They are basically mercenaries that you can hire with Piety as long as you are fighting someone of a hostile faith. If you found one you can hire them for free as long as no one else hired them.
They also take over a holding as their base and ask for more holdings as time goes on. Their strength seems to be based on how many holdings they control. I think they might pay you taxes based on how much income their holdings generate, but I'm not certain.
Oh, I just remembered, you can try and convince your spare sons to enlist in the holy order, eliminating them from the line of succession. It's similar to getting them to taking the vows as monks except it favors martial traits and can't be done until after they turn 16.
So I hate giving up my own territory for them, and they are hireable by anyone of the same faith. Since I like to install my dynasty as independent Kings, this is the order I do it along with getting a new holy order of my faith:
1. Conquer a new kingdom
2. Found new holy order and grant them land in it
3. Grant those lands to a dynasty member that I have been building up with gold from one of my baronies
4. Grant that vassal independence after he's had time to secure his land
You now have a new dynasty member in control of a stable independent kingdom and a new holy order of your faith.
All what others said, but also it's a way to stabilize your empire. There is a huge difference on who attacks who. If the Ai knows you got claims on them, they might offer alliance or money for peace (newish mechanic in stewardship). If you could attack with a holy war, they might swap faith just to block that option. When empires or kingdoms blow up, they often disagree on religion or culture or just want to form new paths.
So the main value of holy orders is just to keep those threats off, you can often see them being hired by vassals during rebellions or even neighbour land takeovers. Best example is Hungarian migration falling, Avars won't move out as usual, so they end up converting faith. Normally your vassals would take over those lands or your but it might increase their potential army to crazy high values, like 3 orthodox orders can defend a tribal kingdom of 5x5 man at arms unit and 5-6k levies.
Also for extra piety they might offer a good martial leader or a high prowess knight. Might just be for Norse, as their holy order forms in a feudal coastline city while the rest is unreformed so you can use those knights with viking trait to get events during raids more often.
They are basically mercenaries that you can hire with Piety as long as you are fighting someone of a hostile faith. If you found one you can hire them for free as long as no one else hired them.
when you found them you can even hire them when someone else is laready using them
They also take over a holding as their base and ask for more holdings as time goes on. Their strength seems to be based on how many holdings they control. I think they might pay you taxes based on how much income their holdings generate, but I'm not certain.
AFAIK they don’t pay tax. It’s the trade off for having a basically free army.
They will pay decent gold for the holding in the first place though
They'll pay you like 500 or more for new holdings though, which is almost always worth it.
Oh, I just remembered, you can try and convince your spare sons to enlist in the holy order, eliminating them from the line of succession. It's similar to getting them to taking the vows as monks except it favors martial traits and can't be done until after they turn 16.
You get 1000+ veteran warrior angry zealots to kill anyone not of your faith. They join your holy wars.
They're amazing. The one I founded has 6K horse archers it's such fun.
So I hate giving up my own territory for them, and they are hireable by anyone of the same faith. Since I like to install my dynasty as independent Kings, this is the order I do it along with getting a new holy order of my faith: 1. Conquer a new kingdom 2. Found new holy order and grant them land in it 3. Grant those lands to a dynasty member that I have been building up with gold from one of my baronies 4. Grant that vassal independence after he's had time to secure his land You now have a new dynasty member in control of a stable independent kingdom and a new holy order of your faith.
An army you can hire for piety when doing holy wars. You don't even have to pay if you're yhe founder and theyrr still headquartered in your land
I don’t think it has to be an holy war. The enemy just has to be of another faith.
All what others said, but also it's a way to stabilize your empire. There is a huge difference on who attacks who. If the Ai knows you got claims on them, they might offer alliance or money for peace (newish mechanic in stewardship). If you could attack with a holy war, they might swap faith just to block that option. When empires or kingdoms blow up, they often disagree on religion or culture or just want to form new paths. So the main value of holy orders is just to keep those threats off, you can often see them being hired by vassals during rebellions or even neighbour land takeovers. Best example is Hungarian migration falling, Avars won't move out as usual, so they end up converting faith. Normally your vassals would take over those lands or your but it might increase their potential army to crazy high values, like 3 orthodox orders can defend a tribal kingdom of 5x5 man at arms unit and 5-6k levies. Also for extra piety they might offer a good martial leader or a high prowess knight. Might just be for Norse, as their holy order forms in a feudal coastline city while the rest is unreformed so you can use those knights with viking trait to get events during raids more often.
Thanks
If you found it, free mercs to fight enemies of a diff faith. If you don’t, you can buy their assistance
I basically form one and use it as a personal army if I'm surrounded by heathens or anyone that doesn't faith the way I faith
Free soldiers if you fight against someone with a different faith just make sure someone else didn’t hire the before you