The Great Men-at-Arms Humbling

The Great Men-at-Arms Humbling is a warfare balance overhaul designed to address the significant power disparity between the player and the AI as caused by the current Men-at-Arms system. In the base game, players can effortlessly dominate the AI by stacking buffs on MAA units like heavy infantry or cavalry, turning them into unstoppable space marines while levies remain pitifully weak throughout the game. This mod draws inspiration from Crusader Kings 2 and shifts the focus back to levies, making them a competent and evolving fighting force, while scaling down the absurd power of MAA regiments. The end result, hopefully, is a more strategic and challenging warfare system where thoughtless steamrolling is curbed.

• Levies start MUCH stronger and become better with each era to simulate an increase in military technology and strategy.
• Levies now gain bonuses that make them the staple of the army as opposed to what was before. (This is the primary way and only way of making the AI competitive with the player.)

Men-at-Arms should now be thought of as a supplement to your army as opposed to the main force, levies now fulfil that role.

• Men-at-Arms units have been universally weakened.
• Adventurer Men-at-Arms units have been weakened further because of their absurdly overpowered modifier hell ridden domicile. (Now adventurers need the domicile modifiers, and well-picked captains to be competitive, not just win by default. Becoming a ruler is also a natural step up in terms of power progression-potential.)
• The AI has been given a push to actually fill out their Men-at-Arms regiments.
• Countering has been nerfed somewhat from max penalty -90% to -50%. (I find that usually, the AI is at a mega disadvantage to the player on all fronts in base due to countering.)

• Knight damage per prowess has been divided by 4, meaning less OP knights.
• The degree to which advantage affects damage has been reduced.

• in the starting year of 867, viking adventurers will spawn with 7k+ levies! They have now been nerfed.
• Peasant / populist uprising leaders have been dealt with.
• Administrative Government have increased levies.
• Nomadic Governments do not use levies at all, so their MAAs are not nerfed as hard as everyone else’s. (I have no real desire to play as nomads so I’m going to need feedback on this.)

• This mod will work with all mods, including new men-at-arms, and total overhauls.
• Do NOT use this with Humble Adventurers! Doing so cause adventurers to be incredibly weak.

The tuning of this mod is currently in a good place, I feel, and certainly makes the game more interesting, especially when coupled with Nye’s Aggressive AI. (I literally cannot play the game without this combo.) With that being said, it is ultimately an imperfect solution to a problem that shouldn’t even exist in the first place. I will keep this mod updated, but I am done thinking about it for the most part and the tuning will largely be staying the game. I am hopeful Paradox will come to their senses and fix their broken, horribly balanced warfare system so that this mod isn’t required.

The current Levy and Men-at-Arms (MAA) systems in Crusader Kings 3 are poorly balanced, making the single-player game too easy. Players can easily stack modifiers on MAA (especially heavy infantry/cavalry), creating overpowered units that steamroll the AI. In contrast, levies have static, low stats throughout the game and become completely ineffective. The AI cannot utilize modifier stacking like the player can.

This differs significantly from Crusader Kings 2, where levies were a more competent force. The proposed changes aim to increase levy importance and reduce MAA dominance to make the AI more competitive and force players to think more strategically.

I believe that the base game is in absolute modifier hell and this removes challenge and enjoyment. It appears to me as though this was a deliberate choice– potentially as Paradox might not have wanted the AI to have posed much of a barrier to newer players. A fundamental rework by Paradox, potentially inspired by CK2’s system where the AI could compete better, is necessary in my opinion to fix these core issues and to put the whole game in a much better spot.

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