worth crusading??

[Jxrc]

Roleplaying set aside, IMHO it is only worth a try depending on what faction you play as.

Getting the holy land can eb quite easy if you play as:

- the Italians or Sicilians: build ships, one crusade, subtantial troops to add and move straight to the Holy land; or,
- the Spanish: beat the Almohad and keep going until you reach Edessa.

Its doable if you play as the French or English. Just get rid of the English or French asap, consolidate, build build ships, one crusade, subtantial troops to add and move straight to the Holy land.

If you play as the HRE, you will most probably be fighting all the catholic factions around you very soon so it is doubtful that you can safely get going before a while. You could send a crusade on foot but usually the best you can expect if you are lucky is to take the province and keep it for a few turns before being ousted (loosing to many men crossing the orthodox provinces, fighting the turks, etc). On top of that you cannot really afford to fail given the unstable nature of your empire ... Since any faction that has a border with you will pretty much start a war immediately you'll probably be quite too busy for that kind of adventure (good news is that you got quite a few GA points to be grabbed closer to home - HRE and Drang nach Ost - to compensate). It is not at all impossible to get to the holy land before 1205 but it requires quite a drive since it basically requires that (1) you get rid of at least the French, Polish, Italian and Hungarian and (2) build a sea lane asap and (3) avoid war with any faction (sicilians, spanish) that could just cut it with one silly ship. Finally, it is worth noting that most of the time if you play as the HRE, the only faction that will remain neutral towards you is the Egyptian and that getting rid of your only trading partner can do a damage tyo you finance that is not compensated by the acquisition of an additional six provinces. Indeed even if Antioch and Tripoli are cash cows you are better off keeping you trade going since the additional cash flow from agriculture (2,000 floring give or take a few ?) will be now way near the loss in your trade income (if you took of the French, Polish, Italian and Hungarian that would mean the trade income of something like Flanders, Friesland, Saxony, Prussia, Pomerania, Brittany, Toulouse, Venice, Genoa and Tuscany)

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Once the crusading army conquers the holy land, I role-play it to be a separate kingdom. Preferably a royal family member joins the crusade and becomes the new king of the province. If he dies, another prince or somebody with a share of royal blood is sent. They tend to be not expansionist. Even if they are forced to conquer the surroundings, they scorch the earth and retreat.
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