Deus nolt!

[gollum]

All options you offer are viable for fun/adventure or for more strategic goals.

I generally love the Crusading GA goals in vanilla. Try them i vanilla (or in Caravel), especially those of the French that have to build a Citadel in Tripoli before 1204 as well as the usual Crusader goals (succesful crusade in palestine, antioch, edessa, tripoli).

Crusades in Iberia are far more viable and far more lucrative, especially in vanilla. The opponent (the Alhomads) is less rich, more politically gragile and Spain (at large) yields large incomes close at home.

I also love the Crusades in the eastern pagan steppe (prussia, lithuania, livonia, Novgorod etc). The HRE also gets Crusading goals for those - to recreate the Teutonic order and subdue the eastern Kingdoms/russ. The feeling of going into these heavily wooded areas with your teutonic knights in snow/rain is great (in Caravel with the more harsh weather its even more pronounced).

Also, at some point in the campaign - maybe high/late era, if there is an Islamic (or Orthodox for that matter) Empire that stretches to teh Balkans from the middle east/anatolia you are bound to do the usual Cursading visit to Constantinople as a catholic.

You can experiment with Crusades in gameplay terms. You can make it an ironman rule to use only the men the Crusade picks and see if you can make it with that. Or you can even put your king in and see what comes of it - can he carve a new kingdom in a far off land and can his old kingdom survive while he is so far away? :)

The early crusading GA goals force you to try to prioritise Crusades which of course can be very risky - not only because you are dedicating resources at the expense of your Kingdom's defence to an expedition that is quite risky, but also because if the Crusade does not succeed your King gets an influence hit that might precipitate a civil war or even if succesful put your finances at severe pressure. Say, you succeed, but now you have 1 province with a bunch of high maintenance units and you are surrounded by not-at-all amused Muslims/Orthodox/pagans.

Crusades against the Horde are also fun, once the Horde has settled.

On the other hand, strategically and carefully used Crusades can be very very usedul in order to get infulence and to generate a lot of units very quickly for a Catholic ruler. As said, teh Iberian and the eastern steppe can be Crusading goldmine for Spanish Cath. Kings and German Emperors.

Finally there is nothing better than having Papal permission to do a holy invasion of your sworne enemy Catholic Kingdom.