Raiding

Raiding is a very important component to generating money for certain types of rulers. The high level concept is that you can raise raiders to go into other realms and take loot from them at certain holdings. This ability isn’t available to all rulers and it is important to understand the basics before doing it to ensure you are successful in your raiding attempts. Below is a video walking you through the basics and how to raid. This page will go through raiding in more details than the video.

Who can Raid?

Not all rulers are able to raise raider armies and raid, so if your character doesn’t show the Raise Raiders tab in the military tab then you might not be able to do it based on your government type or religion. The first thing to finding out if you can raid is to find out what type of government you are. This will either be Tribal or Feudal.

Raising Raider Armies

If your ruler can raise raiders, such Count Haesteinn, then you will need to go to your military tab on the right side of your screen. It is the second icon down and is a red coat of arms symbol below the realm tab. Go here and there will be first set of three options to choose from (if you can raid of course); Raise All Armies, Raise All as Raiders, and Disband All. The first option is if you were raising armies to go to war and the third is to disband all armies you have raised whether they are regular armies or raiders. The option you need to choose is Raise All as Raiders. This will populate a raider army from the levies you have that is portion of what your total raised army count. This army will look very similar to a normal army except that there will be three torches above the red flag signifying that it is your army.

Army Differences

There are not many differences for how the raider army operates compared to a normal army when it comes to the displays. The raider army still shows how many units, quality, commander in charge, how many knights, and all the abilities to break up the unit into multiple units. The only two changes are a Gold display next to the red atrriion skull that shows how much you’ve raided out of how much you can carry and an additional option from the army screen that pops up in the left corner of the screen is an option to have the raiders always be raiding.

The main difference is who and what the raiders can attack. Raiders unlike regular armies aren’t tied to a war to be able to attack other units. Raiders are considered Hostile enemy unit and can be attacked by any enemy or neutral army unit when outside of your own territory. Additionally a Raider Army can attack any holding including but not limited to: baronies, temples, cities, etc. Normal armies are only able to attack the primary holding in County.

Raiding Tips & Other Basics

The one thing that wasn’t mentioned is that once you get your gold from raiding you will need to return it to your controlled territory to get the gold and with it some prestige to match the amount of gold you earned.
Make sure you are in a good position to raid. It is relatively short sieges compared to what is needed to take a county with a normal army. Raiding armies are still nowhere near the levels of real armies and are at risk when in realms at war as there are more units out there.
In a pinch a Raider Army can be added to a normal Army when defending against an attacker who declares war against you.
There will be events around raiding that can provide additional options for you to earn gold/prestige, extra development in your capital or to leave the city alone so that it does not gain recently ransacked (takes 20 years to restore gold to be looted again).
Most Tribal realms are in areas with low development and little holdings, so it is important to always be raiding when not in a war. It is a valuable mechanic for earning gold quickly and is a primary revenue source until you improve your holdings and increase the number of vassals.