Help with Templars campaign.

[noob92]

Heres the situation on my current M/M Templars campaign:

I got the Pope to call a crusade on Cairo on the first turn, then took an army lead by my faction heir and took Antioch, Damascus , Acre and Jerusalem. Most of my units deserted when I reached Jerusalem. So I abandoned the crusade and gathered up another army by turn 42, I destroyed the Fatimids, captured the rebel settlements Luxor and Medina. I sorta rushed to wipe out the Fatimids so most of the settlements aren't advanced and since they're all Muslim and I get a really unhappy settlement when I conquer, I either sacked or exterminated. At turn 48, a Jihad was called on Jerusalem, the Kwaz and the Seljuks responded to the Jihad. I just fended off 2 Jihad armies on the same battle with a garrison of 700++ with the enemies with a 800++ and a 900++ army respectively. My governor got killed in the battle as I set the game to infinite battle time and couldn't end my battle because there was a ladder on my walls. The battle ended with me left with 100++ garrison and the Kwaz and Seljuks are amassing troops at my border. In the holy lands, i don't have a ally to back my faction and im facing severe shortages of troops because I have RR. Can anyone advise me what to do? By the way, the Jihad is still on.

[Iustinianos]

I also use RR and play vh/vh. I also destroyed the Fatamids as soon as possible, then a Jihad was called in turn 59/year 1167 against Jerusalem as well. Within two turns the muslim armies reached the Holy City. I use one army consisting of 10 spearmen, 4 missile troops, 2 generals and 4 mounted sergeants/turkopoles. I can't use any heavy cavalry as I do not have the facilities to do so yet(except the Hospitallers, but very few so far). I fight one army at the time, destroy them, then retrain my units immediatly and one turn later I destroy the other army that arrives. Be sure to keep some reserve troops in Jerusalem/Gaza/Kerak/Akcre just in case you loose a lot of men and can't recruit them all. Using this strategy has resolved in the defeat of 4 full stack muslim armies(1 Moorish, 1 Turkish and 2 Kwarezmians)

As for the alliances I allied with the Byzantine Empire and the Pope. This gives you a good standing with the Pope(mine is outstanding at the moment) and an ally in the Holy Land(it has not proven to be efficient yet, but still it gives you the feeling you are not alone in the battle for the Holy Land )

My advise would be to raise another army just in case the other gets so beaten up that it can't be retrained soon enough to defend the city. You can raise an army pretty fast in Northern Egypt(For the spear militia I use Cairo/Alexandria, for the cavalry Gaza/Damietta, I recruit the missile units in Al-Aqaba. That way you can recruit a decent army and deploy it near Jerusalem in about three turns. It really depends on where you have your cities and castles though. How's your finance at the moment?, i'm making about 17000 per turn. What I also did was call a Crusade to Baghdad, not just to piss off the Turks but due to the increased movement I also managed to destroy a Jihading(sp?) Kwarezmian army on it's way to Jerusalem and take Mosul and Diyarbakir on my way to Baghdad

This is my empire at the moment, and the army that I use against the Jihad:

[strife1013]

You may have over extanded too quickly. I did that, I had Gaza and Jerusalem (along with the other settlements you had) with small stacks in each and Egypt seiged both of them so one couldnt help the other and basically had to lose one I chose to lose Gaza. I crusade a lot since all the targets are in the in the holy land. From the first turn I aslways crusade against Antioch since its close and makes good money, I call it my lil' Jerusalem. Also noticed if you crusade against that one first and win the crusade you can call another crusade the next turn. After that you have to wait to call another one, but basically you get two crusades back to back which is nice to beef up your generals and you can get fortress and citdeals really quickly with the population bonus for growth with chiverly generals/familty members.

However I like to blitz my enemies so I need to learn how to take it slow so I dont run into these problems.

[Furiøùs]

lustinlanos your a pro.

Wow, thats a amazing empire you have there.

In my templars campaign (was defeated by a allied turks and kwarezimian)

Yea, i called a crusade on cairo to distract egypt, and swept all the way to gaza, eventually because i rushed so fast, i had no units to defend. at once point the fatimids had everything but tortosa sieged, and i couldnt do crap cause i could make an army. Im really good at fighting, i can own face.. but the whole city thing im bad at. econmical im bad at.. pwning face is good

[TaysChreNN]

How much of a difference does the difficulty actually make?

[shenryyr]

Noob, attack attack attack. Don't stop just because they're sending jihading armies --- if you keep pestering them in their own lands, you can take several regions while they take your one jihad-target city.