Jihad upkeep/ ?cheesy strat

[Razor1952]

I've never REALLY used Jihads till now, I'm playing a modded version where sea trade really sucks so $'s are hard to come by, so here's the rub....

The strat is to build many Jihad markers(like 20 or 30) , take a province , and if they take it back I then can mobilize extra troops with my Jihads(like an extra few 3-5k) and then obliterate the opposition and continue on to take a few more provinces, till I run out of Jihad troops. Rinse and repeat. Just continue to churn out Jihad markers to victory

So keeping Jihad markers really cuts down on defensive troop upkeep. I hardly have to train anything else

One question I have is do you pay for upkeep for troops in Jihads? (or Crusades for that matter).If so I will add my regular troops to my Jihads to save $'s

Also I presume zeal affects the size of Jihads, is that the only factor? Does the target province defence count?

[Snowhobbit]

The Jihad take some troops from the province they start in, but i dont think that the garrison affects the size of the extra troops you get...
And there is an easy way know about the upkeep, check your projected income, then create a Jihad, and check your income, and voila now you know

[Brutal DLX]

AFAIK, the upkeeps costs for Jihads only come into effect once the target province has been comquered. As such, you should disband your stacks after taking the province to save money.
Zeal is what affects how many men join the Jihad in the province it currently travels through, nothing else.
The multi Jihad strategy you described is considered being cheesy by a lot of veteran players, but whatever works for you..use it. It's total war, of course.
You should also note that you can boost the zeal of your provinces such so that you need to build less Jihad markers to get a sizable force, but note that in time the zeal in all provinces gets very low, as the game is approaching the late years (about 1350 and onward you'll notice the effects).

[Dr_No]

i've found the main factor in the number of troops you start with in a jihad to be the piety of the ruler- not the zeal of where you start.

the starting province just seems to determine the troop mix (eg jihad from desert province has mainly desert troops and light cavalry and in temperate more heavy infantry and cavalry)

zeal affects how many more join it after it moves through a province

dr_no

[Doug-Thompson]

It's a cheesy tactic, but a very effective one.

I once whipped the biggest portion of the Golden Horde the third move after they appeared with 15 Jihads and every assassin in the kingdom. Killed their general and they retreated. Fought them the next turn, whipped them hard and had 11,000 troops left.

It's very effective against the AI. For instance, you can occupy a province and leave it virtually undefended. If you're invaded -- boom, instant army for practically no cost. I've left juicy provinces open to invasion just for the Jihad opportunity.

[Razor1952]

Its a pity thats its such an easy loophole, apart from modding out Jihads or making them much more expensive/time to build I can't see how I can rebalance the game to give the ai a chance.

MP campaign map would be huge though, imagine human turk vs human almohad each with ++++jihads, grreat mayhem...

I've taken out ridiculous trade incomes, made peasants buildable but far less common...... oh well another thing to mod somehow....

[Si GeeNa]

You can seriously skew the game in your favour if you play it zealously

I once experimented with a highly zeal approach. Build Jihad markers and Imams. IIRC, Imams will increase the zeal of a province. Therefore, more Imams mean higher zeal. However, the maximum zeal for each province varies, i could only have a maximum of 65% for some, while others could reach as high as 89%. Haven't seen 100% zeal in a province yet, is that available?

What happens is that you can use Jihads defensively. You can use them to march to the border and station as a defensive troop, without upkeep and if the zeal is kept high enough, the troop will not disintegrate too fast.

This means that for the next 5-10 turns, your florin inflow will see a substantial boost. It also means a time to consolidate and build the big stuff in the empire.

Anyway, it was just an experiment. Perhaps it is an unfair advantage.