Funky Mercenary oddity

[Revenant69]

Hey Everyone,
Well this is my first post (however i have been frequenting this great website and reading the forums offered here).

I had the strangest occurence in my current game. And i mean REally strange. Im playing Byz Hard Early v1.1 Control all of Asia minor, most of North Africa and i have a Swiss Corridor as i like to call it (Switzerland, Tyrolia, Venice) for those pikeman when they come in.

Anyway, that info aside, i had a plenty of crusades headed my way - fought all of them off. This one spanish crusade came thru Africa got to Egypt and Egyptians kicked its ass b4 it got to me. The strangest thing is, i had an inn in the province right next to Egypt and the next turn all of those crusaders showed up in the inn as mercenaries So i hired them all (well hte biggies anyway). It is fun to have 50 or so Khights of Santiago + Order Foot working for me lol. Ii even used them to fight off a French crusading army the next turn - god i love those guys. Has anyone experience this kind of thing b4 ??? I mean crusaders for hire, what kind of religious zealots are they lol. WEll i thought that this was so funny that i had to post it (after reading the ORG's forums for weeks now)

REplies and comments are welcome.

PS How do you get those Almughavars ??? and is it me or post-patch mercs seem to be very very rare and i love using mercs in my armies - Byzantine Empire has large coffers.

[Degtyarev14.5]

Hi Revenant69,

Welcome to the boards

HAHA, beat the mods to it

A.

[Darkchampion]

Historically the reasoning behind the crusades was the pope simply trying to give the constantly warring christian kingdoms a target so that they would stop killing each other. Many of the actual generals and leaders of the crusading armies themselves were going for very unreligious reasons. They wanted the power and wealth of the rich moslem provinces and little else. Religion merely served their purposes as a rallying cry.

This is especially true of the later crusades. The soldiers of the fourth crusade who looted constantinople stole from the various reliquaries and the haga sophia itself. Here's a little excerpt for your amusement

Quote[/b] ]Account of the sack.

Nicetas Choniates: Alexii Ducae Imperium, ch. iii-iv, in Recueil des historiens des Croisades, hist. grec., 1, 397. Greek.

...Nor can the violation of the Great Church [Hagia Sophia] be listened to with equanimity. For the sacred altar, formed of all kinds of precious materials and admired by the whole world, was broken into bits and distributed among the soldiers, as was all the other sacred wealth of so, great and infinite splendor...

...Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their guilt, a minister the furies, a servant of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the patriarch's seat, singing an obscene song and dancing frequently. Nor, indeed, were these crimes committed and others left undone, on the ground that these were of lesser guilt, the others of greater. But with one consent all the most heinous sins and crimes were committed by all with equal zeal. Could those, who showed so great madness against God Himself have spared the honorable matrons and maidens or the virgins consecrated to God?

Quote[/b] ]Abbot Martin's theft of relies.

Gunther: Historia Constantinopolitana, ch. xix, in Riant: Exuviae, Vol. 104 ff. Latin.

While the victors were rapidly plundering the conquered city, which was theirs by right of conquest, the abbot Martin began to cogitate about his own share of the booty, and lest he alone should remain. empty-handed, while all the others became rich, he resolved to seize upon plunder with his own sacred bands. But, since he thought it not meet to handle any booty of worldly things with those sacred hands, he began to plan how he might secure some portion of the relics of the saints, of which he knew there was a great quantity in the city.

So now you can see why you shouldnt be surprised to find crusaders for hire in your inn

[Cazbol]

History aside, there's nothing unusual about this. Many of the mercenaries are the former troops of other monarchs. The inns that will have most mercenaries are those that are close to battle zones. Units that are disbanded or otherwise lost often show up in nearby inns as mercenaries.

[Revenant69]

So it's not unusual to find crusaders in your inns? Well, if that is so then it is going to make my life a bit easier. I mean i fight so many crusades that it gets to be alot of fun.

DarkCmapion - thats exactly the kind of thing im trying to prevent (ie the plunder of Constantinople) So far so good.
I still think that it was funny to hire Spanish crusaders to fight off the French ones next turn .

I wonder if you guys can answer my other 2 questions that i posted.

#1 Post-Patch (v 1.1) are mercs harder to come by? I seem to get 2 mercs at most in al of my inns and i have quite a few non-developed provinces. Is there a better chance of hiring them near borders with other countries?

#2 How do you get those famed Almughawars???

Thanks guys.

[Revenant69]

Sorry i havent figured out how to edit my posts yet (i guess im still a n00b in many respects). I just remembered something.

Did anyone notice that Byzantine troops speak Russian on the battlefield? I mean they yell Nastuplenije which means Advance, NE Zdavaj Poziciju which literally means Do not lose this position and probably others but i only use those two commands most of the time.

Anyway, i think its a bit wrong for Byzantine troops to be speaking russian. Shouldnt novgorod troosp speak russain only??? or do they speak Byzantine lol

Well thats just my observation.

[Prince Lom]

All the Orthodox Factions speak Russian on the battlefield. Of course, the Byzantines should really be speaking Greek mainly.

Doesn't bother me though. Being unable to speak either Russian or Greek, I don't feel disillusioned. That the Byzantines sound different from the other Europeans is enough for me.

[Hakonarson]

I wonder if the crusade in question disbanded, either because it's target province was taken, or perhaps it's home empire was destroyed in that turn?

[rafiki]

Quote[/b] (Revenant69 @ Aug. 10 2003,20:09)]Sorry i havent figured out how to edit my posts yet (i guess im still a n00b in many respects). I just remembered something.

Not sure about this (so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, anyone), but I think that Junior Patrons aren't allowed to edit their posts.

Regards,
Rafiki

[Revenant69]

Hakonarson, i thought that you couldnt disband crusades. However i think you maybe onto something here. Here's my theory:

Crusade goes through these province b4 it gets to me
A ------> B -------> My province
where countries who own provinces A and B are at war with the crusading country. Say the crusade managed to scare army in province A and made it retreat to its castle. Next turn it invades province B, however the army there is too big and it decides that it cannot win. Now its trapped because province A returned to its previous owners and province B is blocking its way forward. So it gets disbanded.

I hope i didnt confuse you guys too much. I wonder if someone can try this theory out somehow and see if it works. I havent been able to replicate my feat, it would be fun to know how to trap and hire crusading armies

[Quokka]

I'll have to try finding some of the Crusaders. The Italians just whipped a 700 man army of mine with 40 Knights Hospitaller.
I'm playing as the Spanish and have had a succesful Crusade but I can't build Knights of Santiago and I have all the buildings in place. What do I have to do to build them?
What happens to all the troops in a Crusade army after it takes its objective? I had 2700 troops in my stack heading for Golden Horde controlled Kiev when the Novgorodians (GH Allies) blocked it with 3200 of theirs. I spanked them badly, losing about 500 men from trash units that I used as fodder, but only ended up with 700 left after the battle, what I had remaining on the battlefield. I hadn't called all the reserves possible because I was chasing them and couldn't be bothered. I had purposely not used some of the really good units so that I would have a good army to take the final Byzantine province the turn after that. Instead I got left with a strange mix of units many of which I can't repair or replace and not all are any good.