Controlling Outremer...

Right.

The Pope called a Crusade on Antioch. I was just about to reload, because it was such a glorious decision, on His Holyness's behalf. Anyway I decided well what the hell... I sent off one of my generals to Antioch... WHY ANTIOCH ? Pointless excercise in futility.

I took the city with ease, ransomed an Egy prince en route with his army for about 9K florins. This was early game so a lot of money then. Once I took Antioch, I simply occupied it.

Now in 1111 (still early game) it has 34,000 inhabitants and I have a garrison of about 1300 spear militia plus the poor sod general who got thrown down there.

What I really want is to Crusade on Acre, Aleppo and Jerusalem. 2 castles to recruit from and 2 cities.

Jerusalem first OFC (!), which gives 20% public order bonus for the rest of the game. However Antioch is eating up my finances. The Crusader army of about 1050 troops, Order Foot Soldiers, Crusader Knights etc complete with the Great Cross is sitting outside Antioch costing 2300 florins/turn upkeep. I can't move it because if I move the governor of Antioch out it goes below 60% public order on low tax rate.

Maybe I should have exterminated when I got the city ?

I also ran a series of cheats. I put in every possible law buildingm huge cathedral, the works..etc (which would take about 30 turns to complete normally), and still the city was only at 90% with normal tax rate AND population growth of 3%... ???!!!!

Which means eventually it will again dip below 75% public order because of population growth.
It's unmanageable.

85% is Catholic.

75% is distance to capital penalty (IIRC) and 80% squalor even with everything upgraded.

How are you supposed to manage this place ?

And that is why you either have a close capital like in Constantinople or exterminate after getting the city. Starting little empires in the Holy Lands are often a very huge burden on your economy and will most likely collapse or put you in bankruptcy unless you exerminate or have a relatively close capital

Does anyone know how to change the base unrest or the distance to capital penalty ? I know I read it somewhere last week, but I can't find it again... meh. Meanwhile I'm going to let it revolt, sack (for 30K), then let it revolt, then exterminate.

Why the pope called a crusade for Antioch?

Hmmm. Probably for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Relic! Pull the pin, count to three and the enemy General dies at the begining of the battle! + 10 morale to troops. + 20 to humour.

Well what country are you playing as? It's not all that hard to manage with my Sicilians.

I had a similar problem to you in my Moors game, Sinan - my capital was in Cordoba, but I foolishly responded to a call for Jiad to Baghdad (I thought I had buckley's of making it ahead of the Turks and Egyptians but somehow I did) and I ended up with an empire where the "heart" was in Iberia but the biggest cities were Antioch and Baghdad - as far from Iberia as could be. My empire ultimately colllapsed because of distance from the capital.

Where is your capital at the moment?

LOL !

I'm playing English, capital is London.

My very own glory goals for this campaign are to hold France, Scandinavia, and Ireland (already done) as the continental empire, and overseas to have the Crusader States; Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch & Aleppo.

Once that's done I won't be doing too much except fighting off the Mongols in Palestine (I suppose) and probably HRE, and Spain on Europe. I also intend to vassal anyone I can. I don't intend to take any more land. Just my own way of playing the game, set objectives, achieve them = game over. I don't like the 45 province goal, I preferred Glorious Achievments a la MTW/VI.

@Sinan :
In my French Campaign, i got to almost the same situation... Capital was Paris and I had taken Adana on a previous failed Crusade made peace with the Turks and then waited for the next Crusade which was called on Antioch... Took it in one turn and then I have my 10 chivalry (oops Pop growth) General unable to leave the city...

So I kept him there with a good garrison and sent an expeditionary force to Damascus and Acre under captains...I had them fight any and all Egyptians armies out of cities and soon got MOTH for both...(ambushing between Acre and Jerusalem is a must)...

I then used them to get Jerusalem and Acre...

