Beating Crusades

In my Spanish campaign I managed to anger the Pope and he called a crusade on Toulouse. I already destroyed French and HRE crusader stacks on the way there, and one Papal States stack during siege. The problem is that there is also Polish, Hungarian, Venetian and Sicilian crusades on the way.

Do you have any tips on fighting them?

Is there a way to stop the crusade early, like gifting Toulouse back to the French, or perhaps making it a city and letting it go rebel? I upgraded it to a Citadel so I am not looking forward and attempting to take it back.

I would advise you to send an assassin to Rome to get rid of his Highness ASAP...Then vote on the favorite cardinal or rig the election to have yours elected... Your Papal Standing will normally go back to the top or almost, and most probably the Crusade will be called off...

That's the most viable option and the least costly...

Do what Tristan suggested, but if you can't assassinate the Pope (which is a very difficult thing to do), just reinforce the Citadel and get ready to fight some good defensive siege battles. If you do it right you can wipe out many powerful stacks with few losses of your own. Building ballista or cannon towers can help.

What's a good strategy for defending a citadel?

In the defensive battle against the papal states I couldn't build feudal knights yet. I had peasant crossbowmen shoot from the walls, javelinmen defend the walls against ladders and towers and militia guard the gate.

After they broken through the militia at the first gate I retreated to the second, lured the general inside by himself and finished him off. After that the battle was basically over. I had my general run around and activate the towers to finish off the remaining attackers.

The papal states had about 1900 men mostly different kinds of spearmen and some fanatics. But I lost about half of my own army and will not survive another attack with the remaining forces alone.

I usually do it something like this:

First wall is only defended by some(2-3) short-ranged archers or javelinmen on the walls. Not too many, as they are going to die. On the second wall, I put my heavy long range shooters. I also put 2 units of heavy infantry on the walls, and 2 spearmen at the gates. Inside the third wall, I place the rest. All my cavalry goes behind the first wall. If the enemy only sends a few units through the wall, I charge and rout them. If not, I retreat them to the second wall and do the same thing there. After that, I retreat them to the third wall. My first wall is designed to do a few casualties before falling. The second wall, however, is where I pepper the enemy with arrows. They'll be tightly packed in the streets, the perfect targets. Also, they are going to stay a long time within range before they break the wall, so I can kill a LOT. If they somehow manage to break that wall, I retreat to the third wall, where all my fresh heavy infantry and cavalry are waiting, and fight tooth and nail till the end...

Sometimes, it's better to just let the computer take over the city/castle especially if you're going to have to duke it out between several full stacks to defend. You can always reclaim it later when you don't have six stacks breathing down your neck.

If you want to get rid of crusade stacks quickly as even if the crusade ends there will still be stacks around that are at war with you, get a good assasin, kill the general and then the army will desert

As someone previously said, preparation is everything. As the Turks, you must a) defend against crusades, b) defend against Mongols, and c) finally defend against the Timurids. Try and find bottleknecks, such as bridges and crossings. Build defensive units, spears (in my case saracen militia and dismounted sipahi, supported by ottoman infantry and nafatun) and many archers. For my citadels (with cannon towers), I put naffatun around the gates, ottoman infantry on the walls and defensive units in front of the gates. Its pretty much a killing ground for the invader! Soon as he suicides his general, even the redoubtable mongols break like the dogs that they are...

This time around as Turkey, I've been lucky and had very few crusades early in the game. The Infidel seemed too concerned with an outbreak of Catharism around Toulouse, which seemed to have a crusade called there every couple of decades. It allowed me to build up two large defensive centres around Antioch and the citadel to its east (which I can't remember its name offhand). As well as Constantinople, or Istanbul (praise Allah!) as we like to call it!

While I've lost Baghdad and a few cities to the east, the Timurids seem to be content pillaging in Assyria for almost 10 turns now. Their spies have obviously seen what I have waiting for them further west! Its tying up a lot of resources, but it will be worth it if I'm able to defend my capital at Antioch from the infidels.

As a muslim state, various jihads have kept the infidel off balance, and the great financial centres in Italia, even the home of christendom itself have fallen to the Soldiers of Allah. I'm playing VH/VH by the way.

Salaam Alikum

Thanks for the help!

