BEST Crusade and or Jihad

[dessa14]

12 thousand.
from cordoba to khazar in time for the great mongol invasion.

chose the best path using emisaries and spies and such.
thanks, dessa

[Drake]

English, at war with Turks in about 1320s, back and forth brawl on one side coming out on top at any time then I found their big epicenter was Constantinople. Rally the troops, pay the hatted one (Pope), off I go through French, Italian and Sicilian territories, all of whom are at war with each other and the Turks. Land at Constantinople with 8000+ with a 7 * general in charge, they have about 5000+ and a 5 *, final score Me = 1445 Turks 4890. The reason why this is my best? Lose of Constantinople triggered huge civil war in which 5 provinces gained independence and were subsequently bribed to my side including Syria, 2 of whom were 4 * generals, and to top it all the 6* Turkish Sultan was killed by one of them through overwhelming numbers, leaving a 2* heir t take charge. One crusade ended the war. Gotta love it.

[soibean]

mongol horde stole georgia from me (Turks) and I had a jihad pre made down in palestine...
received 500 right away from high zeal, added army into the Jihad and each army all the way up to georgia.
(They had a HUGE army in there around 7k guys and I know it might have sounded stupid of me to pull all my armies out of those provinces along the way but they werent border provinces and my ships were the only ones in the sea squares at the time.)
I ended up getting about 6k men from my standing armies and about another thousand from the zeal in my provinces, all the ones along the route had 70+ and I took a longer route.
When I finally reached the place they had withdrawn about 3k men and they gave up without a fight...
so now I had around 7k men on my border ready to invade the mongol strongholds and besides having to fight me they also were dealing with a 2k french crusade as well

[TheSilverKnight]

As the French, the 1st Crusade (for me 1099-1108), I sucked up all the armies of the Germans, Italians, and Hungarians. When my armies reached Tripoli, the crusade was 13k men http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif The Egyptians hadn't a chance and I conquered Tripoli by 1108.

[Magraev]

Jihads can be monstrous if you get imans in every province resulting in 75% zeal or more everywhere and send it the long way around to the destination.

Usually I send them straight to the destination for the boost in piety and influence though.

[Doug-Thompson]

I don't recall any one Jihad that stands out as particularly effective, but one tactic I like is the "Rolling Jihad."

For example, the Golden Horde takes Armenia and Georgia. Declare multiple Jihads on Armenia, and load those up with mercenaries. Que new Jihads in the home provinces.

After whipping the horde, have the Jihads besiege the fortress instead of storming it. Send a new "wave" of Jihads into Armenia, bound for Georgia.

Isn't the ability to have overlapping Jihads wonderful? Eat your hearts out, Crusaders.

When Georgia falls, put all the really expensive-to-maintain units -- Abyssinian Guards, mercs, vanilla archers (which are expensive to maintain, considering what you get) -- from the old Jihads into the new ones. This saves thousands of florins in maintenance costs. Leave new, good units from the old Jihads out in the "field army," where they can move anywhere they are needed.

[Drake]

Magraev, thanks fort he tip of Imans. Wonder if it'll work with Cardinals...only way to find out, but cheers still never thought of doing that. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[ah_dut]

Quote[/b] (Doug-Thompson @ June 22 2004,00:47)]I don't recall any one Jihad that stands out as particularly effective, but one tactic I like is the "Rolling Jihad."

For example, the Golden Horde takes Armenia and Georgia. Declare multiple Jihads on Armenia, and load those up with mercenaries. Que new Jihads in the home provinces.

After whipping the horde, have the Jihads besiege the fortress instead of storming it. Send a new "wave" of Jihads into Armenia, bound for Georgia.

Isn't the ability to have overlapping Jihads wonderful? Eat your hearts out, Crusaders.

