What is the quickest way to stop crusades?

[andrewt]

I'm playing as Byzantines and have decided to turtle a little bit and build up stuff for a change of pace. Because of that, I'm relying more on trade for income instead of conquering the farm-rich Egyptians.

The English have declared a crusade for Constantinople twice against me already. The first one I beat back, then pulled all ships away from their borders for an instant ceasefire.

It's annoying how long you have to wait for a crusade to arrive then beat them back so many times before it's over. For the first crusade, I annihilated around 75% of the enemy troops through kills and captures on their first attack. I had to use a very cavalry heavy army to take out as many as possible. I then moved a lot of the troops to another province to entice them to attack again. They waited a while and attacked around three more times before the crusade was over.

I don't want to repeat that again and am wondering if there is a quicker way to do it.

[deejayvee]

I guess you could let them have what they want... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif

[Cazbol]

You can also capture the province which contains the chapter house that launched the crusade.

[Leet Eriksson]

the problem with chapter houses is they are too far,so stopping a crusade won't be easy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif

[ShadesWolf]

Just a question ?

Why are they crusading against you ? (ie are u at war with any catholic factions)
What era is it?
how many allies do you have.
What level are you playing on

A good tactic, is to get rebel provinces between you and the crusading army, so they have to fight lots of battles before thay arrive.......

In saying that I must amit, as playing as they Byzant's, for my SP campaign guide I have NEVER had a campaign launched against me........

Im just interested to know a few of those questions, So I can update my info for the guide.

BTW you couldnt email me the campaign save file, I would like to examine it, and get some info for myself.

Email address = ihusselbee@aol.com

[andrewt]

It's normal, early, Byzantines. I have two savegames and am trying to find a few of the computer's tendencies. The English have gotten Flanders and Toulouse (conquered from HRE) from the French. With HRE help, they have weakened the French considerably. HRE has an ongoing civil war and has captured Ile de France while losing a few provinces to the French. Spanish has almost eliminated Almohads and have second largest armies, next to me.

The English, I guess, just want Constantinople, period, because it is rich and high-tech. I have lots of allies, including the English. I'm not currently at war with anyone and Sicily is the only originally Catholic territory that I have and I have had it for a long time already. My problem is not crushing the crusade, it's getting a ceasefire with the English as quickly as possible since I have no desire in conflicts just yet. I'm already powerful enough to start conquering everything if I so wish.

Stuff that I have found:
1. The Sicilians and the Italians will often declare a naval war on you (whether you are allied to them or not) if you have a fleet in the same territory they have a fleet in and when theirs is stronger than yours. If they have a two ship-fleet that can defeat your one-ship fleet and they are in the same territory, you will be attacked sooner or later. Even if you have a larger fleet in the same territory, they will attack as long as you have a separated weaker fleet. You have to combine fleets in the same space always.

2. V&V's are rolled 2 turns prior to the heir maturing. Stats are either rolled at the same time or maybe prior. I have some heirs (now generals) who either get 7 stars and the pride vice (-2 command and acumen) on maturing or some other stuff and get 0 command. I saved and reloaded a lot 2 years prior to maturing to get this. Do it a year before and it's always the same stats. It seems CA didn't want an heir to mature with 9 command and a bug resulted making it 0. Even if your king is only rank 6, you are in danger of getting a 0 command heir.

3. Heirs get bonuses depending on where the king was originally from the turn prior to their maturing. If your heir matures in 1160, for example, and you move your king from Khazar to Constantinople in 1159, your heir will get armor bonuses, if any, from Khazar. Your king has to be in Constantinople at the start of 1159 if you want your heir in 1160 to mature with the armor bonuses from that region. I didn't test with valor but probably is the same case.

4. 1 Dread is around +7.5% loyalty.

5. Moving your king around from province to province decreases his chance from dying from illness. I had lots of port provinces and moved him from one place to another. I started at high 50s. When he is staying at one province, doesn't matter what, he usually dies at around early to mid 60s. When he keeps moving around, he dies from around early to late 70s.

6. France usually outnumbers the English in troops in the main continent and would often win that match. Sometimes, they would attack the HRE first and would also often win that match. However, they have a tendency to attack one while they are still at war with the other making them lose. Turks would almost always initiate the war with the Egyptians or Byzantines, not the other way around.

[andrewt]

More stuff:
7. From what I observed, the AI decides at the start of a turn which provinces it would attack and attaches a probability to it. For example, the Egyptians would decide in 1160 to attack Rum. It attaches a probability to it depending on its chances of winning by comparing what it wants to attack compared to my forces there. Moving troops to and from there in 1159 will change the probability. Moving troops in 1160 won't.

