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CK3 - Dev Diary #23 - Holy Orders

Hello everyone, I’m back with some spicy information about Holy Orders in Crusader Kings III!

Let’s start off with some general information: a Holy Order is an independent military organization that fights to defend and expand the influence of their faith; their first and foremost loyalty in the game will be to their god/s. If you read the earlier dev diary about mercenaries you will notice that Holy Orders have a lot in common with them: succession, being a Title with a Court, etc. However, unlike mercenaries the members have dedicated their lives to a higher purpose than that of the pursuit of gold. Very noble!

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Much like in CK2 you will be able to hire Holy Orders to help you out in religious wars, but unlike in CK2 they will fight all enemies once hired. A thing to keep in mind, however, is that Holy Orders are dismissed as soon as you’re no longer at war with someone of another faith, so make sure to really time those wars right!

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Aside from ordinary levies a Holy Order also has a number of MaA regiments that are special for Holy Orders (based on Religion and not Faith), e.g. “Order Knights”. These regiments will work as regular MaAs and have a type, specified terrain effects, etc. They are truly a force fighting for the good of your faith! Or, of course, a scary opponent to face on the battlefield...

You can only ever hire a single Holy Order, but if you are the patron of an order (more on this further down) it costs nothing to rope them into your religious conflicts. Ha, who needs mercenaries? And, unlike mercenaries, they will stick around with no time limit; no 3-year contracts!

If you are a King or an Emperor, and have a pile of gold and a big chunk of piety, you can found a new Holy Order in your realm by leasing a valid Holding (Castle or City) to the order.

holy_order_founded.png


This initial Holding granted to the Holy Order will be the basis for the Holy Order’s Levies and Taxes – their Headquarters if you will. You can only create one Holy Order, but you can still end up being the patron of several, for example by taking over land where a Holy Order of your faith has their Headquarters.

The Headquarters is the stronghold of the Holy Order, and the first King or Emperor upwards in the liege hierarchy is their formal patron, i.e. the one that can use them for free in wars. The patron must, of course, be of the same faith as the Holy Order. However, if there is no ruler of sufficient rank around to patron the Holy Order it is self-sufficient enough to still function!

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If a Holy Order’s Headquarters is lost another Holding will be selected to fill the role, with a preference for Holdings within the current patron’s realm. But, if the Holy Order has no more holdings the Holy Order is disbanded. Keeping this in mind it’s understandable that the Grandmaster/Grandmistress will take all opportunities they see to get hold of more land…

After founding a Holy Order you might see some events, much like in Ck2, where the order can gain more Holdings in many Realms. And yes, these events do often involve loans and threats of godly wrath.

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The Holy Order can also try to expand their forces if they spy a fitting candidate. After all, it is hard to fight heretics without enough warriors!

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However, we all know that Holy Orders also have a secondary function: to stash your worthless fourth son somewhere where he can’t cause any trouble. You can ask almost all your courtiers to take vows, and depending on your gender doctrines, and the existence of a Holy Order in your faith, they will either be sent to fight for your faith or to become part of the clergy.

ask_take_vows.png


If you no longer see the need to keep a Holy Order around, or if you really need that Holding for something else, you can revoke a Holy Order’s lease to kick them from your land. This will, of course, make both the Grandmaster/Grandmistress and the Head of Faith (if one exists) less than pleased with you.

I hope you are as excited as I am to see Holy Orders in the game! Or, I’m excited to see them crop up in my faith, not my enemies’... Anyhow, that’s all I have for now. Thank you for reading!

Next week we will continue the religious theme; stay tuned for both heresies and doctrines!
 
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PhilzuNeide said:
I really don’t like Holy Orders fighting all of your wars. Does anybody know of historical evidence when something like this happened.
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Read Military Orders on Wikipedia:

The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades, their members being dedicated to the protection of pilgrims and the defense of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of the secular chivalric orders.


In response to the Islamic conquests of the former Byzantine Empire, numerous Catholic military orders were set up following the First Crusade. The founding of such orders suited the Catholic church's plan of channeling the devotion of the European nobility toward achieving the Church's temporal goals, and it also complemented the Peace and Truce of God.[3] The foundation of the Knights Templar in 1118 provided the first in a series of tightly organized military forces for the purpose of opposing Islamic conquests in the Holy Land and in the Iberian Peninsula — see the Reconquista (Order of Santiago) — as well as Islamic invaders and pagan tribes in Eastern Europe which were perceived as threats to the Church's supremacy.

Military Orders were not a substitute for armies ...if that is what you are suggesting by "I really don't like Holy Orders fighting all your wars." Think of Holly Orders as religious minded mercenaries. They are relatively small, cannot stand up to a temporal ruler ( Templars were cruelly suppressed ---practically eliminated by by French King Philip IV in 1307) and will usually not fight against co-religion nations only Infidels or those that were excommunicated.
 
qurat123 said:
Knights are, by definition, notable. They are granted their knighthood for special services to their liege. Those "300 knights" are Men at Arms, who are not knights. But I agree that it might be a bit confusing in case of the holy orders because their MaAs are named "Order Knights".
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You can still be distinguished in an already distinguished group. That is how hierachies work. And knights making up as little of the fighting force as CK3 development so far suggests, is massively ahistorical. So why do only 2 of those knights deserve to be characters? Because they are notable knights among the mass of knights you employ. OR we go the alternate way of having massively inaccurate numbers for no reason at all and pretending that are all the knights our rulers got.
 
