Crusade pathfinding

[Boris of Bohemia]

I am playing the Danes. The English attack. I take Scotland, and the port is pillaged.

The English build a crusade in Northumbria, which has a port, and declare the objective of Tripoli.

The crusade moves to Scotland (with no port, I repeat) and asks permission to "pass through". To Tripoli?

Fearing a comp cheat to suck away my huscarl general/govenor, I refuse. I am excommed, of course.

Dumbfounded.

Edit: The sea lanes are blocked, and I have Flanders, so the isle is cut off. Still, why Scotland?

[Ironside]

It can be a bug, because I've seen a crusade getting stuck in Scotland until like ten turns later when my port was built.

Or possibly that the port became destroyed after he had moved to Scotland but before he could use it.

Or that the comp can see your prodution cue and finds that the shortest route is to wait for the port to be built.

Yes I'm only guessing, but I think I know what's causing the crusades wierd pathfindings.

The crusade can only use the province owners shiplines and that includes you own crusades too.
One of my own crusade had to take an unplanned extra route before I found this out.

[jsadighi]

Hey Ironside, I see you're a fellow Asterix fan.

[HopAlongBunny]

I think you will find that AI crusades pretty much take any route they please

[bretwalda]

Yepp, it would be good if we know that there is any rule they obey... Or if we know the rules applying for AI crusades even if they are different from the ones applying to human players... ;)

I think you will find that AI crusades pretty much take any route they please

[teutonicwarrior]

in my last game the germans kept going in and out of one of my high zeal provinces, so i refused and destroyed alot of their crusade. :)

[bretwalda]

I was excommed and the foolish English launched a crusade against me. From Burgundy they tried to invade Milan, Tyrolia, Swabia. They did not like the Swiss Halbediers I threw at them, but they kept invading (399 vs 2500) until I got fed up and in one battle I encircled and killed/captured them all. It was strange that the crusade worked that way "against all odds". Even stranger that it was marching toward Antioch... Did they expect to be able to march all the way through?

[English assassin]

Crusades are rubbish. In my experience if you let them in they wander about hoovering up troops and never go anywhere near their objective. The worst case I ever had was playing as Spain, very early in a High game, when a french crusade (objective Cordoba) asked to be let through. I said yes, it got as far as Castile, which was my only decent troop producing province, and stayed there. Yes, that's Castile, which is next door to Cordoba. Didn't go anywhere for about ten years and I couldn't even attack it.

I aborted the game in the end and since then I refuse all crusades passage on principle.

[HopAlongBunny]

One of my sub-goals in any game is getting a position that allows me to refuse crusades. Either overwhelming force (takes awhile) or a good choke-point where they try to funnel through.

It was mentioned somewhere that getting a string of ships to the Holy Land reduces "hang-time" because crusades can get to destination. Sometimes this works...but if the crusade is defeated (or is not terribly brave) it just sits in your port.

[bretwalda]

Why do you refuse? I mean of course if you are excommed you have no choice, but other than that...? Defeating the crusade takes much more troops and loss than letting them pass through... You can even let the obsolate troops being sucked up by removing state-of-art troops from the province. And if you refuse it is a quite sure way of getting excommed if you are not already...

[HopAlongBunny]

Why refuse?

The AI (like real players) looks to suck up the best troops it can. In addition, if I have Venice sharing a border with Germany and Hungary at 80-90% zeal...I do not want a crusade sloshing through and sucking up my units. Likewise with a province like Hungary (a major highway for crusades) Often I cannot or do not chose to be weak in key provinces because it is cheaper (and safer) not to be.

[Lacker]

Hmm, I was wondering about this...

So there are only a certain number of good units in each province? I've never had trouble raising units in ANY province, but HAVE noticed some units are better from certain areas (not including the bonuses given in specified provinces). Does anyone know more about this, like how it works or what provinces are the best or the limits each province has?

Is it that simple or just random?

Thanks!

A

[derF]

This has happened to me once or twice playing as the Italians.

[Boris of Bohemia]

This is ridiculous.

Update - another Danish game...

I have Scotland again, and the French have most of Europe from Northumbria to Saxony down to Burgundy etc.

Another crusade, to Tripoli, is built in Northumbria. No, it doesn't go to Scotland, but does something else equally bizarre. It goes down to Wessex, then takes a port to Saxony (Northumbria had a port too), and then...

Into Denmark. Where there are some huscarles.

So, it's confirmed. The pathfinding is tactical.