Knight orders quest!

I like the new Knight orders quests in 3.6. The one I enjoy the most is the one that you get to lead a war party from the order and you must gain a fixed ammount of prestige (which is not so easy given that the troop size is very large (more than 200 troops knights and sergeants), a good quest to go hunting for unique spawns) .

I have already tried the quest with Dragon Knights and Windriders. With the Dragon Knights it was a walk in the park. The Drakes held the line realy well and the knights surrounded and killed everything. With the windriders I had far more serious problems since they were realy and I mean realy fragile (I lost 30-40 fighting the daughters of Persinoe while I had 10 surgery  )

Which order do you think is the best fot this quest? I believe that the Shadow Legion has perhaps the strongest lineup. The Silvermists and Ebony Gauntlents do not have horses.

I've done it with the Falcons. Despite those ladies not having quite have the stats of most of the other Knights (Maiden Nobles are also a pain in the butt to raise compared to the source troops of other orders but that's another topic, heh) it was easier than expected due to how multi-purpose the Talons are.

I'd have the Talons line up, still mounted, on a hill or somewhere with a nice view for crossbow sniping then have the knights charge the main force head on after the kills from the missiles started stacking up. Then, when both enemy and Knights sides are fully commited, I'd have the Talons Hold Fire and charge in from the flank - with their fast horses and decent weaponry they got a lot more killing done than I'd expect.


Though I'd imagine the Shadow Legion is the easiest for this quest by far.

Once again the Shadow Legion takes the cake for this, at least theoretically.

With their polearm foot troops the enemy cav won't be a problem and they'll eat enemy infantry for breakfast, similar to the Sarleon Halberdiers or Imperial Pikemen that have halberds.

Don't even get me started on the filthy rape that a mass of Shadow legionaires can produce though.

I've done it with Immortals and Dragons. The immortals were the more interesting of the two, if only because the pressure is REALLY on due to their slower map movement. That said, I finished the Dragon quest with only a day to spare.

Is it possible to do these quests with the player-created order?

No.
Those quests are part of the order rank and progression system which will finally evolve into the big showdown of the Grandmaster quest arc.

Which isn´t possible for CMKHOs because you´re declared honorary Grandmaster the second you found it and don´t need to gain rank points with it.

Just to satisfy my curiousity I had a try with the Valkyries. I mean, surely they can't be as weak as everyone makes them out to be... right?

Oh. My. God. That was just painful. I don't know if it was a bit of a tactical error fighting against Ravernstern during this quest (massed archers, poor armour, small shields - ouch) but both Einharjars and Valkyries are taking really, really nasty losses in close combat and from missiles. Tried leading with the foot and then having the Valkyries flank and using the Valks as shock troops and following up with the foot... neither's worked particularly well.

Lady Einharjars are pretty good infantry, at least when fighting against me.  With Ravenstern, you must get to their archers and disrupt their fire as fast as possible.  Move into range and then charge.  Hopefully you'll be able to destroy their infantry and cavalry fast enough so that the bulk of your army can engage their archers.  In the meantime smaller attacks on their archers with cavalry will keep them from firing away at your infantry.  If their archers are allowed to set up in a line and fire nonstop on your forces, you'll take heavy heavy casualties.  It's not that Lady Einharjars are weak, it's that no infantry can take that kind of fire, especially when they're engaged fighting enemy infantry or cavalry. 

With Ravenstern, you'll be most effective on horse doing driveby stabbings on infantry, and disrupting the archers whenever possible though this is dangerous and best done with a couple of friendly cavalry with you.  On foot, you'll be shot down by a barrage of arrows just like the rest of your infantry.

Also hold fire, otherwise your Valk's will stand back a little and throw javelins. You want them to get in close and personal in order to take out their archers pronto. Valk's should actually be really good anti archer, as they are the fastest Order knight.

noosers said:

No.
Those quests are part of the order rank and progression system which will finally evolve into the big showdown of the Grandmaster quest arc.

Which isn´t possible for CMKHOs because you´re declared honorary Grandmaster the second you found it and don´t need to gain rank points with it.

Click to expand...

Maybe it was not intended, but yesterday I got this quest from my own order, during the war with Empire. It was real fun, leading order warparty and picking out one lord after another (I play as a warlord owning only one city, so my only help were noldor patrols if I met any). I hope it will stay this way, order warparty led by king makes sense for me.

gadrael said:

noosers said:

No.
Those quests are part of the order rank and progression system which will finally evolve into the big showdown of the Grandmaster quest arc.

Which isn´t possible for CMKHOs because you´re declared honorary Grandmaster the second you found it and don´t need to gain rank points with it.

Click to expand...

Maybe it was not intended, but yesterday I got this quest from my own order, during the war with Empire. It was real fun, leading order warparty and picking out one lord after another (I play as a warlard owning only one city, so my only help were noldor patrols if I met any). I hope it will stay this way, order warparty led by king makes sense for me.

Click to expand...

I also received a quest from my order to slaughter some Knights of the Dawn (which spawned a special party for the purpose).

noosers said:

No.
Those quests are part of the order rank and progression system which will finally evolve into the big showdown of the Grandmaster quest arc.

Which isn´t possible for CMKHOs because you´re declared honorary Grandmaster the second you found it and don´t need to gain rank points with it.

Click to expand...

I got the tournament quest, order rivalry (again, knights of the dawn, so I assume it uses the initial player relationship at time of founding), and the lead war party quest about a week in, before they were equipped. I was obviously induced to the order twice (as honorary grandmaster/founder), receiving my reinforced leather jerkin and spirited saddle horse.