When Georgia falls, put all the really expensive-to-maintain units -- Abyssinian Guards, mercs, vanilla archers (which are expensive to maintain, considering what you get) -- from the old Jihads into the new ones. This saves thousands of florins in maintenance costs. Leave new, good units from the old Jihads out in the "field army," where they can move anywhere they are needed.
That's my trick? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif how did you guess? also i've had 18,000 men in a Crusade to antioch before, http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif put em there myself in 1450 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-book2.gif

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (ah_dut @ June 22 2004,10:41)]That's my trick? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif how did you guess?
I got tired of paying 150 florins a turn to maintain 120 Abyssinian guards. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif Before I did "tag team" Jihads, I just deleted them along with vanilla foot archers, peasants, urban militia, etc. I would keep some of the archer and peasant types who were good governor material or had high valor.

It seemed silly to delete thousands of troops and disband sizable numbers of mercenaries, though, when still facing serious opposition.

Also, a huge Jihad full of units I'm going to delete or disband anyway is just the thing for storming a fortress. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] (Drake @ June 22 2004,14:08)]Magraev, thanks fort he tip of Imans. Wonder if it'll work with Cardinals...only way to find out, but cheers still never thought of doing that. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
Cardinals do not raise zeal... the only improve faith.

Inquisitors are the guys your after when playing Catholic and planning a crusade, but they can be tricky.
It is Important to Keep your inquisitors occupied Send them into enemy provinces and place enemy generals on trial and burn them...

Idle inquisitors with too much time on their hands tend to start burning the general population and when that happens Zeal takes a huge dive.

Also make sure your inquisitors work alone or with other inquisitors, Bishops and Cardinal get in the way of a good trial.

To raise zeal in my own provinces, I usually train a unit of peasants and let the Inquisitors chew their way through them... Bad governors & Heirs also sometimes get put to the flame.

Inquisitors are fun

[dessa14]

i just choose the best path.
using spies.
spies are actually useful sometimes.
place them in all your terratories and the surrounding ones.
it tells you if an invasion is planned for your terratory.
thanks, dessa

[The_Emperor]

I have found spies to be very quite useless in enemy territory since VI.

Border Forts are too good at catching spies. I once moved a group of 15 spies into a province and over half of them were captured in one turn by the border forts.

Also they don't really help to decrease loyalty enough for a rebellion anymore...

No I prefer to use them internally only to keep loyalty up and to execute disloyal generals for treason.

[dessa14]

i use 2 val spies in bordering provinces and my own.
they keep me informed of invasions on me.
as well as counterspying.
they certainly keep the asassians away.
thanks, dessa

[Magraev]

Quote[/b] (Drake @ June 22 2004,08:08)]Magraev, thanks fort he tip of Imans. Wonder if it'll work with Cardinals...only way to find out, but cheers still never thought of doing that. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif
No prob - this is actually the main reason I almost prefer the moslem factions now. Troops produced in high-zeal provinces also have very high piety and that's good for governors.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-toff.gif

high zeal in your cristian provinces can, as mentioned above, only be obtained by inquisitors. Unfortunately this makes your generals vulnerable to burning by other factions inquisitors.

BTW does anybody know, if the zeal and/or religion of a province affects the vices and virues your generals get. I seem to get a lot of zealots and pious generals after achieving 75% zeal everywhere.

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] ]BTW does anybody know, if the zeal and/or religion of a province affects the vices and virues your generals get. I seem to get a lot of zealots and pious generals after achieving 75% zeal everywhere.


Yeah its true, high zeal tends to give new generals and units very High Piety ratings. Zealot related V&Vs are also a lot more common as well.

Muslim Zeal peaks at 75%, but even at that it is very effective.

[Marquis de Said]

@The_Emperor

I have found spies quite useful at warning me of invasions and also causing rebellions, but you have to use high-valour spies (3 or above). I've had 4 and 5-star spies go around the map and cause rebellions every two or three turns. Just start by looking for provinces with no border forts, drop the spy there along with a few 0-star apprentices. These will gain stars along with the master spy when the province revolts. Once the spy is good enough (4 stars), you can just send him anywhere and usually border forts won't catch him. Loyalty drops by over 100 percentage points when a high-valour spy enters an enemy province.

I just wanted to ask, does anyone know what's the point of zeal in Orthodox provinces? Does it affect the game in any way, or is it just there as a stat, because all the other provinces have it as well?

