and this is the French emissary...oh no, wait

[matteus the inbred]

a minor thread, but i thought i owed it to Scurvy and Darkhorn after laughing at them in the Rally, Rout, Withdraw thread...

playing as the Byz, i had conquered everything from Cyrenacia up to Serbia and out to Naples...i was nominally at war with a number of European factions. none of whom dared to try anything due to the huge number of silver armoured, weapons/morale valour upgraded badass troops under 9-star Jedis sitting on their doorsteps. my fleets controlled the seas from one end of the Med to the other.
at this point, England takes the decision to crusade. their crusade arrives in Serbia, is duly splattered and the remnant sits in Hungary sulking. they ask for a ceasefire, i accept as i'm considering invading Sicily and don't want any stupid distractions. i then send an emissary to the Pope to see if i can apologise for burning Rome some years earlier. there's an English emissary sitting next to the Pope. you can guess what happens next...

yep. i fail to check who i'd actually sent the emissary to. the English accept my alliance, move into Serbia, and now stand ready to sail to Antioch using MY fleets. curses.
may multitudes of evil gnarly clawed hands take my foolish emissary to the deepest pits of torment for his lack of background research...the English emissary was the big beefy bloke with a Man Utd t-shirt, the Papal emissary was the slightly effeminate guy in the pink shirt and pin-stripe Versace suit!!! how could you get it wrong...?

i do hope someone else has done this.

[Ciaran]

Sometimes it´s really a pain in the back when you´re trying to get your emissary to do some negotiations. When the provinces are cluttered with units, it´s kind of hard to get him to talk to the one he´s supposed to talk to. That the upcoming screen doesn´t tell you with whom you negotiate (at least not in the case of marriage proposals, I´m not quite sure about alliances and ceasefires right now) doesn´t exactly help. Sometimes you just don´t want an alliance, because some people serve the world best by leaving it.

[matteus the inbred]

total carelessness...i just didn't bother to check i'd contacted the right faction. the offer ceasefire/alliance scroll is non-specific though...! not the first time i've done it, but the other times didn't have potentially catastrophic consequences.

what i will probably do (although i would welcome alternative suggestions) is-
1) break the sea link to Antioch, thus forcing the Crusade to go overland and lose men.
2) garrison Antioch with a small elite force, Kats and naphtha maybe
3) refuse to hand it over when they arrive, thus forcing them to besiege it and lose more men
4) build up a decent army, restore the sea links which they will no longer be able to use as they're now at war with me, and squash them. they should have no retreat available.

i'm already busy bribing former French rebels to bash English provinces anyway, and the English do not otherwise threaten me. all very underhand and treacherous, but i am the Byzantines after all.

my only problem is that possible province disloyalty in the wake of this might cause an Egyptian faction resurgence, and that the crusade might decide to invade somewhere else, as AI crusades have freedom of movement.

[The Darkhorn]

I have always wished you could move AI units, agents within a province. IOW, move them out of the way and stuff. You can hit X to find your own guy if you can't see him. That helps, but when the AI is bunched up, it doesn't help you find the right guy. I really love it when I assassinate the wrong guy...or one of mine.

I also hate the big "let's tie our boats together and have a party" bunch of ships in every sea zone. There's plenty of room. What the heck? I hate trying to stack my ships together and keep having to say "no I don't want to attack that ship!"

[The Darkhorn]

Oh, I almost forgot.

(points at Matt) Bwahahahah!

[Scurvy]

Oh, I almost forgot.

(points at Matt) Bwahahahah!

[matteus the inbred]

curse you both

[Procrustes]

Sometimes you can use the Z, X and C keys to hide the troops and castles in the province you are dealing with - you may still have a mess of overlapping agents in the province, but at least the othe stuff is out of the way.

HTH,

[Weebeast]

Zooming helps a little bit. Remove the castles too by pressing "C" so you have more room. I hate Jerusalem castle and its 'origin' position.

my only problem is that possible province disloyalty in the wake of this might cause an Egyptian faction resurgence, and that the crusade might decide to invade somewhere else, as AI crusades have freedom of movement.

Don't defeat the crusade on open field. Hide into your castle. Let yourself become besieged and hope for Egyptians to re-emerge. Once they do then you sally. It's gonna be fun. Sit back and watch as the Saracens and Crusaders fight. The Sultan probably only brings crappy units. Train your princes there.

[matteus the inbred]

Don't defeat the crusade on open field. Hide into your castle. Let yourself become besieged and hope for Egyptians to re-emerge. Once they do then you sally. It's gonna be fun. Sit back and watch as the Saracens and Crusaders fight. The Sultan probably only brings crappy units. Train your princes there.

that is indeed wise advice, although my princes don't really need training cos i'm the Byzantines and they're all command 7 or above anyway!!
i would honestly prefer to avoid an Egyptian faction re-emergence if possible, but then again i've got 20 years until the horde arrives so i'll need something to while away the time with...! you're right about Egyptian armies, anyone who brings peasants to a war deserves to get conquered.