Defending bridges around Toulouse is not very useful, unfortunately, since the enemies just go around and I can't afford to keep substantial armies at each choke point.

Even if you just put one unit of peasants in a fort at every bridge it gives you a minimum of one turn gained, because the enemy has to break the fort before they pass the bridge.

Better still if your peasants are attacked you can send your main army, use them as bait.

defending crusades as a catholic is annoying. best not to get in this situation. but you have. i don't like to annoy anyone but my immediate neighbours so i give the crusade target to a catholic faction that lives a long way away (or sell if poss) the crusade then ends. i don't spend needless money defending. don't kill people who needn't be my enemies for a whole yet (this annoys them). then make peace with pope and get on his goodside asap. i play vh/vh and prefer to choose every crusade target myself if catholic. preferably a region on the far side (and owned by) my current main enemy. then i make as many crusade stacks as poss and take every region on route to target. usually get target too but this is a secondary consideration to exterminating one more faction.

Letting your king die is maybe an answer ?

No his death does not help much. I remain excommunicated, crusaders continue crusading and the Sicilians keep moving ever closer. Maybe its because I am at war with the pope the excommunication does not get lifted. While I was waiting by pressing end turn button a few times he also laid a siege to Marselle with two full stacks. It seems his wars are going much better than mine!

99% of the time, losing your king ends the excommunication and along with it any crusades against you (if you're a christian faction).

Must have been something extra going on...

I'm not sure if the king's death will trigger a recommunication if you're at war with teh papacy itself...

Your best bet in defense is to make sure you get the generals

Fight according to your tastes, but make sure that none of their leaders survive, because if they do they'll be back for more with a fresh army a few turns later. I found this out the hard way as egypt, I can tell you :laugh4:

@MStumm
Well basically it serves you right. Presumbaly you are ex-communicated too, and sooner or later the inquisition is going to come for you.

My advise is to suck up the to Pope big time and get his favours back. Not only is it sensible but its in keeping with the game theme.

As for your immediate predicament.....I suggest sending the most grovelling diplomat you can find to Rome (if not your most charming daughter) and offer Toulouse as a gift to his holiness. (Note: Trash it for cash first)

He isn't going to continue a crusade against his own city and the gift will help to improve his opinion of your heretical little country. Then use the money you pillaged from the city before you gifted to the church to pay the first instalment of your continued popularity campaign.

I suggest a minimum of 500 florins per turn until your popularity rating hits 8/10 on the Pope-O-Meter and then keep a diplomat on permanent duty outside Rome ready to top this up if it begins to drop.

Being Spain you have plenty of infidels to the south of you to destroy so leave France alone, even though they are damned annoying.

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Originally Posted by Didz

@MStumm
Well basically it serves you right. Presumbaly you are ex-communicated too, and sooner or later the inquisition is going to come for you.

My advise is to suck up the to Pope big time and get his favours back. Not only is it sensible but its in keeping with the game theme.

As for your immediate predicament.....I suggest sending the most grovelling diplomat you can find to Rome (if not your most charming daughter) and offer Toulouse as a gift to his holiness. (Note: Trash it for cash first)

He isn't going to continue a crusade against his own city and the gift will help to improve his opinion of your heretical little country. Then use the money you pillaged from the city before you gifted to the church to pay the first instalment of your continued popularity campaign.

I suggest a minimum of 500 florins per turn until your popularity rating hits 8/10 on the Pope-O-Meter and then keep a diplomat on permanent duty outside Rome ready to top this up if it begins to drop.

Being Spain you have plenty of infidels to the south of you to destroy so leave France alone, even though they are damned annoying.

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I don't agree ,you should go to Rome, send with the ship an army to Rome and then negotiate,i did this and the pope agreed and called the crusade off without any gift from me.

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Originally Posted by Anti-TotalWar

I don't agree ,you should go to Rome, send with the ship an army to Rome and then negotiate,i did this and the pope agreed and called the crusade off without any gift from me.

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Well that idea would work if you had both the troops and naval dominance in the western med, but I am assuming that if @MStumm is woried about his ability to defend Toulouse against incoming crusades then he hasn;t got that sort of military might.

Lets face it if you have armies stacked up like copies of WoW you don't need to worry about anything, least of all your popularity as Blizzard have recently proven to their fans.