How to garrison my provinces.

[Dayve]

Playing as England, i own all of France now... They have been eliminated. But what's the best way to garrison my provinces? At the moment i'm just keeping like 1 unit of peasants in the castle there, but this isn't the best idea... The enemy could just march in and take my province and then some buildings will be destroye and when i get it back i'll have to build them all again... But i can't afford to keep a small army in every province... What to do?

[Martok]

A strategy I often employ is the "Hub-Satellite" tactic:

I usually keep a minimal garrison in most of my provinces just like you're already doing. In addition, though, I also station more powerful armies (at least a full stack) in a few key provinces behind my front lines. Generally, I prefer these "hub" provinces to be fairly centrally located, so that they touch and/or are close to many of my other provinces. This way when one of my outer "satellite" provinces is invaded (and its overpowered garrison presumably forced to retreat to the castle), I can quickly dispatch one of my hub provinces' "rapid deployment" armies to relieve the siege in just 1-2 turns.

In your case, I would probably station strong armies in both Anjou (or Ile de France if it doesn't directly border the HRE), and Wessex (or Mercia, if you haven't conquered the Scots yet and are worried about them). That should give you sufficient ability to defend your lands without having to keep large and expensive garrisons in every single province. [shrug] I should note that this strategy *usually* works well for me; your milage may vary, however.

[Dayve]

I was thinking of something along those lines myself, i usually do that in RTW. Thanks for the advice.

Another question - I saw a few turns back that the pope (The doddering eld freeloader) called a crusade against my nation for "being hostile toward other christian nations"... IT WAS FRANCE WHO ATTACKED ME! I had no choice but to be hostile... What am i to let them conquer me and not defend myself simply because they are also christian? No chance of that..

Anyway, Spain also called a crusade ending in (i think) Tunisia.. How do i call a crusade? Seems like mucho fun.

[Mithrandir]

You have to build a chapter house first, then you can create a crusade Icon and send it to a non-christian country, like you would with a regular army.

It looks like a cross and has some religious units in it, order troops, fanatics etc and picks up units along the way in christian countries.

-Mithrandir

[mfberg]

On the province garrisons - put your back-up armies in the second row for immediate strikes, and garrison with 100 to 200 troops depending on unit size. Peasants are not the best troops for the garrisons, Woodsmen, fanatics, and Celtic warriors are better. If you are playing the 60/100 man units put 2 units of 60 as a garrison rather than one of 100.

Crusades are great, but don't ever lose one. It will tank your Kings influence and in some cases cause a civil war to start.

mfberg

[Dayve]

Thank you both.

[bretwalda]

On the province garrisons - put your back-up armies in the second row for immediate strikes, and garrison with 100 to 200 troops depending on unit size. Peasants are not the best troops for the garrisons, Woodsmen, fanatics, and Celtic warriors are better. If you are playing the 60/100 man units put 2 units of 60 as a garrison rather than one of 100.

Crusades are great, but don't ever lose one. It will tank your Kings influence and in some cases cause a civil war to start.

mfberg

Ideally you garrison with such troops that you can give a serious blow to the enemy before you retreat to the castle. That very much depends on the defending terrain.

Don't ever lose a Crusade. Not only that your moving, filled Crusade should not be beaten and killed in a battle but you should never have a territory that produced a (or heaven forbid more that one) crusade marker fall into enemy hands.

I had several markers in Corsica once (nothing else to build there) and the island was taken. Instant huge civil war. Ouch.

Actually I don't think that makes sense or even logical on any level, since you haven't called the crusade thus your reputation cannot suffer. But anyway it is coded that way and we should live with that.

[Dayve]

There is a civil war if a crusade province falls into enemy hands? Hot damn! I just crusaded to a city on the north coast of Asia Minor and took it, so what if i lose it now? Civil war?

[Martok]

There is a civil war if a crusade province falls into enemy hands? Hot damn! I just crusaded to a city on the north coast of Asia Minor and took it, so what if i lose it now? Civil war?

What Bretwalda is referring to is losing the province your Crusade originated in.

For example: Let's say you launched your Crusade from Wessex. If another faction should happen to invade and conquer Wessex before your Crusade reaches and conquers its target province in Asia Minor, the Crusade will disband and automatically fail--thus causing your king to lose massive influence and possibly trigger a civil war. In other words, don't launch Crusades from your border provinces (since they're vulnerable).

