knights templar question

[rpc]

i have the option (500$) to vassalising a templar knight because i won a crusade
if i do it 1 knight become my vassal but even if im his liege he has 3 lands in very different part of the world that dont become mine and if i rise his levies (60) i cant find where the are
Anyway what im asking is what i should do with him and wich are the benefit to have him
thx a lot

[TM]

Sounds like you've become King of Jerusalem. The important part about vassaling the Knights Templar isn't their levies, but the fact that you will now be able to hire the Templar Knights Holy Order very cheaply. Also if they're your vassal, no-one else can hire them so they'll always be there when you need them. Making them a vassal should make life easier for you basically!

[Neshamah]

The only caveat to vassalizing them is that they are power-hungry land-grabbers. If you don't watch them closely they will consume land in your kingdom (empire) until you stop them. Just a word of warning.

Peace out.

[tcman2000]

Think of it as buying your own personal army

[Evil Crusader]

They only have Barony-level holdings, so you don't get to have extra counties but only single castles here and there: these are in your realm, but not the whole county, only a fraction of that (which the map doesn't display, aside from a mini-nation shield).
The rest of the benefits are these, and yes, it's useful to vassalize them. You only get benefit, with no real drawback.

[rpc]

thx but now he has nolands in my realm is my vassal because im king of jerusalem,he has 3 conties outside.
do i have to land him something to have those beneficts you said ?

[Evil Crusader]

Your realm is everything under you, not just the lands in your title: the land in your title is your 'de jure'. So, as long as he is your vassal, the benefits are provided no matter where he has land.

[rpc]

thx

[Wraith_Magus]

The great thing about a vassal holy order is that they're basically free extra retinues that don't fight people of your religion GROUP(! Not "your religion", your religion group!)

It says in the military screen that it costs you gold, but it doesn't actually cost you any gold - it's costing the vassal gold. The only cost is a raised levy penalty. Fortunately, they tend to die pretty quickly, so you can let them get mad at you and then wait for them to die and have the penalty reset. I never dismiss my holy order.

[rpc]

but if i understand they will never fight against chatolic so they are useless for me that want challange france and holy roman empire. i can just us it for other crusaders or a jhad against me
am i wrong ?

[Evil Crusader]

Exact, but they make great deterrents for such actions.

[Wraith_Magus]

If you aren't participating in holy wars, you really should. Holy wars are great ways to get tons of land, since you can declare wars any time you feel like it (besides treaty cooldown) against anyone not of your faith. Compared to having to suss out a claim from manipulating bloodlines, it's trivially easy to rampage through Russia's pagans as soon as you get 4 Military Organization. Spain is also "conquerer's paradise" since it's guaranteed fractious micro-kingdoms that are easy to gobble no matter what faith you belong to.

[rpc]

is there a way to find these holy wars ?

[Evil Crusader]

All people who aren't Christians or Orthodox are fair game for Holy Wars.

[Surimi]

There is another small issue, but it's fairly minor. Most holy orders are tied to a particular culture. This means that unless you're Frankish you will get culture penalties when dealing with the knights templar grandmaster, and if you give them too much land they may cause rebellion problems. Basically, unless you're Frankish yourself or have some Frankish provinces you want to give to a governor of the same culture, don't give them counties or above.

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by rpc:

is there a way to find these holy wars ?

You can declare holy wars upon anyone of a different religion or religious group than your own at any time, barring already being hostile to you (if they joined a war you were already fighting) and with the usual severe treaty-breaking penalty if you have a treaty. Pagans can holy war other pagans, even the old paganism version of their own reformed religion, although their holy orders do not fight other pagans. (Which I always find quite odd - why do Jomsvikings object to holy warring West Africans? Their culture is so foreign, they may as well be muslims to them...) For Christians, this generally means "anyone who isn't a Christian".

Note that for the purposes of declaring war, only the leader's religion matters. If you attack a nation whose leader is Muslim, but they have Christian vassals, those vassals simply transfer vassalage to you after the holy war is over.

There is no icon that pops up telling you that you have a holy war you can fight over the way that claims do. Instead, just turn on the religion overlay to the map, and look for nearby lands that are either solid someone else's religion's color, or your religion's color, but dashed lines. That's the easiest way to see who's lead by someone of a foreign religion at a glance.

You can declare war upon anyone who is either on a contiguous border between duchies, or, if a county in your realm touches a sea zone, any duchy touching a sea zone up to one sea zone away from your own. The "between duchies" part is important, as you can actually own only the northernmost county of a duchy, and holy war a nation which holds only the southernmost county of a duchy south of your own, even if there are other nations between you, and, on a county level, you do not share a border.

Treaties for holy wars are also notable in that they only last 5 years, instead of 10, like a claim. This lets you carve off kingdoms duchy by duchy at a fairly reasonable pace if you have the patience for it, or are willing to attack two or three different nations while waiting for the last treaty to cool down.