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Wars were common in the Middle Ages, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Crusader Kings 3 is no d🍸ifferent. The battlefield is often the most expedient means of getting your way, despite the risks and expense. A well-planned and well-executed war can see your realm expand tremendously, or even put a crown on your head.
Warfare is more complicated in Crusader Kings 3 than in most other games, but once you get the hang of it you'll be able to press your claims like a pro. In the meantime, here's everything you need to know about declaring, waging, and winning wars.
How To Get Casus Belli
Characters in Crusader Kings 3 can't just declare war whenever they like. Before you can initiate a conflict, you'll need an appropriate casus belli, a Latin phrase meaning "cause for war." Wars have to be justified in Crusader Kings 3, and your casus belli determines what you're fighting for and what you'll get if you win.
The most common types of casus belli are those that allow you to press a claim on land you do not control. It doesn't have to be one of your own claims - you can start a war on behalf of anyone in your court, including guests. All of a character's claims can be viewed by clicking on their portrait.
Claiming land on behalf of someone else will not usually expand your realm unless the claimant is already a landed vassal under you. It can still be useful to prop up a pretender, even if you don't directly benefit; you might seize land on behalf of a relative to improve your Dynasty, or simply replace a rival neighbor with someone more cordi🍌al to you.
You can also wage war for land that is legally part of your domain but held by someone else. For example, if you're the King of England, but York is held by someone else, you can declare a war to reclaim York even if nobody in your court has a personal claim since it's de jure part of England. Be warned, though, that if land stays outside its de jure realm for too long it will legally become part of its current owner's realm, robbing you of the chance to take it back.
Depending on your character's religion and culture, many other casus belli may arise that provide new opportunities for conquest. Holy Wars in particular can earn you large swathes of land seized from rulers💙 of a different faith. Be on the lookout for powerful justifications and be ready to act uponཧ them!
How To Declare War
Once you have a suitable casus belli, you'll need to formally declare war. Right-click on the character you intend to fight and choose the Declare War option. For foreign wars, you'll need to declare war against the highest-ranking liege in the target nation. This means you'll likely have to declare war on a King or Queen, or even an Emperor or Empress!
If you're fighting internally within a realm (for example, fighting a Duke who is sworn to the same liege as you), you only need to declare war against the primary target. Powerful monarchs can outlaw infighting between their vassals later in the game, so take the chance to grab land while you can.
You cannot declare any new wars if you have any levies raised - if this is preventing you from declaring war, but you can't find the offending levies on the map, open the Military Tab and click the Disband All button in the upper-right corner.
On the Declare War screen, you can select one of the available casus belli to use as your justification for the conflict. Pay attention to the possible outcomes of each; depending on the casus belli, the results of a war are set in stone based on who wins.
Every casus belli requires that the attacker spend Prestige or Piety, which will usually be refunded as long as you win. Powerful casus belli also requires that the attacker is of a sufficiently high Prestige or Piety rank, so if you want to grab large swathes of land it can be worth putting the war off for a few y𒁏ears to attain the necessary fame.
How To Raise Your Armies
Once war is declared, raise your armies from the Military Tab and prepare for battle! Your armie🐷s have significantly increased upkeep while raisedꦰ, so be sure to have plenty of money in reserve before starting a war.
Armies can be raised at one or more Rally Points within your realm. You start with a single Rally Point in your capital, indicated by a red banner, but can assign multiple Rally Points from the Military Tab by clicking on the plus sign next to the colored banners near the bottom. If you have a large realm, it's important to have Rally Points at key strategic areas so that your troops can be easily raised where you need them.
Once raised, armies spawn on the map but do not have any soldiers yet. Over the next several days or weeks, recently-raised armies will fill up to their maximum capacity as soldiers from across the realm travel to the Rally Point. It's recommended that you keep your armies at the Rally Point until they're fully mustered.
Armies can be split into smaller armies or, if multiple armies are in the same province, they can be combined into a single force. Each army has a Commander, usually the character with the highest Martial trait at your court. If the highest-ranked character is unavailable (for example, if they're already commanding a different army) the game will go down the list until it finds a suitable candidate.
You can also manually assign a Commander if you want a specific character to win battlefield prestige... or if you're secretly hoping they don't come back. A Commander always fights in their army as a Knight (see below).
Levies, Men At Arms, and Knights
Every army in Crusader Kings 3 consists of three basic troop types. Levies consist of peasant conscripts and form the vast majority of every army's composition. While Levies are by far the weakest soldiers in the game, you need their numbers to hold the line and keep from being overwhelmed.
Men At Arms are professional soldiers who specialize in a specific form of combat. You can hire Men At Arms from the Military Tab; each regiment incurs an initial cost to hire and monthly upkeep regardless of whether they're raised. Men At Arms are stronger than Levies and fight better or worse depending on the battlefield terrain.
Each type of Man At Arms counters one or more other types,🦩 reducing the amount of damage the countered troops deal. This penalty is increased if the countering ꦉunit outnumbers the countered unit.