HOWEVER, the game seems to generate the random number for the probability partly based on what I do in 1160. Moving troops in and out of the province in 1160 can affect whether the AI actually attacks or not. However, moving a ship, emissary, other troops in other provinces or giving an assassin another target affects the AI attack on Rum to the same degree. Same set of moves by the player will always correspond to the same set of moves by the AI in the same turn. Even the chances of an assassin killing something, a spy getting caught or a king dying is the same as long as the player moves are the same.

Changing player moves would change the chances. For example, moving a priest from province A to province B in 1160 could have a bearing on whether an assassin successfully kills somebody in the same year. You could find that every time the priest doesn't move, the assassin succeeds and every time he does, the assassin fails.

8. The AI doesn't seem to take into account province loyalty when attacking. If you or rebels or another AI faction have 100 spearmen in a province, the AI would attack with only 60 FMAA, taking only that it can beat the spearmen into account. It won't take into account the fact that the province will rebel if there are only 60 FMAA conquering it.

9. The AI puts a few units to defend borders, a few others in provinces and then puts all other units and stacks them in the same province. The AI Spanish, in my game, has the whole Iberian peninsula (on and off on Portugal). They have Algeria, Navarre and Aragon as their borders against other factions. They have a stack, or almost a stack, of units in those three borders and a few units here and there. They then have 7 stacks of units that are in the same province. They would move all those stacks, at the same time, from Leon to Cordoba to Castille to Navarre to this province nad that province and on and on.

10. The AI sides with the aggressor usually when two of its allies declare war on each other. When I get attacked, factions break alliances with me. I usually only get some siding with me if I attack. Me winning or not doesn't seem to affect the AI's decision.

11. I have seen the AI consent to having a princess marry my king or heir with no alliance being made between us. I have noticed this happening when the AI is allied with another AI faction who is at war with me. In the most recent experience, the Spanish broke our alliance after I was attacked by the English. Either the next year or few years, I asked for a marriage for an heir and they accepted. It seems that they accept the alliance then cancel it off in the same year (because of the war I have with an allied AI faction of theirs. I get no message saying they cancelled the alliance, only that they accepted the marriage.

[Exile]

look on the bright side - its good training for your general I've found that a crusade wont attack me if I have many more troops than the cursade does, it just sits in the adjacent prov and dwindles away...

[MonkeyMan]

Just put a numerically stronger army in their next province, and they'll sit there not moving until they die. Either that or take out the chapter house in their home province if you own the seas. I prefer to repeatedly beat them back with a tech & general superior force, makes for some really fun battles, I don't really know what your complaining about http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[SmokWawelski]

Yeah Monkey, more battles is always fun. If you do not need to get up early to get to work that is http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Foreign Devil]

Quote[/b] (andrewt @ Jan. 13 2003,03:25)]2. V&V's are rolled 2 turns prior to the heir maturing. Stats are either rolled at the same time or maybe prior.
I believe that the crusade-specific units are also chosen 2 turns prior to the initiation of the crusade. I was playing as Spain, had a crusade ready, but I didn't want to use it just yet as I was still bringing units in from other provences. I saved it and moved the crusade peice where I wanted it, just to see what I'd get. 2 units of Knights of Santiago and 1 of Fanatics. I reloaded, and 2 turns later, I was given one unit of knights and one of Order Foot. I saved and reloaded a few more times, and it seemed that I would get differnt results 2 turns ahead, but not one.

Just thought of that when I saw andrewt's post.

[andrewt]

The English have around 7-8 ports. That's a lot of trade income. Putting a numerically superior force means around 10 years of waiting before the crusade is over and I can get a ceasefire. I want to prolong the game a little since I'm testing stuff and want to use more advanced units.

[Sainika]

I play now as Turkey and have no troubles with Crusades at all. the main reason is that they don't even approach the destination. I conquered the whole east of the map incl. Constantinople. Germans launch Crusades against me very often but these Crusades can't pass the Western Europe because of numerical wars there. But to be completely sure I have a huge garrison in Constantinople - about 2 full stacks of excellent troops. Crusaders fear to attack Constantinople so I don't even notice whether any of Crusades are launching.
Sometimes a funny thing happens. Several times germans launched Crusades with me and at the same turn their emissar offers ceasefire, so even if Crusade even approached my borders it didn't attack because of ceasefire.

[andrewt]

Well, if a faction declares a crusade against you, you can't trade with them. The English and Italians build the most ports of any catholic faction and could reduce your trade income a lot if they declare a crusade against you.

[Nobunaga0611]

yes, you can stall them till they die by making a large army in their path which they will not attack. But in doing this focus not just on the crusade itself, but on its flanks as well http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif While stalling the crusade, take the sea regions around England, then attack the province with the Chapter house. Or if you want to let them continue to send crusades, surround the province w/the crusade army (take the other provinces) , let them die, then abandon....slash and burn. Or keep the provinces. That'll slowly ebb away at their ability to gather troops.