No Offense

[pyhhricvictory]

In the game, not in reality...

I am playing now as the Swiss in an early campaign. It is about 1230 or so and I feel pretty good. I have a small trading empire (generally Southern and Eastern Med and the Black sea)a fairly good sized army (about 25000 troops with each of my major armies led by princes and their SAP's) and am at peace with everybody except the Italians and the Almohads. I have the Italians confined to Corsica and Sardinia and blockaded in and am raiding the Almohads in North Africa and wreaking some great havoc

I decide it is time to crusade to the Holy Land since everyone else has tried and failed with the best being a Polish Crusade that got as fae and Anatolia before being crushed by the evil Egyptians. I send my crusade by ship to Antioch along with my two largest offensive armies and take the province without much of a fight, in fact the little weenies ran from me . The next turn the Egyptians counterattack and I beat them back killing the king and one of his princes as well as what looks like 30% of the entire Egyprian army. The next turn, the @#*ing English land in my newly taken territory on a Crusade of their own to Palestine. When they land, the Egyptians attack me again . This time with a much larger and better armed force. I think, Hey, No Problem, I may be weak but a whole army from by brothers the English have just landed, this should be easy

To make a long story short, the battle begins and I can see both the English army and the Egyptian army marching almost parallel to each other but still closing slightly. They keep getting closer and my archers begin to fire at the advancing Nubians. I can see the English on my left, which is great because it gives me some support on that flank. I then notice units that are away from the fight start to waver and then notice they are fighting The ENglish pigs have attacked me on the flank I move troops around to try and stop the attack but it is to late, my General, Prince Deadman is felled by an attack from behind by two units of HC and the Egyptians have proceeded to roll up my left flank because I was so in shock by the trechary of the English. AARRGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

The final battle stats, I lose and lose 1467 men all killed since I refused the ransom and I kill a whopping 278 men. I lose the province, the crusader army and two of my best generals in this.

Has anybody seen an ally (especially a Catholic one) ditch you for a Muslim? I do not understand how it happened especially with the English being a Crusade.

[jajknight]

that's pretty typical of the AI. Someone else mentioned doing everything the Pope asked and then getting attacked by him The AI is purely math based, it has no concept at all of my fellow christian brother

[Gregoshi]

That is a nasty turn of events pyhhric. There a saying that goes something like Keep a close eye on your enemies and a closer eye on your friends.

[Foreign Devil]

In most of the campains I've played, the English have always been somewhat of a pushover, almost always losing out to France within the first hundred years. Exept of course, when I play as the English.....

(on a side note, I should hate them too, being half Irish as I am )

[Spetulhu]

The AI happily uses crusade armies for attacking anyone it pleases, once they get to a province where they can fight. I`ve never laughed as much as I did when three crusades attacked Georgia (I played the Egyptians) and proceeded to beat the snot out of each other before trying to dislodge my troops from their mountainside. English-German alliance against the French. And when the French were finally destroyed, an Italian crusade marched up. It promptly beat up the battered English and Germans And then got kicked back to Bulgaria by me.