CK3 - Dev Diary #23 - Holy Orders

[Bandua_of_Gallaecia]

Is there a reason a ruler can only hire one holy order at a time?

Both Templars and Hospitallers fought alongside each other in some battles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

While in Iberia by 1400, The Iberian Kingdoms had atleast 8 seperate military orders.

1. Order of Montesa
2. Order of Santiago
3. Order of Calatrava
4. Order of Saint John (Castile)
5. Order of Alcántara
6. Order of Sant'Iago da Espada
7. Order of Aviz
8. Order of Saint John (Portugal)

I guess you could hire all of them, just not all at the same time.

Since in a crusade usually here was more than a single Catholic kingdom involved, its very possible for one to hire the Templars and another to hire the Hospitallers.

Also, considering you often had 4-8 sovereign Catholic nations in Iberia at all times, if each of them patronised a different order you could almost represent all of orders that were based in Iberia.

Galicia - Santiago
Portugal - Aviz
León - Alcântara
Castille - Calatrava
Navarra - Belchite
Aragon - Montesa
Barcelona - Saint George

 

[Darkhour]

They cost Piety.

Seems like this Dev Diary would have been the opportune place to expand on this and give us pictures. Any reason this wasn't detailed in this dev diary?

 

[druez]

I like what I'm hearing. Good job.

 

[Metz]

What about adding a recruitment policy to holy orders? Quality vs. quantity. A holy order with a relaxed recruitment policy would take in any one which may cause trouble in provinces (sackings and looting) while a strict recruitment policy would encourage the most zealous (and better fighters). A Grandmaster with high piety would decrease the chances of his Order misbehaving while a Grandmaster with high martial would increase the combat ability of his units. A bad Grandmaster could go rogue and take counties for himself and declare himself a monarch.

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

It sounds like Buddhists and Jains have the same proclivity to make military holy orders as Catholics and Muslims do? Are we sure this is how we want things to be?

I mean, it's off the map, but the Shoalin monetary existed and they fought against Wang Shichong in a secular conflict and were basically awarded a holding in response.

I'm not aware of any time that Therevada or Jain monks participated in a major conflict, but (1) in an alt history, either religion could have developed a new status that was neither lay nor monastic, for fighting men and (2) anyone can be a hypocrite. There were many monastic communities that broke the Vinaya regularly in other ways, such as marriage, so why not fighting wars?

I agree that I'm not aware of any historical holy orders of those religions, so if you're playing with the AI limited to historical holy orders, there shouldn't be any hindu or Jain holy orders. But as an alt history in a world where you can have a "samrat chakravartin" conquer India by force? Why not have a holy order.

Also, even in Ckii their use was limited bc of the piety cost to hire and the piety costs of your CBs.

 

[Farabi]

View attachment 569676

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.

You cannot choose their names, it is picked from a pool of historical ones, and if they run out one is generated.

I just wanted to raise the point that although the term mujahideen (or mujahidun) is a term used throughout Islamic history, it did not really gain such popular currency as a plural noun referring to 'holy warriors' until Muslim revivalism movements in the modern era.

Given the early initial bookmark, a more appropriate term for Sunni holy warriors - particularly those of a Hanbali outlook - might be mutatawwi'a. Any man fighting in the cause of the Islam at the time may have been termed a mujahid or ghazi, but a mutatawwi' was more specific.

Mutatawwi'a

The mutatawwi'a were a highly influential military volunteerist movement founded in the late Umayyad and early 'Abbasid period on the Byzantine frontier which were unified by both social ties and, above all, a cohesive ideology and shared religious outlook. They were described by the twelfth-century biographer and religious scholar al-Sam'ani as

a group who have devoted themselves entirely to the ghazw and the jihad, stationed themselves on the frontiers and devoted themselves to the ghazw and sought the ghazw in the lands of the infidels when it was not incumbent upon them and present in their land.
​

The founders of the movement had strongly ascetic leanings and associations, and articulated a doctrine of zubd; an unwavering commitment to what they viewed as one's personal obligation to engage in warfare for the faith, irrespective of the directives of the caliph or the government. I would say that this aligns better with your vision of what a holy order ought to be in CK3, particularly as groups of mutatawwi'a may have objectives independent of and even act with total disregard for established authority. Furthermore, as caliphal authority crumbled, the mutatawwi'a also focused their activities increasingly inwards towards the Kharijites, Shi'ites, and various heretics and infidels within Islamic lands, with patrons such as the Saffarid and Samanid dynasties, who had themselves risen to power as volunteer warriors.

