Controlling Outremer...

[Shahed]

Right.

The Pope called a Crusade on Antioch. I was just about to reload, because it was such a glorious decision, on His Holyness's behalf. Anyway I decided well what the hell... I sent off one of my generals to Antioch... WHY ANTIOCH ? Pointless excercise in futility.

I took the city with ease, ransomed an Egy prince en route with his army for about 9K florins. This was early game so a lot of money then. Once I took Antioch, I simply occupied it.

Now in 1111 (still early game) it has 34,000 inhabitants and I have a garrison of about 1300 spear militia plus the poor sod general who got thrown down there.

What I really want is to Crusade on Acre, Aleppo and Jerusalem. 2 castles to recruit from and 2 cities.

Jerusalem first OFC (!), which gives 20% public order bonus for the rest of the game. However Antioch is eating up my finances. The Crusader army of about 1050 troops, Order Foot Soldiers, Crusader Knights etc complete with the Great Cross is sitting outside Antioch costing 2300 florins/turn upkeep. I can't move it because if I move the governor of Antioch out it goes below 60% public order on low tax rate.

Maybe I should have exterminated when I got the city ?

I also ran a series of cheats. I put in every possible law buildingm huge cathedral, the works..etc (which would take about 30 turns to complete normally), and still the city was only at 90% with normal tax rate AND population growth of 3%... ???!!!!

Which means eventually it will again dip below 75% public order because of population growth.
It's unmanageable.

85% is Catholic.

75% is distance to capital penalty (IIRC) and 80% squalor even with everything upgraded.

How are you supposed to manage this place ?

[TevashSzat]

And that is why you either have a close capital like in Constantinople or exterminate after getting the city. Starting little empires in the Holy Lands are often a very huge burden on your economy and will most likely collapse or put you in bankruptcy unless you exerminate or have a relatively close capital

[Shahed]

Does anyone know how to change the base unrest or the distance to capital penalty ? I know I read it somewhere last week, but I can't find it again... meh. Meanwhile I'm going to let it revolt, sack (for 30K), then let it revolt, then exterminate.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Why the pope called a crusade for Antioch?

Hmmm. Probably for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Relic! Pull the pin, count to three and the enemy General dies at the begining of the battle! + 10 morale to troops. + 20 to humour.

Well what country are you playing as? It's not all that hard to manage with my Sicilians.

[Memnoch]

I had a similar problem to you in my Moors game, Sinan - my capital was in Cordoba, but I foolishly responded to a call for Jiad to Baghdad (I thought I had buckley's of making it ahead of the Turks and Egyptians but somehow I did) and I ended up with an empire where the "heart" was in Iberia but the biggest cities were Antioch and Baghdad - as far from Iberia as could be. My empire ultimately colllapsed because of distance from the capital.

Where is your capital at the moment?

[Shahed]

LOL !

I'm playing English, capital is London.

My very own glory goals for this campaign are to hold France, Scandinavia, and Ireland (already done) as the continental empire, and overseas to have the Crusader States; Jerusalem, Acre, Antioch & Aleppo.

Once that's done I won't be doing too much except fighting off the Mongols in Palestine (I suppose) and probably HRE, and Spain on Europe. I also intend to vassal anyone I can. I don't intend to take any more land. Just my own way of playing the game, set objectives, achieve them = game over. I don't like the 45 province goal, I preferred Glorious Achievments a la MTW/VI.

[FactionHeir]

Does anyone know how to change the base unrest or the distance to capital penalty ? I know I read it somewhere last week, but I can't find it again... meh. Meanwhile I'm going to let it revolt, sack (for 30K), then let it revolt, then exterminate.

....I just sent you the info late last week!
descr_settlement_mechanics.xml

You can also change the max population in a settlement type there, so limit the pop to like 30k or so if you like.

[PseRamesses]

Right.

The Pope called a Crusade on Antioch. I was just about to reload, because it was such a glorious decision, on His Holyness's behalf. Anyway I decided well what the hell... I sent off one of my generals to Antioch... WHY ANTIOCH ? Pointless excercise in futility.

