What to do with Jerusalem --as a crusader?

[Razor1952]

THe question is what do people do after they have taken Jerusalem after a successful crusade?

I've been playing mod Lands to conquer(highly recommended btw) as Venice VH/VH and taken Jerusalem in ~1110. I'm playing to promote a chivalrous nation, trying to keep peace with everyone especially other catholics. So far relations except with HRE/egypt/byz(HRE&Byz attacked) are reasonable to amiable(I tribute to Pope and Milan, occupy only) , rather than a blitzkrieg type game where everyone hates you. HRE is rather occupied by excomm and other wars to concentrate on me. I'd like to leave them and other catholics alone for reputation reasons.

So two thoughts
1. Keep Jeruasalem and take Acre (I already have Rhodes) and concentrate on beating Egypt though later I will have to contend with Mongols. The downside is that I need big armies to beat Egypt back and the whole area will be a loss looser for quite a while because of upkeep.

2. Give Jerusalem to the Pope. A bit of a cowards way I guess eventually the pope will loose and I'll be able to retake it at a later crusade. Send my army by boat and trash Constantinople(I dont' think sacking them will reduce reputation with my fellow catholics?)


It strikes me that there are many cleverer players out there who could think of more creative strategies which I'd like to hear.

[Foz]

You can always offer it to another faction as part of a diplomatic package. You may be able to secure peace with someone you don't want to fight, or otherwise get a lot of useful things done.

As for sacking, it affects your global reputation a bit, but not nearly as much as exterminating. If you're trying to keep a good rep then you should try only to occupy, though as I said it's only a minor hit from sacking. The only way it messes with your pope reputation is if you decide to sack or exterminate a Catholic settlement. In that case, the hit to your pope meter is similar to that to your reputation - minor for sacking a catholic settlement, very major for exterminating one.

[zstajerski]

Hehe
Once you take a settlement do never leave it to fall!!
It is yours, you fought for it, you won it, your men have died for it

But if you really do not want it or if it is to time for an invasion: sell it back to Egypt for an abnormal summ (I once got after a crusade on Antioch 30.000 ransome for their belowed city)

[TevashSzat]

yea, it is not suggested to maintain a mini empire in the levant if your empire is not big enough in europe. Just give it to the pope like you suggested or sell it to another faction. Maybe, you can even trade it for a city close to your empire in Europe. Remember to sell all of the buildings before you trade off the city

[IrishArmenian]

Sell it for large amounts of money, to the Pope, or another Catholic faction. I advise taking a Castle in the region so you can keep an eye on Jerusalem.

[CaesarAugustus]

Well, my normal procedure for dealing with cities that i have conquered on crusade and don't really need is this:
1) Exterminate it
2) Destroy every builing in the city that you can
3) Raise the tax level to "Very High"
4) Remove my garrison
5) Give it to the Papal States or some other faction that I have bad relations with, watch it fall to rebels
6)If you want, re-capture and sack it (dont expect to make much money) do so and then give it to another faction in return for a fee, map information, or anything else you desire

Seeing as you wish to play a chivalrous nation, though, I advise you to give Jerusalem to the Pope, or perhaps a Catholic faction that is not doing so well economically. You could make a new ally that way. You will probably want to peacefully occupy the city, and leave the buildings un-demolished.

If you can afford to keep the city, I would also advise that, as it gives you a base from which to expand into Egyptian lands .

P.S. What is the Lands to conquer mod??

[zstajerski]

Lands to conquer https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...nds+to+conquer

[R'as al Ghul]

THe question is what do people do after they have taken Jerusalem after a successful crusade?
[..] I'm playing to promote a chivalrous nation, trying to keep peace with everyone especially other catholics.
So two thoughts
1. Keep Jerusalem and take Acre (I already have Rhodes) and concentrate on beating Egypt though later I will have to contend with Mongols. The downside is that I need big armies to beat Egypt back and the whole area will be a loss looser for quite a while because of upkeep.

