Crusade desertion

I sent an army led by my English King from Caen towards Jerusalem. Was intending to pick up by fleet in southern France, but storms and pirates sunk the lot so headed basically South Eastward on the fastest land route.
Over three turns I lost all of my 10 stack experiernced army to desertion.
My advisor says I'm not moving fast enough but what more can I do?

I now only have the king and his bodyguard in the middle of nowhere and have to either continue a fruitless task or give up and get him home, which presumably the Pope will be less than impressed with.

In future, try not to declare the crusade until you are already in a position to hop onto a ship the same turn. You can declare a crusade anywhere, you know. You can even declare the crusade while sieging the target city.

Naturally it's a tradeoff against the fact that you get faster movement with a declared crusade. BTW, don't put experienced units into a crusade. Peasants work well. It doesn't hurt much if they desert and you should rely on cheap and plentiful crusade mercs anyhow.

I would advise you hire as many of crusader mercs as you can. Pick up more as you move. Hold off on the hiring though untill you are on a pretty straight shot to the objectine.~:idea:

A good tip for moving cruesade armies is to move them a little bit at a time and keep on moving them untill you can move them no more on each turn. The reason i say this is so you can pick the most direct route if you just click on the edge of the green they end up going all around the house. Also moving your army a bit at a time also stops you getting stopped dead in your tracks by another army. If you move a bit at a time you can see the other army then change direction so you dont lose movements per turn which is the biggest killer for me when it comes to desertions.

Thanks guys. I didn't realise the trick about signing up for the crusade late.

I'm still learning this game. So far as English on HH I usually get smashed by around turn 40, but I do a little better every time.

I'm in awe of the people who seem to blitz through these campaigns in like a few days!

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Originally Posted by Derventio

Thanks guys. I didn't realise the trick about signing up for the crusade late.

I'm still learning this game. So far as English on HH I usually get smashed by around turn 40, but I do a little better every time.

I'm in awe of the people who seem to blitz through these campaigns in like a few days!

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Just because people on the internet say they have, doesnt mean its true :2thumbsup:

And wheres the fun in that anyway ?

Declaring the crusade late works fine if you don't have to march through other people's territory to get there. Sending a full stack of non-crusading troops through someone else's territory is bad for relations.

The desertion is a bit outragious ATM, and when traveling by land and sometimes by sea, you are forced to move away instead of getting closer, even though the route you are taking will get you there.

Hopefully desertion will be tweaked in the patch. Desertion right when you land in the target province but not enough movement to besiege. Plus once the desertion begins I don't think it stops until you besiege.

Also the AI is immune to it or at least real close to it, I saw an HRE army march from near Innsbruck all the way close to Denmark and then head back south again.

I can understand the AI being Immune to desertion but on the otherhand it's a bit too harsh on the human player at the time.

did you have any non military units in your stack (i.e preists, agents etc)? they do not get the crusade movement bonus and will slow you down.

sounds like you were a little unluck though mate.

The agent issue with movement points could have very well been the problem.

However, you CAN get them the double movement points even with agents in the stack. Click on your crusader stack with agents in it, and click cntrl-a. Boom, you've got your double movement points back. This works on land and sea FYI. It wasn't until my third crusade that I realized how quickly you can move a crusader army with agents over the sea... double movement points in a ship is phenominal.

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Originally Posted by Flavius Gonzo

The agent issue with movement points could have very well been the problem.

However, you CAN get them the double movement points even with agents in the stack. Click on your crusader stack with agents in it, and click cntrl-a. Boom, you've got your double movement points back.

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Flavius, you rock! Thank you for posting that!

The AI does not suffer from desertion. I'm playing around as the turks about 150 turns in(with 1.00 turn rate). The original crusade for antioch is still in progress and all of the crusading armies are sitting around the bosphorous because I blocked the pass with my navy. Every once in a while one of the armies will leave and go attack some rebels only to return with full strenth.

Its quite annoying. I never get to take advantage of double movement points because of the stupidity of desertion mechanics.

Just send your general to the target... you can pick up crusader mercs in the holy land... Basically that entire strip there (Antioch, Acre, Jerusalem, etc) have crusader mercs available.

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Originally Posted by The_Prophet7315

The AI does not suffer from desertion. I'm playing around as the turks about 150 turns in(with 1.00 turn rate). The original crusade for antioch is still in progress and all of the crusading armies are sitting around the bosphorous because I blocked the pass with my navy. Every once in a while one of the armies will leave and go attack some rebels only to return with full strenth.

Its quite annoying. I never get to take advantage of double movement points because of the stupidity of desertion mechanics.

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Thats incorrect to my knowledge. I was besieging Jerusalem, Hungary had a full stack waiting for me to get pummeled (I didnt) They moved backwards...Bang..next turn they had 5 out of original 20 units.

I've also seen an entire army go in one turn when they got excommed (even the faction's own troops)

Its kind of funny though how you can only get jihad troops in original islamic regions while you can get crusader mercs all over the map. Kind of unfair too.

As for desertion, the AI is definitely affected, as I can assassinate a crusader general and his troops vanish in 2 turns unless he mysteriously gains a new general there without fighting using that stack...(->buglist)

I usually declare a crusade/jihad when I am a tun away from the target or already besieging it. This way the AI can't benefit from me calling one (i.e. get experience boni, florins, traits) and becomes meat for my successful crusaders that aim for their lands next.

In my current english campaign, i've actually called a crusade for a reason other than getting money/experience - a genuine need of help.

The mongols have destroyed my kingdom in teh holy land and i desparately need some ai armies to thin out their stacks, so a crusade on their capital seemed like a good idea :D

Have to see how it turns out

How I envy the existence of a significant number of catholic/islamic states in your campaign sapi. In mine, by the time mongols arrive, they are usually in their last throes already....maybe I should let them live as buffer :)

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Originally Posted by sapi

I've also seen an entire army go in one turn when they got excommed (even the faction's own troops)

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No when they are excommunicatied thier crusade gets a different symbol.