Holy Order - What is the advantages?

[Lamon]

So i started a Holy order but I don't see what i get for the investment of piety and gold. It seems i can hire them for free but they have never been available as they already doing something. Am i missing something i see notices they getting hired all the time. Do i get a piece of that?

[Gopher]

The advantages in ck2 were mostly that you could piggy back on their crusader and get some territories out of it. Plus it spreads the faith.

[Ogami]

You can raise them for free in any holy wars against another religion.
Can raise to a few thousand man over the centuries.
Basically a free mercenary army.

Seems you just had bad luck with them beign hired when you needed.
I used them multiple times in my game as Hispania.

[SDxEair]

You can hire them against other religions only. They will also every so often ask to buy a city holding(not the primary holding of a county, one of the secondary ones) from you for hundreds of gold to increase their size, it was like 600-700 gold each for me the two times they've asked.

[gidro]

In the long run, it might also help your religion in general, because other rulers can use some mercs that they hire with piety. Between muslims and norse it's rough for feudal catholics. It seems like there's not a bunch of holy orders poping up when the first crusade happens in ck3.

[SDxEair]

And yea, its best to make sure they're available before starting a holy war if you think you'll need them for the war.

[Lamon]

That makes sense. Will watch Catholics are in trouble so should be easy to get some holy wars going.

[god of being bad at everything]

What is the biggest holy order youve seen and what is your record can you hold multiple holy orders

[Crim]

Originally posted by god of being bad at everything:

What is the biggest holy order youve seen and what is your record can you hold multiple holy orders

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2236868316

[desaix]

Originally posted by god of being bad at everything:

What is the biggest holy order youve seen and what is your record can you hold multiple holy orders

Biggest Holy Order I've seen ran about 10k soldiers. That was for a custom religion (which took some time to form, as you might imagine), after they'd been in operation about... I think it was two hundred years, and their holdings had spread quite far.

I've had multiple Holy Order options I could hire (in said custom religion run mentioned above, I had the 10k order, and some countries founded by kingdoms belonging to cousins I'd set up independently had also founded their own which had about 1-2k soldiers, each; I think there were three or four options before I ended that run), but I was only ever permitted to hire one at a time. Any King-level character can found one, if they have enough piety and whatever other requirements the game has (not going to look that up, now), but even if you're an emperor who can claim multiple King-level titles, you can only ever found a single one yourself. A King-level vassal can found others for you, however.

If you're hosting the order (initially automatic as the founding regent; you can lose this ability, but I'm not sure how, or even if, you can re-gain this status once you do), you can spend a bit of piety to hire them away from whoever else might have hired them.

In my experience, they're always summoned to your capital; I've never been able to figure out how to raise them at a rally point, so I often use them to defend the homeland whenever I summon all armies to a more remote location.

[Chip56]

If you only have 1 rally point they will rally there. Which means if you place that rally point first you pretty much gain an army wherever you need it instantly. And if you are the patron for free too if they are not currently busy.
pretty nice if there is a rebelion of some other faith and you just drop 6k troops to crush it before they can combine.

[Heraclius Caesar]

Originally posted by god of being bad at everything:

What is the biggest holy order youve seen and what is your record can you hold multiple holy orders

Biggest I've seen so far was 20k.

Not sure what you mean by "what is your record"

You don't "hold" holy orders. You can be the patron of 1 and king rank vassals or independent kings that are coreligionists to you can be the patrons of others which you can have access to.

[Simplicius]

It makes it cheap and easy to contribute to a Holy War in the long run. Having a Holy Order you helped found makes those troops available for free. Every time one of those annoying crusades pops up, call up the holy order and send them to fight as your contribution to the Crusade, and leave your levies at home defending or expanding your titles.

[AdmiralPiett]

Maybe you need to stop thinking about everything from a "how does this improve my power" standpoint (ie the "gamer" POV) and instead think about it from an immersion standpoint (ie the "RP" POV): yes, i'm a medieval king/emperor, i'm a patron of a Holy Order. Idk about you but that's COOL

[Hemnlyr]

Originally posted by Lamon:

So i started a Holy order but I don't see what i get for the investment of piety and gold. It seems i can hire them for free but they have never been available as they already doing something. Am i missing something i see notices they getting hired all the time. Do i get a piece of that?

One of the advantages of Holy Orders is that they can recruit units that are normally only available to certain cultures. From what I've seen this is based on where the holy order is founded. They can also be useful for getting men-at-arms beyond your current limit.

You can grow them quickly if you are willing to throw a lot of money at them. Every few hundred gold they seem to approach a ruler of their faith and offer them the gold to acquire a city or a castle holding, increasing their income and size.

[garthurbrown]

If you are their patron and you are in a holy war you can call up your holy order, even if they are already engaged by someone else.