Excommunication/Crusades

[PrestigeX]

Maybe I don't know what i'm doing in the game,
but i find being excommunicated and or going on crusades is pointless.

1st of all, Crusading armies do get cheap recruitment and better land-travel, but even when I take Antioch or Jerusalem or any of the other settlements near by, it always results in a Civil Revolt. OR it takes so long for the army to get there that the army loses its hope and disbands..Also crusading sergeants/knights cant easily be re-trained so it doesn't matter about their experience (where as some of my other units i keep almost the whole game and make it up to Silver and Gold ranks)

2nd.. f---k excommunication, i'd rather take out my enemies before they get too strong, and take more provinces so i can get more money. Even when I do get excommunicated, it doesn't seem to make any difference compared to not being... I still get attacked by all my neighbours regardless of my standing with the pope. I played on Hard has HRE and consistantly was getting excommunicated but i know if i hadn't I would have let Milan/France get too strong.

I want to play as Egypt or turkey, are their Jihads better?

[irishron2004]

Excommunicate me, I dig out the cheat book and next stop Rome.

[Jedi Bruno]

All you got to do put a diplomat a Rome and donate 50 florins for 20 turns and every turn you give the your map information as a gift. Voilá! You can slaughter everyone and the pope will not even care...

Or if the Pope is really annoying you, attack Rome, butcher everyone there, kill that old boring man, wait for elections and give rome to the next pope, he will just love you..

[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.

[Grombeard]

If -as a european faction- you conquer a city in the holy lands, it's better to always exterminate the people there, to keep them quiet long enough for you to build up churches and pump out priests who convert the holy lands to catholicism. When the religious unrest is gone you should be able to hold that city with an average garrison without haveing to worry about revolts. Sure, there's the distance to capitel thing too, but in my experience it's mostly the religion that causes trouble.

[ReiseReise]

Don't forget about the chivalry bonus for crusades. Send 3 or for 4 young generals on a crusade and you will have some instant high-chivalry governers. Bring them back home and put them in your biggest cities and you will have massive population growth and happiness even with maximum taxes. Or put one of them in a castle and it will be at Fortress size in no time.

I don't mind not being able to retrain the crusade mercenaries. I hire as many of them as possible and then use a couple of the spears to defend the target if it is likely to be attacked (2 crusader sergeants and 4 militias can defeat almost any attacker, add in a dismounted knight and a couple archers and it will be an absolute slaughter.) The rest of the spears and knights are used to annihilate the militia armies of the surrounding area, most of them will die but who cares, it is the price you pay for territory. Fanatics are sent on suicide mission to smash into enemy lines before my good troops engage, or through the gates in sieges. Pilgrims are used to push rams. In 10 turns you will be able to go on another crusade anyway, pick one that is near the target of the first crusade, you are already in the area and can replenish your mercs to do it all over again.

The only benefit of jihads is that if you choose to do one it is a done deal, there is no pope to deny your request.

I highly recommend you check out pizzaguy's threads to see what crusading can do. Long campaign in 8 turns. EIGHT turns. Every region of the map conquered in 28 turns. SirRethCir did it first in 9 turns and they are both trying to do it faster. (Edit: I was mistaken, I thought ATPG had already done it in 8) Before people started exploiting crusades to the maximum like this I think the record was about 16 turns, so the crusades do make a huge difference.