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Sqwero

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Mar 16, 2021
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With the latest changes Men-at-Arms, Special Troops and Mercenaries have travel time. It is now even harder to manage an army then it was on release. Please allow us to raise levies, men-at-arms and mercenaries separately.
 
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With the latest changes Men-at-Arms, Special Troops and Mercenaries have travel time. It is now even harder to manage an army then it was on release. Please allow us to raise levies, men-at-arms and mercenaries separately.
Actually, I want to be able to decide what kind of MaAs to raise. Sometimes, in winter and wars in mountain terrain for example, I might not want to raise my cavalry. In other occasions I might only want archers and siege machines. Please give us that kind of control....it's just common sense....and realistic.
 
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Yeah please this would be awesome. I mean even having men-at-arms raise before the levies would be an upgrade.

I know teleporting armies were super cheesy but at least men-at-arms being raised first was way more convenient since I almost never use levies against smaller nations mid-to-late game. Now you have to wait until basically the whole army get raised since they raise later than levies.
 
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Just to post here that I am in favor of a button to raise only MaA... with a caveat.

I will also bring to the table that thanks to the number of MaA regiments and their maximum size available over the years, after a century or two at most (starting in 869), the players don't care at all for levies anymore - thus this request to only raise MaA - which is in itself a bad design choice.

Much more interesting should have been if both MaA and levies were important until the end of the game, which as things stand now, they aren't by a long shot. So, I'd say that reducing the number of MaA regiments available and their size over time, coupled with a slight increase of the combat ability of levies (and while I never checked, perhaps there is a modifier that can increase levies combat ability by a certain % given by innovations) makes the warfare part of the game much more interesting.

This due to the more limited number of MaA forcing the player to make hard thought choices about what types to be used and the need to continue to field levies until the end of the game as MaA don't rule it all anymore.
 
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Needs to be a feature to form standing army, sort of like a fleet designer in Stellaris where you designate men at arms to raise as a custom stack.
 
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Just to post here that I am in favor of a button to raise only MaA... with a caveat.

I will also bring to the table that thanks to the number of MaA regiments and their maximum size available over the years, after a century or two at most (starting in 869), the players don't care at all for levies anymore - thus this request to only raise MaA - which is in itself a bad design choice.

Much more interesting should have been if both MaA and levies were important until the end of the game, which as things stand now, they aren't by a long shot. So, I'd say that reducing the number of MaA regiments available and their size over time, coupled with a slight increase of the combat ability of levies (and while I never checked, perhaps there is a modifier that can increase levies combat ability by a certain % given by innovations) makes the warfare part of the game much more interesting.

This due to the more limited number of MaA forcing the player to make hard thought choices about what types to be used and the need to continue to field levies until the end of the game as MaA don't rule it all anymore.

100% agree. Given the historical context especially, being able to leave your reliance on levies behind so soon undermines CK3's historicity. The absurdly fantastic quality of MaAs and any good player's ability to maximise their use leaves the whole feudal liege-vassal model of interdependence pretty much erased.

Any balance in this area would probably need to coincide with addressing how easy it is to blob as well, since it's this easiness that makes relying on MaAs very early on possible. In my current game starting as Ivar the Boneless, I easily farmed prestige and poured it into MaAs and managed to conquer almost all of Ireland, half of Scotland, and all of Wales, with enough time to form the Kingdom of Mann and the Isles, all before Ivar died. I really don't think this should be possible.
 
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Is the AI going to be able to do this? Players should not be able to do things the AI cannot do.

I think it would be quite difficult for the AI to assess when to do this. So I am inclined to agree with those arguing that MAA regiments should be make expensive enough that this isn't an issue.

Maybe the cost should rise exponentially, to reflect the fact that the 'easy pickings' have already been recruited and you have to pay more to find and keep men who are willing to risk their lives for you?
 
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With the latest changes Men-at-Arms, Special Troops and Mercenaries have travel time. It is now even harder to manage an army then it was on release. Please allow us to raise levies, men-at-arms and mercenaries separately.
before the update i only ever used one rally point and moved it around, now it kinda makes the rally points useful to break apart your army so you can levy smaller armies and your men at arms happen to gather after levies so it is annoying if you are gathering huge armies then having to disband. Now i set up rally points to make things easier. I would like an ability to just raise my men at arms and mercenaries. Whenever I try to raise my mercenaries in the military menu i only ever see the button for extending their contract bt not a button anywhere to raise them. Everything is now through rally points it seems.
 
This is currently the MOST annoying feature in the game, having to raise twenty thousand men when you only want your few thousand professional soldiers. Also what is equally annoying, as it's part of the same problem, is even if you wait until everyone is raised then split off the men at arms you then have to split off the knights individually and the damn scroll bar scrolls back to the top every time!! You could of course click a hundred times to move out your levies instead, which sadly is often the quickest way.