Let's just say it's painful to lead a bunch of sergeants around with a stick - I find they don't do well in auto-calc either (killing about 10 bandits per round?), so I had to disband most of them and solo some bandits with the companions for easy prestige. And by disband I mean throw all my stuff in chests and surrender to some steppe raiders. Speaking of which, the knight order quest should obviously fail if you've lost a battle (and all the knights) and the reward should be scaled. I'm not sure if marshalling lords should be allowed, but the second time after a reload I just hired some mercs and they got pretty fat off the prisoners I didn't keep.

Renaming the order from the camp menu also seems to toss up the secondary menu that "x was founded on y", so I'm not sure if that led to slots being reset and me being able to take the war party quests.

Oh, what an honor to have a distinguished modder play another mod.

I'll try to answer all of the issues raised.

The Order rivalry quest uses the Order faction hostility matrix, except for the player Order, which changes its relations as the player relations change (just as for the player kingdom!). Some Orders have multiple enemy Orders, or one, some have none.

You found out it's not a good idea to field weak Order troops when going for the Order renown quest. And that's how it should be. Even if you take this quest for an established Order, sometimes it pays off to actually dismiss some sergeants if you are confident in your abilities and to earn more renown faster.
The renown quest doesn't have to fail if you lose a battle, though I get your point. I found it's better to let the player finish it any way he can, even with companions only. This is balanced by the reward - if you have no Order troops left, there are none you could hire as a reward.
Getting friendly lords to help you or simply joining battles is fine too, as the battle renown with allies is less than you would earn on your own.

Renaming the Order does just that, nothing is changed except the names. Only the Order faction color is updated to match that of your kingdom (and somewhat randomized).

I love the new quests. My current character joined the Knights of the Lion. I have trouble filling Bounty requirements on heretics and rogue knights (the former especially been a bit scarce at times) so I was running mostly the rivals and tournament quests when I came across the option for something a bit mroe challenging. I ran that mission as much as I could. On at least one of them I bit off more than I could chew and ended up finishing on vanskerry and bandit spawns with my paltry amount of remaining knights and squires. Not the most epic end to a quest to gain the order renown, but after all they'd been through I'd say the knights in my party earned every renown point they got. Having mounted sergeants was nice. I stuck them in a different group and sandwiched enemy parties between two masses of angry, charging horsemen.

Can you raise through the ranks of the nonestablished but noncustom orders like Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet, and ones that start out disliking you like Knights of the Eventide? It might be interesting to have one of them get the reward for the Grandmaster quest arc.

Yes, you can. Though leaving a former order usually has dire consequences, so breaking up one´s order devotion to join another one is usually a bad idea.

When you become the Grandmaster of an order, do you then have the ability to recruit members of the order, or do you have to use a qualis gem to found your own chapterhouse of that order? 

I'm about to become the Grandmaster of the Ebony Gauntlet.  If I am going to be able to recruit Ebony Gauntlet knights from the order without having to expend a Qualis gem, then I won't bother establishing my own chapter house.  If not, then I guess I will need to establish my own chapter of the Ebony Gauntlet using a Qualis Gem. 

ssssnake said:

When you become the Grandmaster of an order, do you then have the ability to recruit members of the order, or do you have to use a qualis gem to found your own chapterhouse of that order? 

I'm about to become the Grandmaster of the Ebony Gauntlet.  If I am going to be able to recruit Ebony Gauntlet knights from the order without having to expend a Qualis gem, then I won't bother establishing my own chapter house.  If not, then I guess I will need to establish my own chapter of the Ebony Gauntlet using a Qualis Gem.

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You can't recruit directly, you need to found a chapter and your garrison will get reinforced once in a while with some units.

Only if he hasn´t chosen Pendor Background Culture. If he has, he´s able to recruit Pendor Nobles and train them as Knights of the Ebony Gauntlets like the honor troops they are.

noosers said:

Only if he hasn´t chosen Pendor Background Culture. If he has, he´s able to recruit Pendor Nobles and train them as Knights of the Ebony Gauntlets like the honor troops they are.

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I am Pendor culture. 

So, you are saying that if I'm Pendor culture, that I will be able to create Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet from Pendor Foot Knights at the Order's castle?  (Without having my own castle/town with an established order?) 

shoshuro said:

You can't recruit directly, you need to found a chapter and your garrison will get reinforced once in a while with some units.

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Conflicts with this advice.  Who is correct? 

What they mean to say is that if you own the castle or town with the chapter of Ebony Gauntlets, you can take your Pendor Foot Knight there to upgrade them. If somebody else owns the fief with the chapter then you can't upgrade your own troops there, but you can still do quests and whatnot for them.

shoshuro said:

ssssnake said:

When you become the Grandmaster of an order, do you then have the ability to recruit members of the order, or do you have to use a qualis gem to found your own chapterhouse of that order? 

I'm about to become the Grandmaster of the Ebony Gauntlet.  If I am going to be able to recruit Ebony Gauntlet knights from the order without having to expend a Qualis gem, then I won't bother establishing my own chapter house.  If not, then I guess I will need to establish my own chapter of the Ebony Gauntlet using a Qualis Gem.

Click to expand...

You can't recruit directly, you need to found a chapter and your garrison will get reinforced once in a while with some units.

Click to expand...

What I think Shoshuro means by this is that if you want knights of a different culture than your own, then you can create the chapter in one of your fiefs and you slowly get free knights added to the garrison there that you can take without needing the nobles, or having to spend prestige. Since you have Pendor culture, you could get Lion, Dragon, or other knights from the other cultures.

Being grandmaster doesn't let you recruit knights from their order, unless you own the fief with the chapter in it.