I'm pretty new to the world of Total War and have a couple a questions about crusades, which I haven't found answers for in FAQs.


I play as the Byzantines, so crusades tend to go through my lands to get at the Turks. Recently the Germans sent an enourmous crusade aimed at Syria, it has got within two provences and has been camped out in my lands for about 6 years now. Their army is shrinking year by year.
Why would they do this?
What happens to the troops that leave the crusade? Do they go back to their original countries, or just disband and disappear into the ether?
Also, I was am at war with the Turks, and Syria is their last provence. If I was to invade Syria would the crusade turn against me?

Another problem I had, was when the damn Spanish sent a crusade against me!
I built up my defences to approx 2000 troops. Their crusade had about 1400.
I was looking forward to a monumental battle, but every time I chose 'Command the defence yourself' the game would crash
I ended up having to resolve the conflict automatically, which was a disappointment (even though I kicked their a$$es).
I'm wondering if it's a hardware issue.

I have 1Gb RAM, 1.8 Ghz Processor, and Gigs of free disk space.

Does anybody have any ideas??