Excommunication/Crusades

[Askthepizzaguy]

It's a not atypical reaction to crusades. All that effort and distance to hold on to a province which isnt even the same religion, and with distance and religious penalties, it's pointless to try to hold it, right?

As for excommunication, when your empire is small and mostly castles, excommunications dont matter.

However.

Much like spies and diplomats and assassins and princesses and merchants, these things may not appear to have much value or effect on the game.

Here's the deal on crusades:

You can use them to build MASSIVE multiple stack armies. Send off everyone you can on a crusade and take entire empires by force! Send also a stream of priests to do mass conversions.

Double or triple the size of your empire in 10-15 turns.

So these things do have a point.

And excommunication greatly affects your cities, especially with distance from your capital. Excommunication really impacts far-flung empires. Mass revolts and so forth can demolish your economy and leave you with far less territory, as well as rebel cities with huge powerful garrisons to retake.

If you've conquered say.... 6 or more empires, the glory bonuses will offset much of that, but still... better public order from being part of the community rather than excommunicated means you can get higher public order and taxes in your massive empire. Perfect for fighting the Mongols.

Merchants, for example. Earn maybe 20-60 florins per turn near your empire. WHO CARES???

A rank 3-4 merchant an empire away sitting on silk or gold or sugar... that can bank you 400 florins per turn or more. Several merchants are worth more than a city or two. Why not add that kind of income to your empire, if you're planning to turtle?

Diplomacy can net you 7000-15000 florins per empire, if you play your cards right. And that kind of income can grant you the power to recruit 2 or 3 stacks of troops. A little bit of a difference maker.

Spies and Assassins can make a difference to economic-based turtles. Instead of fielding large armies, you can knock off city after city by demolishing public order buildings and killing good governors, while using spies to cause revolts.

You can knock off their last few family members with your veteran spies if you are careful. At the very least you can severely weaken your enemies and conquer them much more easily. And avoid excommunication at the same time.

Princesses can engage in diplomacy, raise their charms, and marry your enemy's top unwed general... thereby weakening thier family and strengthening yours. Princesses are just like diplomats but they can cement alliances with the AI, making it less likely to be betrayed by them.

They can steal generals of course, and with a few mercenaries, the general can lay waste to their former army escort and turn the balance of power in your favor.

By marrying a general on crusade, the crusading army loses their commander and the army DISBANDS.

There are many, many subtleties to the game which can be exploited if you learn how to use them.

Personally, I just raise as many troops and generals as possible and then I conquer EVERYTHING as fast as possible. But to each his own!

I'm the last person you'd think would advocate the proper usage of agents, crusades, and avoiding excommunication, but I know about alternative strategies.

For more info on avoiding troop loss to desertion, there are many other threads involving crusades. But here's a tip>

Move as fast in a "line of flight" direction towards the target as possible. Use ships if helpful, and then move on land and hire another boat and continue the journey. Do not dally unless you plan on taking a city and leaving a sizeable garrison on your way to the target.

See my Link in my sig for an example of what INSANE crusading can do.