clairobscur
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Some questions about barbarians and hordes

Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:15 am

I just began a game paying "green" and there are some thingsq I don't quite understand.

-Three of my provinces don't have a "head" indicating the population living in them. Is that normal?

-Two of those are provinces where I moved my two hordes. In one case, there's now no rural population in the province (and it stays the same if I move my horde). The city still has a population. In the other case, the population indicated is either "100 Germans" or exactly the same size and type of population as the last province I clicked on (could be 39 000 Gallo-Romans, or 13 856 Germans, whatever I clicked last on).So, does the presence of a horde "destroy" the local population?



-At the beginning of the game, I put some commanders in the hordes, since I didn't have that many armies. Now, I can't manage to get them back. They seem to be "stuck" with the horde. Worst, one of them was my king, and when he died, his successor was in the horde too. Is there a way to send back to the pool a general/king in charge of a horde?

-Still about generals. How do I tell apart "historic" and "non-historic" ones? I assumed the "non-historic" leaders were those I created when splitting armies, etc...and it seemed that when I merged armies "historic" leaders went back to the pool, while "non-historic" ones just vanished. But I recently got some generals appearing in the pool, so assumed they were "historic". But when I merged the units they commanded, they vanished too. Is that normal?



-Finally, about levies. I'm supposed to get some every year, but I only get them from time to time. I assume the total number of units is topped (so, I stop getting levies when I already have a certain number of units on the map). Am I right? Also, if I'm right and the total number of units is topped, does this maximal number change over time (for instance when I own a larger territory) or not?

-If the maximum number of units is topped as per the previous question, should I dismiss units that suffered from attrition to get brand new intact units the next year? And also, are units that suffered from attrition less powerful in combat? They still appear as having their full number of men (say, 2000 by unit). Are they weaker than an intact unit in battle, or not? Or are they just more likely to disappear if they suffer again from attrition, while staying exactly as strong as an intact unit when fighting?

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calvinus
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:00 am

clairobscur wrote:-Three of my provinces don't have a "head" indicating the population living in them. Is that normal?


It means there is NO population living there.

clairobscur wrote:-Two of those are provinces where I moved my two hordes. In one case, there's now no rural population in the province (and it stays the same if I move my horde). The city still has a population. In the other case, the population indicated is either "100 Germans" or exactly the same size and type of population as the last province I clicked on (could be 39 000 Gallo-Romans, or 13 856 Germans, whatever I clicked last on).So, does the presence of a horde "destroy" the local population?


I do not know, really. Maybe some side effects, or a chain of side effects... :8o:


clairobscur wrote:-At the beginning of the game, I put some commanders in the hordes, since I didn't have that many armies. Now, I can't manage to get them back. They seem to be "stuck" with the horde. Worst, one of them was my king, and when he died, his successor was in the horde too. Is there a way to send back to the pool a general/king in charge of a horde?


Indeed this can be a sort of "design" bug that we never realised about! :bonk:
I'll try to replicate the condition and to find a solution.

clairobscur wrote:-Still about generals. How do I tell apart "historic" and "non-historic" ones? I assumed the "non-historic" leaders were those I created when splitting armies, etc...and it seemed that when I merged armies "historic" leaders went back to the pool, while "non-historic" ones just vanished. But I recently got some generals appearing in the pool, so assumed they were "historic". But when I merged the units they commanded, they vanished too. Is that normal?


They should not be vanished. Go to the window for merging/splitting armies. You will find the "leaders" button, if you click on it, you will go to the section of sub-leaders... Well, if they are "historical" leaders, you will find them there as sub-leaders of the army commander-in-chief... lieutenants! Selecting one or more, you will be allowed to handle them, even sending them to the "palace".

clairobscur wrote:-Finally, about levies. I'm supposed to get some every year, but I only get them from time to time. I assume the total number of units is topped (so, I stop getting levies when I already have a certain number of units on the map). Am I right? Also, if I'm right and the total number of units is topped, does this maximal number change over time (for instance when I own a larger territory) or not?


You are right. The limit changes only if the nation "moves" to another national group (i.e.: byzantines moves to Greek2 and then to Greek3). Everything handled via historical events.

clairobscur wrote:-If the maximum number of units is topped as per the previous question, should I dismiss units that suffered from attrition to get brand new intact units the next year? And also, are units that suffered from attrition less powerful in combat? They still appear as having their full number of men (say, 2000 by unit). Are they weaker than an intact unit in battle, or not? Or are they just more likely to disappear if they suffer again from attrition, while staying exactly as strong as an intact unit when fighting?


