View Full Version : how to crusade...
wukie2001
01-20-2009, 11:41
been enjoying MTW since i got it, learning how to/playing but theres somethings i havent figured out. how do u make/start a crusade. what u need to be able to make 1? slowly but surely im learning more and more about the game which makes it more interesting (hope i dont get bored of it). learned how to trade/transport, which was easy just didnt know how till i got some help :2thumbsup:, so know i ask about crusade, how to make a crusade, requirement or such...
thx....
ah and before i forget, is there a manual/link to military/buildings tree...haveing trouble figuring out what goes were, i figured it was gonna b like AOE that has an icon u can click for units/building tree, is there such thing in MTW? :book:
thx again....
I of the Storm
01-20-2009, 12:00
To make a crusade you must build a chapter house, which you can build after you've built a church, available at keep level. Then you can 'recruit' a crusade marker which will appear on the campaign map in the province you built it in. Now zoom out and have some spare troops at hand. Take up the marker and drop it in the target province (highlighted red I think). Some dialogue will appear asking you to pay money to the pope. Then the marker will have become an army with a cross sign. You can now stuff troops into it (no limit) and move it towards the target province. It can normally pass other christian territory peacefully and gather troops on the way (while losing some other troops to desertion). Simply keep on going.
ah and before i forget, is there a manual/link to military/buildings tree...haveing trouble figuring out what goes were, i figured it was gonna b like AOE that has an icon u can click for units/building tree, is there such thing in MTW? :book:
thx again....
Well in short, no such luck wukie2001... It really is a great feature in that game and one that MTW have sadly missed out on. In the original retail edition there was a paper-chart included with all that stuff. As for newer editions MTW like Gold- and Era-editions I suspect that it is only available in PDF-format somewhere...
Perhaps someone else could fill in the blanks on that?
Oh, welcome to the Org and the MTW-section by the way... :wink2:
wukie2001
01-20-2009, 13:34
To make a crusade you must build a chapter house, which you can build after you've built a church, available at keep level. Then you can 'recruit' a crusade marker which will appear on the campaign map in the province you built it in. Now zoom out and have some spare troops at hand. Take up the marker and drop it in the target province (highlighted red I think). Some dialogue will appear asking you to pay money to the pope. Then the marker will have become an army with a cross sign. You can now stuff troops into it (no limit) and move it towards the target province. It can normally pass other christian territory peacefully and gather troops on the way (while losing some other troops to desertion). Simply keep on going.
Well in short, no such luck wukie2001... It really is a great feature in that game and one that MTW have sadly missed out on. In the original retail edition there was a paper-chart included with all that stuff. As for newer editions MTW like Gold- and Era-editions I suspect that it is only available in PDF-format somewhere...
Perhaps someone else could fill in the blanks on that?
Oh, welcome to the Org and the MTW-section by the way... :wink2:
thx for the info guys, guess ill take a few more gmes playing to learn them by heart huh...seems like the games has been pretty fun/intertaining so far, just been wanting to b able to know how to use every feature there is...
thx again, hopefully i wont b back here again, if not then c ya soon....
wukie2001
01-20-2009, 14:10
To make a crusade you must build a chapter house, which you can build after you've built a church, available at keep level. Then you can 'recruit' a crusade marker which will appear on the campaign map in the province you built it in. Now zoom out and have some spare troops at hand. Take up the marker and drop it in the target province (highlighted red I think). Some dialogue will appear asking you to pay money to the pope. Then the marker will have become an army with a cross sign. You can now stuff troops into it (no limit) and move it towards the target province. It can normally pass other christian territory peacefully and gather troops on the way (while losing some other troops to desertion). Simply keep on going.
i didnt find that chapter house at keep lvl, gonna upgrade to the next castle and hope its there, hope i dont have to upgrade anything else other then that too, if not new game lol....
I of the Storm
01-20-2009, 14:16
In vanilla MTW there are some factions that cannot crusade IIRC. I think Poland and Denmark are excluded. Maybe Sicily or Aragon too but I'm not sure. Might be that you picked one of them.
Edit: for the Chapter House, you need the Keep (second level fortification) and the Church. That should unlock CH.
wukie2001
01-20-2009, 15:01
In vanilla MTW there are some factions that cannot crusade IIRC. I think Poland and Denmark are excluded. Maybe Sicily or Aragon too but I'm not sure. Might be that you picked one of them.
Edit: for the Chapter House, you need the Keep (second level fortification) and the Church. That should unlock CH.
yeah i liked the danes(denmark) oh well:wall:, so what does 'vanilla' mean anyways...
