If you have ever looked at your Crusader Kings 3 army and thought, “Why did my supposedly unstoppable host just get folded by a duke with three counties and a suspicious amount of moustache?”, the answer is usually hiding in your elite troops.
Levies look impressive because there are lots of them. Thousands, sometimes. Enough to make you feel briefly invincible before reality arrives carrying armoured cavalry and a man called Sir Geoffrey the Skull-Flattener.
The troops that actually decide most battles in CK3 are your knights and your men-at-arms. Retinues are a little different. They existed in Crusader Kings 2, but in CK3 people often use the word to describe your permanent professional troops, which are really your men-at-arms regiments and court warriors.
Understanding the difference between these three is one of the biggest steps between “small regional count constantly being raided” and “terrifying emperor who accidentally conquered half of Europe while trying to settle a border dispute.”
What Are Retinues in CK3?
Strictly speaking, CK3 does not have retinues in the old Crusader Kings 2 sense.
In CK2, retinues were standing armies you kept permanently raised. They followed you around like a very expensive travelling entourage and could solve most diplomatic disagreements through enthusiastic violence.
In CK3, the closest equivalent is your men-at-arms. These are permanent professional regiments that stay in reserve until you raise them. You pay to recruit them and then pay maintenance to keep them around.
So when people talk about “retinues” in CK3, they usually mean:
- Men-at-arms regiments
- Elite household troops
- Special cultural units
- Professional soldiers that are not levies
Your standing force might include:
- Armoured Footmen
- Bowmen
- Light Horsemen
- Cultural troops like Varangian Veterans or Cataphracts
- Siege weapons
The important thing is that these troops are always available. They are the core of your army and should be treated like your personal squad of highly trained professionals.
Levies are the crowd. Men-at-arms are the people who actually know which end of the spear goes in the enemy.
What Are Knights in CK3?
Knights are individual characters who fight in your army. They are not units. They are named people from your court, family, or realm.
One knight can contribute a ridiculous amount of damage if they have high Prowess. A knight with 20 or 30 Prowess is basically a medieval action hero. They can cut through entire formations while your levies are still trying to remember where they left their shield.
A strong knight provides:
- High damage
- Better army quality
- More effective combat overall
The number of knights you can use depends on:
- Rank
- Innovations
- Buildings
- Lifestyle perks
- Certain traditions and traits
You can see your available knights in the military tab. CK3 will usually assign them automatically, but it is worth managing them yourself because the game occasionally thinks your best military option is your cousin with 4 Prowess and gout.
How Knight Effectiveness Works
Knight effectiveness determines how much damage your knights do in battle.
At base, knights fight at 100% effectiveness. You can push this much higher through buildings, traits, and perks.
For example:
- Military Academies increase knight effectiveness
- Chivalry lifestyle perks boost knights significantly
- Some cultures have traditions that make knights absurdly powerful
- Certain artifacts and court positions help too
A knight with high Prowess and 300% effectiveness can have the battlefield impact of hundreds of levies.
To put it another way, one extremely angry noble with a two-handed sword can sometimes do more for your army than an entire village armed with sticks and good intentions.
Best Ways to Get Better Knights
If your knights are weak, your army will feel weak even if your troop numbers look great.
Here are the best ways to improve them:
- Invite high-Prowess characters to court
- Marry courtiers to strong warriors
- Use the “Invite Knights” decision
- Recruit captured prisoners with high Prowess
- Focus on the Gallant lifestyle tree
- Build structures that improve knight effectiveness
Some of the best knight-focused cultures include:
- French cultures with Chivalry traditions
- Norse rulers with elite warriors
- Iberian cultures with strong martial traditions
A Norse ruler with powerful knights feels slightly unfair in the same way that bringing a dragon to a knife fight would feel slightly unfair.
What Are Men-at-Arms?
Men-at-arms are your professional regiments. They are the most important part of your army composition.
Unlike levies, men-at-arms have:
- Better stats
- Specific counters
- Terrain bonuses
- Cultural variants
- More consistent battlefield performance
Each regiment has a size and a type. You can expand them over time.
Common men-at-arms types include:
| Type | Strong Against | Weak Against |
|---|---|---|
| Bowmen | Skirmishers | Cavalry |
| Pikemen | Cavalry | Archers |
| Armoured Footmen | Spearmen | Crossbows |
| Light Horsemen | Archers | Pikemen |
| Heavy Cavalry | Infantry | Spearmen |
The counter system matters a lot. If you march your expensive cavalry into a wall of pikemen, you are effectively paying gold to watch your army make a terrible life choice.
