劫掠

原始宗教和印度教统治者，任何宗教的部落和游牧统治者，以及某些文化，可以劫掠（英文：raid）敌对省份而不用宣战。把战利品带回家可以作为财富和威望的重要来源。

任何地图上的省份都可以被劫掠（例外见下文），然而你将不能获得省份战利品（如，金币——在省份界面以一条橙色条显示）和威望，除非此省份满足以下任一条件：

• 一个邻近省份（毗邻你的直辖领或你的封臣直辖领）。你将立即获得省份战利品和威望。
• 一个你在邻近海域有船只的省份。省份战利品和威望将被转移到舰队上，当舰队进港时将加入你的国库。

当你劫掠一个省份但没有满足上述条件，如果你成功围攻一个地产，你将不能获得金币，但仍然可以获得囚犯来勒索赎金，宝物也一样。

对于要用于劫掠的军队，它必须在离开领土前被设置为“劫掠”状态。军队只能在你和平的时候进入这个状态。只要你保持和平，劫掠部队只花费10%维护费。

劫掠对文化，政体和宗教的需求

如果你满足了一下任一条件，就可以劫掠了:

• 政体: 部落制 和游牧制 领主可以劫掠。
• 宗教: 印度教 和大部分原始宗教可以劫掠，除了阿兹特克多神教，尊日神教，希腊多神教，日耳曼多神教和拥有“和平”特性的 改革原始多神教。即使未改革时不能劫掠，拥有其他特性的改革原始宗教信仰也可以劫掠。
• 文化：阿尔泰文化组，藏缅文化组，匈牙利文化组（马扎尔文化），纳瓦文化（阿兹特克），诺斯文化（不是其他北日耳曼文化），柏柏尔（不是其他阿拉伯文化），尼波罗（不是其他印度雅利安文化）

然而，有资格进行劫掠的封臣必须有一个被允许劫掠的最高领主，否则他们将不能这样做。封臣和最高领主不需要有同样的允许劫掠的理由，封臣的直接领主也不需要有资格劫掠。例如，附庸于一位独立的盎格鲁-撒克逊天主教封建公爵的盎格鲁-撒克逊天主教部落酋长将不能劫掠，天主教封臣公爵不能劫掠，但如果此公爵是一位诺斯天主教封建国王的封臣，则此位酋长将能够劫掠。

劫掠及关系

你可以劫掠任何不是你领主，封臣或你的朝贡国/宗主国的角色。例如游牧封臣部族可以相互劫掠。如果你的封臣劫掠你，你可以逮捕他而不招致暴政。（不要被提示条的“统治者可以劫掠异教徒邻居的战利品”和“可以用船劫掠海外”误导。这些是指AI行为；玩家也可以劫掠同宗教的角色，而且总是可以使用船只来帮助劫掠。）

劫掠国家使你敌对，持续180天（从上次劫掠开始）。所有在此省份持有地产的伯爵或更高级别的统治者将有一个好感修正劫掠了我的领地：-40，持续相同时期。

你不能劫掠一个省份，如果你和最高领主或他们控制此省份的任一封臣签有互不侵犯条约。然而停战协议不禁止劫掠。

封臣不会介意，如果他们的军队被调集用于劫掠（仅在围攻时）。当他们的军队移动或所有地产被洗劫后仍在此省份劫掠战利品，每60天，封臣将会生气。

Raiding free loot

Even a small band of raiders can ransack the countryside for loot. The base available loot in a province is roughly 2/3 of the total annual income for all holdings in that province. Of this loot:

• some is protected by walls. The protected amount is equal to the sum of the fort levels in all (un-sacked) or unoccupied holdings in the province, multiplied by 4.
• the remainder may be looted freely, by leaving raiding troops in the province

The speed of looting depends on the size of your raiding party (up to 500) and the "max loot" in the province (regardless of whether it is protected by fortifications or already plundered). It takes 100 days to fully loot a province, although your raiders will usually have to pause when they encounter fortifications.

Loot every 4 days = (Max loot) × min(Raiders, 500) × 0.04

抢劫地产

With enough raiders, holdings may be sieged down as well. The mechanics are similar to occupation sieges, but a given siege has only one goal: sacking or occupation. Note that raiding cannot be toggled on unless the army is in friendly territory and the ruler is at peace.

Sacking a holding:

• Loots a large amount of money (roughly double the annual income of the holding). The formula is:

Looted Gold = (1.5 * Holding Base Income) + (0.02 * Total Buildings Cost)

• Lets more of the free loot be gathered.
• Causes a penalty on demesne income and prevents from sacking again for 3 years（存疑！）.
• May destroy buildings or holdings:
  • Has a 10% chance of destroying a random building in that holding.
  • Has a 5% chance of destroying the holding entirely, if the holding has fewer than 4 buildings. The capital holding can't be destroyed.
  • Always destroys any building or holding currently being constructed.
  • Nomad raiders can further plunder, destroying a building and gaining population (from tribes) or tech points (from other holdings)
• Sacking infidel temples increases moral authority. Likewise, sacking a temple belonging to your religion will decrease your own moral authority.
• Has a chance of imprisoning any courtiers in the province.
• With The Old Gods or Holy Fury: May give the or trait, if the character is eligible (see Traits#Raiding)
• With Monks and Mystics or Holy Fury: May steal artifacts from the holding owner or from characters present in the holding.

Raid defense

Consider building forts at border counties as raiding armies will be forced to siege the fort first, allowing you to gather levies before the county's more valuable holdings are threatened.