Vanilla is the standard, unmodified game.
The Danes, Poles and Hungarians cannot crusade.
:bow:
Vanilla is the standard, unmodified game.
The Danes, Poles and Hungarians cannot crusade.
:bow:
And the Swiss, Burgundians, and Papacy also cannot build a Chapter House. ~;)
The Viking Invasion disk has a PDF of the Viking campaign tech tree, but the main campaign just had a big paper layout. There are some fan-generated tech trees in the download section (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/local_links.php?catid=166) here at the Org.
[shameless plug]For quick lookups, you can follow the link in my sig to the Org's MTW wiki. The building and unit sections will have building/faction/era requirements for everything.[/shameless plug]
And the Swiss, Burgundians, and Papacy also cannot build a Chapter House. ~;)
The who...? :laugh4:
I always forget about that lot.
:bow:
Brandy Blue
01-21-2009, 02:42
A couple of crusading no nos to watch out for, Wukie.
Don't let your leader get excommunicated. Excommunicated leaders cannot launch crusades. The ways you get excommunicated are 1: attacking the Papacy (surprise) and 2: attacking a non-excommunicated Catholic faction that is too little (I forget how little. Help, anyone?) In case #2, the Pope will give you a warning and two years to back off.
Don't let anyone take over your province which has the chapter house. Any crusade markers or active crusade you have will be lost.
By the way, you do not have to aim your crusade to a province that is highlighted red. Any Muslim, Orthodox, or excommunicated Catholic faction is a legitimate target. (Rebels excluded.)
A couple of crusading no nos to watch out for, Wukie.
Don't let anyone take over your province which has the chapter house. Any crusade markers or active crusade you have will be lost.
And the loss of a crusade will have a resulting drop in your ruler's influence, which can trigger rebellions, so watch out indeed!
Brandy Blue
01-22-2009, 03:54
By the way, Wukie, did you check out Frogbeasteggs' beginner's guide and total war unit guide? You can find them among the stickies at https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=47
The beginner's guide will tell you all about crusades and lots of other things. The beginners' guide and unit guide are easily the most useful threads for a newbie on the whole site, IMO.
Do not forget never to stack several crusade markers in a single province even if it is safe from any invasion. There is always the chance that the chapter house can be destroyed by some natural disaster.
Learnt that the hard way. Playing as the Sicilian (IIRC) and I had something like four or five crusade markers ready to launch. Chapter house got destroyed by a natural disaster. Then each turn one of my crusade marker disappeared and was counted as a failed crusade.... After three failed crusade in three turns you can imagine that I had lost almost all my provinces through rebellion.
When I have a pretty large empire and the whole thing is getting predictable, to the point where I'm ready to start again, I often take a look at my inbred loon of a king and his line of pathetic heirs and then take a look at some of my top generals and think: "it's time for a change". This is known as orchestrating a civil war:
1) Build several (2 - 3 should be enough in fact) crusade/jihad markers in one province.
2) Find all of the very loyal and worthless units and dump them in the expendable provinces or place them in separate stacks facing larger stacks, where their revolt would be disastrous.
3) Find the best high loyalty generals and start trying them for treason with 0 valour spies. This is not guaranteed to work and in the worst case one of you spies might pull off his mission.
4) Demolish chapter house and hold on tight (don't forget to back the rebels - no matter what!).
:bow:
Do not forget never to stack several crusade markers in a single province even if it is safe from any invasion. There is always the chance that the chapter house can be destroyed by some natural disaster.
Learnt that the hard way. Playing as the Sicilian (IIRC) and I had something like four or five crusade markers ready to launch. Chapter house got destroyed by a natural disaster. Then each turn one of my crusade marker disappeared and was counted as a failed crusade.... After three failed crusade in three turns you can imagine that I had lost almost all my provinces through rebellion.
Really? so even if they havent been launched and chapter house it destroyed it counts as a failed one? jeez thanks for the tip :sweatdrop:
I personally don't mind that penalties for failed crusades are harsh and that losing the province containing a chapter house is devastating.
Crusades are so easily exploited in MTW that it is good there is a big downside.
My own house rule now is that I only build one at a time and will not build another one until the completion of a previous crusade.
So there is at least 4 years between crusades on my behalf.
wukie2001
01-29-2009, 12:14
how do u pass thru ally/nuetral provinces when going on a crusade? do u send an emmesary/bishop first or what, cuase its a pain having to go thru all the provinces and by the time u get to your target, if u make it there, u are all weak...
i know its the same religion provinces that can let u thru but how, or is it the AI's option, if so, does the AI's deny u to pass thru all the time cuase thats whats been happening to me, i can never go thru peacefully even with allies of the same religion :wall::help:
thx....
