Starting a Crusades campagain

[DorosTheConqueror]

Which faction should I pick? So far, I've played a bit of the British campaign with Wales, and the American campaign with the Apaches. Those were no brainers- Britain was clearly either Engand or Wales, and it's a given that you'll play as the Apache in America. But I don't have the faintest idea who I should play as in the Crusades.

The only faction I'm not considering is Turkey- I had enough of them in vanilla, and need a change. My gut instinct would be to go with Jerusalem, since they're the "key" crusader state and get lots an' lots of Templars, but I already played as the Templars in Stainless Steel. Antioch I've always had a soft spot for, I really like the look of their Canons and Hospitaller units, AND they get The Krak, but I can't shake the feeling that they're just the poor man's answer to Jerusalem. Byzantium? FIRE! I love their flamethrower troops in custom battles, but something tells me that playing as Byzantium would mean missing out on a lot of the action and special events- what's the point of playing a Crusader campaign if you're not actually going to fight in the Crusades? I suppose I might get to deal with some Constantinople-sacking, but I'd much rather be there in the middle of the Holy Land. And Egypt? Egypt has Saladin, enough said. But who wants to be Egypt? Nobody, that's who.

So which one should I pick? Also, which factions get which heroes? I'd imagine Jerusalem gets Richard the Lionheart, which would probably cinch the deal for Jerusalem, but what about everyone else?

[tehhaxxor23]

hmm you'll find Jerusalem pretty easy thanks to the mighty Antiochian buffer (they were larger than me after all when I finished), and they won't ever betray you.

so you'll most likely only encounter egypt and some turkish armies thanks to the Jihads. me, I killed off Saladin ~20 turns in because he was marching headed to jerusalem with 900 men, I had like 2000 with a general near him, so I took him out in realtime was pretty awesome/intense, but easy as I said.

you'll get much joy from antioch as you said they got awesome units and a very hot position to begin with. just don't consider them "poor mans jerusalem", they're just allies, and Jerusalem a city nothing more after all (at least in the game). besides if they piss you off take jerusalem and bang :p templar vs hospitaller hmm sweet.

if you are not too sure about crusades campaign yet then I suggest teutonic as teutonic order. quite a challenge because of the neighbors all around and agressive. i could finally manage to destroy lithaunia now after say 30 turns but novgorod is soon gonna attack me, as well as poland and denmark. i'm allied with HRE and mongols and always favored the HRE so far so that's gonna work out cool i guess.

[finneys13]

Before you start, I have just made the Crusade campaign for the Character Names Project, would like to hear it's working okay.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=119349