Few questions about crusades

[revar]

I always ignored crusades or did them but just for fun and always with 1 army only. I think i wasn't making use of the full potential and benefits crusades have and i wasn't paying much attention to how it works.

1. People say it's good to join crusade with all your generals, and 1 turn is enough, you don't have to do anything to get some chivalry+traits or whatever. My question is, when is the right moment to join? Cus if the crusade won't end in next turns, you will have all your generals busy and you will have to move them towards far east leaving you without any free generals for god knows how many turns. If it's too late it won't let you join. So what's the best way to do it? Also what's the limit til it won't let you join?

2. Do you get anything if the crusade fails/pope dies? Or it just fails and you lost time for nothing? Also anyone knows what's the time limit until the crusade fails?

3. Any way to stop/leave the army or crusade with your general without desertion and maybe join crusade again a few turns later? Or splitting them cus i believe they will desert next turn if you split them even if you leave the crusade first. In general if you could explain what can you do and what you can't to avoid desertion except going to the opposite direction ofc

4. Will my army desert if i reach the target but i won't immediately besiege? I think if you are close enough (maybe in the target region) you can stay there for how long you want but i'm not sure. Also if i lose a battle and most of my units and decide to go back home, how to avoid desertion?

In my current game, we have a crusade on Baghdad which belongs to Mongols and they still have few full army stacks there. That crusade started some time ago cus already several factions failed to take the city. I sent only 1 army because i didn't want to have more generals out of the game for the duration of crusade. Now it's too late to join for them. Kinda sucks but idk what i could have done differently?

[Duck of Death]

1. The time limit to join a crusade is 10 turns after it is called. The best time to join, if you intend to take the designated city yourself, is immediately. Also, its kind of dishonest, but if you know your army is going to take the city in the following turn, you can have any general on the map (with 8 total units available to him) join for 1 turn and reap some benefits.

2. You don't get any rewards if the Pope dies (or calls off the crusade for any reason). Your generals might get the crusader trait just for joining, but im not sure on that one. It seems to be about 20 turns after it was called that the Pope will threaten to cancel it if he doesn't feel progress is being made.

3. If you separate your general from any part of his army once he/they have already joined a crusade, they will desert. Or, like you said, if he isn't moving them steadily toward the crusade location they will desert. There's no way to back out once you commit without losing your army.

4. I think if you've moved within striking distance of your target, they wont desert, at least not immediately. If you lose a battle and don't have enough units to keep fighting, and head your general back home, those units remaining will desert.

This is all to portray in-game what a major thing it was to join a crusade. The soldiers would see it as betraying God (which many feared more then hardship or death) if they turned back without giving it their all.

[revar]

Hmm so it looks like it isn't always that great, especially if it's very far and you don't want the city or don't have a high chance of winning it.
And the trick with boosting all your generals will be worth only if you can get there and take the city in 10 turns.
So, joining with just one army in the last moment (after receiving the mission from pope) is still the best thing to do i guess, unless you can do it fast and easy.
Thanks for clarifying things.

[Duck of Death]

To clarify...
You don't have to TAKE the target city in 10 turns, you just have to join within 10 turns.
Also, its usually not a big penalty if you don't join at all... you might lose 1 or 2 crosses from the Pope's approval (just make sure you are not already critically low, or be prepared to gift the Pope 10k or so to offset it).

Crusades can be a useful tool though for you to use
Say Egypt is strong in its homeland (Cairo/Alexandria areas) and you are pushing east across Africa...
You convincing the Pope to call a crusade on one of their stronger cities will force them to send more armies to defend... making it easier for you to move in behind them.
Also, you can get crusades call on Christian adversaries simply so that every other Christian nation goes to war with them (hurting them economically/trade-wise)

I pulled that off beautifully as England once.
I was ready to invade France, but I had been allies with them and HRE for awhile. I break my alliance, Ill get penalized in other relations, + risk the Germans choosing to side with France over me.
So I waited... eventually, the French King ticked off the Pope enough to be excommunicated.
I immediately had my ambassador to the HRE gift enough coin to the Emperor to make our relationship perfect.
Then I had my ambassador to Rome throw some cash at the Pope to get him to call a crusade of a French city... and BAM... worked like a charm.
Germany (as well as most other Christian kingdoms) broke diplomatic ties with France.
I joined the crusade (no diplomatic penalties and kept Germany as an ally)... I quickly grabbed Caen and Rennes, and the very next turn France reconciled with the Pope.

Sneaky religious trickery (which happened all the time back then) and my King came out looking like a hero of Christendom wahahahaha