I of the Storm
01-29-2009, 12:58
Just keep moving. The crusade will show you, which way to take anyway. Christians will normally let you pass, while you will have to fight any muslims, not only the target faction. So, creating a ship link is normally a good idea.
i can never go thru peacefully even with allies of the same religion :wall::help:
thx....
I am not sure what is happening here Wukie.
Normally all the Christian factions will let you through.
I normally get let through even when I am at war with the Christians I am passing through.
Then again I usually drop a full stack army into a crusade before I set off so I have good numbers from the get go.
Are your crusades quite small in numbers? Maybe the AI figures it has you covered so won't let you pass.
wukie2001
01-30-2009, 09:42
well usually i have around 2-3k soldiers in the crusade, i figure that should b enough or is it? mayb i should wait till i can create more and double the amount or more, i mean i tend to go on a crusade real early in the game, should i wait or no?
No that should be plenty of men, you don't want it bigger than that because eventually you will have to feed them all.
It is a puzzle for me, just the other day I was playing as the French crusading into Almohad territory but also at war with both the Spanish and the Argonese and both factions allowed my crusade to pass.
(Which was great because it stripped their men to the bone ready for me to attack :beam:).
Are you playing a mod? and what type that is the only thing I can think of.
Brandy Blue
01-31-2009, 01:01
I don't crusade much, but I wonder if excommunication status could affect how willing Catholics are to let your crusade through. I could see that working one of two ways.
1: An excommunicated ruler might not be counted as "non-Catholic" for this purpose and not let your crusade through.
2: If a ruler sends a crusade and then gets excommunicated, perhaps good Catholic rulers will view his crusade as a bogus crusade commanded by heretics, and oppose it.
Does anyone know if crusading works that way?
Sometimes it's hard to find the best moment to launch a crusade as well,with some of the harder campaigns. When I tried to crusade with the HRE,90% of the time I was busy expelling the newest french/danish invasion of my provinces,or dealing with a civil war,it seems that everyone wants a slice of the Hre....
IMO the HRE are the hardest faction to play, so much territory and so many borders to protect, incursions from all sides and a rebellious population!
:beam: Actually makes me want to play them now!
Brandy Blue Re: how to crusade...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't crusade much, but I wonder if excommunication status could affect how willing Catholics are to let your crusade through. I could see that working one of two ways.
1: An excommunicated ruler might not be counted as "non-Catholic" for this purpose and not let your crusade through.
2: If a ruler sends a crusade and then gets excommunicated, perhaps good Catholic rulers will view his crusade as a bogus crusade commanded by heretics, and oppose it.
I am not sure either Brandy.
I can't remember the last time I was excommunicated while crusading I normally wait until I have finished the crusade and then affront the pope.
it certainly makes sense though.
wukie2001
02-06-2009, 07:36
how about loosing people as time pases by...i start pumping trops in the crusade marker and then launch it but as time goes by and some troops start leaving. why is this or is it just me? is there a way to prevent that or should i just creat them before i put them in and then lunch the crusade?
This is normal - its a game mechanic that simulates the fact that crusades that took too long to reach their destinations or passed from areas of low catholic zeal faced desertion.
The best thing to do is to prepare armies of your own and insert them manually in the Crusade. These armies do not desert as fast as armies that the crusade picks up. They stay in for ages and you get the benefit of not paying upkeep for them.
Noir
This is to represent the thieving knaves deserting to shack up with the local women a game mechanic as Noir said. I think it's quite a good one.
:bow:
how about loosing people as time pases by...i start pumping trops in the crusade marker and then launch it but as time goes by and some troops start leaving. why is this or is it just me? is there a way to prevent that or should i just creat them before i put them in and then lunch the crusade?
You will probably want to keep your extra troops out of the crusade until you are ready to launch it at it's target. While you will have to pay their upkeep, it will keep the desertions down. If the province the crusade marker is sitting in has low zeal, desertions will be pretty bad, so get an inquisitor into the province beforehand to get the populace frenzied up.
I normally like to put an inquisitor or 2 or 3 really into the provinces ahead of what will be my likely crusade path to pump up the zeal before I even get there.
An extra 4-5% zeal really can make a huge difference.
This is even more important in the middle high to late periods were generally zeal is dropping through europe.
