Deus nolt!

[PershsNhpios]

Are you a crusader?

When is your first crusade generally launched?

Is it historically about the time of the fourth crusade?

Even in XL I find it silly to contemplate crusading until at least 1140, since I am very fond of maintaining maximum stability and eliminating immediate neighbouring threats. I am very proto-germanic in my grand strategy (Making a desert and calling it peace and whatnot).

This is not to mention vanilla and Caravel, where I see it unlikely for me to launch a crusade until after 1150 with the less developed factions, and even then I don't like my chances. Although it is possible technically to be crusading before the turn of the century.

I do like crusades, but I have never used them to really benefit my burgeoning empire. The most useful crusades I have ever made are successful ones from Venice to Novgorod for example, or Wessex/Denmark/Aquitaine to Granada, in order to gain a foothold in a future conquest or a major trading center.

But as for throwing a few thousand men in the marker and sending them off to Palestine - the most I have ever done is seized the province and lost it four turns later to the usually massive Fatimid Khaliphate.

It just seems like suicide to spend those first few turns preparing to crusade towards certain destruction, no matter how wonderfully historical it is.

So when the Deus Volt message arrives, are you ready to crusade? Do you use the crusade as a valuable tool for the progress of conquest or more of a novelty to break the monotony of fighting Catholics?

[gollum]

All options you offer are viable for fun/adventure or for more strategic goals.

I generally love the Crusading GA goals in vanilla. Try them i vanilla (or in Caravel), especially those of the French that have to build a Citadel in Tripoli before 1204 as well as the usual Crusader goals (succesful crusade in palestine, antioch, edessa, tripoli).

Crusades in Iberia are far more viable and far more lucrative, especially in vanilla. The opponent (the Alhomads) is less rich, more politically gragile and Spain (at large) yields large incomes close at home.

I also love the Crusades in the eastern pagan steppe (prussia, lithuania, livonia, Novgorod etc). The HRE also gets Crusading goals for those - to recreate the Teutonic order and subdue the eastern Kingdoms/russ. The feeling of going into these heavily wooded areas with your teutonic knights in snow/rain is great (in Caravel with the more harsh weather its even more pronounced).

Also, at some point in the campaign - maybe high/late era, if there is an Islamic (or Orthodox for that matter) Empire that stretches to teh Balkans from the middle east/anatolia you are bound to do the usual Cursading visit to Constantinople as a catholic.

You can experiment with Crusades in gameplay terms. You can make it an ironman rule to use only the men the Crusade picks and see if you can make it with that. Or you can even put your king in and see what comes of it - can he carve a new kingdom in a far off land and can his old kingdom survive while he is so far away? :)

The early crusading GA goals force you to try to prioritise Crusades which of course can be very risky - not only because you are dedicating resources at the expense of your Kingdom's defence to an expedition that is quite risky, but also because if the Crusade does not succeed your King gets an influence hit that might precipitate a civil war or even if succesful put your finances at severe pressure. Say, you succeed, but now you have 1 province with a bunch of high maintenance units and you are surrounded by not-at-all amused Muslims/Orthodox/pagans.

Crusades against the Horde are also fun, once the Horde has settled.

On the other hand, strategically and carefully used Crusades can be very very usedul in order to get infulence and to generate a lot of units very quickly for a Catholic ruler. As said, teh Iberian and the eastern steppe can be Crusading goldmine for Spanish Cath. Kings and German Emperors.

Finally there is nothing better than having Papal permission to do a holy invasion of your sworne enemy Catholic Kingdom.

[gollum]

And a hint for early Crusades: a crusade can use the fleet of an allied nation to the nation the crusade belongs. Typically, make it your priority to ally with the Italians early, and then go towards genoa/venice. Once there, the Italian ships will transfer your Crusade accross the seas either in North Africa or in Greece/Anatolia or in some rarer cases in teh Holy Land itself.

The Sicilians can make use of the Crusades from early to carve a sizeable kingdom in the Holy Land for themselves.

