You can't declare war when you have an army ... Seriously?

[Hankroyd]

Hi

I started a game and ... it is stupid, I'm not sure if this is a bug or something, but it is way stupid.

I play York around 860 and I just started the game.
I have Casus Belli for the land south of York and I start with 5000 men.
So far, so good.

So I go to the 'declare war' screen, I am asked to pay 150 gold (which Ihave) to declare the war.
But the 'declare war' button is deactivated because "I have millitary units' ...
Duh ...

So ... Am I forced to destroy my whole army to attack????? Because it may be a little less efficient if I attack all alone by myself, right?

I tried to move my army to the land I contest, they did a little tourism but refused to attack. So nice of them.

[ybud]

Its not like EU4, you call up your army after you declare war, even if you disband your army you still have all those troops. You call them up after you declare war. you can see how many you have top right.

[Mormacil]

Just stand down your troops, you can muster them quickly after the war begins. Proper etiquette means you will declare war before mustering your forces.

[BreadandYeast]

Those are levies, you can disband them safely. You can only declare war with raised men at arms.

[viranto]

You have to disband your troops. Or you can cheating, like moving your troops to the capital and then start war. This is only to prevent cheating. So dispand, declare war and then create your troops. Because this game don't have millitary access like other paradox. You can walk everywhere

[CrUsHeR]

This is a legacy feature from CK2. Rallying troops in that game can take years (literally, with a huge continental realm). That way you can't just march the troops at the borders and declare war, but you always have a certain build-up and reaction time depending on your realm size.

Now there you can disband and rally troops within a few days or weeks at any location, it seems a bit unnecessary.

[La Comte de Frou Frou]

You cant declare a war with levies raised. That has always been the mechanic from CK I to III. Drop your levies, declare war, raise levies again. Simple.

[JuX]

It makes perfect sense, so how about not trying to cheese the game. Instead just set a rally point adjacent to their border and "raise all" from there.

[Ukuli]

As others have said so will I.
You must disband your troops before declaring war. It is a balance feature.

Standing armies didn't really exist in the middle ages, not to the extent they do now or in the renaissance anyways. Instead armies consisted of levies, who were called to arms in a time of need instead of being on the payroll all-year around.

Going to war in CK3 goes like this: Have no armies raised -> Make sure you have a rally point to call your troops to -> Declare war on a ruler you have a CB on -> Raise your troops to the rally point(s) -> Do battle.

[Hankroyd]

OK
It is weird but I understand a little better why it works this way.
Thanks for the answers.

I imagine the poor levies.

Levie : Disbanded ! I can go home to find my wife and my son ! At least.
* 2 monthes later *
Levie : Honey I'm home and I'm here to st...
Wife : Our lord declared a war three days ago! What are you doing here? You should have left home 2 days ago!
Levie : OK ... Bye, see you in a few years.

[BreadandYeast]

Originally posted by Hankroyd:

OK
It is weird but I understand a little better why it works this way.
Thanks for the answers.

I imagine the poor levies.

Levie : Disbanded ! I can go home to find my wife and my son ! At least.
* 2 monthes later *
Levie : Honey I'm home and I'm here to st...
Wife : Our lord declared a war three days ago! What are you doing here? You should have left home 2 days ago!
Levie : OK ... Bye, see you in a few years.

Já, thats the beauty of serfdom, everyone is literally your slaves. Unless your a viking in that case levies are chads looking for new farmlands and following 10 ten ways to make easy money guides.

[red66]

its a bit daft i agree

[Jeemoo11]

The problem arises when you want to start a second war but can't because of the war you are in and the army you have.

[BreadandYeast]

Originally posted by hi_plainsdr1fter:

The problem arises when you want to start a second war but can't because of the war you are in and the army you have.

If your in a position where its fine to declare a second war then it usually means that you can safely disband your levies and raise them again without distrupting the war effect too much.

[Zoot]

Originally posted by viranto:

You have to disband your troops. Or you can cheating, like moving your troops to the capital and then start war. This is only to prevent cheating. So dispand, declare war and then create your troops. Because this game don't have millitary access like other paradox. You can walk everywhere

.. thanks .. I am new tot he game and was going nuts trying to figure out why I could not attack .. and fwiw .. idiotic rule .. making folks play with "kids gloves" to be "nice" when that is absolutely not how it works in real life or int he game vs raiders .. forcing player to be "peewee hermans" is idiotic .. I should be able to have a standing army that I can use at any time without all the "fake protocols" .. seriously ..

.. so any modder want to hook us all up? .. lol .. I already gave up on the game in "vanilla" to get achievements (thanks obsidi-ain't) ..

[Twelvefield]

In between the original CK and CK!! was a little game called Sengoku, about that period of Japanese history. In that game, which was an experiment by Paradox to see if CKII could be made, it was possible to start wars with raised armies. That, and it didn't matter where the army was, as it kept itself supplied largely by raiding the land it stood on. This makes sense: how are you going to get an army to move off of your land without the use of another army? An army is the most powerful unit on the board.

You could even march up to the enemy's capitol in peace time, surround their palace, and then declare war. Here's the catch: doing so would cost a heavy amount of Honour, which was a resource in the game. If you had enough Honour, you could spend it and make your attack. If you lacked Honour, you were forced to commit seppuku, ritual suicide. This proved to be a problem, as the actual gamer was required to kill themself. After a few dozen of these, Paradox realized that this could hurt sales of future games and so patched out this content.

No, kidding, of course. But seppuku generally wrecked your game. On the other hand, the surprise attacks didn't work very well, either. What ended up happening was Realm Divide, which was basically Kill All Humans mode. The AI would simply allow all of the computer-controlled states to ally against the human player and steamroller them.

So even though you could declare war while having armies raised, doing so tended to set into motion a massive army reformation that came back to kill the human player. Sengoku was interesting, but unbalanced.