Fotowwa brotherhoods

You can also look into fotowwa brotherhoods; the mutatawwi'a had some overlap but the term could also be used for a variety of different functions: as well as some frontier groups, brotherhoods of fetyan (lit. young men) in Iraq and Iran might also be rowdy urban militias, often associated with different religious and political factions. Note that many variations on the theme would certainly not fit the definition or function of 'holy order', while others may do.

I don't need to add much further, as there are perfectly serviceable descriptions of what it might mean to be a fata in such an organisation in the following free-access articles of the Encylopaedia Iranica:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/javanmardi
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ayyar

I would also recommend reading anything by the historian Deborah Tor for further information on all such associations and organisations.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rubidium]

I'm assuming the relatively ease of creating holy orders means that they will be significantly less powerful than in CK2, so the worries about exploitability are probably somewhat overblown.

That said, if balance does become a concern, one obvious approach would be to treat them sort of like levies: you can't declare an offensive war against co-religionists while you have them raised. That would limit the exploitability somewhat (since you could no longer chain wars with them, but would have to fight all your enemies at once).

 

[alscon]

This kind of generation of holy orders looks like it will prevent the Catholics from suddenly being able to call upon five of them in defence, which is a good thing. With a high cost, multiple powerful faiths should have similar strength in number of holy orders.

I'm glad to see that asking someone to take vows no longer costs piety, but gives some.
Then again, can imprisoned characters be forced into a monastery? Or perhaps given a choice between getting cloistered or beheaded. Sounds like something a dreaded character may do.

 

[Ozamu]

Weird that the devs haven't further commented on the holy orders being usable against all enemies regardless of religion. Considering the numerous reactions posted here, I'm quite surprised they haven't clarified anything yet.

 

[Rockphed]

Weird that the devs haven't further commented on the holy orders being usable against all enemies regardless of religion. Considering the numerous reactions posted here, I'm quite surprised they haven't clarified anything yet.

What is there to clarify? When you have troops they are used in any battle you take part in.

 

[Xain]

What is there to clarify? When you have troops they are used in any battle you take part in.

Which is totally immersion breaking and could potentially represent a balance issue.
I guess that at least some reassurance on those two points would be welcome.

 

[Orinsul]

Evil
I want all my characters to have that adjective

 

[Bovrick]

I'm assuming the relatively ease of creating holy orders means that they will be significantly less powerful than in CK2, so the worries about exploitability are probably somewhat overblown.

I don't think people are worried about exploitability, the (arbitrary) cap of having 1 Military Order puts a really harsh limit on that. The issue is that they're being relegated to just a mercenary company that you'll being using in every war, and chances are mostly against your own faith - just because you have a side-war against another faith that the Military Order never bothers to fight in.

That said, if balance does become a concern, one obvious approach would be to treat them sort of like levies: you can't declare an offensive war against co-religionists while you have them raised. That would limit the exploitability somewhat (since you could no longer chain wars with them, but would have to fight all your enemies at once).

Blocking declarations of war would be a massive nerf, and just a massive step back from being able to use different types of troops on different fronts.

 

[Videogames]

I mean, it's off the map, but the Shoalin monetary existed and they fought against Wang Shichong in a secular conflict and were basically awarded a holding in response.

I'm not aware of any time that Therevada or Jain monks participated in a major conflict, but (1) in an alt history, either religion could have developed a new status that was neither lay nor monastic, for fighting men and (2) anyone can be a hypocrite. There were many monastic communities that broke the Vinaya regularly in other ways, such as marriage, so why not fighting wars?

I agree that I'm not aware of any historical holy orders of those religions, so if you're playing with the AI limited to historical holy orders, there shouldn't be any hindu or Jain holy orders. But as an alt history in a world where you can have a "samrat chakravartin" conquer India by force? Why not have a holy order.

Also, even in Ckii their use was limited bc of the piety cost to hire and the piety costs of your CBs.

For sure, you can point to off-map and out-of-time period examples if you want to find justification for what the devs are implementing. (I would add Japanese warrior-monks and the military mobilization of Korean monks during the Imjin war, though neither example is of a formal armed religious order.) But, I'm not sure we should really want to make these reaches to try to justify every religion being treated exactly the same regarding holy orders. It's not making some concessions and playing loose with history in order to get more flavor or gameplay variety - it's making those concessions in order to get less flavor.

