maxing. It's kind of fun watching your 2000 guys completely wipe out an army six times their size. Elias_Maluco posted:Speaking abut MaA, in my current game, starting at earlier date as a count in Bavaria, I didnt had heavy cav or any regional MaA (bavarians don have any?). So I went with the regular heavy infantry. Bavarians get special spearmen, but the tech for them is locked until you reach the late game. Regimental grounds are best for heavy cavalry, but you can only build them on farmlands.
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Dec 7, 2021 12:20
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Guest posted:You really have to be able to invest in war elephants to make them worthwhile. The elephantry building gives an enormous damage multiplier when you upgrade it, which scales well with the elephant's high base damage making them pretty ridiculous.The problem is that you can only build it on jungle tiles, so unless you're starting in southern India or Bengal they're not really worth the effort. Nah, you’re missing they have size 25, which means they have 1/4 the equivalent strength/toughness of a normal size 100 unit. In reality, they’re like a 63/12.5 in statline, which is good but medium compared to other standouts of the era. The low toughness really hurts their combat ability. Plus they’re egregiously overpriced. 660 gold of archers destroys 1200 gold of war elephants. And that’s a generic unit that doesn’t even counter it!
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Dec 7, 2021 13:58
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scaterry posted:Nah, you’re missing they have size 25, which means they have 1/4 the equivalent strength/toughness of a normal size 100 unit. In reality, they’re like a 63/12.5 in statline, which is good but medium compared to other standouts of the era. The low toughness really hurts their combat ability. So they're just in the game as a trap? Or is there some niche situation where they're great? Jungle maybe...
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Dec 7, 2021 14:06
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Their small unit size lets them operate in low supply limit situations without incurring attrition.
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Dec 7, 2021 15:16
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pidan posted:So they're just in the game as a trap? Or is there some niche situation where they're great? Jungle maybe... Sticking with my post. If you’ve got the jungle holdings to back them Elephants tower above everything else. The important bit is their high base stats combined with upgrades being a percentage of those base stats combined with elephantries giving bigger buffs than regimental grounds (well they start the same). Elephants start with a higher base damage then get stacked with a larger percentage boost. The limiting factor is the number of jungle holdings you have: there is no scenario where given an equal number of jungle vs farm/floodplain holdings where any heavy cavalry beats your elephant boys. That caveat on holding types is important! Vanilla elephants with no upgrades aren’t worth the cost, but fully upgraded they are the most powerful MaA in the game (even normalizing for their smaller unit size). The trade off is they are expensive, and the holdings to support them are relatively rare — like Guest said you’re basically only getting the value in a small corner of the map. Edit: I guess the above ignores the scenario where you’re running a cultural heavy cavalry with elephantries, but if you’re running French or Byzantine cultures in an area with jungle holdings you probably already can do whatever you want. Jaytan fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Dec 7, 2021 |
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Dec 7, 2021 18:51
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India is rich enough that elephants are really easy to afford as well. As the Deccan Empire in 1100, I have 4000 Varangian, 400 Elephants, 160 Onagers, and am still making over 50 gold a month. I also get a few hundred gold a year from indulgences, and as I expand to form the Empire of India those numbers will just go up. I haven't even tried to really max out my jungle holdings, but my Elephants' stats are 362/58, and the Varangian are 71/44. On a MaA slot basis, Elephants are significantly more efficient.
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Dec 7, 2021 19:41
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Jaytan posted:Sticking with my post. If you’ve got the jungle holdings to back them Elephants tower above everything else. The important bit is their high base stats combined with upgrades being a percentage of those base stats combined with elephantries giving bigger buffs than regimental grounds (well they start the same). Elephants start with a higher base damage then get stacked with a larger percentage boost. War elephants also lose to normal non-cultural heavy cav, tho. War elephants have a CA of 2795 while Armored Horsemen have a CA of 2958. So in this hypothetical scenario you'd be better off using generic HC.
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Dec 7, 2021 19:43
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binge crotching posted:India is rich enough that elephants are really easy to afford as well. As the Deccan Empire in 1100, I have 4000 Varangian, 400 Elephants, 160 Onagers, and am still making over 50 gold a month. I also get a few hundred gold a year from indulgences, and as I expand to form the Empire of India those numbers will just go up. How do you get varangians in India?
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Dec 7, 2021 19:47
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binge crotching posted:India is rich enough that elephants are really easy to afford as well. As the Deccan Empire in 1100, I have 4000 Varangian, 400 Elephants, 160 Onagers, and am still making over 50 gold a month. I also get a few hundred gold a year from indulgences, and as I expand to form the Empire of India those numbers will just go up. Combat Ability = size * sqrt(strength * toughness). So in your playthrough, each Elephant has a CA of 25*sqrt(362*58) = 3622.5, while each Varangian has a CA of 100*sqrt(71*44) = 5589. Edit: It's possible the small stack size means War Elephants outperform their on-paper CA. If you have 25N War Elephants vs 100N of a normal MAA, the combat width is 67.5N, which reduces the strength of the normal MAA by 37.5%. This is equivalent to 'increasing' the base toughness of a WE to a value of 80, which means base War Elephants would have a CA of 3535 at the start of battle! It also means to maximize WE performance you want to solostack WE. scaterry fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Dec 7, 2021 |
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Dec 7, 2021 20:02
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Elias_Maluco posted:How do you get varangians in India? If you start as Norse you can make your way there and adopt local traditions. Once you have the unique MaA in your army they don't vanish if you change culture.
