Crusades?

[erikio6590]

Im confused on how to do crusades, what is required to launch one? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Grey_Fox]

Build a Chapter House. A Crusade symbol will appear in the unit training list. Build it (it will take four turns). Then choose where you want to go: either Muslims, Rebels or excommunicated factions.

[erikio6590]

ohhhhh.... thanks

[dgfred]

Welcome erik - you will find that the game's crusades are difficult
to master, both the actual assaults and the developing situations after-
wards . It took me many questions here to understand. We will
be lurking for your questions and will help as much as possible .

[yesdachi]

Welcome erik - you will find that the game's crusades are difficult
to master, both the actual assaults and the developing situations after-
wards . It took me many questions here to understand. We will
be lurking for your questions and will help as much as possible .

i have one... do you have to pay support costs for a crusade?

[drone]

What faction are you playing? IIRC, the Danes, Poles, Hungarians and Sicilians cannot build Chapterhouses, and therefore cannot crusade.

Welcome to the .Org!

[dgfred]

You have to pay for the crusade originally, sometimes 500, 750 or 1000fl is
what I have seen. According to another post you don't have to pay support
cost while the crusade is in action, but you will when the crusade is disbanded . This is why some say to hire mercs, since you don't have
to pay them when they are in a crusade.

[EatYerGreens]

I'd refine that to say that it costs 1000fl to 'train' the crusade marker but you must pay a second time (you pay the Pope) when you launch the crusade at a target and the Pope approves of the target. However, you do get a certain number of 'free' troops in return for this payment.

I can't say that the free troops are of the best quality though, at least not as good as first impressions of the unit descriptions led me to believe. I found the Order Foot troops to be rather disappointing at assault, being spear-equipped and thus better used for defending against cavalry. Better than plain spearmen, anyway. See the forum unit guides for details.

It will probably help if you build the swordsmith and train some sword troops, which can be dropped into the crusade marker after it's been launched and improve its attacking potential, saving the OF troops for defence once you've won the province. You'll have to manually add archers too.

The only decent free units you get are the Crusader Knights (which you can't even train for yourself) but 20-40 free high-quality horses isn't going to be enough for most battles, so you'd better also stock up on additional cavalry prior to launching the crusade.

If your economy can't support maybe 10 years of troop stockpiling, to make the Crusade itself 2000+ men strong and thus highly likely to succeed, then consider it too early to be launching Crusades just now. Stay on good terms with the neighbours and build your economy and defensive garrisons instead. Just don't let them spot the stockpiling, or they'll get the idea it's being directed at them. Your Crusade may need to march across their lands and a war will halt its passage or oblige you to fight your way through, losing men all the time.

Make sure your Chapter House is not in a province at risk of loss to an invading neighbour faction, since demolition of that building will cause any incompleted Crusade to disband. Failed Crusades are bad for your King's influence rating and reduces loyalty of provinces and generals, making rebellions or full-scale Civil War more of a risk.

Finally, failed Crusades take literally years to die, by slow desertion of the troops trapped within them (you don't get the 'disband' button on the units within the marker, until they successfully take the target province and complete the siege). As the Byz, in my latest campaign, I've repelled one French Crusade and one Spanish. Both had about 750 men in them at the point they stopped further attacks and it's taking them years to decay down to nothing.

This is good for me but bad for the would-be Crusader player. You can train a stockpile of un-launched Crusade markers but you're only allowed one active Crusade at a time. If it fails to win or even reach its target province, you will either have to make repeated suicide attacks until they're all dead or wait years for it to naturally decay before you can launch any more.

I've only limited game experience, so I don't know if the Pope will approve a second Crusade against a target province you've chosen before, when the previous attempt failed.

Good Luck!

[dgfred]

As long as the previous Crusade is still 'alive', the game will not let you make
another try. So it really sucks to either let the Crusade die out, or suicide
attack it toward the destination and suffer a loyalty/etc.. hit.
Probably the best thing if one is beat back is to send reinforcements asap
and use them to attack toward the destination and maybe take it with the
Crusade tagging along.