[Togakure]

In the last game I played as England, some time ago, I established my favorite four-region front: Friesland, Lorraine, Burgundy, and Provence. The HRA occupied the regions bordering them to the east.

I noticed that the HRE's zeal in those regions was unusually high, and they were slowly but surely recovering from an earlier stomping. I was waging war elsewhere and just wanted to maintain a strong border in these four regions. So, I built a Chapter House in Friesland, started crusades there, and used them to thin out the regions bordering mine as they made their way south and east. This worked well, though admittedly it seemed a bit of a cheesy method.

Generally, I don't use crusades as much as I should, an exception being when I play as the Sicilians. Again, passing through the Papal, Italian, and Hungarian regions adds manpower to my crusader army while weakening those that border my lands.

[Durango]

Even in XL I find it silly to contemplate crusading until at least 1140, since I am very fond of maintaining maximum stability and eliminating immediate neighbouring threats. I am very proto-germanic in my grand strategy (Making a desert and calling it peace and whatnot).

The right time to start crusading? Anytime!

If God wants it to succeed, it will. If not, it won't. It's that simple. Strategy and tactics is fine, as well as
logistics. But the most important factor of all:

God wills it!

And a hint for early Crusades: a crusade can use the fleet of an allied nation to the nation the crusade belongs. Typically, make it your priority to ally with the Italians early, and then go towards genoa/venice. Once there, the Italian ships will transfer your Crusade accross the seas either in North Africa or in Greece/Anatolia or in some rarer cases in teh Holy Land itself.

The Sicilians can make use of the Crusades from early to carve a sizeable kingdom in the Holy Land for themselves.

Historically accurate, as well.

[huth]

In vanilla, while plaing England or France I usually launch crusade to Constantinople :) I know, it isn't noble to attack Christians, but I take exemple from Venetians(Fourth Crusade) :P
All the way to Byzantium throught catholic lands crusade rises, even gains two banners of troops. And after conquer - bam - 2000 to my income.

High period in BKB is made for holy wars, many new order's units and muslim hordes :P

[drone]

I've never really gotten into crusades. Probably because:

1. I'm not really that pious in real life. I generally don't use Inquisitors either, so I'm guessing it's just the way I am.
2. I usually don't play the big Catholic factions.
3. I get excommunicated on a regular basis.

[PershsNhpios]

I must thank Gollum for his characteristic and much appreciated analysis, and Togakure makes note of an interesting strategy, but I think I will follow Durango's advice and see where I end up .

Constantinople is the only other port I really ever capture using a crusade. I suppose this is a weakness for me and something I should look to improving upon. One reason I loved the idea of playing the Byzantines is because it gives me a chance to battle Mongols, Turks and Arabs, all three of which are very foreign to me. I am rather an expert frog-slapper (Sorry..) as the British say, and I am also most adept in Iberian campaigns.

Nonetheless the hardest part of crusading to the holy land for me is the long, demoralising march through Byzantine and often Turkish lands. Arabs fall very easily for me, but the foemen twixt Palestine and Lorraine are often mean the destruction of the crusade. I feel cheated if I just use the navy, and I also don't like loading too many professional troops into the venture.

To speak of XL for a moment - the hardest crusades I have had in those campaigns are Iberian or Italian originated marches moving against Kiev or Muscovy. Crusades to the steppe are far more difficult for me than those in the arid Anatolian and Antiocheian hills.

I have yet to see if this is the case in Vani- Caravel, since I have little experience in that campaign.

Have you been playing Caravel, drone? I usually remain excommunicated for the full length of the game in XL, but Caravel has made an altar-boy of me.

[drone]

Have you been playing Caravel, drone? I usually remain excommunicated for the full length of the game in XL, but Caravel has made an altar-boy of me.

Not yet, RL is keeping me from playing anything at the moment. In a few weeks I'll give it a try, things should be settled down and gollum should have a few more tweaks added in.