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Dec 7, 2021 20:20
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SlothBear posted:If you start as Norse you can make your way there and adopt local traditions. Once you have the unique MaA in your army they don't vanish if you change culture. Makes sense, thanks
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Dec 7, 2021 20:33
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scaterry posted:Combat Ability = size * sqrt(strength * toughness). So in your playthrough, each Elephant has a CA of 25*sqrt(362*58) = 3622.5, while each Varangian has a CA of 100*sqrt(71*44) = 5589. Whenver I see calculations like these I wonder if I'm using MAA much different than others. Do people go around early/mid game with stacks of nothing but MAA? I can get doing that when you've won the game and can field 12k of knights alone, but prior to that I'm always blobbing up with levies for the 'big' fights. And as soon as you use levies, I feel that a lot of MAA optimality goes out the window, particularly anything to do with their toughness? If you have 5k levies and can choose between 400 HeavyInf or 100 elephants, I'm pretty dang sure the amount of wounds being assigned to the MAA is tiny, and stuff like knights/elephants having reduced numbers only works in their favor as they're less likely to get assigned a wound, so that 58 toughness elephant might as well be quadrupled in terms of how much of a beating you have to take for casualties to arise. Assuming you don't care about levies dying that is. I suppose a counterargument is that casualties are proportional anyways so I can't say "quadrupled", but then we can think of it as "10% of your army just died, adjusted for toughness values". So 20% of your levies died, and maybe 5% of your MAA (regardless of their raw #s) so the elephants having 58 vs 44 toughness means that they're still dying less while putting out more damage per stack. I think? edit: Goddamnit I really should re-read posts instead of leaving tabs open. I think your edit says we're basically agreeing with each other. Serephina fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 04:05
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I like only using cultural MaA and like, having to convert culture in regions where my native MaA selection has deficiencies. tbh, I think it'd be cool if the game was set up like that, with more cultures having multiple MaA and the focus being on spreading your culture and interacting with other ones to get different unit types instead of just like, generic heavy infantry and stuff
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Dec 8, 2021 20:39
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Aren't we getting a culture focused expansion?
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Dec 8, 2021 21:15
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I'm sure you could make a mod to collect MAAs like pokémon.
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Dec 8, 2021 22:38
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Elephants are great if you have access to the buildings, and not worth it if you do not. I think the best combo (outside of Viking super units) is actually Elephantries plus normal Armoured Cav tho.Phlegmish posted:Unfortunately, right now I can only choose between pikemen, bowmen, light horsemen, light footmen, and onagers. Of those, Pikeman are generally your best option because they have decent stats and are boosted by the Barracks. Include one stack of Onagers tho because siege weapons are crucial. Tankbuster posted:I thought that Light infantry MaAs were pretty good all around because they are cheap enough to bulk up your armies and the AI tends to get heavy Infantry MaAs. Light Cav is great for stackwiping. The AI is specifically taught to diversify its MaA composition, which means it doesn't really get countered or counter anything. Doing that rather than putting an emphasis on the culturally specific units is one of the biggest errors in game design right now. I've mucked around with the weightings and let me tell you, facing down the King of France's few hundred ACav in the 1066 start is no joke. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 22:40
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Serephina posted:Whenver I see calculations like these I wonder if I'm using MAA much different than others. Do people go around early/mid game with stacks of nothing but MAA? I can get doing that when you've won the game and can field 12k of knights alone, but prior to that I'm always blobbing up with levies for the 'big' fights. Yeah. I think the model I'm using (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/combat-mechanics-explained.1434737/) implicitly only works for 1v1 confrontations. In mixed battles, war elephants are assigned less damage because they have less size, so they have more effective toughness. Kinda like how knight toughness doesn't matter at all because they aren't assigned damage really. So yeah, we agree. I now think war elephants are a valid endgame build (mostly due to its small size causing combat width issues for the enemy/mixed battles creating more effective toughness) but an abysmal early-midgame build, which is what pretty much everyone was saying, lol.
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Dec 8, 2021 23:29
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You should use elephants when playing as an Emperor in India because they are a symbol of royalty and wisdom.
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Dec 9, 2021 14:11
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Is there a way to tell what holy orders are available for your opponents to hire? Because it sucks when you're trying to get that King of the Islands achievement and instead of having 1500 soldiers the count of half of Crete drops a 12K army on you.
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Dec 11, 2021 23:16
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Albino Squirrel posted:Is there a way to tell what holy orders are available for your opponents to hire? Because it sucks when you're trying to get that King of the Islands achievement and instead of having 1500 soldiers the count of half of Crete drops a 12K army on you. By the time you get to Crete you should be unstoppable.
