How to usefully organize Jihads?

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Hi everyone! I'm playing as Almohads and want to organize multiple Jihads to France, but just don't know how to do that. Crusades work dropping a stack on the territory, but how to use Jihads? Thanks for your help

[the tokai]

You can only target jihads on provinces that you have owned. Doesn't matter for how long you owned it, doesn't matter how long ago you owned it as long as you owned it some time. On the plus side, you can send as many jihads as possible. So it is actually a good tactic to create a load of jihads, attack an enemy province but let them retake it. Then send all your jihads to that province. You'll get loads of crap units, but also a few good ones. And for the time that the jihad lasts you don't have to pay any upkeep. After the jihad you can simply disband all the crap units and keep the good ones.

[CherryDanish]

The grand duke is bang on. What I do to open up an enemy to jihads is make a large roving unit of troops under a good general and jump from enemy province to enemy province. I beat the enemy or force them to withdraw to their keep or otherwise abandon the province, but I don't siege or hold anything, instead assaulting the neighboring enemy province the following year. Then when they reclaim what is theirs, it's jihad time. I usually drop 3 jihads on the reclaimed province adding any princes I have for the piety bonus.

[TwinMfg]

I haven't tried it, but I think this is an EXCELLENT anti-crusade tecnique. Blitz the papacy ASAP, then let it rebel. Everytime the pope returns hit him with a bunch of jihads, then let the province(s) rebel again. No pope, no crusades.

[the tokai]

That would be a good tactic if it weren't for the fact that the pope keeps emerging bigger every time. So at a certain point you simply will not be able to build enough jihads to defeat him. Plus the battles would prolly last even longer than the average golden horde emergance. And believe me, you don't want that.

[macsen rufus]

I use jihads sparingly, but always keep a couple of markers hanging around as a "rainy day force". Don't forget your jihad picks up the province upgrades, so raise them somewhere developed if you can. My current Turkish jihads are based in Anatolia, Const and Hungary, so all silver plated (and Hungary has metalsmith's guild almost ready, he he). I was gobsmacked last time I launched a Jihad, as the infantry were all Janisseries (all three flavours), though it usually likes to give me Futtuwas and ghulam cav.

The big roving army is very handy, if it forces withdrawals, next year you just move on and the first province is ready for Jihad! Another device I use is as follows:

- choose a distant, coastal province you can reach but can't hold
- make a mercenary army - anything at all so long as it's big enough to scare the army in your target province
- drop the mercenaries in by sea
- enemy skulks off to the castle
- disband mercs if you can't afford to keep them, otherwise use them as you see fit, but the province is now jihadable
- now select a jihad marker WITH NO SEA ROUTE to the target province and set it on its way overland, taking in all the enemy territories en route

The main use here is to knock out the surrounding provinces that would have prevented you holding the target if you just went straight in. It means you can get a lot of use from your jihad without having to make one for every province, and of course you can do a huge overland march without support costs....

[Darius]

Another thing to do is to bribe low loyalty generals that are guarding a province, its usually cheaper that way, army wise. Also a nice batch of spies/imams/alims roving around french lands can also help to start revolts that you can buy up for a nice discount when compared to bribing french forces.