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

But, I'm not sure we should really want to make these reaches to try to justify every religion being treated exactly the same regarding holy orders. It's not making some concessions and playing loose with history in order to get more flavor or gameplay variety - it's making those concessions in order to get less flavor.

Here's how I think it should be treated differently: since there are no historical Buddhist or jain holy orders on the game map, there should be no Buddhist holy orders in the game history files for the AI to draw upon, same as historically there were no kingdom level Buddhist or Jain theocracies, and so there's no start date with a kingdom level Buddhist or jain theocracy. But just as I can make a Bhikkhuni of the Kingdom of Kosala or Norway, I can make a Buddhist or Jain holy order in the course of an alt-history.

 

[QuinnMallory]

It did create a few weird situations where you would march with your army accompanied by holy order knights and suddenly an enemy with a smaller force would attack you because they knew the holy order troops would just stand by and watch, which doesn't sound very realistic. My only hope is they will add something to avoid this being too exploitable.

What if they take sides based on the piety and/or traits of the characters involved? For example, a holy order would fight for a Zealous ruler against a Cynical one, but not the reverse.

 

[Danir]

What if they take sides based on the piety and/or traits of the characters involved? For example, a holy order would fight for a Zealous ruler against a Cynical one, but not the reverse.

So they side with You to defend You from the heathens, but when some guy who is more godly than You turns up they betray You without a second though and de facto help the heathens ?

 

[Chlodio]

Why call them "holy orders"? That's a misnomer, they are not called that, but military orders, the holy orders are the ranks of ministers, such as bishop and deacon.

 

[Videogames]

Here's how I think it should be treated differently: since there are no historical Buddhist or jain holy orders on the game map, there should be no Buddhist holy orders in the game history files for the AI to draw upon, same as historically there were no kingdom level Buddhist or Jain theocracies, and so there's no start date with a kingdom level Buddhist or jain theocracy. But just as I can make a Bhikkhuni of the Kingdom of Kosala or Norway, I can make a Buddhist or Jain holy order in the course of an alt-history.

I get that we're changing the course of history here, but Paradox is putting in a great deal of work to make the various religions meaningfully different from each other, and this is an area where all of them collapse into the same mechanic, regardless of their doctrines and tenets.

It might help to consider a different hypothetical scenario, in which the game casually makes a non-Christian practice universal. For instance, what if, regardless of your religion, there was a decision available to all king-tier rules and above to establish an oracle and consult it to divine the future? Would it really be acceptable to say "sure, this doesn't match Christian history or doctrine, but that's accounted for by the fact that oracles don't exist at game start and there's not specific Christian oracle list. Now, start up the game and make your own alt-history with your Christian oracles!" I think players would rightly reject this.

 

[MinotaurWarrior]

I get that we're changing the course of history here, but Paradox is putting in a great deal of work to make the various religions meaningfully different from each other, and this is an area where all of them collapse into the same mechanic, regardless of their doctrines and tenets.

It might help to consider a different hypothetical scenario, in which the game casually makes a non-Christian practice universal. For instance, what if, regardless of your religion, there was a decision available to all king-tier rules and above to establish an oracle and consult it to divine the future? Would it really be acceptable to say "sure, this doesn't match Christian history or doctrine, but that's accounted for by the fact that oracles don't exist at game start and there's not specific Christian oracle list. Now, start up the game and make your own alt-history with your Christian oracles!" I think players would rightly reject this.

But that's forcing much more flavor down your throat. I really think the best comparison are theocracies - in Ckii, I can invite a claimant, demand-convert them, land them as a temple holder, fight a war for their claim on a title of any tier, and then:

1) If they're my vassal, I can call them to fight in any sort of war
2) They'll likely start acting tyrannical and revoking their heretic vassals property, taking that which is not given
3) They'll likely start declaring their own holy wars
4) They'll accumulate vast wealth and material possessions and generally be living in a way totally incompatible with Therevada or Jain monastic rules and ideals

Which is all absolutely bonkers for a Bhikku. Arguably more bonkers than a holy order which has at least has one condition (you must be at war with a heretic) before they'll fight for you. Theocracies really only represent the behavior of European prince-bishops and the Papal State. But we accept that the framework of the game is built with Europe in mind first and the standard we can reasonably hold them to is just to try and build other regions in the way that best represents reality within the confines of that framework.