Pope calls Crusade on his allies

I was Egypt faction and expanding around the Byzantine-Hungary region. Pope asks me to become his ally. I don't know what he was smoking as my religion is Islam, reputation is despicable, all relations abysmal, and I previously called a Jihad down on Rome(I never joined the Jihad. I just wanted to keep the Moors busy fighting the christians and the Moors took Rome). Not exactly the ideal ally. However I agreed to the alliance as I had not advanced to Italy yet and hoped it might put a damper on those damn crusades. As I add more Byzantine and Hungary cities to my empire I move my capitol to Constantinople to help control unrest. Few turns later, Pope calls a crusade down on Constantinople. And we are still allied. WTF? How can he command all christian nations to crusade against the capital of his only ally? And it doesn't even break the alliance?!?! 8 other factions declared war on me that turn though.

How exactly do these allies make chit-chat:
Me: So popey my boy, how goes that crusade against the heathens?
Pope: Not so good. The heathens have destroyed the last 5 armies I sent against them.
Me: Not to worry. I saved you the heads of the generals. I even mounted them on pikes for you. Here ya go. Merry christmas.
Pope: Gee thanks.
Me: I have finally finished off Hungary and am well on my way of converting their heathen cities to Islam. I hear the Moors have completely converted Rome to Islam too.
Pope: Praise Allah.

Worse part was, 2 turns after he calls down this crusade the Mongols arrive. So I have 8 crusading factions in the west, 5 full stacks of mongol troops in the east, and more mongols on the way. Good thing those stupid christian armies were choked full of militia, peasants, and pilgrims. My Mamluk archers cut them to pieces. And the stupid crusading armies should be allied with each other. They have 4 crusading armies dancing around Constantinople but they are only attacking me one at a time. So easy to stop one of their pathetic armies, I would have trouble fighting all 4 at once though.

As for the Mongols, they were a bit tougher than the Christians. They bypassed my Fortress cities I had built up and loaded with troops anticipating their arrival and were instead moving into my softer interior. I intercepted their 2 stacks of mixed troops with my 2 stacks of mamluk archers + a few generals. Since my armies were all calvary armies I could easily outmaneuver the Mongols. I positioned 1 stack of allied troops on the flank of his first stack, while engaging him myself in a frontal assault with my mamluk archers raining arrows on him. I left my reinforcements under AI control and they came in and started rolling up his flank. I sent in my own generals and heavy calvary to assist my allies and soon his entire line was collapsing under the assault. By the time his reinforcements came up most of his first army is decimated. Together my ally and I clean up the rest of his troops. When my mamluks run out of arrows, I sent them charging in to assist my heavy calvary. Both Mongol stacks were destroyed. I sent my wounded troops off to get retrained and moved the rest of my forces south of Baghdad where the Mongols were trying to sneak another 3 stacks into my empire. Again, they choose to bypass my border city and move deeper into my interior. Since I was a bit weakened from the last battle I join more mamluk archers and some mercenary calvary to my forces and proceed to destroy another 2 stacks of mongols the same way I destroyed the first 2. Except this time I divide my forces into 3 armies and flank him from both sides. Now he had troops approaching from 3 sides and crumbled even faster than last time. The last stack of mongols was now outnumber and was quickly destroyed. I got the announcement that the Mongol faction was destroyed and can finally take a breather. I broke up my armies to various cities for retraining.

Few turns later, the damn Mongols are back with another 4 stacks and this time decided to lay siege to Baghdad. I quickly reassemble my armies but it doesn't look like I will be able to relieve Baghdad in time. I am sending my defensive archer and spearmen forces from Yerevan to Mosul to make my stand there. If they bypass Mosul at least I will have a mamluk retraining center close to the front lines and can take him out with my armies. I am training a third eastern army in my interior just in case. My expansion in the west has ground to a halt. My western armies have been fighting for years without resupply and their ranks are rather thin. Most of the cities I took recently are towns with no calvary training facilities. I have had to divert offensive armies to intercept invading christian forces, crusading and otherwise. I briefly took Naples but then Sicily came down with a full stack and I retreated to Palermo for retraining. I had planned to assault Naples again once my army was back up to full strength but then Venice though it would be funny if I was stranded at Palermo and sunk my navy(soon, I will have my revenge on Venice. And no nice sackings this time, oh no they will all be exterminated.). I killed about 5 crusading armies(not counting the 5 they sent to Jerusalem in a previous crusade) but theres still another 5 or so I have to deal with, perhaps more. Constantinople is still under siege and it looks like it will stay the way for the foreseeable future as there are 3 full crusading armies there. I am at war with 10 factions and the pope is my only ally, the SOB. Thats where I am in the game now(turn 79).

:P

Bad luck man :0

As for the pope issue, i know the player can't call a crusade on one of the pope's allies but things must work differently for the AI

I suppose that Pope is hardcoded to call crusades on certain cities (like Jerusalem, Constantinople and maybe Antionch), so nothing personal here, but 'Carthago delenda est'.
Nice anti-Mongol tactics, btw.

LOL! That was a good post. The thing with the dancing armies happened in my game for about 70 years. If they would attack all at once "it would be glorious" but they did'nt sadly. Always the same, however what I did is I attacked when they were close together. More birds with the same stone.

Nice post. I'm almost ready to really play a long Egyptian campaign.

Hilarious dialogue with the Pope's praise Allah bit.

Good tactics with wiping out the Mongols. As for retraining, it shouldn't be as big an issue once you get those racetracks up.

Also, navally, the Islamic factions really got screwed. Better smack down all the infidels before they get carracks.

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Originally Posted by sapi

Bad luck man

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More like toothfairy intervention.