Repercussions for leaving a crusade?

[Philbert]

I am currently playing as the Danes.
The first crusade I was in ended before I reached Jerusalem. I then found myself on at Iraklion so I took that to wait for the next crusade.

It has now come so I went on the crusade with only some crossbowmen and spear militia on my way to Antioch. I took Nicosia because I had read that that is convenient for crusading in the future.
But now I'm basically stranded with a weak army while Egypt has some impressive stacks floating around Antioch. So my plan is actually to use the Fortress of Nicosia to pump out some bearded axewielding vikings to get a little more punch. However, the delay will probably lose me my last crusaders.
Is there a way to have these newly trained units officially join the crusade, so that they get the bonus experience point when the crusade is successful?

I was thinking of leaving and rejoining the crusade but I don't know if the pope will get angry with me when I do that.

[Shahed]

Well I've forgotten what happens when you leave a Crusade, but here's what I think it was:

1. You will lose points towards all the Knight Guilds when one of your generals leaves a Crusade.

2. If the Crusade is disbanded then I'm pretty sure you lose a lot of papal standing.

3. I don't know what effect this has on population as it's never happened to me.

I don't see some key points in your post though: what is the current Crusade target ? (antioch ?) What year or turn is it ? Where are you last Crusaders located (nicosia or in egypt?)

If the target is Antioch, go and sit on the bridge north (or was it north-east ? ) and send in a spy, or just watch the city from there, once you see there's not much in there go in, build a ram and 3 towers and assualt as quickly as you can. Repair any damaged buildings and build town watch series, churn militia, meanwhile bring in reinforcements from Nicosia.

The Egyptians are so easy, you can just bulldozer six feet under with a single 15 stack Crusader army. Piece of cake, man. Specially in the early game. But they are really fun to fight.

[Shahed]

edit: Sorry dbl post...

[Quickening]

Luckily, I had a savegame where Im in a position to see what happens.

I abandoned the crusade and noticed that the little cross icon in the units cards now had a red bar across it. There was no immediate loss in relations to the Pope. However, over the following turns my men still deserted.
Now I never made it to the end of the Crusade but I imagine that you would suffer a loss of relations with the Pope at it's end just like you do when you never bothered joining at all. Perhaps not as severe. Someone else will need to test that.

[Shahed]

Hmm can't promise but might get a chance to test it soon. I'll keep an eye out.

[FactionHeir]

The only thing you lose when you abandon a cruade is an extra point in CrusaderHistory, as you gain 2 by joining but lose 3 by abandoning.

Also, your units (unless its the same turn you joined the crusade) will rebel and desert, so you at least would have to keep going towards your target or park your army in the crusade target region and move it around the city (at least 5 squares each time) or directly besiege it (note if you withdraw from the battle though you lose CrusadeHistory points)

Further, if you abandon, you better make sure you rejoin within the starting 10 turn limit (i.e. try to remember how many turns you may still have before you have to rejoin or the game prevents you)

If you are really hopeless, you can mod your descr_campaign_db.xml and make your crusading armies never disband. I.e. put yourself at the same level as the AI for that matter.

[Shahed]

Wow, thanks FactionHeir.

So that means you don't lose Papal standing at all ? I guess you will lose some when the Crusade disbands right ?

[FactionHeir]

No, only if you never joined the crusade in the first place and thus failed the mission.

[Shahed]

Ok. Thanks.

[TeutonicKnight]

When you are moving "towards the target", do you have to move all your movement, or can you just move one space?

I've always moved to the limit of my movement, since other Catholics won't attack, but there are occasions when I'd prefer to delay my march a bit.

[TevashSzat]

I think that you gotta move more than just one space though I'm not sure

[FactionHeir]

Moving means at least 20 MP towards the target if not in the target region and at least 4 MP towards the settlement if in the target region.