This also has the added benefit of giving you the information as to which provinces that you will have a choice of travelling through have the best zeal, the highest standing armies and the best upgrades to get the most numbers and best troop types for your crusade.
Brandy Blue
02-07-2009, 01:31
If you want to use evil fanatical zealots inquisitors to pump up zeal, that's fine. Just remember that an idle inquisitor sometimes gets bored and starts burning people at random. Then zeal drops when people start wondering if it was really necessary for that nice young man who is trying to make the world safe for Catholicism to burn their old granny for being nice to cats.
In other words, inquisitors normally raise zeal, but if you leave one without a job to do, he may cause a massive zeal drop. The way to prevent that is to keep the inquisitors busy trying generals, heirs, kings, even the pope if he's in that province. If you own the province, put some poor clueless zero star leader of peasants there, so your inquisitors can try him (and his sucessors) without harming your real generals. Helps the inquistors earn stars too.
If you've been excommunicated, you can follow the opposite route. Put your inquisitors in a province that you think enemy crusades might pass through, and give them nothing to do. With luck, they might wreck the local zeal.
Personally, I don't like inquisitors. (Wow, what a surprise.) So I like to send my crusades by sea as far as I can, or build a chapter house close to the target, if possible. This has the advantage that you can pump out more crusades, because in most cases you can only have one at a time, so less time in transit = more crusades. Unfortunately, you won't get much of a chance to pick up troops from zealous catholic provinces en route.
Wow such vehemence towards inquisitors.
I basically never use them to burn people, is a bit of a cheap way out in my book but as stated in my previous post I do use them for their other intended purpose of raising the zeal of a province.
Clearly if I am using them as a forefront to crusades then they are also on the move everyturn and not left to just burn populations.
To do that unintentionally is a newbie mistake.
I will always take the overland route if my target province is near catholic borders because I enjoy that it maximises numbers in the crusade and also strips potential enemies of many men and leaves them without complete units.
If my target province is deep in Muslim territory then the sea route is clearly the way to go.
Inquisitors are a horrible, horrible feature of the game. In the mod I'm working on I made them a Papacy only and I also set them as invisible like spies/assassins. I removed the "Grand Inquisitors" altogether. The advantages are as follows:
1) Inquisitors are now almost like a natural disaster, instead of something that is targeted. They are very random and because you cannot see them you never know where they will strike next, this seems dangerous but...
2) You don't need to send assassins chasing around the map looking for him, instead your security forces will deal with this pesky foreigner when he crosses the border. Or if he does get through he won't last so long and will no doubt meet with an "unfortunate accident".
3) You can no longer exploit them.
4) They no longer raise zeal - this is now the job of cardinals whom function much like Imams.
I also removed border forts, so the counterspying is now down to the local spies and assassins. They gain valour from this whereas with a border fort in place they do not as the fort always gets the kill.
:bow:
2) You don't need to send assassins chasing around the map looking for him, instead your security forces will deal with this pesky foreigner when he crosses the border. Or if he does get through he won't last so long and will no doubt meet with an "unfortunate accident".
So the Border Fort/Counterspying function is based on the visible flag in the unit prod file? Learn something new everyday, this one goes into the wiki. :bow:
The AI crusades never cease to bemuse me.
I am currently as war with the Spanish and have the provinces of Portugal and Valencia.
The Spanish have wiped out the Almohad and own all the rest of the peninsula all the way to Egypt.
The Spanish launched a crusade against the Egyptians from Castile bound for Arabia.
Now as we all know out player Crusades are required to take the shortest routes to the goal province well I wasn't too suprised when on the first turn the AI crusade attempted to march through valencia.
I denied it access and turned it away.
Next turn it moved forward into cordoba so I thought yep that is better go to your target.
Well I was most suprised when next turn it went backwards into castile, picked up more men from the high zeal province, and the following turn moved into Portugal, where by the way there is no port or current shipping lanes of any nation for the Spanish to use.
I have turned away the crusade again for it to retreat to Castile.
I haven't played for a few days but am wondering what next and is this circular crusade to continue.
I was looking for similiar experiences or insights as to how the AI is justifying it's crusade movement?