Losing a province taken via Crusade doesn't harm you very much in and of itself, as the surviving Crusaders are simply "disbanded" into a regular army. Your faction leader does lose influence, however, for every 2 provinces you lose. (Likewise, your king also gains influence for every 2 provinces you conquer!)

[Dayve]

I see! Good job, because i lost my province in Asia minor... I blame the Germans, i marched through their lands and all they gave me were peasants, bastards... I saw a Spanish crusade march through my lands and it was full of these guys armed with clubs who had excellent morale! Mine only had peasants and 1 unit of depleted archers.

[Martok]

I saw a Spanish crusade march through my lands and it was full of these guys armed with clubs who had excellent morale!

Those would be religious fanatics. Basically, they're peasants with an attitude.

Mine only had peasants and 1 unit of depleted archers.

It's a good idea to "seed" a Crusade with a core army made up of your own units--and preferably led by a reasonably good general if you can spare one. That way you know your Crusade will have at least a few halfway decent troops, in case it picks up nothing but rabble (like yours did) as it passes through Europe to its destination.

As much as I'm able to--dictated by both cost and what I can strip away from my defenses--I try and stock my Crusades with at least a full stack of my better units. I do avoid, however, including a lot of knights and heavy infantry, as they tire out fairly easily in the hot climates of North Africa and the Middle East.

You may already know this, but another nice thing about Crusades is that you don't pay the upkeep costs on units you've dropped into a Crusade. For this reason, I often will hire mercenaries (which cost only half as much to hire as regular units) and immediately dump them into a Crusade. Be careful you don't include too many mercs, though, as you have to start paying them again once the Crusade is over!

[Dayve]

I wondered why my crusader army was having no impact on my treasury at all! Next time i will definately pile it up with my own good troops... I can recruit feudal sergeants they should be good because they aren't armoured but have a big shield and good morale... Those and plenty of archers methinks... Crusades are fun

One bad thing about this game though, nothing warns you about unhappy people in a province and then rebels just pop up before you have a chance to do anything about it like lower tax or increase garrison... A huge army just appeared in Scotland, kicked out my garrison, then took Northumbria! I got my army from France into Mercia just in time before they invaded it... Luckily it was mostly peasants, spearmen and hobilars so it was easy to defeat, but it was a huge army bent on kicking me out of England... Needless to say i executed every prisoner i took and confiscated all land. If i could i would kill every existing Scottish person in the game and move French/English people into Scotland as punishment for the rebellion... I would rename the province 'Frengland' ...That would be fun.

[Martok]

Yes, Crusades are great fun. And you've got the right idea for units: Some archers, light/medium infantry (such as your Feudal Seargents; plus Highlanders and/or Gallowglasses are nice if you have Scotland/Ireland), and especially light cavalry (Hobilars are your friend!) are all fairly well-suited to fighting against the Muslims.

As for rebellions, if you right-click on a province, it will tell you what its "happiness" rating is. Ideally, you'll want to keep happiness in all your provinces at 120% or higher. (Yes, 100% is technically okay; but in practice you'll want it higher than that.) This is especially true for certain rebellious provinces--of which Scotland is one. Other provinces that are particularly "feisty" are Portugal, Livonia, and Lithiuania. (There are probably a couple others that I'm forgetting, but those are the ones I can remember.)

[Dayve]

I know about right clicking to see the happiness, but there is no indication like there is in RTW, like where there was a little red/yellow/blue/green face which indicated the peoples happiness, and clicking on each province every turn to see what it is sucks. I'm pretty sure Scotland was 100% or over... It didn't rebel from me, a big rebel army appeared and TOOK it from me... Northumbria was quite advanced too and now all it has is 40% farming and a castle... I have to build everything once again.

[Vlad The Impala]

You can hold the 'Shift' key, and all the provinces you control will turn a colour to match the happiness of the population: green for 'happy', yellow for 'slightly disgruntled' and red for 'postal workers who were refused a pay raise'. ;-)

Scotland isn't a very rich province if I remember correctly, so lowering taxes won't have a huge impact on your economy, and if you put in some more units than the 100-men minimum the population shouldn't become hostile that easily, but I may be wrong there.

[bretwalda]

Dayve[/B]]
There is a civil war if a crusade province falls into enemy hands? Hot damn! I just crusaded to a city on the north coast of Asia Minor and took it, so what if i lose it now? Civil war?

What Bretwalda is referring to is losing the province your Crusade originated in.

