Pagan Great Holy Wars

[ZINT]

Never played as pagans before, and now I am the leader of reformed pagan faith and just got an option to declare the great holy war. It's clearly an equivalent of a crusade, so I wonder if other countries of my faith can join such war?

In all my previous games germans were able to reform, and whenever Fylkir was declaring a holy war it was nothing...

[Feanor]

I am playing a game as reformed germanic, other countries of my faith do not come and help to attack in great holy wars. Only allies do (through the alliance system, if you ask them).

However, when you are the target of a crusade, they all come to help.

It's still very useful when you get powerful enough at the end, to conquer kingdoms every 30 years, with the duchies from normal holy wars in-between :)

[ak31415]

Great Holy Wars should be joined by countries of your faith, though it may be different if you are its personal leader. (I usually rely on a High Priest to administer the faith.) They are useful, however if you're African or Romuva they are much worse, as by the time you reform the faith you're probably the only country that follows that religion.

[Feanor]

I was the head of my religion so ak31415 is surely right :)

[Langkard]

Remember that a Great Holy War targets an entire de jure kingdom. Just looking at the map can make it hard to figure out how strong that religion might be.

I quick tip to finding out who might be a good target to attack via a Great Holy War is to use the ledger button on the minimap. Look for the religion page then click to sort by number of counties in each, i.e. by size. You'll be able to see which religion has fewer than you and which has more. It's not safe to attack someone with more counties, in general. It can be done, but carefully. Even those smaller than you might have more troops or enough money for lots of mercs. County numbers is only a rough way of thinking about the strength of an enemy.

Speaking of mercs, Catholics can be very dangerous to use a holy war against due to the number of holy order mercs available to them eventually. You have to take their armies into account when attacking a Catholic country via a holy war.

Also, as the ruler of a reformed religion with enough Moral Authority, you'll occasionally get requests from other rulers to join your religion. Accept them and keep them happy. These are extra bodies that will join you when you're attacked in a holy war.

[Yxklyx]

Other countries DO join GHWs. I don't know the criteria but in my last one it took several months before anyone joined - the war was just about over.

[ZINT]

Thanks, guys! So it is just what I've expected: utterly inferior to crusades. Nevertheless, gonna eradicate all the monotheists from the map!

[rogergarinmichaud]

pray do tell us how it goes !

[ZINT]

Well, it was super lame. I started the game as chieftess Dobrava of Kiev and reformed the faith pretty early during her lifetime. So, most slavic lands and rulers didnt submit to foreign beliefs.

I declared the great holy war for Lithuania against muslim Khazaria and I ended up being the only attacker. Other major slavic faith kingdoms (Bohemia, Croatia and Denmark) didnt bother. I kinda expected that, as they all already were at war. But I was really disappointed that even my feudal and tribal vassals did not care about it at all. When catholics join a crusade, its not only kings, but their dukes and counts too.

Muslims ignored the war as well. Apparently, it was too far away from their lands so in the end it was a thing between me and the khazarian khagan and his khans. I won easily and got all the land for myself. Me and my commanders got Chosen of Perun (?) trait, similar to crusader trait.

Overall, it was very-very bad, Paradox indeed did very poor job at it. When you go crusading you do have a feeling of spiritual unity between all western rulers and that's great from roleplay perspective. But here I had just a great conquest war, but without prestige/gold cost. I can only hope they will fix that in CK3.

[rogergarinmichaud]

Thanks Zint, indeed they must fix that for the new CK3..

[corisai]

Originally posted by rogergarinmichaud:

Thanks Zint, indeed they must fix that for the new CK3..

There is a small balance issue if we're speaking about 769-900 years. Pagans (and islam) are too strong and christians are NEED their crusades to follow ~historical route. With GHW buffed to crusade level they will have no chances at all.