scotland crusades

[HunterKiller]

it is kind weird but i play with Scotland and when i join a crusade, it seems i am too far from middle east, so i grab a ship and try to reach the settlement but in the way to it i lost about half of my men, it takes 12 turns or even more to reach the site, i was just asking of what u guyz do in this situation?!

[LlamaD]

-join the crusade as late as possible ( best when the city is already surrounded by crusade armies) => next turn crusade finished => good traits for me, too.
-don't go on crusades on the other end of the world
-when using ship, only with generals (greater movement range), never with siege equipment onboard - slowest possible!

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Distance is not an issue. But you have to travel in a straight line directly heading toward your goal. I guess you wanted to sail around the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Since this means a detour your man will desert because they think that their leader has lost his will to crusade. Strangely this means that they will jump overboard in the middle of the ocean and swim the rest to the holy land. Arhhg those true believers

[Maxattack76]

Put your troops on the ships, drop them off in France, then swing the ships around the Iberian so that when your troops make it across France they'll be waiting and they'll be always going straight to Jerusalem.

Obviously, it's best to be friends with France first, or enemies, not in between were a army from you would change anything. And make sure they make small steps, so that you don't reach the other side before the ships get there. If you do, and then wait, you'll be losing troops like you were before.

[Nick_Since_1985]

Put your troops on the ships, drop them off in France, then swing the ships around the Iberian so that when your troops make it across France they'll be waiting and they'll be always going straight to Jerusalem.

Obviously, it's best to be friends with France first, or enemies, not in between were a army from you would change anything. And make sure they make small steps, so that you don't reach the other side before the ships get there. If you do, and then wait, you'll be losing troops like you were before.

Good point

[HunterKiller]

tanks to all u ppl, in the next crusade i'll try

[Georgy Zhukov]

it is kind weird but i play with Scotland and when i join a crusade, it seems i am too far from middle east, so i grab a ship and try to reach the settlement but in the way to it i lost about half of my men, it takes 12 turns or even more to reach the site, i was just asking of what u guyz do in this situation?!

I wouldnt even try, much too difficult by the timeyou make it half way across france you wouldnt even have the makings of an army.

[Dark Highlander]

I've done it several times, and never found it hard. (I've even done it from the top of France all the way on land.)

The best tactic I've found is just to head straight for Italy (crossing the channel with one of your fleets if you need to) and buy some ships in Italy. (It only takes at most 2 turns to get through France, and 3 or 4 to reach Italy.)

For memory there's always 1 or 2 ships going cheap becuase of the crusade, and if you can't afford any more, just make regular landfalls with your general on the way and pick up more cheap ships from other provinces.

[HunterKiller]

I've done it several times, and never found it hard. (I've even done it from the top of France all the way on land.)

The best tactic I've found is just to head straight for Italy (crossing the channel with one of your fleets if you need to) and buy some ships in Italy. (It only takes at most 2 turns to get through France, and 3 or 4 to reach Italy.)

For memory there's always 1 or 2 ships going cheap becuase of the crusade, and if you can't afford any more, just make regular landfalls with your general on the way and pick up more cheap ships from other provinces.

thats nice, i liked that, i think i will ask the pope for a new one, but dude, last time the crusade was for Jerusalem and i didn't reach it as i told before but the holy roman empire did and they captured it from the Egyptians, there were 9 Imams getting out of the town after occupying, and 5 turns latter one of them called a jihad and the egyptians went to jerusalem with huge massive armies and kicked HRE's ass. dude what will happen to me i am scotland, the HRE is tougher than me and even that they were destroyed in the holy lands. egypt is the strongest function in my campaign, and in every thing, money, army, lands, every thing. need advice thought

[Laconian]

When I play as a Brittanic or northern Kingdom and I go on a crusade I only have one tactic. I either hire or recruit a strong fleet to make sure I don't get sunk by pirates or enemies and load my army into it. I go down the French and Iberian coast and through the straits of Gibraltar. Near Gibraltar, I disembark my army and recruit mercanaries before setting off again. I go through the straits of Messenia (which is between Italy and Sicily) before sailing pasted Crete and onto where ever my destination is. Usually I loose several units to desertioin by hey, I can make up the lost numbers by hiring more mercanaries in the Holy Land.

[Dark Highlander]

Jerusalem is a tough one, and I have never found it very practical, more like a rite of passage. I have asked the Pope for a Crusade against the Moors though (as the Scots), and found that useful - maybe you might try that for now. It's handy if you've taken or plan to take France, Spain and Portugal.

