Crusading? Beneficial to thyself?

[leseras]

So you have all participated in crusades, but has anyone thought if it was of any use? For example, I send a full stack and manage to take over Antioch which used to belong to Egypt. And then hell is rained and eventually I lose the settlement due to lack of units.

One of the good points of crusades is when your enemy gets excommunicated, you can call crusades on them, other then that, is there a good point to it?

[Valandur]

Depends what faction you are. Denmark, England and Scotland are pointless, and Spain and Portugal aren't much better.
If your a nation that isn't at war with anyone and has secure borders and nothing better to do, send a Crusading Army and see what you can do.

Check out my AAR - Europe's Most Hated
I took Antioch on a Crusade and am looking to estabilish a colony in the Middle East with Milan. I have my initial Crusading Army and I'm reinforcing them with more men.
Also, you may want to just join a Crusade for reputation, florins and experience. If the Crusade is successful, you get rewarded as you probably know so the more you contribute, the bigger the reward. If this is the situation, I build a Crusader Army and wait until the last turn to join or when the settlement is about to be taken by Christians. Join at the latest possible and you don't have to move your army far + free reward.

What would happen if Antioch was under Fatimid control and then the Seljuks took it mid-Crusade? Would it be an automatic declaration of war on the new controllers?

[Zerosliver]

Well, these settlements tend to be big and give you lots of money when you sack them. Crusading mercenaries are cheap, the entire army costs no upkeep and it has a movement bonus. What else is there not to like? Go on a sacking rampage in the holy lands, will get you lots of money.

[leseras]

Hmm, you make a good point. Though what are some good tips to crusading, despite moving forward each turn my army keeps deserting me. And for some reason people get there much faster.

[axnsan]

Just hop on a boat and go to the target. Drop any agents because they slow you down to default speed.

[Zerosliver]

Just hop on a boat and go to the target. Drop any agents because they slow you down to default speed.

Indeed, going by sea is much much faster.

Also, when it ends your units get a experience bonus automaticly, quite nice.

[MisterDutch]

Just hop on a boat and go to the target. Drop any agents because they slow you down to default speed.

Seriously? Good to know! I was on a crusade with my french army for Jerusalem but my boat wouldn't sail faster... I had 4 priests on the boat to help with spreading the word of JESUS to those muslim heritics finally I find out why they wouldnt sail faster thus leading to Poland beating me to it...

[leseras]

Just hop on a boat and go to the target. Drop any agents because they slow you down to default speed.

DANG someone told me if you hopped on a boat they would desert you real quickly! I should have known!

[thursgun]

So you have all participated in crusades, but has anyone thought if it was of any use? For example, I send a full stack and manage to take over Antioch which used to belong to Egypt. And then hell is rained and eventually I lose the settlement due to lack of units.

One of the good points of crusades is when your enemy gets excommunicated, you can call crusades on them, other then that, is there a good point to it?

I only crusade when I want my rep to get higher or high experienced units.
Sometimes I crusade just for fun only on Holy Land.
Finally, I don't crusade on Christian factions that I am not at war with (I just don't feel like it).

Other than that, I don't care about crusades, but for me, the best thing you can get out of -successful- crusades it's getting high experienced units

[axnsan]

Yeah +1 exp is the most awesome and important thing of the whole crusade business

[John Doe]

If you want to establish a colony, send several stacks and do it very early in the campaign, once the population has been converted to islam, you have to externinate every city and sack every castle if you want to keep them in control. So your reputation will hit rok bottom. Don't forget that byzantine cities are up for the taking too, but the pope won't like you for that in the short term. But sometime goimg after the mongols/tims is faster and cheaper with a crusade.

[axnsan]

In vanilla you can actually go at normal crusade speed with your agents, just go to the boat tab and press ctrl + a (be sure not to be near a shore). That's fixed in kingdoms I think.

They don't unless you go around spain for example when you're england. In that case you need to walk to southern france and take a boat from there. Going through the mediterranean only takes about 3-4 turns at crusade speed.

[MisterDutch]

Yeah. Been playing the game only 2 weeks now or so and so far the use of going all the way to Jerusalem hasn't been all too clear to me. I think that as soon as you capture Jerusalem and/or Antioch you'll get swarmed by angry muslims and eventually it's way more of an investment to keep the area under control than that it actually pays off...

though I find that calling a crusade yourself on a nearby Moorish and/or Rebel settlement is actually a good way to quickly capture it with a big, "free" army and get papal favour at the same time.

[Jiub]

Crusades and jihads are very easily abused.
perfect example - http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...inces-21-turns

[Turtle Hammer]

I tend to go with a disposable crusade army and a not too important general. By disposable I mean low grade units to get up to 8, then nothing but crusaders. I hit the first enemy territory between me and the crusade target, sack it, sell the lot, then move on. It'll revolt or be retaken. You can work from Alexandria to Cairo to Gaza to Jerusalem likethis, or all the way through Turkey down to Jerusalem. Sacking everything means it's economicly worth while, it's hugely detrimental to those factions, and once you've taken your target you can keep it and expand safely into an already broken empire, or you can gift it to the Pope, untrain any units that'll suddenly want a lot of money and cripple your economy, and bring your general who by now should be a crusading monster general safely home.

Excommunicated ones depend on wether I'm at war with the faction or not, but if it's beneficial I do much the same, but without an eye towards disbanding the army afterwards.

[Paladin94610]

Bring up your navy and get your crusading army abroad and sails for the destination. Disembark and attack the target. Sack it. Then get nearby weak city and also sack it.When the target army revolted. Besiege and sack again. The rebellious population will fall gradually and the public order will increase. Beware that Jerusalem or Antioch is in the Muslim realm. So bringing a band of priest and convert the population is vital. I strongly suggest not to take land routes. Because you can be path blocked easily and the soldiers will be disappointing about you and will start to desert you. And crossing over the neutral faction's lands will make them angry with you.

[Turtle Hammer]

Actually, armies on holy wars don't cause any damage to relations as long as the nations who's lands you're tramping across are of the same religion. Obviously the Turks would take it a little personally if you marched a crusade through their lands, but Hungary or Venice'd be down with that buisness.

[Player96]

Well, crusading is optional when you want to get a higher rep with the pope, just for a spot of fun or if your finance can support it. But I usually go on crusades only if my cities on the mainland are secure. If all requirements are met then I just make my stack hop on a boat and sail off. but once you get the city, defending it will be harder than acquiring it.

[Dr.Own]

In SS you get so much rep and relation improvments from crusading.All the nation go to war with the Fatmids/Mors/wtfe then they love you for attacking them.Pope loves ya, make some new alliances and your the King of Europe.

[xash11]

I use crusades purely for financial and experience gains, i usually play England. After sacking Jerusalem say, i replenish my army with mercs then sack Damascus and Antioch. then take Cyprus which is easy to defend then use it as a garrison ready to attack the Mongols later. I always do this on the very first crusade of the game. It sets me up for future crusades. I also try to aly myself with the turks and they usually help take care of any Byzantium fleets trying to take back Cyprus, Oh yeah plus after crossing France i will sail from Toulouse with hardly any desserters. INTO THE BREACH ONCE MORE!