For anyone who has put enough hours into the game to build an empire, this must be a constant thorn for them.
 
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Just wanted to add that we are aware of various issues related to raising armies (and the relative strength of levies vs men-at-arms), so please keep the comments going!

(as an aside, raising men-at-arms only is coming in the Azure patch, which should be out Soon(TM))
 
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Regulating the number of troops called up for a particular conflict is only part of the problem of the simplified Crusader combat system. I think it would be right to give a choice whether to call up the whole army or to gather only a few vassals with their own troops. One of the options may be the introduction of a system of spears, and therefore the conscription of one or two spears instead of all the troops, led by their commander knights-bacheliers. From a historical point of view, this would be absolutely true and at the same time would make the interaction with your knights more lively than it is now.
 
Still missing the ability to raise only a portion of your MAAs at a time ( ie. only combat MAA or only siege MAA, or only 1-2 regiments of combat MAA vs all of them ).
 
Just to post here that I am in favor of a button to raise only MaA... with a caveat.

I will also bring to the table that thanks to the number of MaA regiments and their maximum size available over the years, after a century or two at most (starting in 869), the players don't care at all for levies anymore - thus this request to only raise MaA - which is in itself a bad design choice.

Much more interesting should have been if both MaA and levies were important until the end of the game, which as things stand now, they aren't by a long shot. So, I'd say that reducing the number of MaA regiments available and their size over time, coupled with a slight increase of the combat ability of levies (and while I never checked, perhaps there is a modifier that can increase levies combat ability by a certain % given by innovations) makes the warfare part of the game much more interesting.

This due to the more limited number of MaA forcing the player to make hard thought choices about what types to be used and the need to continue to field levies until the end of the game as MaA don't rule it all anymore.
Umm, what? Players don't care at all for levies? I think we're playing vastly different games. Even in the 1400s, I wouldn't be able to win a vast majority of wars with only my Men-At-Arms. Not to mention it's a huge waste of money to even try. Are we playing the same game?
 
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Umm, what? Players don't care at all for levies? I think we're playing vastly different games. Even in the 1400s, I wouldn't be able to win a vast majority of wars with only my Men-At-Arms. Not to mention it's a huge waste of money to even try. Are we playing the same game?
Yes, we are playing the same vanilla game (mine has been changed to suit my tastes, downplaying the value of knights and upgrading the value of levies) .
It all depends on the buffs your MaA and knights have. If you play moderately min/maxing the mechanics those MaA and the Knights eclipse the value of the levies.
 
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Yes, we are playing the same vanilla game (mine has been changed to suit my tastes, downplaying the value of knights and upgrading the value of levies) .
It all depends on the buffs your Maa and knights have. If you play moderately min/maxing the mechanics those Maa and the Knights eclipse the value of the levies.
agreed, I usually only raise levies for occasional rebellion or raid in case my maa are far away
 
Yes, we are playing the same vanilla game (mine has been changed to suit my tastes, downplaying the value of knights and upgrading the value of levies) .
It all depends on the buffs your MaA and knights have. If you play moderately min/maxing the mechanics those MaA and the Knights eclipse the value of the levies.
So what you're saying is you can win entire wars against equal powers with little-to-no levies? Yea, no, doubt it. Unless you're one of those people who collect every single military buff and never switches off of military focus tree. But then it's not a problem of the Men-at-Arms.
 
So what you're saying is you can win entire wars against equal powers with little-to-no levies? Yea, no, doubt it. Unless you're one of those people who collect every single military buff and never switches off of military focus tree. But then it's not a problem of the Men-at-Arms.

Yes!
In late game, with "standing armies" I get 9 Men at Arms regiments with the size of 17. Depending on how much heavy cavalry I use, I have around 12k - 14k troops of Men at Arms.
Combined with my own Holy Order of my own heresy or reformed pagan faith, so every single other faith on the map hates me, I get additionally troops of 5k, 10k or even 20k+ with a few levies inside it.
And with that alone, without my own 100k+ levies, I already kicked butt of 120k+ crusader stacks.
So from around the year 1100 - 1200 there is like the only need to ever raise you own levies when a faction hits your vast own build empire.
 
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It is really really annoying that I can't raise troops individually.

Very often, I just want to raise some levies.

Most of the time, I don't want to raise special troops.

It's stupid that the only way to raise levies is the "raise all armies" option.

I hate the tedium of having to raise all my armies, and then go in an manually sort out and disband the ones I don't really want.

This seems like an easy fix.

I hope they will give us this ability in a patch.
 
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