If raiding armies are threatened, they will usually board ships and look for another realm to pillage. Most defenders find this sufficient. It is imperative that defenders force raiding armies to flee as quickly as possible if the province has a large percentage of free loot; lost free loot decreases the province's tax value. This is more critical for nomads as their counties' free loot is not protected by the fort levels of holdings and they cannot build forts; parking some horde troops on provinces with Silk Road trade posts is advised.

However, if a defending army can catch and defeat a raiding army, its owner is prohibited from raiding the target ruler for 5 years (only if the game rules has shattered retreat enabled). These fights, while not strictly necessary, can be a useful source of commander practice or military research points. Several methods can be used to catch raiders without giving them a chance to run to their ships:

• Dock a fleet that holds a large army. (To avoid the "amphibious landing" penalty, be careful to select the fleet rather than the army.)
• Assign a commander who increases army movement speed, such as an , once they begin to flee.
• Raise levies from the looted province, just before the looters reach their ships. These levies don't have to defeat the raiders; they just need to hold out long enough for the main army to arrive.
• Attack with a small force, then have a large force join.

Strategies

Germanic pagans are the best raiders

• 769 start date: the "Viking Age" begins in the year 800, giving independent rulers of Norse culture free shipyards in all realm provinces with the correct culture. Coastal provinces in the independent ruler's demesne (not held by vassals) also get free shipbuilding technology.
• 867 start date: Germanic pagans and Hindu rulers begin with ships.
• Germanic pagans have the unique ability (among unrefomed pagans) to navigate major rivers such as the Rhine; they also only pay 10% maintenance on their ships.
  • Reformed pagans which wish to have both bonuses have to select the Sea-Bound doctrine during reformation; Germanic pagans can select their unique Sons of Ragnarok doctrine to keep the bonuses after reformation.
• Rivers are no longer navigable once the average fort level of the adjacent provinces exceeds 10.

Raid rich provinces

• Use the economy map mode to identify rich provinces
• Consider targets such as Venice (capital of merchant republic), provinces with coastal Silk Road trade post. (With , remember that Silk Road profitability can be affected by China's status.)
• Come back after the loot bar refills

Sack holdings

• Focus on provinces with more cities/churches than castles, or provinces with squishy county capitals
• Appoint a commander with the Siege Leader trait for quicker sieges
• If your religion or government type allows taking of concubines, consider distant targets such as Constantinople; Constantinople itself is a "hard" target as its capital has additional fort levels.
• You can send your ships for a loot drop-off while waiting for a siege to end
• Come back after 3 years

Raid islands

• Exploit the AI's inability to use boats.
• Islands in the Mediterranean have mild climates, allowing you to commit large armies to raid and overcome significant penalties when storming islands like Venice and Malta.

Beware of changes in supply limit

• Winters, epidemics and highway bands can reduce a county's supply limit considerably, making sieges and sacking of holdings more difficult.
• Consider raiding in latitudes with mild winters (e.g. Mediterranean)
• Time your raids to avoid winters, especially if the intended targets have high chances of harsh winter.

Avoid temples of your own religion

• Decreasing the moral authority of your own religion is usually not a good idea.

Avoid retaliation

• AI rulers will not raise levies in provinces where you currently have troops, even if they outnumber you
• Each liege (duke, king, emperor) should be weak or distracted by war

Flee when threatened

• Appoint a commander with the trait for movement speed
• Retreat into ships
• If caught in a hopeless battle, order retreat (right-click a destination) rather than waiting for morale to drop

Raid and sack before war

• This lets you take on a sequence of small armies, rather than one large army, because:
  • Enemies will not have the aid of allies during the raid.
  • Enemies (AI) will not raise troops in provinces where you have troops.
    • If your army is large enough, you can even sack the holding with the levies still unraised, killing them without a battle.
• Remember that getting 100% warscore requires winning a "major battle" (>5% warscore in 1 battle) or occupying all enemy territory.

Raid and sack during war

• Requires the use of non-levy armies, because armies cannot be set to loot while at war. Retinues are probably the best choice; holy orders may be too expensive to maintain in an offensive war and do not work against non-religious enemies. Nomads can easily make use of this strategy due to their usage of horde troops. Tribal rulers may use certain event troops or their tribal retinues for this strategy.
• Use a single army in "raid mode", then switch to "occupy mode" immediately after sacking (and order a fast assault).
• Or, put both a "raid army" and an "occupy army" in a province, with the raid army arriving first. Immediately after sacking, order both armies to move out, then order the occupy army to stay.
• Help your vassals in their external wars by raiding their targets.

Raid and sack after war

• This lets you take advantage of supply limit bonuses during the war, then assault-sack the weakened holdings

Use vassal levies to raid

• Vassals do not mind their levies being raised while those levies are raiding a county, and don't mind their ships being raised while those ships are carrying any amount of loot. This is true even if they normally mind their levies being raised. However, do not hesitate to supplement with your demesne troops as maintenance costs of raiding troops is only 10%.
  • Nomadic and tribal rulers cannot use vassals' troops to raid as they call their vassal clans/tribal vassals' to war as allies. However, if they have vassal barons located at coastal counties, they can raise fleet levies.

Raid for prisoners

• For ransom: Choose wealthy capitals with heirs/close relatives residing in them.
• For sacrifices (reformed pagan with Bloodthristy Gods doctrine): Choose realms which follow a different religion.
• For raking up kills (murder bloodlines): execute infidel prisoners (no Piety cost) and let prisoners of same religion rot in dungeons.
• For getting rivals (to duel to create the duelist bloodline): Give prisoners in adolescence to make them rivals. You need at least two attributes at 12 or above, and the child must have been captured before age 12 and be in house arrest.

See also

• Adventurers#Raiding adventurers

战争