[EatYerGreens]

@dgfred,

I've read that using an accompanying regular stack works well and doesn't stop the Crusade from being given credit for the province conquest.

However, I wonder whether the general in the crusade is regarded as being in charge, even when the support stack has a better one? Similar to when your king's command rating is inferior to that of a general in his stack and the king's command (and, hence, his valour bonus) overrides that of the better general for the purposes of any battle.

Of course, there are some permutations where you can't bring in a reinforcement stack, such as the Crusade attacked out of neutral, or allied territory, is repulsed and forced back to where it came from. Depending on the geography and availability of sea access to the target, you can't bring your supporting stack into position alongside it without triggering a war with the ally, or neutral.

Crusade markers get explicit permission to travel on other factions' lands without automatically starting a war, plain stacks do not.

(Some of us wish that the alliance model permitted normal stacks to have similar freedom of movement as Crusades, so that we can bolster an ally's border defences and/or strike at a mutual opponent whose border is out of reach of our own but, sadly, it's not possible).

So the only feasible option would be to synchronise moves such that the Crusade marker crosses the land border to attack and, in the same move, the support stack arrives by ship.

In the (seemingly unlikely) event of another defeat, the Crusade marker has a valid path of retreat but the support stack cannot retreat with it, onto neutral/allied lands. The only way it can come back is via ransom...

Incidentally, I note that the game message which warns "if the army has no friendly territory to retreat to, it is lost" has been carried over, unaltered, from Shogun TW days, where there was no ransom element in the game and this was indeed true. It should have been updated, but wasn't.

I haven't suffered this problem myself but I did recently inflict it on the AI by hitting the Eggies in Palestine and Antioch in the same year, with Syria in my possession. Antioch resolved first and they calmly withdrew off the back of the map after relatively light casualties to archer fire plus my cav into their exposed archers and in spite of them having three full stacks to draw upon. I barely moved from my opening position and only two HA's gave pursuit. They acted as if they had a valid path of retreat. Then Palestine resolved itself with them abandoning without a fight, due to having too small a force to fight with. Result? I get the 'ransom refused' message and 2488 prisoners get whacked, whereas I only caught about 60 on the battlefield. So, when it says 'army will be lost', this is what it means - a ransom bill you might not be able to afford.

[Martok]

@dgfred,

I've read that using an accompanying regular stack works well and doesn't stop the Crusade from being given credit for the province conquest.

However, I wonder whether the general in the crusade is regarded as being in charge, even when the support stack has a better one? Similar to when your king's command rating is inferior to that of a general in his stack and the king's command (and, hence, his valour bonus) overrides that of the better general for the purposes of any battle.

If you have your own separate stack accompanying the Crusading army, whichever general has more stars will take command of the battle. I've done this a few times as the Spanish: I'll take a crappy prince and put him in charge of the Crusade, but then I'll dispatch a good general (usually El Cid) with a separate army to "chaperone" the expidition. As long as I move both stacks into the target province, El Cid will be the man in charge of the battle.

[EatYerGreens]

Thanks for confirming that, Martok.

See, that's why I like this place. No matter what obscure, speculative question I come up with, someone, somewhere, has actually tried it already and has the answer!

[Martok]

Thanks for confirming that, Martok.

See, that's why I like this place. No matter what obscure, speculative question I come up with, someone, somewhere, has actually tried it already and has the answer!

You're welcome. Just happy I could help.

Yeah, I found that out when I first started playing MTW. I hadn't done any Crusading yet at that point, but I wanted to start one to kick the Almos off the Iberian peninsula and into the wastes of north Africa (I had set Morocco as my target province). As my best attacking general, I wanted El Cid to be in command, but I didn't want to actually put him in the Crusade stack and risk losing him as a result, should the Crusade fail. (This was in original Medieval 1.1 when the Almos were still badass, so the Crusader army failing to take its target province was a real possibility back then.) So I just had Cid and some of his boys parallel the Crusaders as they fought their way south, and he was in command of every battle. Worked like a charm.

