Crusades Campaign: Jerusalem

[ViolentRebellion]

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Odd. Whit my start the Egyptians started steamrolling towards me. When you defeated their initial four near full balanced stacks you can attack them. Before you should save your skin....

Besides, the music is great imo.....

Yea this was my experience on H/H.

The Jihad was called and two or three turns later their were full stacks on top of me.

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Anyone else find the Jerusalem campaign tougher than Antioch?

The Egyptians were a much tougher opponent that the Turks. You really do need the high command rating generals you start off with in Jerusalem as it seems all the Egyptian generals have 4+ command stars.

Though I thought it was ridiculous how many times I caught Saladin with a small army. Eventually I killed him taking Cairo when he had less than half a stack. You would think the AI would give the best general the best troops.

- By the way in Cairo you get the Ark of the Covenant. Be sure to adopt atleast one general with a solid dread rating as the Ark gives +5 dread.

Right now I'm at about turn 70 and Egypt is eliminated and I got 20 settlements. The game has slowed down considerabley because of the time it takes to move armies east into the desert. Now the ultimate showdown with the Mongols will have to take place as all I need is 5 more territories and BAghdad.

[TheLastPrivate]

Making super-elite Knights Templar:

Get a horsebreeder's guild HQ, Knights Templar HQ, Swordsmith HQ, and buy a castle with Hospitaller HQ from Antioch.
A citadel with Tourney field and a templar/hospitaller chapter will produce 3 gold chevron (9 experience) right off the bat. I somehow got to 10 experience knights althogh it won't go as high, if I right-click on the training roster it will say experience:10. It will also keep asking me to retrain the unit but it doesn't work either. But 9 experience Templar right off the bat is enough, really. Im thinking of disbanding my marshall/constable and retrain them so i can get 9 gold chevron marshall...

[TheLastPrivate]

Hmm, I guess I lose the unique units forever if I disband them. Good thing I saved....and I just found out I have a castle that wants to train 11 xp templars.... too bad I can't have those...

[Privateerkev]

I would agree with PseRamesses's strategy except for his southern moves. I take Balain, Guy, and all the southern forces that aren't taking the three northeastern settlements, and move them as far down that road to Egypt as possible on turn 1. I run out every unit's mp. Which means that instead of keeping units together, I move cav ahead. The stuff on the road will be strung out but safe for turn 1.

If you do it right, you can get a full stack army on the north bridge to egypt and an all-cav force led by Balain on the south bridge by turn 2. The cav force will be attacked twice on Egypt's next turn but with charging and the knights high morale, you will win. You can get a full army stack to the south bridge by turn 3 to relieve the all-cav stack. I send the very beaten knights back to refit and leave Balain and the army on the south bridge while Guy and his army are on the north bridge. Also make sure each man has a spy in his stack because there will be at least one assassination attempt on each general each turn for pretty much the whole time they are on the bridges, until you hurt Egypt enough to where they stop recruiting assassins.

The two stacks sent into your territory by Egypt on turn 1 will return and try to attack you from the KoJ side of the river. You might get attacked on the bridges from both directions at once for a couple turns. My computer stinks so it gives me the stacks one at a time. Just defend one side, and when the first force routes, the second will appear behind you. Then just cross the bridge and set up on the other side so the second stack has to cross the river to attack you.

After the two stacks behind your lines are dead, Egypt is stuck on their side of the river if you hold both bridges and keep sinking their navy. You can then hold indefinetly as long as you eventually get some artillery down there to counter the pieces they eventually make. Jerusalem is best to make artillery at the early point in the game.

By this point, I have taken all of the northeastern settlements (4), turned all coastal settlements to cities, and taken both Cyprus settlements. You are then free to take Alia. Also, you can land three full general led stacks where ever you want on the Egyptian coast while Egypt is still trapped on their side of the river. Take the two settlements way to the far west and squeeze them like a vice. They will keep attacking your two bridges but Magonels will slaughter them. I rack up more than 300 kills per Magonel unit per bridge defense.

Then, you can pretty much do what you want. Go turtle, expand east, take Byzantine lands, ect...

[kitbogha]

HI all,
Started off with this campaign and found it to be really good fun (if wholesale slaughter and backstabbing can be described as fun!). I started by engaging the Egyptians straight away (nothing like a pre-emptive attack!!) and when I had them on the run started sending out units to take the rebel cities in the deserts to the east and managed to up my city numbers by taking them. sweeping west across north africa, to set up a platform for later attacks on the Byzantines. Part of Cyprus was rebel so I took that giving me a toehold for attacks into Anatolia.
The inevitable friction with the Byzantines was brought to a head when a message flashed up to say they were close to victory, so I quickly diverted some units I had ben building for my Mongol campaign and took five of their cities in Northern Iraq area, starting an all out war with them which cost lots of lives and money but finally resulted in their being wiped out.
I avoided contact with the Mongols until late on in the game when I needed only to Take Baghdad and blitzed them with six full stacks, using one to take the city and the other five to form a ring of steel around it until the ten turns were complete.
I found that keeping on good terms with Antioch was worthwhile, as they form a nice buffer between you and the Byzantines and they even did me a favour and wiped out the Turks for me! I even bought a couple of their cities, which was nice...

[Boyar Son]

Hmm, I guess I lose the unique units forever if I disband them. Good thing I saved....and I just found out I have a castle that wants to train 11 xp templars.... too bad I can't have those...

Are u SURE?!?!

cuz my unique units are about to be eliminated bcuz they lost ALOT of manpower...

[TheLastPrivate]

Are u SURE?!?!

cuz my unique units are about to be eliminated bcuz they lost ALOT of manpower...

As long as you don't have them eliminated they regenerate by themselves.

But if u disband i think they're gone tho.

And in my Turks game Jerusalem had like 6 units of marshall and constable in the end... so cpu obviously cheats with those :p

[where's yur troosers]

I figured that I would risk everything on an all out assault on Egypt, trusting my allies to the north to keep the Turks busy. I played on H/H, put a full stack on a ship and managed to sneak it past the Egyptian navy. It landed by Alexandria, captured it and then took the settlement to the south.

Meanwhile Ascalon was and Kerek were attacked by Saladin and his heir, but Baldwin was within striking distance in Jerusalem and beat both beseiging armies back before quickly re-fitting and taking the battle to the enemy aiming for the castle on the Med coast. At the same time I took most of my army from my amphibious assault and headed in the same direction. The 2 armies working together with some nighht fights were able to prevail and I am sitting pretty (although I have no idea what is going on elsewhere - it is only turn 10 though).

I am not sure the strategy is sound - had the Egyptian navy bothered to attack my lowly galley it would not have been pretty. Also if the troops in Cairo had been deployed immediately against my invading marines I am sure I would have been driven back. As it is Richard has turned up and Damascus is about to fall.

[Russian bear]

:p this campaign is going horrible for me. Im not a great fighter, but against horse archers i suck. First i thought cavalery would destroy those horse archers easily. But boy was i wrong. I got two of my best generals killed, in an epic stupid battle, where i forgot there were enemy reinforcements coming. Antioch beat me on Baalbek and i failed to take the rebel town just south of it xD. But luckily im finally starting to understand how to play against Egypt and things are going better. Using a half circle of infantry now with archers in the middle and some cav behind them to flank enemy's when they get near and kill enemy archers.

p.s. if someone has some hints on fighting the actual battles, please tell me lol :P Especially heavy cav , where should i use them for?