Quote Originally Posted by lugh
Nice!
Both methods, as you say, are fraught with risk. The small Spanish crusade probably won't be able to fight too many pitched battles and remain combat effective. And you'll face at least one since odds are the Almos will retreat as far as they can and then there is a final face-off with their entire African force.
The Italians might be a bit easier, but no doubt the damn Sicilians will do the wrong thing and declare war blocking the trade route!

I'll have to try both of 'em when I get MTW back. Should be soon.....
I tried the Spanish method twice just to verify. What tends to happen is that the Almohads will retreat to their fortification. You don't lose any troops and from there you just move the Crusade to the next province. If a province doesn't have a fortification, the troops will simply flee to the next province. Sometimes the Almohads will stand their ground (it usually happens in Morocco of all places which is useful), but otherwise they'll either retreat to the garrison or to the next province. I was able to easily defeat them even auto-calcing it, so handling the battle personally should reduce the loses even greater. The problem will be the Egyptians. They can mass a force of 1600 or so, and when I auto calc'd both times I lost. A general who handles the battle personally should be able to do better.

Likely you will gain lots of offers of alliance.

With that said, I was able to create a spanish crusade numbering 1600+. From the start you train Jinettes in Leon (you can only produce peasants there otherwise), and javelins or archers in Castile (there are a few additional troops you can produce if you want others). By the time you launch the crusade, you should be able to produce a few heirs. I did include the king into crusade primarily for the additional units and the starting King has something like 7 Command. Sending the King off shouldn't be a concern as some heirs will come of age after the crusade has left. You'll therefore have a new king and can carry on. All initial units likewise got added to the crusade. You're able to produce about 8 Jinettes from Leon and 4 Javelins from Castile before you can send off the Crusade.

There might be a question then of what happens once your crusade has arrived and taken the province. You might be hit by a big expensive maintenance cost, but more than likely you will lose some forces, and the egyptians will attempt a series of attacks against Palestine, reducing your forces further or losing the province. Chances are you will not be able to get reinforcements there very quickly and Palestine is not worth keeping... maybe for the large farm income and if you have a high acumen govenor it can make upwards of 1000+ from farming. If you're playing GA, Palestine is one of the provinces they need to defend. Chances are in the years that it takes the crusade to get to Palestine, you can rebuild additional troops in your provinces. When you can launch a new crusade (this time to say Tripoli), you should have a decent sized force to send again.

In addition, for being such good Christians the Pope will start sending you cash rewards. I got something like 3x1000 florin rewards the first time I tried it, while only 1x1000 florin reward the second time.

I didn't bother trying the Italian option because I didn't want to have to deal with the pope. One method to ensure that nothing gets destroyed in Rome is when you invade Rome, if you can push the troops into the garrison, bring in a emmisary along with you, and if you have the cash (unlikely at the beginning) bribe the garrison. This will save your troops to use in the crusade and not to mention you get additional recruits for the crusade from the bribed armies (unless there is a loyal general in that army (or the pope moved in there), it'll likely be yours for a reasonable price. There is a unit of Spearman and Urban Militia in there though, so you may want to ensure you have enough troops.

The Sicilians shouldn't be a problem and unless they move one of their ships in the Ionian sea and immediately attack your ships or happen to invade Rome themselves after you take Rome you shouldn't have to worry about them since your chain of ships won't normally pass through Sicilian waters. Since you need to launch from Venice (Venice having your port) your other two links are the Adriactic Ocean and the Ionian Sea. I have seen the Sicilians preemptively attack my ships on the higher difficulty levels so it's possible (but unlikely) the Sicilians will interfere. If you can send an emissary or princess off to gain an alliance that should hopefully help things.