How do I Crusade?

[Rahwana]

Exactly. I once tried to mass migrate my Turks to Frace; called the jihad at Paris and marched through all of Europe to get there. Muslim factions can serious exploit this system.

Roleplaying horde factions as in BI?

[Quintus.JC]

Roleplaying horde factions as in BI?

Yup. When you put it that way, this is actually quite similar to the faction migrations of in BI. Obviously the Mongols do just that in MII:TW as well.

It was one of my rather unorthodox approach to the game. It was meant to be experimental; seeing that I normally just turtle around and let others develope as much as they want.

[Zild]

...for this reason, you should never send a crusade to the middle east by ship around the Iberian peninsula from northern Europe...

unfortunately this is really the only way to do it from England; i once tried to sai a crusading army from london to Jerusalem, and somehow people still deserted, even when i was just trying to sail around france.

It is troublesome for English forces to reach the Holy land entirely by sea. Sailing around the Iberian penisular will lose you massive amount of men.

As an avid England / Scotland player, I have to disagree (although I certainly wouldn't try it from Denmark!) I have sent numerous successful crusades to Antioch and Jerusalem without suffering any deserters. Although I also admit I have on occasion been less lucky...

Sailing from Ireland or the western coast of Britain seems to make a substantial difference; from the eastern coast you not only start a considerable amount closer, you also have to spend longer going away from the target.

For me the big problem with crusades is losing the general - especially as the pope has a nasty habit of demanding that my frail old king lead the way. For this reason I always give armies on a long crusade a noble second in command, to take over should the leader fall.

Interestingly the key to success in my current campaign appears to be failed crusades...

The Pope demands I break my alliance with the heathens of Milan. I tell him, if he's serious about their blasphemy he should excommunicate them. He does so, prompting another of my allies to sends a crusade against Milan and allowing me to break the alliance with lesser loss of reputation*. Milan's three cities being all nicely lined up from north to south at this stage, my crusading army experiences few problems toppling them one after another. Except, however, it's leader's valiant but foolhardy attack to the enemy general's rear whilst storming the second city, which lost him his life. Without a backup leader (for this was a short crusade upon which my general could never possibly die!) the men considered dessertion. Instead, they rallied for the cause and took Milan's final city - the crusade's objective - in an act of heroics and faith truly unexpected amongst such commoners. Not that the Pope recognised their achievements, of course...

*Slight asides: Which causes more damage to reputation? Choosing one ally above another when they go to war, or cancelling an alliance through diplomacy without offering compensation? Also, what happens if you ignore the "Allies at war" message and refuse to take sides?

[Cute Wolf]

AFAIK, choosing better reputated ally over bad one won't give you any reputation hit. Fighting on behalf of trustworthy faction against dubious dubious faction is almost guaranteed to deal no damage to your reputation, but beware, you'll get reputation hit if you try to favor a bad one over the good one.

Oh yeah... cancelling alliance without pope order (if the pope orders you... it won't give you a reputation hit of course... blame the pope for that... I've get most of my allies become enemy from pope's order!), will always result in reputation hit, but if you break it via diplomatic option, the penalty is less severe than breaking it on the field / sea.

[Zild]

Oh, so Papal order prevents any loss of reputation? I guess that makes sense, although it removes something of an interesting challenge!

[Cute Wolf]

Oh, so Papal order prevents any loss of reputation? I guess that makes sense, although it removes something of an interesting challenge!

The challenge is eventually, Pope orders you to sewer all your alliances except to him and his motherland.....
If you gradually move and keep your own men as pope, there should be no problem... hey, the key to get a good diplomatic stance in M2TW vanilla is getting your hands as much as available on the pope...

[Zild]

What about when the Pope orders you to blockade an ally's port (as he did to me last night)? Would my reputation suffer as a result of declaring war on an ally, or does "The Pope told me to do it!" warrant sufficient defence?