[yesdachi]

You have to pay for the crusade originally, sometimes 500, 750 or 1000fl is
what I have seen. According to another post you don't have to pay support
cost while the crusade is in action, but you will when the crusade is disbanded . This is why some say to hire mercs, since you don't have
to pay them when they are in a crusade.

That is great to know. If I have an army ready to crusade and a crusade marker ready to go but no good target I could just pick an easy target and stack my expensive troops into it to save some serious $.

I have noticed that the higher the zeal the lower the cost of the crusade. In my 90% zeal Spanish provinces I can have $0 or sometimes $250 cost crusades and the other day I got 4 units of knights with one.

@ EYG re: post #8
You are right on the money about what should go in a crusade (and other points). What comes with the crusade is usually only a nice starting point but needs some extra support.

And there is definitely nothing good about a failed crusade.

[dgfred]

That is great to know. If I have an army ready to crusade and a crusade marker ready to go but no good target I could just pick an easy target and stack my expensive troops into it to save some serious $.

I have noticed that the higher the zeal the lower the cost of the crusade. In my 90% zeal Spanish provinces I can have $0 or sometimes $250 cost crusades and the other day I got 4 units of knights with one.

@ EYG re: post #8
You are right on the money about what should go in a crusade (and other points). What comes with the crusade is usually only a nice starting point but needs some extra support.

And there is definitely nothing good about a failed crusade.

I am finding lately that a small crusade is not such a sorry thing, mainly if you
can 'pile on' with alot of good/veteran troops or send a large stack or two to
accompany the crusade . It seems the AI is rarely prepared for such a
move .

[Dutch_guy]

@ EYG :

I've only limited game experience, so I don't know if the Pope will approve a second Crusade against a target province you've chosen before, when the previous attempt failed.

Well I crusaded to Egyptian held Antioch , succeeded , then got beaton out of the province the turn after.
So I didin't -wel at least I think I didn't - get my 3 GA points.

However some turns later I get a message that my people want to try crusading ( to Antioch ? ) again, so I got a crusader mark for free.
So I don't think the Pope 'll deny you your ''revenge'' so to speak.

[dgfred]

Yeah, If a crusade fails all the way, the game will replace the crusade marker
in the province it originated from. But if one is only defeated and not destroyed you have to figure another way for it to succeed, such as sending
reinforcements/etc... Check out the other crusade threads here, the only
way I have found to get the pts for the Crusade is to retreat to the castle,
then it gives you the points --- you just have to be prepared to
recapture the provence the next turn, and I do mean 'be prepared'.

[Deus Ex]

[...] IIRC, the Danes, Poles, Hungarians and Sicilians cannot build Chapterhouses, and therefore cannot crusade.

I am currently playing sicilians on Hard...

Nobody told me I could not build a chapter house and crusade...



currently excommed - but either pope or my king will die soon - then I start to try and fulfill my GA requirements:



what gives???

DE

[EatYerGreens]

what gives???

Examine the unit training page for that province. If you don't see the Crusade Marker as a training option then you'll know everything is functioning as it should.

It's a pain that the game lets you spend money/time on a building you can't use but, if there's some kind of booster for the construction (+happiness or +1 morale on all other units) then it may still have been worth it.

The only other explanation is that you've installed the 'all_can_crusade' mod (see Budwise's sig for the link) but have suffered a 'senior moment'.

EDIT: My sincere apologies to bretwalda, whose sig carries the link to the mod and to Budwise for getting your name confused with his.

[drone]

I am currently playing sicilians on Hard...

Nobody told me I could not build a chapter house and crusade...

what gives???

DE

Maybe I'm mistaken about the Sicilians. Looking at Bushface's Catholic tech-tree (Aug 2003), it says

Chapterhouse - Crusade(not DHP nor Sicilians)

The first MTW campaign I played, I was the Danes, went out of my way to tech up to a Chapterhouse, only to find that I couldn't build. Looked through the manual and the strat guide, they said nothing about it. Had to come here to the .Org to figure out why. Damn manual...

[EatYerGreens]

There's an allies thread going on at the moment but I'll post this here instead.