Thanks for the DD, the Holy Orders look very nice. I just have one criticism: In CKII, I was always confused when there was a unit type called "Light Infantry", while the "Light Infantry" tech (in earlier Iterations) also benefitted archers, and some tooltips referred to "light troops", and not everything was clear in the wiki either.

So could the Order Knights maybe renamed to "Order Serjeants", "Brothers-at-Arms", or really anything that doesn't have "Knight" in it?
 
Heptopus said:
Much like in CK2 you will be able to hire Holy Orders to help you out in religious wars, but unlike in CK2 they will fight all enemies once hired
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But it not mean thak player can use holy order in agressive war against same religion enemy, I think. Simply if you are defender in second war, in game holy order unit will be counted by your side
It looks like some kind of cheat, but we know nothing before to play Ck3 and how it works
 
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Do holy orders upgrade their holdings?

Can they have multible holdings?

Do holy orders upgrade they troops or they grow they own or patron can upgrade they troops.
 
Please change this. CK2 approach was good, Holy Orders only fighting different religions. That's why we have mercenary companies for the rest. Besides, as it is it sounds like people will just keep a small heathen country around to declare war to, hire the HO and then go to war keeping the other war open. Too gamey and really, CK2 approach worked fine, no need to change.
 
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IndigoRage said:
It's all wars against people who don't share your religion. Not all of your wars.
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Just keep a OPM of the appropriate religion around, start the war you are really interested in against someone of your religon, then declare war on the OPM, call the holy orders and use them to fight the 'real' war against your co-religionaries. after that is over, white peace the OPM, cleanse and redo.
 
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wolfing said:
Please change this. CK2 approach was good, Holy Orders only fighting different religions. That's why we have mercenary bands for the rest. Besides, as it is it sounds like people will just keep a small heathen country around to declare war to, hire the HO and then go to war keeping the other war open. Too gamey and really, CK2 approach worked fine, no need to change.
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Historically it wasent a case, holy orders also foght for power and with their own religions. And holyorders are not that super powerful that it would become problem you can use 1 holyorder in time.
 
Baldos said:
Read Military Orders on Wikipedia:

The original military orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller and the Teutonic Knights. They arose in the Middle Ages in association with the Crusades, their members being dedicated to the protection of pilgrims and the defense of the Crusader states. They are the predecessors of the secular chivalric orders.


In response to the Islamic conquests of the former Byzantine Empire, numerous Catholic military orders were set up following the First Crusade. The founding of such orders suited the Catholic church's plan of channeling the devotion of the European nobility toward achieving the Church's temporal goals, and it also complemented the Peace and Truce of God.[3] The foundation of the Knights Templar in 1118 provided the first in a series of tightly organized military forces for the purpose of opposing Islamic conquests in the Holy Land and in the Iberian Peninsula — see the Reconquista (Order of Santiago) — as well as Islamic invaders and pagan tribes in Eastern Europe which were perceived as threats to the Church's supremacy.

Military Orders were not a substitute for armies ...if that is what you are suggesting by "I really don't like Holy Orders fighting all your wars." Think of Holly Orders as religious minded mercenaries. They are relatively small, cannot stand up to a temporal ruler ( Templars were cruelly suppressed ---practically eliminated by by French King Philip IV in 1307) and will usually not fight against co-religion nations only Infidels or those that were excommunicated.
Click to expand...

Yet nothing says in there that Orders aided european powers in their political fights against other european (and christian) powers.
 
Nyrael said:
It seems quite a bit silly that you can only hire one HO. Hiring multiple Holy Orders should be possible, but the price (whatever it is) should grow exponentially.



Crusaders burnt down Zadar during the Fourth crusade. Not sure how much of a role the Holy Orders played here though.
I'm fine with it being there, but using the HO to fight against non-infidels should come with major consequences.
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it should really depend, I mean if your defending against Muslims from the south, say in Iberia, and your northern Christian neighbors think now is a good time to take advantage and attack you do you really think the knightly order that agreed to defend you would scoff at fighting a heretic who would stab a fellow christian in the back rather than help in the religious struggle? It might make more or less sense depending on rules about war, if you can declare two wars at the same time hire in the Order and then send the order off to fight the Pope or the HRE while you neglect the OPM muslim that is allowing you to hire the Order then that seems a bit exploitable but it doesn't take much in terms of rules to block something like this
 
AlfredRWallace said:
To be clear, every faith has it's own Holy Orders, though the amount of can vary from 0 to around 1 per king/emperor?

When creating a new Holy Order, how is the name decided? Can you customize the name as founder or patron?

Can custom faiths create Holy Orders too?
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Every faith can have their own Holy Orders, yes. Most Kings/Emperors will not found one since it will be fairly costly, but a faith can hypothetically end up with a bunch!

We pre-script the names for faiths and religions (Christian Holy Orders have, among others: Knights of the Chalice, Guardians of the Shroud, and Knights Hospitaller), and if they run out the order will be named after the barony you lease to them.

Custom faith can absolutely create their own Holy orders!
 
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PhilzuNeide said:
I really don’t like Holy Orders fighting all of your wars. Does anybody know of historical evidence when something like this happened.
Click to expand...
A holy order may be motivated by religion more than money, but that doesn't mean that it's not motivated by money.
 
Does somebody know if we will be able to play as clergy in CKIII? That was something that many people was asking in CKII but wasn't posible for code problems. So have this changed? o_O
 
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