Crusades

[Captain Pugwash]

Ok someome explain how this thing is supposed to work. Compulsary one called by the main man. The king gets his required units in Northern France. Now I thought you could get cru Sgts as mercs but no sign. Not to worry. You set off to Tunis but although heading via Spain seem to suffer from desertion even though max distance is travelled?????. Maybe one should call Ryanair. My second stack is heading down to Italy and cross via Sicilly but they seem to be jumping overboard and somehow swimming down. Desertion on a boat at sea to where ?? The HRE packed a stack next to Antwep. In three turns has not moved an inch and remains at full strength. Whats going on

[nikolai1962]

need to get closer in a straight line to avoid desertion. if england, cross france and hire merc ships rather than sail round spain. AI doesn't get desertion.

[Boyar Karhunkynsi]

It's a silly bug. It should be fixed A.S.A.P.

It really made me mad in my Scots profile, I had no chance of being the first to get to Antioch if I walked, and if I sailed all my units deserted. What a dilemma!

-Max

[HoreTore]

It's not a bug at all, sailing around spain ain't the fastest way anywhere. The fastest route goes through france.

[FactionHeir]

You need to travel at least 20 MP towards the target, not in any direction.

[Captain Pugwash]

It's a silly bug. It should be fixed A.S.A.P.

It really made me mad in my Scots profile, I had no chance of being the first to get to Antioch if I walked, and if I sailed all my units deserted. What a dilemma!

-Max

yep and i bet the pope wasnt to happy at the 'failure'? better call mission impossible

[steev]

I think the whole point of the crusade is not to necessarily take the city at the end-point, but to get what you can out of it.
My best tactic is to have a few armies hanging handy, wait til someone gets ex-commed (as is likely during the 8-10 turns you have to join the crusade), then plough through their empire on the way to jerusalem, which you have no intention of making it too anyway.
In my latest campaign i'm playing Scotland, had eaten northern france while Milan ate southern france, when Milan got ex-commed and i went chomping Dijon, Genoa, Ajaccio, Caligari before someone took jerusalem.
Now turn 110 or so, i control the pope, so i launched a crusade against jerusalem as soon as venice got ex-commed and now i've just chomped them. The byzantines are next, and I have armies going across North Africa to go chomp through the Mongols. maybe i'll even get to jerusalem one day.

[TevashSzat]

Yep, join a crusade for the cheap units and free movement points and when you get where you want, abandon the crusade and start conquering

[nikolai1962]

ditto. as england i use the first crusade to get an island base in the med for the next crusade.

[Captain Pugwash]

You need to travel at least 20 MP towards the target, not in any direction.

whats an MP? and how do you measure it

[Lusted]

movement point, so basically move 20 tiles towards the tile

[Jambo]

In 1.2 none of the Muslim factions have created a Jihad so far (65 turns). They don't even appear to have any Imams on the campaign map, let alone level 4 Imams.

Crusades are fine however.

[Raijer]

You need to travel at least 20 MP towards the target, not in any direction.

My question is how does the game define "towards?" I'm having insane desertion problems in my first Crusade, with the loss of at least one unit a turn - usually more. I've lost 15 to 20 units easy in 9 turns. I'm going as fast as I can. I've tried different combinations of ordering my Crusade to move - 1) I've clicked the most direct path to Jerusalem when the green movement blob glowed under my general's feet, 2) I've dragged a looooong multi-colored arrow from my general all the way to Jerusalem. Despite this, units desert me in high number. By luck (whether bad or good I dunno), the general leading the Crusade is now King. He's young, with a command of 3 and authority also 3, so he shouldn't be a complete loser (should he?). I just don't know what I'm doing wrong.

*Descretely sniff-checks his armpit*

[sapi]

Do you have agents with the crusade?

[Raijer]

Nope. Not a one. Should I have?

[Martok]

Nope. Not a one. Should I have?

Some people have stated they have fewer desertions when they have a couple priests/bishops accompanying the Crusade. I can't personally vouch for this, however.

[Raijer]

Some people have stated they have fewer desertions when they have a couple priests/bishops accompanying the Crusade. I can't personally vouch for this, however.

Really? That's awesome! I just got reading something that said NOT to bring agents because they slow you down! Guess I'l have to try both.

Anyway, I think figured out what I was doing wrong. The trick is to only move one tile at a time - since you have to move those 20 mp without getting blocked. I was giving the Crusade an order that covered how far they could go in one turn, so blind, they inevitablely got their path blocked, leading to deserters.

Thanks FactionHeir!

[sapi]

Well, I was about to suggest not to bring them, but there you go

[SadCat]

Send them ahead to start the conversion. SadCat