I now have two kingdoms but my general is still stuck in Antioch but with much less Garrison

I often have a crusader state, usually I take Antioch, Jerusalem and Acre.. maybe Damascus too, depends. If you are not at war with everybody in europe, I found a full stack in every crusader city is enough (and economically affordable) to keep them from rebelling, you will need it anyway as you will probably get besieged every 3 or 4 turns. The only way these cities rebel on me is when the enemy is successful in sending a couple of spies in who stay for more than just one round.
As France I had an additional all cav crusader army composed of mainly Knights Templar and horse archers that patrolled my borders and served as a quick response force. Was especially handy for ambushes on various Mongol and Timurid stacks: attack and then retreat and retrain in your castle.:2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Sinan

Does anyone know how to change the base unrest or the distance to capital penalty ? I know I read it somewhere last week, but I can't find it again... meh. Meanwhile I'm going to let it revolt, sack (for 30K), then let it revolt, then exterminate.

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....I just sent you the info late last week!
descr_settlement_mechanics.xml

You can also change the max population in a settlement type there, so limit the pop to like 30k or so if you like.

I just take this city and gave it to the papal at the same turn! :laugh4:

Take city.

Sack.

Raze every building to the ground.

Give it to the papacy as a 'gift'.

Wait for it to revolt, rinse and repeat a few turns later.

Your options IMO:

1) Pull out everything, let them revolt, take back the city, exterminate.

2) Gift it to the Pope.

3) Be ready to sit out. Build everything especially walls. It will take some 20 turns though.

But after i gave it to the pope i still need to take a while to get my general back to my homeland [France]. Usually i will send my fleets to escort him back, since i always send my faction heir on crusade to gain chivalry and cant take the risk of losing him on the sea.

In my denmark campaign my capital is either Frankfurt or Nuremburg depending on which one I like better or the time, because I own all the cities except one along the Baltic Sea its my prime money earner (Stockholm gives 9 k a turn :) )

Putting my capital here has enabled trade to flourish and I don't get a too heavy penalty on the middle eastern states I own. Although right now I can't really tell because I have full stack armies in Antioch Damascus and Baghdad because of the Timurids. However the Timurds recently seemed to decide that losing 4 full army stacks against Antioch was more than enough. :laugh4: thank goodness I can build war clerics just about anywhere, also have fortresses in acre and gaza. I tell you if the battles that happened at anticoch happened in RL, it would be an archaeologists paradise, and a landowners nightmare :laugh4: Also even though you may love your original capital city it is extremely wise to move it in the later years....

Even the POPE in my game has moved the capital from Rome to Florence! Rome has become 'just another big city' :dizzy2: I've noticed alot of the AI's have changed their capitals, some of their own accord ( Pope never lost rome , in fact hes got a very powerful empire and is just about to wipe out the last of the Holy Roman Empire who foolishly attacked him. ) and some forced. But the economic benefits outwiegh the nostalgia of keeping London or any of the starting cities as the capital in your growing empire.

Exterminate when you establish a Crusader state- always.

Yes....KILL THE HEATHEN.... GOD'S WILL BE DONE....

Occupy actually works well enough if your general is high chiv, which he usually is after a crusade. Sack if you really need florins (a lot of traits are linked to treasury so its a bad idea to have too many)
Exterminate if you are only wanting to get the Genocide line of traits or the torturer ancillary.

If its a huge city, exterminate isn't as bad than if it is a town or lesser city. You do want to stay on top of the technology.

Antioch is one of those cities thats great for constant sack strategies. You know... Attack, sack, pull out and let it go rebel, sack again, repeat and rise again and again. You can make alot of money doing this. Its a hard city to keep happy. If you plan to keep it its better to exterminate it and even then its going to get unhappy later down the road and probably require you to cut the population down to size once more.

It also ruins your global rep nicely.

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Originally Posted by Tristan de Castelreng

Yes....KILL THE HEATHEN.... GOD'S WILL BE DONE....

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Amen.

After a crusade, I destroy everything and give it away. Either to the Pope or a to a faction that is close to the original owners, just to cause trouble.

Then I just keep conquering and sacking and destroying until my army is dead and I am filthy rich.

Its basically just a profitable suicide squad...and so I only do it when I have an old general or two who won't be around much longer. If they are that old, I can't rely on them to lead a standing army for any significant amount of time...may as well put them to good use and let them die with honor.

Now a days, I usually only join crusades to attack closer targets, ie I join for the movement and troops and then abandon it when I'm next to my target. The only times I actually take cities in the Levant and hold them is if my empire has reached to it usually in Venetian or Sicilian campaigns or I am doing a migration campaign

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Originally Posted by Cheetah

Your options IMO:

1) Pull out everything, let them revolt, take back the city, exterminate.