Marquis

[dessa14]

zeal also controls rebellions and such.
thanks, dessa

[The_Emperor]

Quote[/b] ]I just wanted to ask, does anyone know what's the point of zeal in Orthodox provinces? Does it affect the game in any way, or is it just there as a stat, because all the other provinces have it as well?


There is no real point to zeal in Orthodox provinces since they cannot generate a Crusade or Jihad equivalent. Also none of their Religious agents can raise Orthodox zeal as I understand it.

As Dessa says Zeal increases the likelyhood of a Religious rebellion (should the province be taken by another religion, or your Catholic faction leaders get excommunicated), but apart from this and adding troops to a Jihad or Crusade zeal does very little.

[motorhead]

15k rebels on Cyprus (faction died out, a STRONG faction). I'd held Cyprus very briefly, and had 3 alims sitting there for quite a while so high muslim population. I launch a Jihad from Rum, around 180 men (zero zeal in nearly every prov). Two turns later my tiny Jihad shows up in Cyprus and the 15k rebels gladly hand over the province I think I got around 90k from confiscated lands. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif

[amir]

100 troops (NOT 100k, just 100) to constantinople because it actually manage to conquer constantinople :-) , the byz were busy fighting the Egyptians, leaving their capitol without soldiers, that was damn funny to conquer the most important province in the game with 100 troops.

[Doug-Thompson]

The best Crusade -- for me -- was launched earlier today by the AI French. The Crusade stripped the whole starting province of Normandy bare of troops right after a naval victory for me cleared the English Channel.

I land about 350 troops I can spare into Normandy and whip a hastily assembled defense force. Poof -- no chapter house, no Crusade. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

My raiders are forced to leave next turn. So then I declare mass Jihads on Normandy destroy everything in it. Then I march the former-Jihad troops to Flanders and do the same thing.

France was the dominant Christian power until then. The English were conquered and the Germans were on the ropes.

The failed Crusade and other defeats cause a French civil war, of course. I bribe a large rebel army in Aquitaine with all the money I made from plunder and deleting buildings in Normandy and Flanders. Then the bribed army and the former Jihad troops ravage Brest, Anjou and Isle de France. Germany captures many French provinces and a re-emerged England takes most of the rest.

In a half-dozen turns, the French go from being the most powerful nation on earth (except me) to the losing, scattered remnant in a three-way war for a bunch of deserted cow pastures.

I love Crusades.


http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[Magraev]

True that's an easy way to cause the downfall of an opponent. It works on jihads too - "just" occupy it's start-province and it gets disbanded with a loss of influence.

Almost a cheasy tactic...

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (Magraev @ June 28 2004,03:51)]Almost a cheasy tactic...
Oh no. It definitely IS a cheesy tactic. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif

[The_Emperor]

I prefer to destroy the crusade itself in a large pitched battle.

Fortunately when the Crusade is declared the destination province is shown and you can easily work out where to best defend against it.

Besides nothing is quite as funny as a defeated crusade that just keeps trying over and over to attack, all of it in vain.

[Doug-Thompson]

Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ June 29 2004,09:04)]I prefer to destroy the crusade itself in a large pitched battle.
Yeah, the object of the game is to have fun.

My problem is, I can't have fun if I honestly believe that I could have avoided massive casualties to my side.

Even if I'd won a big battle in this example, there would have been hundreds of casualties.

I realize that it's somewhat foolish to buy a wargame and to try and avoid battles. My view, though, is that there will always be plenty of fighting whatever you do. Why create battles you can avoid, especially since you can cause much more damage with a different approach?

[dessa14]

so you are a byzantine player.
capture syria and just assainate everyone in sight.
thanks, dessa

[mfberg]

I dragged crusade #1 to Palestine and ate the Egyptians, the next turn I took my second crusade on ship from Wessex to underdeveloped Antioch, ate the egptians there. The next 2 turns I take the Egyptian ruler in Tripoli/seige of Tripoli with my third successful crusade in four years.

mfberg