I took the city with ease, ransomed an Egy prince en route with his army for about 9K florins. This was early game so a lot of money then. Once I took Antioch, I simply occupied it.

Now in 1111 (still early game) it has 34,000 inhabitants and I have a garrison of about 1300 spear militia plus the poor sod general who got thrown down there.

What I really want is to Crusade on Acre, Aleppo and Jerusalem. 2 castles to recruit from and 2 cities.

Jerusalem first OFC (!), which gives 20% public order bonus for the rest of the game. However Antioch is eating up my finances. The Crusader army of about 1050 troops, Order Foot Soldiers, Crusader Knights etc complete with the Great Cross is sitting outside Antioch costing 2300 florins/turn upkeep. I can't move it because if I move the governor of Antioch out it goes below 60% public order on low tax rate.

Maybe I should have exterminated when I got the city ?

I also ran a series of cheats. I put in every possible law buildingm huge cathedral, the works..etc (which would take about 30 turns to complete normally), and still the city was only at 90% with normal tax rate AND population growth of 3%... ???!!!!

Which means eventually it will again dip below 75% public order because of population growth.
It's unmanageable.

85% is Catholic.

75% is distance to capital penalty (IIRC) and 80% squalor even with everything upgraded.

How are you supposed to manage this place ?

Convert it to a castle if u want to keep it. It will raise your loyalty by some 20%.

[gardibolt]

I think in Outremer you pretty much have to exterminate if you're coming as a conquering crusader. When you combine high natural unrest, cultural differences, extreme distances from capital, likely religious unrest, and fast growing population with extreme logistical support issues, there's a recipe for problems. Luckily, with the fast growing population the cities also recover pretty quickly.

I love the name Outremer. Haven't heard it in decades, so it's nice to see it crop up here.

[TeutonicKnight]

Since you've already used cheats ...

add_population Antioch -30000

End your squalor and overcrowding issues. I prefer extermination myself.

[Shahed]

Nope, I have'nt used cheats.

I used them to test and see if the place is manageable or not, and it's not, then I reloaded back to my campaign. It's already easy enough, with cheats it's pointless to play. Since then, as I posted already, I let it rebel, pull out and exterminate.

I could change the files so I can convert to castle, but never mind I'll leave it as is. More fun this way.

Actually wait !!!

I HAVE used cheats other than this test. And here's what I did.

Gave approximately 1,000,000 FL to EVERY faction (except Aztecs since I can't get there yet AFAIK) in increments of 200,000 every 5 turns. I also give away any money in excess of 30K I have at the end of each turn to a random faction.

Only faction I have yet to give are the Mongols and they just arrived. However, since they are now facing MASSIVE Turkish and Egyptian armies, they have'nt settled yet. But I think they will, they're sneaking up on Aleppo while the Turks and Egyptians duke it out near Baghdad.

That million FL cheat to every faction is one I REALLY recommend, it's made my game totally awesome. I regularly face Broken Lances, Teutonic Knights, Santiago, Bombards, you name it, AND not just one stack. 3-4 on average before it quietens down for a few turns. basically every faction is like the Mongols, even worse. They have like 7-9 full stacks and multiple little stacks running around. Specially Egyptians, they are now a real challenge in Jerusalem. I don't dare go out of the city or I'm TOAST. However if I see something small... OUT goes the cavalry on the gallop !!!

HRE is tough too, but I have a bridge near Antwerp, and I can beat them 1vs1, Egypt has a far better economy than mine, that's the problem.

[Quillan]

Move your capitol to Marseilles or Genoa. If you don't own them, conquer them and then move your capital there.

I had problems controlling Antioch as Spain with my capitol in Valencia. It wasn't too bad as Venice or as the Byzantines, but I don't want to even think about trying it as the English.

[TeutonicKnight]

Convert it to a castle if u want to keep it. It will raise your loyalty by some 20%.

You can't convert a city to a castle once it passes town size I think. Or maybe large. But at 32,000 population, he's got a huge city on his hands, and that absolutely isn't convertible in Vanilla, 1.1, or Carl's BugFixer mod.

He's either got to cheat the population down, pull out and exterminate it, or consider losing it somehow.

Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.