how to crusade...

[wukie2001]

been enjoying MTW since i got it, learning how to/playing but theres somethings i havent figured out. how do u make/start a crusade. what u need to be able to make 1? slowly but surely im learning more and more about the game which makes it more interesting (hope i dont get bored of it). learned how to trade/transport, which was easy just didnt know how till i got some help , so know i ask about crusade, how to make a crusade, requirement or such...

thx....

ah and before i forget, is there a manual/link to military/buildings tree...haveing trouble figuring out what goes were, i figured it was gonna b like AOE that has an icon u can click for units/building tree, is there such thing in MTW?


thx again....

[I of the Storm]

To make a crusade you must build a chapter house, which you can build after you've built a church, available at keep level. Then you can 'recruit' a crusade marker which will appear on the campaign map in the province you built it in. Now zoom out and have some spare troops at hand. Take up the marker and drop it in the target province (highlighted red I think). Some dialogue will appear asking you to pay money to the pope. Then the marker will have become an army with a cross sign. You can now stuff troops into it (no limit) and move it towards the target province. It can normally pass other christian territory peacefully and gather troops on the way (while losing some other troops to desertion). Simply keep on going.

[Axalon]

ah and before i forget, is there a manual/link to military/buildings tree...haveing trouble figuring out what goes were, i figured it was gonna b like AOE that has an icon u can click for units/building tree, is there such thing in MTW?

thx again....

Well in short, no such luck wukie2001... It really is a great feature in that game and one that MTW have sadly missed out on. In the original retail edition there was a paper-chart included with all that stuff. As for newer editions MTW like Gold- and Era-editions I suspect that it is only available in PDF-format somewhere...

Perhaps someone else could fill in the blanks on that?



Oh, welcome to the Org and the MTW-section by the way...

[wukie2001]

To make a crusade you must build a chapter house, which you can build after you've built a church, available at keep level. Then you can 'recruit' a crusade marker which will appear on the campaign map in the province you built it in. Now zoom out and have some spare troops at hand. Take up the marker and drop it in the target province (highlighted red I think). Some dialogue will appear asking you to pay money to the pope. Then the marker will have become an army with a cross sign. You can now stuff troops into it (no limit) and move it towards the target province. It can normally pass other christian territory peacefully and gather troops on the way (while losing some other troops to desertion). Simply keep on going.

Well in short, no such luck wukie2001... It really is a great feature in that game and one that MTW have sadly missed out on. In the original retail edition there was a paper-chart included with all that stuff. As for newer editions MTW like Gold- and Era-editions I suspect that it is only available in PDF-format somewhere...

Perhaps someone else could fill in the blanks on that?



Oh, welcome to the Org and the MTW-section by the way...

thx for the info guys, guess ill take a few more gmes playing to learn them by heart huh...seems like the games has been pretty fun/intertaining so far, just been wanting to b able to know how to use every feature there is...

thx again, hopefully i wont b back here again, if not then c ya soon....

[wukie2001]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

To make a crusade you must build a chapter house, which you can build after you've built a church, available at keep level

. Then you can 'recruit' a crusade marker which will appear on the campaign map in the province you built it in. Now zoom out and have some spare troops at hand. Take up the marker and drop it in the target province (highlighted red I think). Some dialogue will appear asking you to pay money to the pope. Then the marker will have become an army with a cross sign. You can now stuff troops into it (no limit) and move it towards the target province. It can normally pass other christian territory peacefully and gather troops on the way (while losing some other troops to desertion). Simply keep on going.

i didnt find that chapter house at keep lvl, gonna upgrade to the next castle and hope its there, hope i dont have to upgrade anything else other then that too, if not new game lol....

[I of the Storm]

In vanilla MTW there are some factions that cannot crusade IIRC. I think Poland and Denmark are excluded. Maybe Sicily or Aragon too but I'm not sure. Might be that you picked one of them.

Edit: for the Chapter House, you need the Keep (second level fortification) and the Church. That should unlock CH.

[wukie2001]

In vanilla MTW there are some factions that cannot crusade IIRC. I think Poland and Denmark are excluded. Maybe Sicily or Aragon too but I'm not sure. Might be that you picked one of them.

Edit: for the Chapter House, you need the Keep (second level fortification) and the Church. That should unlock CH.

yeah i liked the danes(denmark) oh well, so what does 'vanilla' mean anyways...

[caravel]

Vanilla is the standard, unmodified game.

The Danes, Poles and Hungarians cannot crusade.

