Militia

[xxxMoRaVexxx]

soo here's the thing, I've been using lots of spear militia in my early campaign as Portugal and fighting at 2 fronts while maintaining a region in middle east with full stacks of crusader units(due to a crusade) as a bastion of christendom in case the pope launched another crusade(I'll be the first to capture that settlement!). This drains my income so I have to use spear militia as basic infantry, also by the fact that portugal has almost no anti cavalry capability until late in the game, is what I'm doing good? I'm just wondering.....

[Samir]

well a crusader army is something that can cost quiet a ton, especially if you rely on the portugese 2 provinces to maintain this army as well as your home defence.

Portugal has great opportunities to become a great trading empire. your basically only enemies are... the spanish. everyone else is a candidate to trade with, skyrocketing your income soon. the moors can be mauled rather quickly, Gibraltar can be closed with a single fleet, blocking off any attempts of the moors to come back to iberia. (just take care that you open up Gibraltar in case anyone else wants to get through...)

spear militias are great units to charge into the enemy and attract enough attention to let your cavalry do the work.

[Wheelchair]

0_o, I never do Crusades, its a waste of rescources, In my opinion.

1. The pope eventually dies, and a new one will be elected, so your rep goes back up to full

2. If your king dies and your Excomm'd it'll go back to normal.

3. Bring back your knights! lol Thats in my opinion; Lasttime I checked Crusader knights upkeep is higher then normal Knights? either that or lower I forget.

[townie33]

as portugal you are somewhat close to the holy lands so why keep that army there? bring it back because once spain gets feudal knights your militia armies will be crushed. The only time i rely on militia armies is the initial rush in the first few turns. After that you should build professional armies.

[Xamt]

portugal is in the other end of the map from the holy lands !! (jerusalem that is)

anyway, i cant see anyting wrong about what u are doing, but u might consider using that really expensive (upkeep-wise) crusade-leftover army to actually conquer something in the holy lands.

when i was playing as portugal i was using mostly spearmen and jinetes (which absolutely own)... but if u decide to keep using them en-masse in your armies seriously consider upgrading their armor, it will make a ton of difference

[townie33]

what i meant was that you can get on a boat and be there quickly, faster than Hungary and venice, the land route takes forever

[Double A]

0_o, I never do Crusades, its a waste of rescources, In my opinion.

1. The pope eventually dies, and a new one will be elected, so your rep goes back up to full

2. If your king dies and your Excomm'd it'll go back to normal.

3. Bring back your knights! lol Thats in my opinion; Lasttime I checked Crusader knights upkeep is higher then normal Knights? either that or lower I forget.

But Armies on Crusades have no upkeep.

[Random Emperor]

milita is only for early era(except for Italians) or when you don't have money


for spain vs port.
port. and spain has very similar or alike units so it is hard to defeat them.
port. get better ex for ships
while spain gets best LI

[sparty]

Yeah I'm at a loss about the Crusades because I feel like skipping them....

What do I do with Gaza once it's mine? I don't WANT Gaza... I just spent a few years sending troops there and a few years seiging it. I have pressing needs at home... It just seems like a waste.

Is there some secret to making the crusades worthwhile if you're a Northern European Kingdom?

[Antlion]

Yeah I'm at a loss about the Crusades because I feel like skipping them....

What do I do with Gaza once it's mine? I don't WANT Gaza... I just spent a few years sending troops there and a few years seiging it. I have pressing needs at home... It just seems like a waste.

Is there some secret to making the crusades worthwhile if you're a Northern European Kingdom?

I just call a crusade on someone closer before the pope decides to call one on the middle east. i play SS so i usually call one on Lithuania or the Moors if no one is excommunicated. Make an army and either go or disband and lose your units, still get the popes favor either way.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

Yeah I'm at a loss about the Crusades because I feel like skipping them....

What do I do with Gaza once it's mine? I don't WANT Gaza... I just spent a few years sending troops there and a few years seiging it. I have pressing needs at home... It just seems like a waste.

Is there some secret to making the crusades worthwhile if you're a Northern European Kingdom?

If you capture a middle eastern region that you don't want sell all buildings and gift it to the pope. He will like you and because you have sold all the buildings he will lose the settlement to a rebellion. You can use your army to capture Cypress. This will give you a good starting position for the next crusade which is very likely to be at the same target as the previous one. And since you have an army near by you can win the crusade and be the popes pet darling again. You only have to have a general and some men in Cypress.

[Xamt]

Yeah I'm at a loss about the Crusades because I feel like skipping them....

What do I do with Gaza once it's mine? I don't WANT Gaza... I just spent a few years sending troops there and a few years seiging it. I have pressing needs at home... It just seems like a waste.

Is there some secret to making the crusades worthwhile if you're a Northern European Kingdom?

yup there are 2 ways of doing so

1) you can see which city is being crusaded on the battle map (no fow), wait till another faction sieges it and join the crusade with all available and capable (considering the unit cap u need to join the crusade) characters on the last turn of the siege (u can pretty much tell when the pc is going to assault - or just save/load if u dont feel confident enough) - that way u get the extra movement crusader armies get for 1 turn, you get the free upkeep crusading armies get for 1 turn and once the crusade is successful u get 1 chevron to all of the units that joined the crusade and neat traits for your generals

2) use the tactic Monsieur Alphonse proposed... get a nice settlement on the way which you should keep, and give the crusading target away. I always try to get a castle settlement in the mainland (usually acre) since castles are easily defensible, you can recruit superior quality troops if/when u decide you want to expand in the holy land and almost never rebel... when it comes to the crusading target you can gift it to someone to improve relations or sell/trade it for cash/another city... if you want the crusading target 100% (for whatever reason) i usually capture it, sack it, trade/gift it to someone else, wait for it to rebel, then recapture it and exterminate or sack