For example: Let's say you launched your Crusade from Wessex. If another faction should happen to invade and conquer Wessex before your Crusade reaches and conquers its target province in Asia Minor, the Crusade will disband and automatically fail--thus causing your king to lose massive influence and possibly trigger a civil war. In other words, don't launch Crusades from your border provinces (since they're vulnerable).

Losing a province taken via Crusade doesn't harm you very much in and of itself, as the surviving Crusaders are simply "disbanded" into a regular army. Your faction leader does lose influence, however, for every 2 provinces you lose. (Likewise, your king also gains influence for every 2 provinces you conquer!)

These are very good and true point, however I was refering to still something else. I you produce a crusade marker but you haven't started the crusade, so the marker sits in the producing province AND you lose that province then the effects are the same as the crusade being beaten and eliminated to the last man in foreign land.

[Martok]

[/I]These are very good and true point, however I was refering to still something else. I you produce a crusade marker but you haven't started the crusade, so the marker sits in the producing province AND you lose that province then the effects are the same as the crusade being beaten and eliminated to the last man in foreign land.

Ah, I see what you're saying. I admit I don't think I knew that before. But then, I usually don't leave Crusade markers just sitting around either--at least not in a province that's vulnerable to attack. Under what circumstances were you unforunate enough to fall victim to this?

[bretwalda]

Ah, I see what you're saying. I admit I don't think I knew that before. But then, I usually don't leave Crusade markers just sitting around either--at least not in a province that's vulnerable to attack. Under what circumstances were you unforunate enough to fall victim to this?

Basically I was doing too well and I did not pay attention . I lost the initial sea battle and in the next turn Corsica was taken. That was the only province lost, still: civil war, so I figured this is because of the half dozen crusade marker parking there. The same hold for jihads, as well.

[Ciaran]

Ah, I see what you're saying. I admit I don't think I knew that before. But then, I usually don't leave Crusade markers just sitting around either--at least not in a province that's vulnerable to attack. Under what circumstances were you unforunate enough to fall victim to this?

It´s a good idea though, you can even lift excommunitation if you have Crusade markers to spare.
Once I, as HRE, was excommunicated for waging war against the French. Then the Pope called for a Crusade, I took and finished it and was back in the loving embrace of the Church. And the French got excommunicated
However, I don´t know whether that works only with called-for crusades or crusades in general.

By the way, you can also check province loyality in the income screen.

[bretwalda]

It´s a good idea though, you can even lift excommunitation if you have Crusade markers to spare.
Once I, as HRE, was excommunicated for waging war against the French. Then the Pope called for a Crusade, I took and finished it and was back in the loving embrace of the Church. And the French got excommunicated
However, I don´t know whether that works only with called-for crusades or crusades in general.

By the way, you can also check province loyality in the income screen.

Well, this was news to me I rearely get excommed and if I do I kill the Pope on the next possible occassion but it is good to know that if crusade is called upon you can get recommed (is there a word...?)

However I am quite sure that just starting any crusade does not revoke excom. One of the problems (of many) about excommunication that the Pope forbids you to start a crusade and I think also the alliance with the Papacy (if exists) is dissolved (of course if you attacked the Papacy you are at war, but if you are excommed for attacking another Catholic nation you are back to neutral from allied)

[Martok]

It´s a good idea though, you can even lift excommunitation if you have Crusade markers to spare.
Once I, as HRE, was excommunicated for waging war against the French. Then the Pope called for a Crusade, I took and finished it and was back in the loving embrace of the Church. And the French got excommunicated

How were you able to launch a Crusade when you were already ex-commed? I've never been able to do that.

I also thought excommunications end only when either the Pope or your faction leader dies. Have I been missing something all this time?

[Vlad The Impala]

Well, you're not able to start new crusades when ex-commed, but if you still have some spare crusade markers around somewhere...

[gaijinalways]

Interesting idea, I didn't know that either, a little invasion, get excommed, and off with my crusade to a nearby 'sinner's land' to get back in the Pope's graces !

[Martok]

Well, you're not able to start new crusades when ex-commed, but if you still have some spare crusade markers around somewhere...

No kidding? I honestly was never aware of that. Guess I'll have to try it next time I get on the Pope's bad side.

[Ciaran]

How were you able to launch a Crusade when you were already ex-commed? I've never been able to do that.

I also thought excommunications end only when either the Pope or your faction leader dies. Have I been missing something all this time?

It might very well be because it was a Crusade the Pope called for. I haven´t tested this extensively, it was just that I had spare markers sitting around, the Pope called and I oblieged.