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Dec 12, 2021 03:21
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Knuc U Kinte posted:By the time you get to Crete you should be unstoppable. Unfortunately my pirate hordes starved to death during an ill-advised war with Sweden so I'm building up my MaA to the point where I can take on the Byz, who own the only remaining islands save one or two in the hands of allies.
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Dec 12, 2021 09:13
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Crusader Kings III: Unfortunately my pirate hordes starved to death during an ill-advised war with Sweden The above also describes most of Danish history, so you're good.
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Dec 12, 2021 09:57
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljmdznw2QJU The IGN preview has a ton of spoilers :O I can't wait for that tradition that gives renown for owning castles, aka what you and your dynasty do anyway There's also a tradition that unlocks guilds innovations early?? gosh there are so many + development traditions now French starts as a divergent culture of Frankish, I wonder if that prevents it from diverging again. Would be lame if true
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Dec 15, 2021 23:55
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First review? https://www.pcgamer.com/crusader-kings-3-royal-court-makes-a-great-rpg-even-better/
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Dec 16, 2021 11:41
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Two months out? Hands on preview, surely, and it looks like a lot of outlets got to - here's Leana Hafer at IGN, and hers includes video: https://www.ign.com/articles/crusader-kings-3-royal-court-expansion-first-preview-hands-on-pc
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Dec 16, 2021 14:35
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It seems they've implied that having a vassal of a culture hold a county will mean you don't get as much popular unrest anymore. I hope this limits or removes the issue of a liege handing off your lands to a popular revolt that's of the same culture as you. Really infuriating when that happens. Otherwise man, I can't wait to play all this!
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Dec 16, 2021 14:46
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Super excited for February, hell yeah.
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Dec 16, 2021 21:43
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I know it's just a preview but seeing that clip still feature a huge Russian culture block - with a divergent Novgorodian in goddamn 889 - is frankly extremely disheartening.
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Dec 17, 2021 02:17
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Took me just over 300 years, but I got King of All The Isles! I started by taking Haesteinn to Sardinia on a Varangian adventure. It's a decent centrally located island, but more importantly the duchy capital of Cagliari has the silver mines of Argentiera, which comes in handy for the extra gold production. (The mines are actually up north in Sassari, but we'll let that slide).  I used the first Varangian dynasty perk to increase my diplo range and backtracked to the Irish Sea to get the Elevate the Kingdom of Mann & The Isles decision, conquering a bit of its dejure territory in insular Scotland to get my fame up. I *had* planned on using the pirate hordes this gives you to take on the Byzantines early, but Sweden was in a weak spot so I decided to nab Gotland. Unfortunately I hosed up with my logistics and most of them starved to death while sieging down the capital of Sweden which was somewhere up in the mountains. *as an aside, in addition to the pirate hordes, this decision makes Mann into a hilariously overpowered county - it gives you enough slots to build every single type of building, and build them all for cheap for the next century. So I built up my forces, grabbing islands when they became independent or their lieges were in a tight spot or involved in another war, and fought the inevitable succession civil wars when you're trying to hold together a kingdom with multiple titles (I was usually able to keep Mann and Sardinia, but I had to reconquer Venice five times before the end). Haesteinn lived to 89, and probably would've gone longer if his doctor hadn't disfigured him. No matter, I'll just wait for the Byzantines to have a civil war or have an emperor that I'd be able to assassinate. Neither happened for the longest drat time. After I'd unlocked some more men at arms and mangonels in the early 12th century, I figured I'd have enough to take on the Byz on so I declared for the kingdom of Thessaloniki, and promptly got crushed. Eventually, FINALLY, they ran into a weak patch, so I tested them out by taking Syracuse, and then assassinated three emperors in a row to break their alliances and get them tied up with civil wars. (I thought changing leaders eliminated the truce cooldown, but apparently not). The biggest challenge was actually fighting down my new rebellious Greek vassals, because I had to fight two more wars to conquer random bits o' Byz.  And finally after the last truce expired, I conquered the southern half of Cyprus and owned every island county in the achievement. Nicosia happened to be the 80th county as my vassals had started eating bits of Scotland and Sweden without my knowledge; I'd planned to grant independence to the duchies of Achaia and Thessali if it looked like I was gonna go over the limit but I didn't need to.  11 kings, 336 years, several dozen wars. As a bonus I had exactly enough counties to form an empire, which, since Haesteinn is a count, got me the Rags to Riches achievement. C- will never do this drat playthrough again. Albino Squirrel fucked around with this message at 18:18 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 18:13
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Albino Squirrel posted:Took me just over 300 years, but I got King of All The Isles! Congrats! That is a real finnicky one, but very satisfying to finally get. I did it with Haesteinn alone, but I had good luck with the Byzantines right away and went for them first. Oh and Haesteinn himself lived to 100 years old which helped immensely 
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Dec 17, 2021 19:01
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For the whole "elevating the Isle of Mann" thing, is the proper way to do it to convert Mann into another culture that's not viking? I remember my jaw dropping when I saw those bonuses but my excitement was immediately nipped by realizing I couldn't build up any building since my own culture was trash and only had teir1 stuff.
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Dec 18, 2021 11:52
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