How can an AI faction go from being allied to you straight to launching a Crusade against you?

Fair enough, I'm Byz and this was the Spanish, so I guess that Orthodox makes me a legitimate Crusade target but I expected to at least have some kind of conventional war situation break out at a shared border, first. No such luck.

More to the point, how does one go about doing this to an AI ally, if it's you launching the crusade?

The combined effects of this plus a French one cost me all bar one of my 6-7 alliances in rapid succession, luckily without any apparent influence hit. I suppose there is an upside, which is that all forthcoming conflicts will not involve me dishonourably breaking previous alliances.

For the one remaining ally, something could be 'engineered', to make sure they start it, by deliberately undergarrisoning, for instance.

[Deus Ex]

Examine the unit training page for that province. If you don't see the Crusade Marker as a training option then you'll know everything is functioning as it should.

It's a pain that the game lets you spend money/time on a building you can't use but, if there's some kind of booster for the construction (+happiness or +1 morale on all other units) then it may still have been worth it.

The only other explanation is that you've installed the 'all_can_crusade' mod (see Budwise's sig for the link) but have suffered a 'senior moment'.

I am playing MTW:VI - un-modded.

If you look closely at the first screenshot - you can see the crusade marker for the crusade I already built. So it is not a problem building them.

I have Busface's package too and it also says I cannot crusade (yet I have Crusade GA goals - rotflmao). So I am at a complete loss - the funny thing is I was going along my merry way building up for a crusade - when I read this thread, and found out I couldn't - LOL

Odd, eh?

DE

(this IS my first non-danish or VI game. So I am sure there is much I do not know - in fact I am currently at war with the stoopid pope - and I have been ex-communicated - but either the pope or my king are going to die soon - and then I am planning on sending off my crusade.. I hope. Otherwise I'll never win GA I don't think...)

[Jihad2Death]

All these problems are why I like Jihads better
Two years to build, 500fl , 300+ men from the get go, and I can launch as many as I want

[dgfred]

@ EYG- Are you the 'target' of the Crusade or did it ask to go through your
land first? .


@ Deux- I hate the ex-comms , when you have to wait for a king
or Pope to die they seem to live EXTRA-long .

[EatYerGreens]

@ EYG- Are you the 'target' of the Crusade or did it ask to go through your
land first? .

I'm big, I'm bad and I'm made out of Byzantinium. So, yes, I am the target of the crusade. Two of them, in fact (a French one preceded it by a few years). Both have stalled at least one province short of their target, so I'm expecting some peace and quiet from Crusader visits for a good few years.

[Martok]

I'm big, I'm bad and I'm made out of Byzantinium.

LOL! That's a great line, EYG. I have to remember that one.

[dgfred]

I'm big, I'm bad and I'm made out of Byzantinium. So, yes, I am the target of the crusade. Two of them, in fact (a French one preceded it by a few years). Both have stalled at least one province short of their target, so I'm expecting some peace and quiet from Crusader visits for a good few years.

. Give us more yummy details and maybe a pick or three if you can . In my current game I attacked Spain, mainly being
greedy for Castille and Aragon for some reason. I am HRE and this is after
knocking out France . Since then they will NOT give me a ceasefire even
though I have tried almost every turn. I have kept just barely more troops
in all the borders with them, but it is a heavy toll on both of us and if I could
go back I probably would think twice for attacking them so early...... but
it has made things more interesting for sure .

[EatYerGreens]

. Give us more yummy details and maybe a pick or three if you can

I keep meaning to join in the Pics & History... thread properly (so far I've only been commenting in it, here and there) but haven't done so yet as mine seems rather pedestrian by comparison to what's there already. Also it's a lot to type up, so maybe I can do it in stages.

If it's just the pair of crusades you're interested in, I can post here instead. I think I have a screeny where you can just about make out both crusade markers in the same shot.

I set up a photobucket account a while back but have yet to convert the TGAs (I've accumulated a few hundred of them so far ) to JPGs and haven't uploaded a single one of them yet. This will be an ideal test item, so stay tuned...