Basic Man At Arms Matchups
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Type |
Strong Against |
|---|---|
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Bowmen |
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Cavalry (Light or Heave) |
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Heavy Footmen |
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Pikemen |
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Skirmishers |
|
Advanced and Culture-specific Men At Arms can have different counters and terrain matchups - look for opportunities to neutralize your opponents' Men At Arms to win more battles.
Knights
Knights are individual characters who participate in battles. Your court has a maximum number of Knights available, and the game will automatically assign the courtiers and vassals with the highest Prowess stat to the role. If you don't want a character fighting (for example if you don't want to risk the life of your only viable heir), you can forbid them from being assigned to the role from the Knights tab on the Military Tab.
By default, the game refers to warrior characters as Knights, but will change the term depending on your character's Culture. There is no functional difference in-game between Knights, Champions, or any of the other possible names for these characters.
A single skilled Knight is worth hundreds of regular troops on the field. That's not an exaggeration - each soldier in a Levy has ten Attack and ten Defense, while a single Knight has one hundred Attack and ten Defense, with both stats multiplied by their Prowess. This meanꦗs a Knight with a Prowess of twelve has an Attack rating of 1,200 and can suffer 120 damage before being forced from the field.
Since Knights are characters, they can be wounded, captured, or killed in battle. This removes them and their impress🌠ive stats from the army.
How To Move And Attack
With one or more armies selected, you can order them to march to a province by right-clicking on it. The armies will automatically devise the fastest route, but if you want them to take a slower but safer route you can shift-right-click several provinces to order them to march to them in sequence.
An army's orders can be changed while they're moving, but if they are halfway between their current province and the next they must finish their current movement before they can carry out new orders. This means that an army on the march can be forced ☂into a disadvantageous battle by timing the encounter correctly.
Armies can cross water, but it's expensive - ship transport incurs a one-time gold cost based on the distance traveled and the size of the army.
When two enemy armies are in the same province at the same time, a battle occurs. If two or more armies' current orders will cause them to initiate a battle, an icon will appear in the province where the battle is expected to take place. The icon will also show whether your forces are favored to win or lose, and you can hover over it to see what factors lead to that prediction. If a battle doesn't look favorable, try to redirect your forces before they meet the enemy army.
Armies will only fight if their respective owners are at war with one another, so you don't need to worry about fighting armies you encounter if they have nothing to do with your current conflicts. This also means that your allies will only fight enemy armies that are participating in the specific wars they've agreed to support.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Battles are resolved automatically, but for most of the engagement you can retreat by moving your army to a different province. Doing so will incur losses, but probably few🧜er than you would lose if you stayed and fought.
Attrition
Every province can supply a maximum number of troops based on its Development. If there are more troops present in the province (friendly, enemy, or neutral) then the affected armies will begin to suffer attrition, losing soldiers to starvation, dise𝓰ase, and desertion each day. Enemy armies are the most ﷺheavily affected.
Attrition is inevitable while your troops are in enemy territory, so expect some losses while avoiding unnecessary risks. Attrition causes more losses in harsh terrain such as Desert or Mountains, and can become 168澳洲幸运💮5开奖网:especially deadly during th🦩e winter months. If one of your armies has a skull icon on its banner, they are currently su🐼ffering from attrition - consider moving t🌳hem immediately.
Sieges
When an army is stationary in a County capital, they will lay siege to the province. A meter will appear next to the army's banner, and when it fills up the County becomes occupied. The Fort Level of the defending Barony and the presence of siege weapons can slow or hasten this process, but in most cases it will take several months.
Occupied Counties grant no benefits to their owner and contribute to the occupier's War Score. Occupying an enemy capital or the specific Counties named in the current war's casus belli generate much more War Score. An occupied County can be re-taken by laying siege to it, and a siege by the rightful owner or their allies will take significantly less time.
War Score
Each war in which you're involved is displayed in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, denoted by your primary enemy's coat of arms. Below it is a percentage between zero and one hundred. The higher the number, the closer one side is to winning the war - green numbers indicate that your side is winning, while red numbers indicate that your opponent is winning.
You can gain War Score for your side of the war by winning battles, occupying territory, and taking captives. When one side's War Score reaches one hundred percent, they can force their opponent to surrender. Listen for horns whenever you gain War Score - that sound cue indicates that you have reached the necessary threshold to claim victory. To enter peace negotiations, simply click on the coat of arms for the war you with to end.
Capturing the opposing war leader - usually the character who declared war or the one against whom the war was declared - allows the captor to immediately force their surrender.
If a war has gone on for a long time without a clear winner, either side can offer a White Peace, ending the war with no demands being enforced. The attacker will lose a small amount of Prestige or Piety depending on the casus belli, but this is better than having to Surrender. An opponent won't accept a White Peace for a war that they are currently winning, so the best time to offer White Peace is when you have the advantage but aren't in a position to strike the final blow.
