Crusade

[Captain Kidd]

While traveling to Jerusalem with my army of crusaders i came across an army of Jihad sacking Byzantium, I contemplated whether to deviate from my planned course or chase and fight the Jihad army?

I decided to continue to Jerusalem.

If I fought the Jihad army would this still be judged as a holy war or would it be seen in a poor light from the pope?

Cheers, The Captain.

[Memnoch]

I'm not sure, but I think that if you deviate from your original planned target (Jerusalem) you increase the risk of desertion, even if you're fighting a Muslim faction.

[pevergreen]

If you spend a turn not moving directly to the crusade target (even if you are England, sailing round Spain is not direct enough) you will get desertion. Entire desertion can occur as well, the entire army sends you a message "Move towards "target here" this turn, or next turn we all leave.
Killing the Jihad would declare war, so varibles will occur (if pope has alliance with them etc) Fighting them, and not ending your turn closer to the target will get the same results as above.

Hope that answers your question.

[Captain Kidd]

Direct to the crusade i think.

Cheers

The Captain

[Moah]

Too long a delay causes desertion but only more than one turn.

I often use my crusading targets to take cities on the way: Declare crusade on excommunicated Venice (Pope is my beeeitch) on their citadel in Ragusa. Then march your crusading armies from France - taking Bologna, Venice etc on the way. Obviously you want to have artillery for instant assaults. Crusaders can be left as garrison in captured cities.

Hey presto! 1 crusade, 5 cities!

So in your scenario, you could probably have snapped up Constantinople (neither they nor turks are catholic) on the way without a problem. After all that's what actually happened in 1204! The crusade wasn't called on Constantinople, the crusaders were just manipulated by Venice on the way (although they didn't resist very hard).

[zstajerski]

BTW- if you add some priests or eaven cardinals to your crusade artmy they wont desert... At least not as quickly as without the priest in entourage :)