Judging from the mod's thread, I imagine it would be easier to stay in the good graces of the pope in Caravel. I wouldn't say I rush, but I tend to be fairly aggressive, and spend a vast majority of the time bearing the broken cross. Caravel would probably slow things down some. I would just have to resist the urge to refuse passage of others' crusades, which I usually do just on general principle!

[gollum]

Apriori apologies for being completely off topic, as it concerns the Caravel mod:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The mod plays slightly slower than vanilla because faith propagates slower and because the happiness bonuses are given more gradually.

In vanilla you can rush very very quickly because the watchtoewers line of buildings gives +50 happiness (when both build) with 300flrs and in 2 turns - that's very cheap and easy cowering of new provinces

In the mod, only the border forts give +20 happiness and in 3 turns (watchtowers=1t, borderfort=2ts). The other extra +30 is given by buildings that come from keep level (basically teh church/mosque), hence you need to be a bit more careful and also will make a bit less tax money from newly conquered territories.

Also, the faith propagation being slower it takes more time to subdue different religion territories because of that, hence happiness is affected and there is reason for be careful for loyalist revolts.

The mod plays slower for the AI, especially if you put it @180 loyalty with -ian (as reccomended). If you want teh AI taking more initiatives and pester you more and take opportunities, you can drop that to loyalty:150 i'd say. if you do not use the loyalty feature at all, the AI may be hurt by the slower happiness bonuses, especially since many factions are set to expansionist that makes them aggressive and prone to burning out by overstretching and revolts that ensue. But who knows, it may play ok in that too - just i've never tried it.

Having said that, i like the occasional rushing campaign, and i tried to rush in Caravel and it does work without a doubt. Just the opponents are a bit more ready especially ones that are not immediately next to the player and i was able to make less quick cash flow - those were the main differences.

The mod is at this stage finished and there is no further plan to update it for 2011.

What i will/would update next, would be the rebel garrisons. Some of them are a bit too big and some would make for better gameplay between factions if they were considerably less strong without hurting the mod concept and intended gameplay. This should/would help people who like different unit settings to play the mod better, and also improve teh AI performance of some factions without upsetting the intended difficulty.

The fixes i would have done would be to:
-Make Navarre completely empty- it stands historically as teh Navarrese dynasty was merged with the Aragonese and Castilan one at the time the early era starts and so there is no reason to have a strong Kingdom there.

This would impact gameplay positively as it would increase teh chances of competition between Aragon/Castile/England/France and also, in case the Ibearians are the first to get it, it would aid them to power status sooner than they now do in the mod.

-Make the Prussia, Volhynia rebel stacks smaller. This is relatively historically accurate, and it would also help the Polish AI to develop a bit better than it currently does.

-take out a few units from the rebels in Lithuania/Livonia. As they are now they are overflowing and even attack the Poles and teh Russ occasionaly which is ok, but not as much as they are now.

An additional thing i would try to do would be to fix the strong shot/slowreload missile units in terms of battlefield role, if there is a way.

Other than these things, which won't be done for a while, the mod is done.

[Cyprian2]

I enjoy this topic very much, Glenn! In my own experience, crusades are the spice of the game. They lend colour and (if you're the historical type, like me) give you something to strive for. For example, if I'm playing as one of the Frankish nations (France, England, HRE, Sicily), I usually launch a crusade to Palestine before 1099, which is a challenge, to say the least, when you're still struggling to get your economy off the ground. (Of course, it's not always feasible.) One thing I can't stand, though, is to see a game reach 1205 (or 1230, or 1300, for that matter) with no crusades launched. If I am playing the Germans or Danes, I go East to establish the Baltic Orders. (It's always fun to send your crusades overland to see what random troops they gather to the cause.) Finally, it's never too soon to crusade as the Spanish, though it takes some self-restraint, I think, not to end up in Tunisia by 1090!

[Tristrem]

I've always enjoyed crusading as the french to reclaim the holy land or, as the germans to spread the jesus to the east. Howver, I could never really see it historically happening for any other factions.