Heh, you want to roleplay your faction as being very chivalric and good christians and yet you ask us what to do with Jerusalem?
Defend it for all of christendom, of course. His Holiness himself has given you the order and now, once you've accomplished it, you want to chicken out? No, my friend, that's not the deal. The order was to conquer Jerusalem for christianity and provide the pilgrims with a save pilgrimage route. That means to defend the province at any cost against all infidel invaders.
Historically, Crusade armies generally did a poor job of securing the holdings in the Holy Land. This is your chance to do it differently. Take on the challenge and show those Egyptians their limits. Concentrate on defending, try to beat armies in the field rather than in siege defense. If you don't have a castle on Rhodes, take Acre but it may be fun to try it just with the units at hand. The original crusaders often could not rely on reinforcements. Try to fight your battles with the crusader army you have there and try to have as little casualties as possible. That's a good challenge. Teching up and sending all elite troops to the Levante is too easy.
You could deliberately build in some mistakes for fun, like only having non-mounted troops. Read up on history for some inspiration.
I only wish the fatigue factor was higher for european troops in the desert. I think I'll mod that in for myself.

No, seriously, you shouldn't have any problems to defend your holdings against the AI. With a full stack in a settlement, good portion of heavy inf and spears to defend the gate and breaches, about 6 shooters or more on the walls and some Cav, just in case, you're invincible. Attrition can be countered by retraining but that gives you insane experience, which is unfair. Even the Mongols are not able to take a settlement when a human defends it.

[Lorenzo_H]

Sack it and then drop it like its hot...

Sell it if you want, but usually Crusades happen more often when you don't sell it and leave it in the hands of the Muslims.

[FactionHeir]

Sack it, build churches, keep a mid sized garrison which you replace gradually with spear militia and keep a high civalry general as governor so your PO doeesn't go down the drain.
As any good crusader antion, you likely have brought more than 1 stack onto a crusade and you can use those to spread north and south, conquering all those rebel provinces (the AI usually doesn't bother taking most of the mideastern provinces even under VH until about turn 30-40) before making the muslims your vassals :D

[joe4iz]

Give it to the Pope for rite of passage.

If you are truly roleplaying, the original crusaders exterminated the city (killing Jews, muslims and orthodox Catholics.)

Move your army to Acre and take it for your base. When the Monguls and or Timorids come, you will get your oppurtunity to take it back.

I do this on most of the first Crusades, and use Acre as my base of operation. After Acre, I will take Gaza and allow the next Crusade to be for Antioch.

[alex9337]

When I crusade to Jerusalem, I exterminate 'em!

This greatly increases your ability to maintain control over the city and you will have a significantly less chance of rebellion in future turns.

Next, build a church so you can churn out priests so that you can increase the % factor of catholicism in the province. This will significantly help to increase your happiness factor. I find that at least 4 priests are needed.

I also have at least 2 spies sitting in the city to help alleviate the negative affect of enemy spies infiltrating the city and, again, decreasing happiness there.

Build Assassins and do your best to kill off Imans, which work counter against your priests. Train 'em up on low level Egyptian & rebel captains and assassins first. Without an Assassin's Guild, your assassins won't have many stars of experience when they are first recruited. This makes it more difficult, but not impossible. I currently have 2 assassins around Jerusalem that have reached level 7, making them relatively effective.

Destroy any Guild that the AI may have had in the city immediately. Because you captured the city via crusade, you should be very soon offered either a Hospitallers or Templars Guild. This is critical, because as a city, you will not be able to build cavalry units there for future defense.

If you are playing as Denmark, upgrade your church to at least an Abbey, as you will also be able to build Norse War Clerics, another excellent cavalry unit.

Immediately prior to assaulting the city, once you have landed your Crusading army on the shores ( I always come by boat ), recruit some local mercenary units ( I always leave at least 2 open slots in my crusading army for this reason alone). I love recruiting one unit of crusader foot knights and one unit of something else that looks good, or that I may be short of in my crusading stack. By doing this, if you are ever attacked and are successful in withstanding the assault, you will be able to "restore" that unit to full roster numbers because the particular mercenary unit was originally acquired in this province so should therefore have more available for restocking.

