by The Comrade » Thu Nov 21, 2013 3:34 pm
the levies thing is ridiculous, and it's part of why muslims are OP right now. they can naturally raise more levies, and have more tricks at their disposal to increase levies from provinces. it's why, controlling all of ireland, cornwall, and brittany, i can raise 8000 men but the emirate of castille or portgual can raise twice that many before mercenaries. plus, it forces you rely so heavily on demesne levies that wars are outrageously expensive, and they really nerfed the ability to have retinue. before it was basically if you can pay for it, you can have it. now it's tied to technology. by 1100 as ireland, being ahead of everyone in tech, i was still only able to have 1000 units as retinue. before the last patch, playing as venice, i was able to have an 8000 stack of retinue (only because i was stupid rich). if a retinue can't even deal with a peasant army, it's completely useless.