Crusader Kings III
158 Achievements
2,250
173-230h
PC
For the Faith!
Take part in a successful Great Holy War, on either side
15
4.75%
How to unlock the For the Faith! achievement in Crusader Kings III - Definitive Guide
Shadowblade1438
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
For a game called Crusader Kings the Crusaders in CK3 are absolutely abysmal at taking the holy land. Thankfully you can game the system a little bit if you only want the achievement.
Start as any Catholic ruler in the 1066 start date. I chose Iceland but literally anything works. Your goal here is to gain about 500 piety before the Crusades, which pretty reliably happen around 1100. Mine happened in 1097. IMPORTANT: If Catholicism has less than 75 fervor the Pope will not declare a Crusade, so you need to hope to get lucky (or just make a backup save for a legit game).
Once the Pope calls for a Crusade you have about one year to click the banner on the bottom right of the screen and deliver money to the war chest. On this same screen there is an option to change war target. Mine cost only 500 piety. Change the war target to something dead easy like the Kingdom of Sicily. Even the lobotomized AI should be able to win this but just in case I would go down and make sure the enemy capital and Sicily's capital get sieged down.
Sicily is in such an awkward spot for Muslims that they should have trouble getting to the war before the Catholics bum rush and get 100 warscore. At the end of the Crusade some shmuck will get a grand total of one county for your efforts, but you should get this achievement.
Start as any Catholic ruler in the 1066 start date. I chose Iceland but literally anything works. Your goal here is to gain about 500 piety before the Crusades, which pretty reliably happen around 1100. Mine happened in 1097. IMPORTANT: If Catholicism has less than 75 fervor the Pope will not declare a Crusade, so you need to hope to get lucky (or just make a backup save for a legit game).
Once the Pope calls for a Crusade you have about one year to click the banner on the bottom right of the screen and deliver money to the war chest. On this same screen there is an option to change war target. Mine cost only 500 piety. Change the war target to something dead easy like the Kingdom of Sicily. Even the lobotomized AI should be able to win this but just in case I would go down and make sure the enemy capital and Sicily's capital get sieged down.
Sicily is in such an awkward spot for Muslims that they should have trouble getting to the war before the Catholics bum rush and get 100 warscore. At the end of the Crusade some shmuck will get a grand total of one county for your efforts, but you should get this achievement.
1 Comment
For a slightly less cheesy way to succeed in a holy war without too much own troops involved, you could also play as an Islamic ruler and join the defenders (in which case you will get the achievement if the crusade is succesfully defended against). Due to the AI behavior, the NPC troops are generally much better at defending a holy war target than at conquering it, unless the attackers heavily outnumber the defenders (e.g. when the target is not Islamic, but some isolated pagan faith or Christian heresy) and/or the target is so far away from same faith allies that the bulk of the attacking forces get there first.
The bad performance of AI attackers in great holy wars is due to two factors:
1) AI is bad at coordinating their arrival. Allied armies do try to unite forces once they are close to each other, but not when they come from all ends of Europe, so most of them will move to the target area independantly. If the target area is surrounded by same faith allies (like palaestina is), the defenders will be there first and gather their forces close together, but the attackers will arrive seperately due to vast differences in travel distance and their armies will get slaughtered one by one, often already upon disembarking from ships.
2) AI heavily prioritizes helping nearby allies in field battles over upholding sieges. They will often give up even sieges that are 90% done to help out an ally army who is fighting a battle in a nearby county, even if they already comfortably outnumber their enemy. In regular wars, that is a good thing most of the time, since it ensures that your NPC allies actually follow you into battle when you need them, but in Grand Holy wars, there are often so many armies on the map which get continuously reinforced and come back to attack again that there is always a battle somewhere nearby and sieges never get completed. So even if the attackers do manage to get a foothold and gather in the target area, they often only temporarily get the upper hand in battle, but fail to actually conquer the land, get the starving status and take so much attrition losses that the war either goes on for decades unresolved or the defenders eventually manage to defeat them with freshly raised troops or by a steadily rising war score for holding the target area.
If you actually want the Christian forces to take the holy land, you'll have to amass a huge army and do most of the work yourself, especially the sieging (the NPC allies are useful to pick off enemy armies and watch your back while you do the sieging, once they managed to get a foothold and garther in the target area).
The bad performance of AI attackers in great holy wars is due to two factors:
1) AI is bad at coordinating their arrival. Allied armies do try to unite forces once they are close to each other, but not when they come from all ends of Europe, so most of them will move to the target area independantly. If the target area is surrounded by same faith allies (like palaestina is), the defenders will be there first and gather their forces close together, but the attackers will arrive seperately due to vast differences in travel distance and their armies will get slaughtered one by one, often already upon disembarking from ships.
2) AI heavily prioritizes helping nearby allies in field battles over upholding sieges. They will often give up even sieges that are 90% done to help out an ally army who is fighting a battle in a nearby county, even if they already comfortably outnumber their enemy. In regular wars, that is a good thing most of the time, since it ensures that your NPC allies actually follow you into battle when you need them, but in Grand Holy wars, there are often so many armies on the map which get continuously reinforced and come back to attack again that there is always a battle somewhere nearby and sieges never get completed. So even if the attackers do manage to get a foothold and gather in the target area, they often only temporarily get the upper hand in battle, but fail to actually conquer the land, get the starving status and take so much attrition losses that the war either goes on for decades unresolved or the defenders eventually manage to defeat them with freshly raised troops or by a steadily rising war score for holding the target area.
If you actually want the Christian forces to take the holy land, you'll have to amass a huge army and do most of the work yourself, especially the sieging (the NPC allies are useful to pick off enemy armies and watch your back while you do the sieging, once they managed to get a foothold and garther in the target area).
By Hirntoht on 19 Sep 2023 15:07
Clearik
TrueAchievements
TrueAchievements
If you control a Christian, especially around the year 1066, it’s not rare for the Pope to begin calling Great Holy Wars. If you were to control a Powerful Ruler, joining them should set the tides of battle in your favor, unlocking this achievement.
Apart from that, you could always reform a Faith so you’re their Temporal Head of Faith, enabling you to declare Great Holy Wars at whim.
Apart from that, you could always reform a Faith so you’re their Temporal Head of Faith, enabling you to declare Great Holy Wars at whim.