The approach to Jerusalem is basically to tool up big time. If you take the sea route from Italy you should beat the HRE I think, and usually the computer mucks about qiute a bit, but you can be unlucky sometimes. I take 3 or more armies, but separated a bit (I took 3 armies 3 different ways the first time to milk the merc pools, it was slow but I got lucky and it worked okay) then attack Jerusalem with the lead army, and send the others to take other big settlements in the area. (So long as you take Jerusalem and end the Crusade within a turn or maybe 2 of the others getting distracted, you shouldn't have any/many desertions.) Targeting big castles is great, they're easier to defend, will mean you can recruit really useful units over there, while taking some of that ability away from the Egyptians. If you get a real foothold, and hit them harder to start with, you should stick okay.

Definitely take Priests to help convert your regions. Assassins might be handy - if there are very few high level Imams - you might just be able to knock them off and prevent them from Jihading? Merchants can make quite a bit of money over there too. And Spies are great for speeding it all up by opening settlement gates for your armies. All these guys can be attached to your armies (for a price in speed), or better still be waiting in Italy for your Crusaders to turn up and hail the cab.

But the way it sounds with you, maybe you should strengthen yourself a bit more first. Perhaps use Llama's trick and fake a Crusade for the experience bonus and cred. Or go for the mini one to Moorish Marrakesh (should be nice this time of year, sighs). But if you need Jerusalem for the campaign targets then the cheats way is to do it last, and then you don't have to hold onto it!

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Rep me if you find War_Mongor101's post helpful.

[gambit]

Usually I just put all my troops on the ships and go as far along the iberian penninsula as I can before the mission to join the crusade is on it's last turn, then I'm usually far enough past all the Portugese and Spanish ships that block my path when I'm trying to cruise by and I can join the crusade without repercussion. All the ideas about sending your armies through france are good though.

[Anyprkl]

The trick is to get all nice with the Pope, and then call a crusade in a nearby excommunicated state(there tends to be a lot of them at some point), instead. No point in going to the middle-east for that, IMO.

[HunterKiller]

i just asked the pope for a crusade to egypt (cairo) and build a huge army with the faction hier of knights and dismounted feudal, and great navy and i reached egypt with a little losses of units in the sea, and the king died so, the man on the crusade is the king, i attacked Alexandria first, succeded, then on my way to cairo, about 4 full armies of egyptians attacked me, almost all my soldiers were either killed or fleed (forever) and i manged to withdraw my king who didn't interfered in combat and returned to alex, there were 2 units of dismounted feudal knights, i saw the armies coming to me, i left the the city, got on the navys and saild, it looks like the crusade failed or something so my navys returned slow, i was attacked by egyptians navys and defeated( they had really massive navys thought) and it ened with my king and 120 troops traped on the sea, i found the nearest land was rohdas i landed, and bought some mercs, captured it and settled my king there, cant go back home nad he is young, 30 years , surviving egyptian attacks about every 3 turns.

guyz my name changed from "krim71" to "HunterKiller"

[Old Geezer]

If you are on a Crusade the other catholic factions won't attack you. (Has anyone ever had that happen? I think it may even be hardcoded.) You have to make a rather straight line for the target; however, you can go all the way by land from northern France and conquer cities of other non catholic factions and sack them with no penalty to diplomatic general reputation or desertions, as I did as Scotland to Jerusalem. I took four Byzantine and three (one by peace treaty) Egyptian provinces. I gave 2 Byzantine ones to the Pope and Constantinople revolted. The Pope has had fun destroying the Byz. for me. You can also send a Crusade from Jerusalem to Alexandria by way of Cairo. The AI is rather inept at crusading as it sends only one stack so it seems per faction. The Egyptians can usually destroy one, so you don't always have to be there first.

The route doesn't have to be 100% shortest; I believe the variance is about 5%. I think I once saw the figure in one of the data files. Hiring a mercenary galley is only 200 florins and is the frugal way for the Scots to go fast. Take a boat to France and hike to the Med. and hire a galley there. If you are concerned about an enemy intercepting you either remove fog of war or land the army at the end of the turn. A great thing about crusades is the absence of upkeep costs for the army. Just before you capture the target get as many units into crusading because each gets a chevron of experience and money for just being on the crusade.

[HunterKiller]

what about the king trapped on rohdas island

[Retribution]

IF you wanna choose to use the 'cross france and germany and put ships around iberian peninsula so they go straight for Jerusalem', you gotta be careful. I doubt the other factions will be too happy with you treading on their lands, but then again you can make the odd alliance with the inhabitants, or just simply go for military access.

But in total i think its best not to go for places like Jerusalem, cause theirs really no point of doing so. Hope i helped. (doubt i did)

[Old Geezer]

Other catholic factions don't care at all if you trample their grass, if you are on your way to a crusade. I don't think they will mess with you even if you are at war with them. Has anyone ever seen that happen?

[MasterOfThessus]

To attack a Crusading army, wouldn't that excommunicate thoose who attacked?

[HunterKiller]

no, because u cant attack a crusading army at all!! u cant press at them with the mouse to attack them.