Mmm... It's not so. If you put such armies INSIDE city walls, they fastly recuperate their strenght, keeping at the same time the cumulated experience! So, to my opinion, it's always better to use veteran soldiers rather than recruits! :niark:

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Jabberwock
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:30 am

clairobscur wrote:-Two of those are provinces where I moved my two hordes. In one case, there's now no rural population in the province (and it stays the same if I move my horde). The city still has a population. In the other case, the population indicated is either "100 Germans" or exactly the same size and type of population as the last province I clicked on (could be 39 000 Gallo-Romans, or 13 856 Germans, whatever I clicked last on).So, does the presence of a horde "destroy" the local population?


A horde absorbs the local population, turning them into military forces if you are eligible. It doesn't help a damaged horde rebuild, unfortunately. Not sure what the rules are for eligibility, seems to be affected by age of horde, age of nation, current units, and nationality. If the population is gone, the horde shouldn't produce more units in that province. Settlers (of your own ethnic & religion) will try to establish themselves in the empty province, that's your "100 Germans". The display of the exact same population as the last province is a bug. It means 0 population. An uncivilized province with no improvements can alternate between 100 and 0 population for many years as settlements fail and are reestablished (especially if it's on somebody's favorite raid route).

Since it costs kingdoms and empires administrative points to own provinces with different ethnics and religions, those provinces are where I send hordes while I'm still a tribe. I depopulate, send off my new units for conquest and garrisons, then play Civilization cards and start rebuilding. Once there is a viable population again, I send in a missionary if I own a religion. In the full campaign I try to get rid of entire rural minority populations by about 450. No more Slavs, Uighers, Scandinavians, North Germans (unless I own Jutes or Angles), Britons, Celts, Desertics, etc. (I don't put Huns in that list, because I always bid heavy on them ... If they can take over 2-3 opposing hordes while they're not in major invasion status, they can sometimes conquer and garrison everything before they get out of tribal status).
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GShock
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:51 am

Is it possible to see an AAR for this game?
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Jabberwock
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:17 am

Maybe by 2009.
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Rafiki
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:30 am

[CENTER]Latest patches: AACW :: NCP :: WIA :: ROP :: RUS :: PON :: AJE
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GShock
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:35 am

Ok, next patch i see i will toss some coins in my debit card. :)
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Rexor
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:19 pm

Me too! I know you guys have your hands full these days with BoAII and all, but I'd love to see another patch for GI. I would buy this game in an instant. :sourcil:

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Rafiki
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Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:48 pm

Great Invasions is developed by Calvinus (who isn't part of the regular AGEOD development team). These days, he's pretty busy with other things, so I don't imagine there will be a GI patch in the immediate future.

However, I thought the latest patch fixed the worst problems; are there that many remaining issues?
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gwgardner
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Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:21 am

Would love to see a small patch with some kind of battle report popup. Pretty much have to guess at some results and reasons why, when I see my forces retreating, for instance.

clairobscur
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Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:33 am

calvinus wrote:I do not know, really. Maybe some side effects, or a chain of side effects... :8o:


Well, actually, it seems that hordes do absorb the local population.


Indeed this can be a sort of "design" bug that we never realised about! :bonk:
I'll try to replicate the condition and to find a solution.


If there's someday a new patch, I think it should be corrected, indeed. Surely, I'm not the first one to put generals into the horde. And in the case of kings, all their successors appear in the horde, too. So, if a player get at some point a great historical king, well, too bad, he's stuck in the horde. As for replicating, except if this was a random bug in my case, you just have to begin a game and affect generals from the pool to a horde.


They should not be vanished. Go to the window for merging/splitting armies. You will find the "leaders" button, if you click on it, you will go to the section of sub-leaders... Well, if they are "historical" leaders, you will find them there as sub-leaders of the army commander-in-chief... lieutenants! Selecting one or more, you will be allowed to handle them, even sending them to the "palace".