2) Gift it to the Pope.

3) Be ready to sit out. Build everything especially walls. It will take some 20 turns though.

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If you do this, do you need to have a military access treaty with the pope as you will then be "sitting" on his lands?

Either that or have a fleet of ships and put your army there for the duration?

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Originally Posted by Sinan

Right.

The Pope called a Crusade on Antioch. I was just about to reload, because it was such a glorious decision, on His Holyness's behalf. Anyway I decided well what the hell... I sent off one of my generals to Antioch... WHY ANTIOCH ? Pointless excercise in futility.

I took the city with ease, ransomed an Egy prince en route with his army for about 9K florins. This was early game so a lot of money then. Once I took Antioch, I simply occupied it.

Now in 1111 (still early game) it has 34,000 inhabitants and I have a garrison of about 1300 spear militia plus the poor sod general who got thrown down there.

What I really want is to Crusade on Acre, Aleppo and Jerusalem. 2 castles to recruit from and 2 cities.

Jerusalem first OFC (!), which gives 20% public order bonus for the rest of the game. However Antioch is eating up my finances. The Crusader army of about 1050 troops, Order Foot Soldiers, Crusader Knights etc complete with the Great Cross is sitting outside Antioch costing 2300 florins/turn upkeep. I can't move it because if I move the governor of Antioch out it goes below 60% public order on low tax rate.

Maybe I should have exterminated when I got the city ?

I also ran a series of cheats. I put in every possible law buildingm huge cathedral, the works..etc (which would take about 30 turns to complete normally), and still the city was only at 90% with normal tax rate AND population growth of 3%... ???!!!!

Which means eventually it will again dip below 75% public order because of population growth.
It's unmanageable.

85% is Catholic.

75% is distance to capital penalty (IIRC) and 80% squalor even with everything upgraded.

How are you supposed to manage this place ?

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Convert it to a castle if u want to keep it. It will raise your loyalty by some 20%.

I think in Outremer you pretty much have to exterminate if you're coming as a conquering crusader. When you combine high natural unrest, cultural differences, extreme distances from capital, likely religious unrest, and fast growing population with extreme logistical support issues, there's a recipe for problems. Luckily, with the fast growing population the cities also recover pretty quickly.

I love the name Outremer. Haven't heard it in decades, so it's nice to see it crop up here.

Since you've already used cheats ...

add_population Antioch -30000

End your squalor and overcrowding issues. I prefer extermination myself.

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Originally Posted by PseRamesses

Convert it to a castle if u want to keep it. It will raise your loyalty by some 20%.

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You can't convert a city to a castle once it passes town size I think. Or maybe large. But at 32,000 population, he's got a huge city on his hands, and that absolutely isn't convertible in Vanilla, 1.1, or Carl's BugFixer mod.

He's either got to cheat the population down, pull out and exterminate it, or consider losing it somehow.

Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. :smash:

Nope, I have'nt used cheats.

I used them to test and see if the place is manageable or not, and it's not, then I reloaded back to my campaign. It's already easy enough, with cheats it's pointless to play. Since then, as I posted already, I let it rebel, pull out and exterminate.

I could change the files so I can convert to castle, but never mind I'll leave it as is. More fun this way.

Actually wait !!!

I HAVE used cheats other than this test. And here's what I did.

Gave approximately 1,000,000 FL to EVERY faction (except Aztecs since I can't get there yet AFAIK) in increments of 200,000 every 5 turns. I also give away any money in excess of 30K I have at the end of each turn to a random faction.

Only faction I have yet to give are the Mongols and they just arrived. However, since they are now facing MASSIVE Turkish and Egyptian armies, they have'nt settled yet. But I think they will, they're sneaking up on Aleppo while the Turks and Egyptians duke it out near Baghdad.

That million FL cheat to every faction is one I REALLY recommend, it's made my game totally awesome. I regularly face Broken Lances, Teutonic Knights, Santiago, Bombards, you name it, AND not just one stack. 3-4 on average before it quietens down for a few turns. basically every faction is like the Mongols, even worse. They have like 7-9 full stacks and multiple little stacks running around. Specially Egyptians, they are now a real challenge in Jerusalem. I don't dare go out of the city or I'm TOAST. However if I see something small... OUT goes the cavalry on the gallop !!!

