Giving away castles to Holy Orders

[david3k]

Once you get a good chunk of land in the Levant, events start popping which let the Holy Orders settle in some counties by building castles in the,.

What's the point of this? It is somehow supposed to help in the Crusades/holy wars, however -

1. Letting them settle in a province doesn't usually help the province during war since the Orders rarely, if ever, are at war with the same enemy as you - i.e. those castles don't have to be sieged by Muslims at all. They simply ignore them.

2. Holy Orders rarely, if ever, declare holy wars in the levant whilst using those castles' levies to fight.

All they seem to do is just sit there and do nothing, just waiting for some Count to simply wrest control of that castle from them.

I'm probably missing something, so please discuss.

 

[Darrigan]

Good question. I don't really know what they do either. Maybe you can force them into going to war with the same enemy as you by 'hiring' them?

 

[Rhion]

I just let them build a castle because I thought it was cool

 

[unmerged(154109)]

I've found it's good to settle them at the borderlands, near pagans or muslims, possibly in the lands your infidel opponents desire. This way they will not only use their regular troops to defend themselves, but also can call their crusaders to fight against the non-christian invaders.

That's what I did with Hospitallers in my game. I gave them two whole provinces I didn't need, but Mauretania desired it. Within a couple months the Hospitallers annihilated 20k mauretanian troops.

 

[david3k]

I've found it's good to settle them at the borderlands, near pagans or muslims, possibly in the lands your infidel opponents desire. This way they will not only use their regular troops to defend themselves, but also can call their crusaders to fight against the non-christian invaders.

That's what I did with Hospitallers in my game. I gave them two whole provinces I didn't need, but Mauretania desired it. Within a couple months the Hospitallers annihilated 20k mauretanian troops.

It seems to work that way once they get whole counties for themselves, in which case they become an independent ruler themselves (e.g., teutonic order on the baltic coast).

The question, however, stands if they only get a barony-level castle... I haven't seen them declare war on infidels in such cases. Infidels, on the other hand, obviously won't declare holy war on them, since they can only conquer whole counties or duchies.

Interesting fact: when muslims conquer provinces with HO castles in them, those castles still belong to said HO and remain neutral. Until, of course, the muslim count decides to reclaim the barony castle.

 

[iron0037]

I gave the Templars a barony in my County of Alexandria. Save for the laughably tiny amount of piety it earned me at the time, it doesn't appear to have gained me anything. I receive no monthly piety bonus, no permanent bump in relation with the Templars, no right to call their troops as levies against the infidels. It appears only to have cost me the control of a castle to an independent operator, one no different than if I had randomly given the barony to a Danish mayor. The Templars even had the nerve to fabricate claims on the county! At least they didn't use it.

 

[iron0037]

This mechanic should be improved. Holy Orders within your county should be treated as a special kind of vassal...more powerful (higher morale and/or levy size) than a normal baron yet only able to be called during a war with non-Christians. It should garner you a monthly piety bonus instead of a prestige bonus.

On a somewhat related note, you should have a diplomatic option to donate to the Holy Orders for some piety and an increase in relations to popes/bishops. The orders became so powerful because of all the money that was pouring in from secular lieges. My little Templar barony appears to receive no income beyond the 4.40 gold per year the castle nets them.

 

[Kordian]

uhm...

I was thinking to give a couple of irish provinces to hospitallers for the lulz, could it be usefull in sight of a scottish reconquista of Iberia?

 

[david3k]

They won't be able to use their 7350 stack against any christian, which would include even the Scots I presume.

This mechanic should be improved. Holy Orders within your county should be treated as a special kind of vassal...more powerful (higher morale and/or levy size) than a normal baron yet only able to be called during a war with non-Christians. It should garner you a monthly piety bonus instead of a prestige bonus.

Good idea, hopefully this can somehow be modded.

I don't seem to be able to vassalize any HO, even if they like me super-much and we're in the same culture group. They don't like the fact that I'm not "their de-jure liege", which is probably impossible since their title is titular only.

 

[Dutchling]

I gave a duchy I conquered from the Cumans as Hungary to the Knights Hospitaller and instead of becoming my vassal they became independent. A few years later Rus pressed a lot of claims on them and they can't use their troops to fight them as they are both Christian :|

 

[iron0037]

I created a thread in the Bug Reports subforum in hopes of further getting the issue some attention. Please reply in support of it so that we can get it added to a patch!

 

[Kordian]

Oh, well, so I think I will grant Iceland or Faer Oer to Hospitallers just to see what happens, without losing usefull provinces