I had figured that out. Historic leaders (the ones I get at the beginning) would become sub-leaders or would go to the pool if the army they're leaders (or sub-leaders) of is merged. But at some point, I got four new leaders in the pool. So, I assumed they were "historic" since they spontaneously appeared. But when I put them in charge of armies and later merged the armies, all of them disappeared completely (I tested several times), like "non-historic" leaders do.

So, I was wondering if you sometimes get "non-historic" leaders appearing in the pool, and in this case, if there was a way to tell them apart from new "historic" leaders. Or if these generals were actually "historic", and them disappearing when armies are merged was a bug.


You are right. The limit changes only if the nation "moves" to another national group (i.e.: byzantines moves to Greek2 and then to Greek3). Everything handled via historical events.


Thanks. That makes sense. Otherwise one could build ridiculously large armies.



Mmm... It's not so. If you put such armies INSIDE city walls, they fastly recuperate their strenght, keeping at the same time the cumulated experience! So, to my opinion, it's always better to use veteran soldiers rather than recruits! :niark:



Hmm.. I didn't notice units heal over time. Do they heal very slowly when outside a city, or not at all?

Well... I'll put the few elite "wounded" units I still have inside city walls. Unfortunately, I already have dismissed most of them.


Thanks for your answers.

clairobscur
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Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:57 am

Jabberwock wrote:A horde absorbs the local population,


OK. However, I've two more questions :

1) I found it a little annoying because it reduced quickly the local population to zero. And I assumed it was a *bad* thing. But you're saying you do that on purpose. So, is it better to have in your provinces a very small population of the same ethnicity and religion (say, in my case some hundred Germans) or a large population of locals (in my case, 40 000 Gallo-Romans)?

2) When I noticed that hordes grew in size when they adsorbed the locals, I sent them back to my original province that I do not intend to keep in order to absorb the population (actually, my first thought was that this was probably the why reason this feature existed. The horde absorb all your barbarian population, them move to settle down in some newly conquered and wealthy land. Made sense to me). But this time it didn't work. So, is it that you can't absorb the population of your original region, or that you can't absorb a population with the same ethnicity and/or religion?



Settlers (of your own ethnic & religion) will try to establish themselves in the empty province, that's your "100 Germans". The display of the exact same population as the last province is a bug. It means 0 population. An uncivilized province with no improvements can alternate between 100 and 0 population for many years as settlements fail and are reestablished (especially if it's on somebody's favorite raid route).


Thanks. I was afraid the depopulated regions would stay like that forever. The only province were the population seemed to grow again had a city in it, and only the urban population seemed to grow. The countryside stayed empty.


If the population is gone, the horde shouldn't produce more units in that province.


Actually, it seems it still does. I eventually put my hordes in the least populated provinces, they have been empty for a long time, but my horde still produce units. I didn't check if the horde was reduced in size as a result, though.


Thanks.

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Jabberwock
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Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:38 am

Sometimes hordes do continue to produce troops in depopulated provinces, but it seems to me that doing this degrades their ability to produce troops more rapidly than if they occupy heavily populated provinces.

A large conquered population produces more benefits to a barbarian nation, but less to a kingdom or empire (who have to pay the administrative costs), so it depends on national age and status. A civilized province produces more benefits for any nation than an uncivilized one. Therefore I tend to use the "ethnic cleansing" strategy in uncivilized and low population areas first. That makes Russia and Eastern Europe favorite early targets for me. I have to garrison them to keep them from going native (they will keep a new ethnicity, but they have to be reconquered), but the garrisons are small, and they quickly solve slave revolts (and failed conversion revolts later).

You should be able to absorb your original population, but I have noticed that it doesn't always work, particularly in Bavaria and Bohemia. Maybe a bug? Maybe a feature?

The further a depopulated province is from civilized areas, the longer it takes to repopulate. It can take a lo-o-ong time. Also, it's not worthwile to send civilized missionaries to depopulated provinces until they start to earnestly rebuild, as failed colonies always restart with the national religion.

One reason I like Huns so much is that their hordes (including captured ones) seem to keep producing units longer, even in less populated areas (allowing me to build those ridiculously large armies). My Germanic hordes all seem to lose the ability after about 15 years.

Troops don't heal at all outside a city.

There is one very good AAR out there, but it's for a civilized nation. I'll have to start playing this again occasionally (it's been a while - I'll probably need to upgrade to the latest patch as well), and see if I can put up a few screenshots, even if I don't have time for a full-fledged barbarian AAR.
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