Cultural Men-at-Arms Are Usually the Best
Some cultures get unique men-at-arms that are much stronger than the generic versions.
A few famous examples:
- Norse: Varangian Veterans
- Byzantine: Cataphracts
- English: Longbowmen
- Welsh: Longbowmen
- Steppe cultures: Horse Archers
- Persian cultures: Asawira
These units often have better stats, stronger counters, or useful terrain bonuses.
Crusader Kings III has a funny habit of making you feel perfectly sensible for restructuring your entire culture just to unlock one overpowered unit. Then again, once you have seen Cataphracts erase an enemy army in open terrain, it is difficult to go back.
The Best Men-at-Arms for Different Situations
Early Game
In the early game, gold is limited. Cheap, efficient troops are usually better than expensive elite armies.
Good early choices include:
- Bowmen
- Light Footmen
- Pikemen
Bowmen are especially strong because many early armies rely on light infantry and levies.
Mid Game
By the mid game, you can afford specialised armies.
A balanced army usually works best:
- One or two regiments of siege weapons
- Strong frontline troops like Armoured Footmen
- Counter units depending on your neighbours
- Good knights
If your neighbour keeps using cavalry, build more pikemen. If they use archers, bring cavalry or heavy infantry. Medieval warfare in CK3 is basically rock-paper-scissors, except everybody is wearing chainmail and making terrible dynastic decisions.
Late Game
Late game armies are often built around elite cultural units and heavily boosted knights.
A strong late game army might include:
- Cultural elite troops
- Fully upgraded siege engines
- 15+ powerful knights
- Maximum knight effectiveness bonuses
At this point, levies become far less important. They still provide numbers, but the real damage comes from your professional core.
You can absolutely win battles while outnumbered if your men-at-arms and knights are strong enough.
Siege Weapons Matter More Than You Think
Players often forget siege weapons because they are not exciting. They are not glamorous. Nobody writes songs about trebuchets in the same way they write songs about heroic cavalry charges.
That said, siege weapons are one of the most important men-at-arms types in the game.
Without them, sieges take forever. With them, you can capture castles quickly and end wars before your enemy has time to rebuild.
The basic progression is:
- Onagers
- Mangonels
- Trebuchets
- Bombards
Always keep at least one siege regiment. Two if you are rich and impatient, which, to be fair, is most CK3 players by the late game.
Buildings That Improve Men-at-Arms and Knights
Military buildings are a huge part of making your army stronger.
Useful buildings include:
- Barracks for infantry
- Military Camps for skirmishers
- Stables for cavalry
- Military Academies for knights
- Blacksmiths and special duchy buildings
These can:
- Increase damage
- Improve toughness
- Add knight effectiveness
- Raise knight numbers
A fully upgraded realm with the right buildings can turn ordinary troops into monsters.
One of the biggest mistakes newer players make is spending all their money on more soldiers instead of better soldiers. Ten thousand levies look impressive until they run into five hundred elite troops who trained properly and had breakfast.
Should You Focus on Levies or Elite Troops?
Almost always, elite troops.
Levies are useful for:
- Padding army size
- Absorbing casualties
- Intimidating weaker rulers
But if you want to win difficult wars, focus on:
- Strong knights
- Men-at-arms
- Cultural units
- Knight effectiveness
- Good commanders
A smaller elite army is often far stronger than a giant levy blob.
There is something deeply satisfying about watching your supposedly outnumbered army win because your knights and elite troops hit like a medieval freight train.
The Best Army Composition in CK3
There is no single perfect composition, but one of the strongest all-round setups looks like this:
- 2 regiments of heavy infantry or cultural elite infantry
- 1 regiment of pikemen
- 1 regiment of archers
- 1 or 2 regiments of cavalry
- 1 or 2 siege regiments
- As many strong knights as possible
Adapt this depending on terrain and enemies.
If you fight in mountains, use troops suited to rough ground. If you are in the steppes, cavalry becomes much stronger. If you are in England, there is a very real chance someone nearby is about to solve every problem with longbows.
Final Thoughts
The secret to strong armies in CK3 is not numbers. It is quality.
Knights are your battlefield monsters. Men-at-arms are your professional core. “Retinues” are really just the name players still use for those permanent elite troops because old Crusader Kings habits die hard.
Once you understand how these systems work together, battles start to make much more sense. Suddenly you are no longer staring in confusion at a defeat screen while your rival somehow wins with half your numbers.
Instead, you become the rival. The one everyone else fears. The one with terrifying knights, specialised men-at-arms, and just enough siege weapons to politely inform the rest of Europe that their castle now belongs to you.
