Crusader steamroller

[CountMRVHS]

Played as KoJ H/H a few weeks ago and had a blast, but one thing that bothered me was that I never really felt surrounded by my enemies, like the actual Crusader state at the time would have felt.

Problem is (I imagine partly due to the low value autocalc assigns to horse archers) that the other Crusader kingdom always seems to do very well against its neighboring enemy. If you're playing KoJ, Antioch will beat back the Turks and end up in Baghdad unless you rush. If you're playing Antioch, KoJ will at least hold its own against Egypt and even expand east. This just leads to you being bottled up by your ally and feeling like you need to grab whatever land you can in order to win.

Has anyone had a "frantic" run with one of the Crusader kingdoms? Where you actually *needed* to help your ally, rush to defend your towns, faced down hordes of enemies?

And what might help make a more challenging game? I'm thinking about reducing Antioch's starting provinces to Antioch and Krak des Chevaliers, but I worry that won't be enough to slow them down. Any thoughts?

[Martok]

And what might help make a more challenging game? I'm thinking about reducing Antioch's starting provinces to Antioch and Krak des Chevaliers, but I worry that won't be enough to slow them down. Any thoughts?

I don't suppose there's a way to reduce their unit pool(s), is there? I ask because one of the major reasons the Crusader States' existence was often so precarious was a near-chronic shortage of manpower -- they were always struggling to field enough fighting men to keep the surrounding Muslim powers at bay. If this could somehow be reflected in-game (so that Antioch and KoJ can only recruit a very limited number of troops per turn), it would probably go a long way towards making it more "realistic".

[Monsieur Alphonse]

You can edit the EDB. You can decrease the pool (number 3) and the replenishment rate (number 0.4) of a unit in the recruitment pool of a building. See for example the recruitment pool of Christian guards in this code

recruit_pool "Christian Guard"  1   0.4   3  0  requires factions { moors, }

PS I didn't have the EDB from crusades since that is the only campaign I haven't unpacked.

[CountMRVHS]

Wow, didn't even know that was possible! Thanks for the idea!

In your example, I would imagine the number 3 represents the number of units available to train per turn, and the 0.4 represents how long it takes for that unit to replenish (though how 0.4 translates into turns I'm not sure). So if I wanted fewer of those units, I'd change the 3 to, say, 1, and if I wanted to make those units available fewer & further between, I'd change the 0.4 to something like 0.8?

Where would I find that line of code, Monsieur Alphonse? (haven't done much modding with M2TW)

[FactionHeir]

To make them replenish slower you need to reduce the number rather than increase it, but this thread is veering towards modding and I would prefer if you started a new thread (or request a move of this one) to modding questions.

The citadel is more about the game itself rather than how to mod it.

[CountMRVHS]

Yeah, a move might be in order if anyone has those powers.