Beware the knights

[VenetianPriest]

The devs have said that they wanted real consequences for battles to represent loss the like the French suffered at Agincourt. Having dozens of characters ( your greatest nobles, your martial, members of your dynasty ) at stake provides more immersion. I think knights help to achieve that.

 

[tilly]

i think i spotted a problem with knights in the stream where a bunch of small nothing dummies can band together and punch way above their weight because they have double the knight count but that could be intentional honestly. it would kinda really suck to need to have triple the troop count to deal with a huge revolt because they got so many gotdamn knights but, i mean, maybe thats how pdx wants it so its not just a simple matter of having lots of guys, idk

 

[IntoTheStars]

Yeah I think knights could easily end up being one of the cooler systems. Maybe not right away, but if we end up some more events and gameplay options down the road and get them anywhere near being like an XCOM character then I think it's a huge win for adding some tension to battle.

 

[Battlex]

The devs have said that they wanted real consequences for battles to represent loss the like the French suffered at Agincourt. Having dozens of characters ( your greatest nobles, your martial, members of your dynasty ) at stake provides more immersion. I think knights help to achieve that.

Your best nobles will be on your council and so safe, the only issue is if you best friend dies and gavel kind takes his lands apart, and his sons hate you surely?
Also link to the claim please

 

[Curtisp5286]

knight are the only major change in ck3 that doesn't seems good
it most likely just force the game to spawn excessive amount of npc in court of every count

That’s not happening. Court sizes are actually going to be smaller, not larger it seems.

 

[Meezermouzer]

The inclusion of knights in warfare was a pleasant surprise to me knowing that they were actual characters and not simply numbers on a spreadsheet. It's a more simplified way of representing your strongest nobles/warriors as they can be appointed and are made up of vassals and courtiers of your realm with a high Prowess. I think they provide more immersion and give more weight to battles. I'm still not 100% on how you get more but courtier overpopulation won't be an issue if you have some bad/idle ones--they wonder after a few years. The mechanic was mentioned in Dev Diary 8.

 

[Curtisp5286]

I think I’m going to like the new knights feature. It gives more of your court/vassal characters something to actually do in battle and a reason to care about them.

I am thinking of them as the favored warriors who are given the most important positions in battle, and also that a knight comes along with a couple squires/bodyguards. I think there is some historical accuracy to that, and it makes some of the larger kill numbers make sense.

 

[Magil]

i think i spotted a problem with knights in the stream where a bunch of small nothing dummies can band together and punch way above their weight because they have double the knight count but that could be intentional honestly. it would kinda really suck to need to have triple the troop count to deal with a huge revolt because they got so many gotdamn knights but, i mean, maybe thats how pdx wants it so its not just a simple matter of having lots of guys, idk

It's possible that low-tier titles like count simply get too many knights currently. So when a bunch of count-tier rebels team up against their king, they bring in all their knights and have way more than the king. It also seems like a king doesn't get access to their vassal's knights.

I like the feature, but the balance may be problematic in its current form.

 

[Karlington]

And I think we know of at least two cultural (well, I assume cultural) differences for “knight”.

What are they?

They're largely taking the place of the old commander role.
So they shouldn't be additional characters, but should be using the ones that already exist in those courts.

The commander role still exists, with commander traits and everything, though now there's only one per army rather than three.

Knights are something different entirely, basically "supersoldiers."

There are details on this in development diary #3, War, if anyone is interested.

 

[Fallofthepurple]

I'm still not 100% on how you get more

I hope I understood this question correctly.

Your Court Marshal will sometimes offer you promising prospects and you can always recruit guests at your court or foreigners willing to fight for you.

 

[VenetianPriest]

Your best nobles will be on your council and so safe, the only issue is if you best friend dies and gavel kind takes his lands apart, and his sons hate you surely?
Also link to the claim please

I don’t recall when or where the devs said that, but I know it wasn’t an original thought of mine.

