Cherry Pickin' Crusades

[y2kBug]

I know that pre-patch, AI Crusades seemed to meander around picking up units as they went along with only a general movement toward their 'intended' goal. One of the things the patch addressed was Crusades taking odd, circuitous routes.

Post-patch, AI Crusades seem to 'Cherry Pick' my port provinces, sacking my units and making me feel a bit impoverished. Normally, I wouldn't mind this too much -- all in a year's Crusade I say -- but what really gets my goat is when they move back and forth between several of my provinces [oh, were we here before? so sorry...] before finally deciding that my zeal has dropped suffiently or they've sucked my units dry like a mosquito.

I assume that the AI is using the port provinces in a kind of spiralling path-finding on the way to its destination. What gets my goat is that I haven't been able to take advantage of this same 'fuzzy logic' for my own crusades. For me -- it's basically a bee-line straight to the kill zone.

Ok, I'm not whining...really. But--Has anybody else noticed this behaviour post patch? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[Exile]

Crusades kill me too. They deplete my lovely, huge, elite armies stationed on my borders, which are just waiting to invade my fellow Chrisitan empires http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

The AI is master of the Crusade IMO, I can never use them as well as the AI does.

Oh well, tis the price for playing a Christian faction and thus having the strongest troops in the game. Much like that meddling Pope fella...

[y2kBug]

Indeed -- "Pope on a Rope" sounds better all the time.

Playing as the Danes, I get the happy opportunity to grant free passage to any pillaging Crusade that comes thru -- without the benefit of launching Crusades myself. Good thing the HRE leaves Denmark alone for a good part of the Early period...

[Sandy-San]

the other problem is not being able to merge crusading units - I get fed up with dropping a massive crusade into battle and finding its made up of 30 units of 10-20 men each, i've even added whole units to the crusade to try to avoid this

[A.Saturnus]

Normally a crusade shouldn`t be able to move into Switzerland, should it? All provinces that have borders with it, have also borders with each other, so you`re getting nowhere faster by moving through it. But the AI still can do it

[y2kBug]

Yep - Switzerland should pretty much be Crusade free... Oh, well -- just consider it a 'feature'. Hopefully, the AI pathfinding will be better in RTW. For me, I can't wait to see it. [well, maybe I can...I'll just fire up MTW again...ah, that's better http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif ]

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Er...Y2K Bug, do you think they'll have crusades in RTW? I think not... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[y2kBug]

Quite right -- no crusades in RTW, but now we introduce fighting within villages -- pathfinding again. Your point is well taken though.

Be well http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif