Sucessful Crusades

[Jagger]

So has anyone been able to consistently do sucessful crusades?

I have been playing glorious achievement version. Crusades are a major part of achievements. Yet, typically I can only get off one or two crusades in the alloted time frame while barely fighting off my neighbors. Then usually the crusade gets close but never actually reachs its destination. They have to fight past either the Turks or Egyptians or both. I always end up with a destroyed crusade.

I think the next attempt will be serious. I will give the crusade a top general. I will give them the core of a good army.

And then, I won't launch a crusade until I see someone else launch a crusade. I will try to piggyback behind someone else's crusade. If I follow someone else and let them absorb the brunt of the infidels, maybe I will be able to get through.

It will be Antioch or bust. In the past, it has always been bust.

Has anyone else have any tips for a successful crusade?

[Kraellin]

believe it or not, i hadnt tried a crusade until today. lol. those things are a hoot. and yes, i lost, but it did gain me one province while traveling to the destination. i lost the battle when i arrived, however. the byzantines stuck a 9 star general in there with matching numbers of men. it was a bloody rout on my side.

i'm currently working on an exploit of the crusade thing. i'll let you know how that goes.

yes, do use other faction's crusades to aid yours. in mine, i started one from wessex heading to lithuania. it first stripped off a number of my own men in wessex and i said the heck with that, so i sent it to flanders, currently being held by the germans with large armies, and my crusade doubled in size to about 1500 men. nice!

in flanders, i still had options as to which way to go, so, since the germans had been so accomodating, i decided to march the crusaders along the coast, remaining on german soil. it continued to pick up a few men and at one point i had 1600+ men, but upon walking into an hungarian held province with the major religion being orthodox, my troop count dropped considerably.

the next province was held by the byzantines, against whom i was crusading, and it was this one i took. the byzantines simply retreated without a fight, but holed up in the fort. i waited them out, but again, zeal was not that good and i lost about 100 more men in the siege.

in order to keep this new province, i again kept the crusaders there until i could build up the province's own men to hold the loyalty up.

finally, with my crusade army down to about 800+ men, i marched them into lithuania and smack into the byzantine 9 star general. it would have been worse, but the germans had declared a crusade on constantinople and distracted a large force of the byzantines away from lithuania where they'd been sitting in ambush for me.

still, i lost. my zeal/morale was weakening from sitting for long spells. my men were bored and had been away from home for a long time. the generals i had werent that good to begin with and even with pumping a few extra troops into it, it just wasnt enough to go up against the cream of the byzantine forces.

one thing that did sort of bug me wasnt that i lost, but that i couldnt always pick my route, particularly the closer i got. now that makes sense up to a point; i just think the point shld have been closer to the end zone and not 3-5 provinces away. had i been allowed to pick at times, when it wouldnt have lengthened the route, i would have chosen other more 'healthy' directions. i suppose one can justify this by saying that the factions you are moving through are already giving you quite a consession by allowing such huge armies to move through, and pick apart, their own provinces, and as such, they are restricting your movement along certain fixed paths where they can move their choice units out of so that they dont get caught up in the zeal and abandon their homelands.

lol. so in answer to your original question, no. i havent done a fully successful crusade yet, but then i've only tried the one so far. and like i said, i have a plan ;)

K.


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The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

[DaCount]

Well i've done several succesful crusades. Only i wouldn't target a province/country far far away where i would cross loads of muslim/orthodox low zeal countries, as you fast start loosing man.
Now 1600-2000 crusades are nothing. First when you start the crusade, leave it the first turn in your home province while massing troops you want to join in the crusade there. Next turn drop loads of troops (including a good general) in your crusade (mind you troops in a crusade do NOT cost upkeep while they are in the crusade).

Now your crusade should have over 1500-2000 man (and no i don't count peasants or fanatics) and still be in its home province.
Start moving, choose high zeal provinces (and preferable with loads of troops you can absorb) for your path (if you got sea routes use them to skip low zeal or orthodox/muslim countries).

If you get as far as you can using high zeal countries your crusade should easy count over 3000 man. Then the last part rush all you can to it's destination (if you need to cross like 10 countries with low zeal/orthodox or muslims you picked the WRONG target, then first make a crusade to halfway the route, take that country and make sure you zeal it up and have good defence morale etc and high catholic, so your crusade for those far away countries can tank up there, mind you you won't get much extra by just waiting, produce army in this country to drop in your crusade).

Also NEVER EVER leave a crusade more then 2 turns in a country, even on high zeal, as after the second turn the crusade will only loose man mostly).

Using the above tactic you should be able to pull of a few succesfull crusades http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif.

Actually having succesfull crusades was my main source of gaining knights of santiago/order foot man early on..

Oh and one last tip, as soon as you have done as succesfull crusade, and much of your army still stands, disband all the looser troops as when the crusade disbands you need to pay upkeep again, thus giving you loads of extra costs again.




[This message has been edited by DaCount (edited 09-10-2002).]

[eat cold steel]

Well it all depends on where the fleets are on the map and who is at war with who.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya crusades against His neigbors in the name of the Pope.

GAH!

Who am I kidding?!? I crusade against my neighbors in my own name! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

GAH!

The Pope is just a puppet that I allow to stay alive as long as he amuses me. http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

GAH!

Thats the nice thing about being the Italians. You can park a brigade of assassins right next door and whack that silly man if he looks at you in a funny way.

GAH!

[Wart]

Had a good crusade last night, playing as the sicilians (who i've modded to be able to get hospitallers). My chapter house is in malta, so i launced it from there targeting those infidel gold mines in morocco.

The turn before i'd moved a few ships, which broke some trade routes for a turn or two, but meant that i was able to move my crusade straight to Croatia. I then marched it along the southern coast of the med, and down into the iberian peninsula. I had planned to sail them past the almohad provinces in spain, but couldnt get the crusade to get on the boat, so had to do it the hard way!

At this point my crusade had over 2000 men (including peasants), without me having put any of my own troops in at the start. I reinforced with some of my decent troops and marched into the moorish territory...

Some observations:
DON'T put your own troops into a crusade til the absolute last moment! They will just leech away over time due to the comings & goings that occur with crusader troops.
Ideally you want to drop your own troops into the first enemy region you enter with the crusade.
Even after this, just have your army move with the crusade. This way rather than a fraction of each unit leeching away each turn; at worst a fraction of each unit will join the crusade, & then a fraction of that fraction will leech away. i.e you loose less of your own (presumably good quality) troops

Another reason not to throw a load of your own troops in, is that you will loose them if someone else conquers the target province before the crusade gets there!

Crusades only seem to be able to go by ship for there first move, after that it's walking all the way. This can be useful as it allows you to only have to break trade routes for a turn or two in order to plan where your going to start marching from. This way you can plan a route that will take you through many catholic provinces before you reach your destination.

AI crusades can get distracted. Last night on my way to morocco i bumped into a HRE crusade, to portugal, in aragon. We both moved into valencia together, & then onto cordoba. What surprised me is that when i moved on to morocco it FOLLOWED me! Even though going from cordoba to morocco is moving away from portugal. At first i thought this was part of the crusades bugs/problems that ive heard mentioned, but then it occured to me that it was probably deliberate i.e. I can see that the HRE crusade might have got caught up in the fervour of my (larger) crusade and got distracted. After id taken morocco they hung around for a couple of turns, & then moved back to cordoba & on to portugal. How cool is that! http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Wart (edited 09-10-2002).]