In my current game I attacked Spain, mainly being
greedy for Castille and Aragon for some reason. I am HRE and this is after
knocking out France . Since then they will NOT give me a ceasefire even
though I have tried almost every turn. I have kept just barely more troops
in all the borders with them, but it is a heavy toll on both of us and if I could
go back I probably would think twice for attacking them so early...... but
it has made things more interesting for sure .

Quite recently this thing about not accepting ceasefire came up in another thread. One of the more senior members reckoned it had something to do with AI never accepting ceasfire as long as any of its homelands (even in WorldDom campaign) were in your hands. So they could be down to their last province and still they won't accept.

I think your only chance is a gradual withdrawal back to the Pyrenees. Let them attack and win (abandon province, to avoid casualties, sieges & ransoming) but obviously not so fast that loss of two provinces in two years (or whatever it is) sets off a Civil War in your lands.

There will still be a heavy influence hit but finishing France will likely prop it up enough to avoid trouble. Shortening the front line to Navarre/Aragon will help you relax garrison sizes and relocate excess troops to another front, where you can soon get the lost influence back by attacking in another direction.

'Scorched earth' before you vacate Spanish homelands will hurt their economy as they invest in rebuilding (extra buffer against their restored income levels) and give you a few years' breathing space before they're back to producing quality troops in those areas.

And, when they've built sufficiently to make those provinces appealing to you once more, you can go back and steal it all off them again

[EatYerGreens]

Not quite 'full story and pics', but here's the pics...

One of the pics earlier in my TGAs folder shows the completion of the Gold
Mine Complex in Serbia, with the French crusade (red banner and all) looming
menacingly in the background, as it was in Hungary at the time, to nick a
bunch of their Szekeley's... great timing guys.

Their destination was Constantinople and I figured Bulgaria was their first
stop, so I garrisoned accordingly.

SIDEBAR
(After putting in the VI pack, recently, I had started a Byz campaign on
Expert but ended up dumping the gamesaves in a zip folder until I know what
I'm doing a bit better. A large HRE crusade, also to Constantinople, had
broken into Bulgaria, via Hungary, just like this. I so nearly pulled off a time
limit win but persistent Szek-fire and growing piles of foot reinforcements
broke my last 100-odd men, who had been lurking in the woods, with mere
minutes to go. After that, I had barely a stack left to defend the capital with
and was at a loss for how to continue with my best province gone, so soon
into the campaign).
END SIDEBAR

I was totally wrong, of course. The greedy sods went for Serbia instead,
even though this NOT the shortest route to the destination, from Hungary.

The result?



Keep your eye on the 48-man VG unit as they reappear in the next results screen.

I forget if they waited a few years to soak up more Hungarians or attacked
again the following year but, either way, the next pic is 12 screenshots
further on in the sequence....

French attack number 2



And that's the last we heard of them...

[EatYerGreens]

This pic should show both crusade markers at once. The French one has
been static for a few years by this time and you can see how depleted it is.
I'm now up to 1186 and it's STILL floating around.

The thing about exponential decay is that the rate of loss actually slows
down as the quantities in the stack approach zero. There are also plenty of
Piety-9's in there.



The disposition of my forces reflects my expectation of them using Italian
ships to go straight to it by sea. A storm in the Aegean at around this time
stopped me from being able to ship spare troops from Nicea, and
Constantinople. I could still 'shuffle' overland to Serbia and move equivalents
out of there to Sicily but I'd put no archer units in my garrison there (other
than HAs) specifically due to all the Cavalry over the border. This made
things awkward to arrange as I'd have wanted - such as swapping generals
around now that the threat of the French was passed.

Since they were 'stoopid' enough to come over land, via Papal States, I had
a couple of years in which to reconnect my sea lanes and shuffle units as I
pleased.

P.S. The units in the info window are one of the 5 stacks of re-emerged
Sicilians, stuck on Malta with no ships. The highlight was on them at the
time, whilst the mouse pointer hovered on their crusade, to bring up that
banner. I have another screenshot showing them more clearly but it cuts off
the view of the French crusade, so I used this one.