I do all this because, as a city, especially in the early part of the game, the units that you have at your disposal in a normal city are not that great. Spear Militia across the board just won't allow you to hold the city against numerous counter attacks. If you have the ability to have, say, 4 units of Knights Templar, plus a few decent foot units that are mercs (crusader foot knights, as mentioned earlier) you will have a good mix of forces to defend with even if Jerusalem stands alone as a solitary city under your control for a long time, while you hammer your enemies in Europe and take care of business there. Hopefully, you will also be playing as a faction that has access to at least some type of archer militia as well, to put on your walls as the enemy approaches with their siege towers.

All great fun! Can't wait to go home from work and kick some more Saracen butt! This is an absolutely phenomenal game!

[Marquis of Roland]

Keep Jerusalem till the Mongols arrive, and then get the hell out of Dodge

[alex9337]

Lmao! :)

[Razor1952]

Heh, you want to roleplay your faction as being very chivalric and good christians and yet you ask us what to do with Jerusalem?
Defend it for all of christendom, of course. His Holiness himself has given you the order and now, once you've accomplished it, you want to chicken out? No, my friend, that's not the deal. The order was to conquer Jerusalem for christianity and provide the pilgrims with a save pilgrimage route. That means to defend the province at any cost against all infidel invaders.

Definitely a great twist on my own goals, Thank you for the clarification. Its what I will do.

I've already destroyed 3 full stacks of egyptians in the following 10 years and am still intact.(ransom only, couldn't aford to release)

I'd like assassins but don't want to build the brothel line in Jerusalem so I'll probably take Antioch or other more northern province for that purpose.

The only reinforcements I've sent are 2 generals from Rhodes.

[dismal]

Well, I'm sitting around holding Jerusalem and Acre now in my campaign and between the two of them I've probably got 3000-4000 in army upkeep and 1500 or so in revenue.

I hate to pump more money into these cities because it seems like the horde will make them pretty costly to defend, if not Egypt sooner.

Good economics would probably dictate tearing down all the buildings, pulling out, and keeping that army busy sacking some of the other cities in the area until another crusade is called.

However, I'm playing as Venice and my empire is stretching (having reached western Turkey) that way so I'll probably stick it out.

[alex9337]

Yes, yes, stick it out! Hold! Hold! Try to capture a small city in the vicinity and make it a castle so you can build your good troops!

Role Play! Smash the Infidel! For God & King! God Wills it! and all that jazz!

I can't help it. I just watched the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" again last nite and I just love immersing myself in this game. My favourite time period, my favourite game!

[ChaosLord]

I was faced with that same problem in my Danish game. I had a half-German/half-Danish general(Son of the Princess seduced Dietrich von-Saxony I think, guy actually ended up being my King temporarily after my original Prince died) of mine lead the crusade because he had the highest piety of the bunch. After a stroll through central europe and a swim through the mediterannaen I sacked Jerusalem(AI only had one unit in it). I expected my army would get crushed by Egypt after its counter-attacks. Suprisingly (or, not so suprisingly I guess ever since graphics became the focus of the game) I beat off all their counter-attacks and then was mostly ignored by the Egyptians.

So with a mostly unprofitable city in the middle of enemy territory and a now good general (he became the Honorable, the Chilvarous, and finally the Saint...until become the Profane) I set about building the city back up and converting it to the true faith. While this was going on the Pope was busy appointing nearly everyone of my Priests to Cardinal and ordering another crusade, this time to Antioch.

I built another army of Danes crazy enough to walk across the world and kill things, this time lead my faction heir. After another quick battle I held Antioch with my King that had been crowned halfway. During the walk one of my young Priestly wonders from the Theologians Guild HQ in my capitol got elected Pope, at like only thirty. So now I hold two cities in the Holy Land and have two armies down there.

This is where I saved my game, but the plan is build my own little Kingdom down there and defend it from everyone with my trade empire. I only hold Denmark/Norway/Sweden/Finland in Europe itself. Egypt doesn't seem like it'll be that hard to beat, not so sure about the Turks. I had to go to war with them to take Antioch. I'm also playing Lands to Conquer and the Mongols have already arrived, but they're busy wrecking things in Kiev. They haven't headed to the middle east yet.