[drone]

Vanilla is the standard, unmodified game.

The Danes, Poles and Hungarians cannot crusade.

And the Swiss, Burgundians, and Papacy also cannot build a Chapter House.

The Viking Invasion disk has a PDF of the Viking campaign tech tree, but the main campaign just had a big paper layout. There are some fan-generated tech trees in the download section here at the Org.

[shameless plug]For quick lookups, you can follow the link in my sig to the Org's MTW wiki. The building and unit sections will have building/faction/era requirements for everything.[/shameless plug]

[caravel]

And the Swiss, Burgundians, and Papacy also cannot build a Chapter House.

The who...?

I always forget about that lot.

[Brandy Blue]

A couple of crusading no nos to watch out for, Wukie.

Don't let your leader get excommunicated. Excommunicated leaders cannot launch crusades. The ways you get excommunicated are 1: attacking the Papacy (surprise) and 2: attacking a non-excommunicated Catholic faction that is too little (I forget how little. Help, anyone?) In case #2, the Pope will give you a warning and two years to back off.

Don't let anyone take over your province which has the chapter house. Any crusade markers or active crusade you have will be lost.

By the way, you do not have to aim your crusade to a province that is highlighted red. Any Muslim, Orthodox, or excommunicated Catholic faction is a legitimate target. (Rebels excluded.)

[bamff]

A couple of crusading no nos to watch out for, Wukie.

Don't let anyone take over your province which has the chapter house. Any crusade markers or active crusade you have will be lost.

And the loss of a crusade will have a resulting drop in your ruler's influence, which can trigger rebellions, so watch out indeed!

[Brandy Blue]

By the way, Wukie, did you check out Frogbeasteggs' beginner's guide and total war unit guide? You can find them among the stickies at https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=47

The beginner's guide will tell you all about crusades and lots of other things. The beginners' guide and unit guide are easily the most useful threads for a newbie on the whole site, IMO.

[Jxrc]

Do not forget never to stack several crusade markers in a single province even if it is safe from any invasion. There is always the chance that the chapter house can be destroyed by some natural disaster.

Learnt that the hard way. Playing as the Sicilian (IIRC) and I had something like four or five crusade markers ready to launch. Chapter house got destroyed by a natural disaster. Then each turn one of my crusade marker disappeared and was counted as a failed crusade.... After three failed crusade in three turns you can imagine that I had lost almost all my provinces through rebellion.

[caravel]

When I have a pretty large empire and the whole thing is getting predictable, to the point where I'm ready to start again, I often take a look at my inbred loon of a king and his line of pathetic heirs and then take a look at some of my top generals and think: "it's time for a change". This is known as orchestrating a civil war:

1) Build several (2 - 3 should be enough in fact) crusade/jihad markers in one province.

2) Find all of the very loyal and worthless units and dump them in the expendable provinces or place them in separate stacks facing larger stacks, where their revolt would be disastrous.

3) Find the best high loyalty generals and start trying them for treason with 0 valour spies. This is not guaranteed to work and in the worst case one of you spies might pull off his mission.

4) Demolish chapter house and hold on tight (don't forget to back the rebels - no matter what!).

[nzd07]

Do not forget never to stack several crusade markers in a single province even if it is safe from any invasion. There is always the chance that the chapter house can be destroyed by some natural disaster.

Learnt that the hard way. Playing as the Sicilian (IIRC) and I had something like four or five crusade markers ready to launch. Chapter house got destroyed by a natural disaster. Then each turn one of my crusade marker disappeared and was counted as a failed crusade.... After three failed crusade in three turns you can imagine that I had lost almost all my provinces through rebellion.

Really? so even if they havent been launched and chapter house it destroyed it counts as a failed one? jeez thanks for the tip

[Fagar]

I personally don't mind that penalties for failed crusades are harsh and that losing the province containing a chapter house is devastating.
Crusades are so easily exploited in MTW that it is good there is a big downside.
My own house rule now is that I only build one at a time and will not build another one until the completion of a previous crusade.
So there is at least 4 years between crusades on my behalf.

[wukie2001]

how do u pass thru ally/nuetral provinces when going on a crusade? do u send an emmesary/bishop first or what, cuase its a pain having to go thru all the provinces and by the time u get to your target, if u make it there, u are all weak...

i know its the same religion provinces that can let u thru but how, or is it the AI's option, if so, does the AI's deny u to pass thru all the time cuase thats whats been happening to me, i can never go thru peacefully even with allies of the same religion


thx....