On a related note, have they said whether imprisoned knights will be replaced by other characters? A gamey strategy would be for a high intrigue ruler to abduct and imprison the knights of a target realm, then DOW.

 

[junassa]

The devs have said that they wanted real consequences for battles to represent loss the like the French suffered at Agincourt. Having dozens of characters ( your greatest nobles, your martial, members of your dynasty ) at stake provides more immersion. I think knights help to achieve that.

"I will keep my state, and show my sail of greatness when I do rouse me in my throne of Leon" -Vitale, probably.

 

[Meezermouzer]

I hope I understood this question correctly.

Your Court Marshal will sometimes offer you promising prospects and you can always recruit guests at your court or foreigners willing to fight for you.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant how to increase your total knights limit. Based off the streams they said your character ruler tier (ie count, duke, king, emperor), Fame level, and certain buildings can all increase your total number of knights. Appreciate the info though

 

[Curtisp5286]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. I meant how to increase your total knights limit. Based off the streams they said your character ruler tier (ie count, duke, king, emperor), Fame level, and certain buildings can all increase your total number of knights. Appreciate the info though

There is a perk in one of the martial skill trees that increases your number of knights. Gallantry tree and +4 I believe.

 

[Iaminfantry]

Seems overpowered you would need huge numerical advantage to overcome that amount of knights if all rebel forces made one stack that is.

 

[Tuo]

Speaking of knights, I'm quite looking forward to seeing how they interact with crusade events. Hopefully crusades will be longer campaigns than the blitzkrieg they were in CK2, with lots of opportunities for interesting developments and individual characters to come into spotlight - and the knight system lets a great many characters partake in the crusade.

 

[kobreti77]

I really hope there is some sort of cooldown/penalty for allow/forbid knights.
Currently the system just selects by prowess.

1. Gather all "bad" heirs and unhappy vassals.
2. Forbid the good ones.
3. Split army 4x.
4. Crash army in enemy.
5. ....
6. Profit.

 

[Battlex]

I don’t recall when or where the devs said that, but I know it wasn’t an original thought of mine.

On a related note, have they said whether imprisoned knights will be replaced by other characters? A gamey strategy would be for a high intrigue ruler to abduct and imprison the knights of a target realm, then DOW.

You can swap them out presumably as shown below

I really hope there is some sort of cooldown/penalty for allow/forbid knights.
Currently the system just selects by prowess.

1. Gather all "bad" heirs and unhappy vassals.
2. Forbid the good ones.
3. Split army 4x.
4. Crash army in enemy.
5. ....
6. Profit.

View attachment 610545

Ah nothing like getting people to teleport to your crusader stack and then back so they'd get the crusader trait

 

[Pied-Noir]

Obviously I've no idea how it plays yet, but it does sound like a good mechanic. I like the idea of Knights as important people within your court on whose skill in battle you in large part depend. It's much better than just having nameless levies and a handful of random commanders who are chopped and changed with some regularity. Commanders in CK II were something of an annoyance because they often seemed to randomly disappear without trace and so you'd be constantly replacing them - eventually having to spawn new courtiers as you ran out of potential replacements.

I'm assuming Knights have their own trigger for events and will play an important role within the game. I think the combination of those plus levies (the peasantry) makes sense, and it seems like a reasonable approximation of how combat during this era would work - noted commanders leading irrelevant masses of troops.

 

[Karlington]

Ah nothing like getting people to teleport to your crusader stack and then back so they'd get the crusader trait

Hahaha, brings back "fond" memories.

I remember doing this and also temporarily making all theocratic vassals commanders and giving them the trait, so they'd pay taxes to me instead of the Pope (since it was +15 opinion for same religion and another +15 for same trait = +30 opinion total).

And then my heir. And all the other close family members who were able to be commanders.

And then that obstinate powerful vassal who just didn't like me.

And before I knew it I'd spent like 15 minutes on that crap.