Crusade!

[PershsNhpios]

When I first played MTW, I was always anxious to crusade - just for the romance of it all! Against my allies, the greatest superpower, all heretics - I would crusade. I was the Pope's puppet pet.
However, for all my zeal, I hardly completed a crusade either because it would never have enough units - or in other cases - where it did, they would be broken, piecemeal cohorts from all over Europe, easily scattered.

Yet this was not the worst part, for later I took the advice of placing an army of my own choosing in the crusade before it left.
The most terrible part of the crusade was if it succeeded, and I was left with 500 exhausted men sitting in a destroyed fort in the centre of the Ottoman Empire!

What then? What to do!

How should a crusade be correctly planned, and where is it best to be launched from in Europe.. What provinces are best targeted - if they are not already organised by the GA?

[Knight of the Rose]

Uhh I love crusades also - the thought of going through a lot of enemy territory, taking an objective and then fighting for survival far far away from home, often without any immidiate reinforcements. When I sometimes find MTW a little too easy I usually try to make a crusade succeed against all odds.

As to the "how to", it kinda depends on who you are and where your target is. As you cannot rely on available sea transport, crusades from western Europe to the Holy Land can go through Hungary/Byz or Africa. Crusades to eastern Europe and the steppes can usually choose from a host of routes.

In general though, I always try to spy on the provinces that I plan to go through. Failing that, I fall back on the experience of launching God nows how many crusades these last 5 years. There are "good" provinces with zeal above 60% and there are "bad" provinces with less. There are also "very bad" provinces especially near Constantinople with *very* low zeal (5-10%). In general you'll gain troops in good provinces and lose them in bad. Then I consider the target. Rich eastern powers will usually have a lot of troops, and can launch a massive counterattack should you take your target. I always plan to end up with at least 1.500 troops in the end (normal unit size). Not counting peasants.

As you not only pick up the local garrison, but also gain bonus troops from "good" provinces, you can estimate a rough 300-500 men influx there. You'll lose 150-250 in bad provinces, and maybe double that in very bad provinces. Then you can estimate what you need to begin with. I find that I usually end up with too few missile units, so my advice would be: bring a couple more of those.

I usually make the faction heir lead the crusade, as he will be able to teleport home, when a succession is needed. And the experience of frequent last stand battles will benefit your empire. Just make sure there are more than one heir, if things get ugly.

Best of luck with crusading!

/KotR

[caravel]

Crusades are an interesting dynamic of the game. It is indeed those crusades, usually to the Levant, that are the most challenging and interesting. I often send a crusade to somewhere like Antioch over land and first try to capture the province and then try to see how long they can hold out without support. In one very memorable campaign as the English a crusade managed not only to survive but also to expand, totally unaided by the west, into neighbouring provinces, take most of Asia Minor and the Levant and then fight a successful defence against the Mongols. It was quite literally a few hundred years later that the two sides were reunited.

[gollum]

I used to do all that optimizing for crusades in the early days, pile up custom made stacks in - yet now - even when i play GA i let the Crusade do the picking on its own. Its more fun and historically plausible this way i find. The problem i used to have was that homelands are emlpoyed for all other culture units other than Christians in general and Catholics that have the best of them in particular. So when you reach Livonia or Antioch or Jerusalem, you start churning out... the same units you could churn out at home at will with the exception of Turcopoles.

Planning a Crusade should coincide with a King of 5 influence minimum and less than 45 years old prefferably. Otherwise you risk much by the influence hit if the crusade fails (from 4 influence its a disaster) all the more if the king dies and his heir of lesser influence comes to power.

Ideally started in a place not too far off the intended land or sea route junction that you'll use and of decent zeal. Optimally send by sea either using your own boats or those of you catholic allies (say the Italians).

Ensuring success of course means filling it up with units of your own making prefferably already stacked ready to join,as to give the receiver less time to prepare.

!it burnsus!

[Haccapelite]

Glenn, if your main goal is just to make a succesfull crusade that won't be that much fun, you might want to try out this style that I have used sometimes to make fast and succesful crusades. (KotR and gollum already gave some hints for this so I'll go into more detail.)

First of all, before building your crusade, make a good army, plenty of FMAA, Feudal sergeants, mounted sergeants or other light cavalry, some knights and archers. If you are going to make your crusade to the Holy Land and the Turkish are the dominating power there, you should take lots of light cavalry with you since their HA's can be a real nuisance if you can't counter them with anything. Remember to watch your economy when building and remember that once you drop any units to a crusade, you won't have to pay their support cost for as long as the crusade is going.

While building the army, create a safe chain of ships from one of your coastal provinces (as close to the province where your crusade is starting from) to the province where you are planning to make the crusade. Make sure that no enemy ship can cut your ship chain. Now build the crusade marker and drop the army you have waiting to the crusade and throw in a good commander with at least 4 stars. Now you will be ready to drop your little suprise to the backyard of the unsuspecting enemy.

While this way the journey of your crusade won't be as adventurous as it would be otherwise, this ensures that your crusade will lose as few men as possible and you might actually be able to hold your target province for longer than just a few turns.

[Fagar]

This is slightly off topic but I thought interesting to share.
In my current campaign GA as the Byzzies there was a crusade launched by the HRE for Antioch held by the Eggies.
The HRE crusade amassed around 1200 men then used my ships to jump straight from Croatia to Antioch.
I was laughing at the soon to be failed crusade as in Antioch there were no less than 6 stacks of Eggy (and for once they weren't all peasants) troops but what should happen instead?
On this turn the Eggies (my allies) decide to invade me into Edessa and Syria leaving Antioch bare.
I repelled the assault with my Katatanks and Varangian Guards and in in my indignity slaughtered all the prisoners.
However the Eggies did not actually show much spirit and withdrew from battle after only sacrificing a little over 1000 men.
This left them with 4.5 stacks of men ripe to take back their lost province of Antioch where a small garrison was being beseiged and restore glory to their empire.
Did they do this NO!!!
Instead they decided to attack me again and also for the next 2 consecutive years handing the HRE a successful crusade.
The wash up was that I decided to flex my might and in the next half a decade had pushed the Eggies back to a snivelling washed up force in Egypt and had taken Antioch for myself in the bargain.
All this goes to show that even though Crusades can be predictable and hard to organise you just never know!