I must thank Gollum for his characteristic and much appreciated analysis, and Togakure makes note of an interesting strategy, but I think I will follow Durango's advice and see where I end up .

Constantinople is the only other port I really ever capture using a crusade. I suppose this is a weakness for me and something I should look to improving upon. One reason I loved the idea of playing the Byzantines is because it gives me a chance to battle Mongols, Turks and Arabs, all three of which are very foreign to me. I am rather an expert frog-slapper (Sorry..) as the British say, and I am also most adept in Iberian campaigns.

Nonetheless the hardest part of crusading to the holy land for me is the long, demoralising march through Byzantine and often Turkish lands. Arabs fall very easily for me, but the foemen twixt Palestine and Lorraine are often mean the destruction of the crusade. I feel cheated if I just use the navy, and I also don't like loading too many professional troops into the venture.

To speak of XL for a moment - the hardest crusades I have had in those campaigns are Iberian or Italian originated marches moving against Kiev or Muscovy. Crusades to the steppe are far more difficult for me than those in the arid Anatolian and Antiocheian hills.

I have yet to see if this is the case in Vani- Caravel, since I have little experience in that campaign.

Have you been playing Caravel, drone? I usually remain excommunicated for the full length of the game in XL, but Caravel has made an altar-boy of me.