HRE is tough too, but I have a bridge near Antwerp, and I can beat them 1vs1, Egypt has a far better economy than mine, that's the problem.

Move your capitol to Marseilles or Genoa. If you don't own them, conquer them and then move your capital there.

I had problems controlling Antioch as Spain with my capitol in Valencia. It wasn't too bad as Venice or as the Byzantines, but I don't want to even think about trying it as the English.

Thanks, that's an idea.

Right now it's under control though, occasionally I can get out of the city and whenever I can, I let it rebel. Now it's not so bad and I think I can stay holed up for another 10 turns, maybe 8.

I will move the capitol from LONDON (sob, whine, whinge).... eventually.

I never exterminate the crusade cities. Just sack. If you want to create a crusader kingdom then grab a castle nearby and you have a base to take it back when it rebels. As england i normally sail home afterwards leaving all the cheap pilgrims to garrison. Feels more historical to me and you get a ton of money from it before it goes.

Outremer should be able to pay for a fairly large garrison. I just train all my merchants there and rake in the money. Well worth it.

@Sinan - re: that trick with giving the AI money; have you considered just making the king's purse 10k for every faction except yours, or am I missing something?

If you do that though, you are gonna need to edit the game files every time you wish to play a different faction in campaigns

If you give the AI that much cash, don't their generals start to get terrible characteristics? Or do those things only apply to the player?

Great. His Hatness called a crusade to Mongol-owned Antioch. My Hungarians had been sitting idle for much of the game so far, as I wanted to take it slow and let the AI do some developping first. Now I thought "this is an opportunity to see how tough those Mongols really are". Of course, they were tough, but I was tougher... although I was aided by a Sicilian crusader army in the decisive battle. It was awesome: My full stack plus a Sicilian full stack against two Mongol full stacks - it was slaughter beyond belief (largest unit size setting!).
Anyway, I took Antioch with my King, who had been the leader of my crusade army (wanted to RP it historically there). He had had like six chivalry, so I had no prob controlling the city with his army still around 700 strong. Well, until the next turn, that is. A puny level-three assassin toasted my King, and Antioch went into unrest immediately!
I have managed to hold onto it, but only barely. Unrest is a constant problem, I was lucky I can hold races in Antioch (structure was captured from the Mongols). The Mongols have sieged me twice in the meantime, but the second time, I killed/routed a very large army of theirs, plus reinforcements, in a sally - cannon towers did a great job there. Still, there have been tough moments. Twice I had to withdraw sallying forces into the city, and the Mongols brought a few troops through the gates. Halberdiers posted immediately behind the gate took care of them, though. I won a resounding victory, and for the six turns since then the Mongols have left me alone. I have brought the Pope to declare another crusade - to Jerusalem this time, which is also Mongol - and one full stack of eager Hungarian crusaders is already close to Antioch.
Lessons learned: Bring more than one stack in the first place. Play the Hungarians or some other faction close to the holy lands. Bring a few spies and assassins to take care of enemy agents. Bring a few cardinals to quickly convert the populace. And take at least one more settlement close by - gives you so much more leeway!

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Originally Posted by RickooClan

But after i gave it to the pope i still need to take a while to get my general back to my homeland [France]. Usually i will send my fleets to escort him back, since i always send my faction heir on crusade to gain chivalry and cant take the risk of losing him on the sea.

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Geez, if you're not going to keep the city, and don't want to take the time to get your general back, then the solution is simple - don't go on a crusade! You can't have everything in this world. Make your choices and then quit complaining about the results. Geez . . .

I went on a crusade to the Holy Land. Got there, but the french had taken Antioch. I then marched my faction hier all the way back to England. Only rode a boat around Constantinople. That was one of the most enjoyable adventures I have ever had with a general. Bandit ambushes. Enemies attacking just cause I was marching through their lands. Couple of seiges just to sack for cash to pay for the mercenary army he had. He did not win a crusade but he became Prince Paul the Merciless all on the trip home. I will take that kind of game any day.