The crusade may be calculating distance to target based on any non blockaded shipping lanes? So perhaps the crusade is simply heading out to a port province in order to "jump" part of the journey? Thus the route calculated the year before may not exist the following year due to the shipping lanes being blockaded, ships being lost or the Spanish fleets moving around; this would cause erratic behaviour such as the AI suddenly changing it's mind on the route. Or perhaps the AI is simply not as restricted as the player...? The AI can see which moves you make when you end turn, so it would not surprise me if the AI also had more flexibility with it's crusades.
cambovenzi
02-22-2009, 06:24
:daisy:
No flamebaiting please ~ Asai Nagamasa 22/02/09
I frequently used to have my allies crusades crossing my territory as the Byzantines. After one of them looted my treasury,and made off with money that I could off put to better use myself, I now deny all crusades to cross my borders,not that many dispute the issue,given that my border forces are usually quite sizable...
Sounds fair and reasonable Asai.
As there never was a port in Portugal, nor ships off the coast then the second half of your post would seem to make more sense.
I frequently used to have my allies crusades crossing my territory as the Byzantines. After one of them looted my treasury,and made off with money that I could off put to better use myself, I now deny all crusades to cross my borders,not that many dispute the issue,given that my border forces are usually quite sizable...
This raises a query for me, having also suffered from passing Crusaders helping themselves to my treasury, wine cellar, and dry goods store after being granted passage.
It does not appear to matter if the crusading faction is allied to mine or not.
Are there triggers for such actions, or are they just random events like earthquakes?
Also - I do not recall seeing any of my crusades doing this, but has anyone else witnessed one of their own crusades liberating a few florins en route?
Catholic crusades tend to loot Orthodox provinces. Constantinople is commonly looted if it lets a crusade through, mainly because it tends to be on a main route from Europe to the holy land, which is quite annoying if you're playing as the Byzantine of course. I don't think alliances have a bearing on this. As far as i know the looting happens regardless.
I am almost positive alliances do not have a bearing.
As the Byzantines I have been looted almost inceasantly by my allied factions as they pass through.
To the extent that now I just say no and turn the crusades away rather than losing so many good men and florins to a crusade that does not reflect my beliefs.
Plenty of time for remaking alliances later:beam:
I am almost positive alliances do not have a bearing.
Well you were looted by your allies. That's what I mean by "alliances have no bearing". So alliance or not those thieving crusaders are going to loot your province. :laugh4:
Personally I think it's a great part of the game. All of these irritating things that many new players hate I am still in awe of to this day. The annoying pope, civil wars, horrible heirs, ugly princesses, hilarious vices and crusades that loot you on the way through! And I still think the voice-overs in battle by Sean Pertwee are classic. "Craven :daisy: son that he is, the enemy general flees!". Superb stuff.
:medievalcheers:
"The courage of a goat herd the enemy general flees"
:medievalcheers:
Good one! :laugh4:
The mingled dismay and disgust in his voice as he bellows: "Your vile and ignoble general is running away from the enemy!?"
Or the classic "More foooolish than a thousand fools the enemy Sultan has thrown his life away" and the "The enemy Sultan runs back to his Haaarem women"
But ihmo, none compares with the one from Shogun that isnt used in battle really
"The enemy is in full retreat, pursue them now, and we shall gather many he-eads!"
(Notice the excitment and anticipation in the punctuation of he-eads) :laugh4:
Another great one gollum, the interesting pronunciation in some of the voice clips in Shogun is pure genius. Dare I say it, but it's so bad that it's good? :2thumbsup:
Another one of my favourites from MTW:
"The enemy king is dead, a vain and foolish villain 'til the end!"
Back to crusades though. I am trying to remember if on entering Orthodox territory the crusade loots only the first province, or does it loot all that it passes through? Also I seem to remember that there is somewhat of a random factor. I think the amount looted is based on the provincial income, but that the looting does not always occur? :inquisitive:
Looting doesnt always occur in my experience. Its either random or dependent on an under the hood factor like say (my guess) the zeal that spawned the crusade. The crusade doesnt loot all the provinces it may loot one, one or two or none. Dont remember to see a crusade ever looting more than two in a row (playing none others as the Byz or looting none other than the Byz).
Knight of the Rose
02-27-2009, 14:35
Nah - looting is random - to that I'm quite sure. But I'm always thrilled to see this message, not only because of the tribute to the war efford, but also because the turns crusades loot the province, not a single man leaves the crusade. Which otherwise could be quite high numbers in the very low zeal byzzie provinces.
/KotR
I prefer playing as the Byzantine, denying the crusade entry and then chasing the filthy beggars back to their own lands. :beam:
Or turtling as the Egyptians and "let" the crusade reach its goal by retreating garissons to the walls and finally wiping it from the face of the MTW map with a regular and a jihad armies (no retreat) gaining in a swift swoop influence and selling the surviving crusaders in some slave shop (not a very chic one) in India :2thumbsup:
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