[I of the Storm]

Just keep moving. The crusade will show you, which way to take anyway. Christians will normally let you pass, while you will have to fight any muslims, not only the target faction. So, creating a ship link is normally a good idea.

[Fagar]

i can never go thru peacefully even with allies of the same religion


thx....

I am not sure what is happening here Wukie.
Normally all the Christian factions will let you through.
I normally get let through even when I am at war with the Christians I am passing through.

Then again I usually drop a full stack army into a crusade before I set off so I have good numbers from the get go.
Are your crusades quite small in numbers? Maybe the AI figures it has you covered so won't let you pass.

[wukie2001]

well usually i have around 2-3k soldiers in the crusade, i figure that should b enough or is it? mayb i should wait till i can create more and double the amount or more, i mean i tend to go on a crusade real early in the game, should i wait or no?

[Fagar]

No that should be plenty of men, you don't want it bigger than that because eventually you will have to feed them all.
It is a puzzle for me, just the other day I was playing as the French crusading into Almohad territory but also at war with both the Spanish and the Argonese and both factions allowed my crusade to pass.
(Which was great because it stripped their men to the bone ready for me to attack ).

Are you playing a mod? and what type that is the only thing I can think of.

[Brandy Blue]

I don't crusade much, but I wonder if excommunication status could affect how willing Catholics are to let your crusade through. I could see that working one of two ways.

1: An excommunicated ruler might not be counted as "non-Catholic" for this purpose and not let your crusade through.

2: If a ruler sends a crusade and then gets excommunicated, perhaps good Catholic rulers will view his crusade as a bogus crusade commanded by heretics, and oppose it.

Does anyone know if crusading works that way?

[oz_wwjd]

Sometimes it's hard to find the best moment to launch a crusade as well,with some of the harder campaigns. When I tried to crusade with the HRE,90% of the time I was busy expelling the newest french/danish invasion of my provinces,or dealing with a civil war,it seems that everyone wants a slice of the Hre....

[Fagar]

IMO the HRE are the hardest faction to play, so much territory and so many borders to protect, incursions from all sides and a rebellious population!
Actually makes me want to play them now!

Brandy Blue Re: how to crusade...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't crusade much, but I wonder if excommunication status could affect how willing Catholics are to let your crusade through. I could see that working one of two ways.

1: An excommunicated ruler might not be counted as "non-Catholic" for this purpose and not let your crusade through.

2: If a ruler sends a crusade and then gets excommunicated, perhaps good Catholic rulers will view his crusade as a bogus crusade commanded by heretics, and oppose it.


I am not sure either Brandy.
I can't remember the last time I was excommunicated while crusading I normally wait until I have finished the crusade and then affront the pope.
it certainly makes sense though.

[wukie2001]

how about loosing people as time pases by...i start pumping trops in the crusade marker and then launch it but as time goes by and some troops start leaving. why is this or is it just me? is there a way to prevent that or should i just creat them before i put them in and then lunch the crusade?

[Noir]

This is normal - its a game mechanic that simulates the fact that crusades that took too long to reach their destinations or passed from areas of low catholic zeal faced desertion.

The best thing to do is to prepare armies of your own and insert them manually in the Crusade. These armies do not desert as fast as armies that the crusade picks up. They stay in for ages and you get the benefit of not paying upkeep for them.

Noir

[caravel]

This is to represent the thieving knaves deserting to shack up with the local women a game mechanic as Noir said. I think it's quite a good one.

[drone]

how about loosing people as time pases by...i start pumping trops in the crusade marker and then launch it but as time goes by and some troops start leaving. why is this or is it just me? is there a way to prevent that or should i just creat them before i put them in and then lunch the crusade?

You will probably want to keep your extra troops out of the crusade until you are ready to launch it at it's target. While you will have to pay their upkeep, it will keep the desertions down. If the province the crusade marker is sitting in has low zeal, desertions will be pretty bad, so get an inquisitor into the province beforehand to get the populace frenzied up.

[Fagar]

I normally like to put an inquisitor or 2 or 3 really into the provinces ahead of what will be my likely crusade path to pump up the zeal before I even get there.
An extra 4-5% zeal really can make a huge difference.
This is even more important in the middle high to late periods were generally zeal is dropping through europe.

This also has the added benefit of giving you the information as to which provinces that you will have a choice of travelling through have the best zeal, the highest standing armies and the best upgrades to get the most numbers and best troop types for your crusade.