Crusade has been called! And they do nothing constructive!

[vtec.dominion]

Hey all,

First of all, the game setup. Im playing 6.3 with fixes, late era no sub-mods, Savage AI, VH/VH.
Playing the Mighty Turks. Turn #96. I was allied with pope (what a waste), Hungary, Poland, Moors and
Mongols (defeated over 20 full stacks, they accepted ceasefire and alliance at the end).
The pope broke the alliance finally (after 15 turns or so) and called the crusade against Antioch which is my capital.
Hungary and Poland broke the alliance as well and sent the crusade armies.
As you can see there are three bridges around Antioch, i secured every one with half of a stack.
The problem is none of three armies defending bridge passes was attacked.
The crusade armies do nothing around Antioch!
I called a Jihad against Rome, conquered the city, defeated around 10 full stacks of papal armies in Italy,
took Belgrade, Ragusa, Targovice from Hungary, killed off Sicilians and they still do nothing.
The Teutons have a full stack of elite units but they won't attack the bridge, next turn they will be cold dead when my "criminal" army arrive. Well, im the strongest nation at the moment owning 71 regions but they do nothing to stop me!! I gave Papal States the break to see if they siege Rome with 5-6 units in town - NOPE, they didn't! They have around 6-7 full stacks and one region left (Pisa that is).
The problem is im not heavily attacked so i can plan my strategy scenario easily.
What should i do to force them to lay sieges more often and be more aggressive.
At the moment im @war with every christian nation except France (excommed). Sicily is dead btw.
At war with Kiev as well.
BTW, when the Timurids arrive ? And when do they spawn the armies ? (Late era).
Except that, this is the best game i've ever had and the Turks simply rock!!

[Black_ice_Spain]

use more aggresive AI. Or.... just leave bridges? it seems AI its having path issues with them xD

[midget_roxx]

Tumerids won't arrive. And the AI won't attack a bridge unless they have decent odds. Seeing as you're defending antioch, those bridges are in range on reinforcements which is why the AI won't attack

[k/t]

I noticed that crusading or jihading armies don't attack things in their way, even if they belong to the enemy. They try to get to the target and that's it. They avoid fights along the way.


There are no Timurids in the late campaign?

[Alavaria]

I noticed that crusading or jihading armies don't attack things in their way, even if they belong to the enemy. They try to get to the target and that's it. They avoid fights along the way.

Yes. Especially it seems they don't like to siege things, so it you use forts and stuff, you can keep the crusade stacks all confused standing about until their general dies of old age (had a full stack stand in place for 30+ years) and then they disband.

[Caesar Clivus]

They're in the campaign script.

[philipjd]

Timurids - they arrive in, roughly, 1360-70 - and they are scary!

The Turks are one of my favourite factions, along with the Byzantines (refuses to call them Romans )

The Teutons are one of the factions that, it seems to me, their AI 'strategy' never seems to have any logic to it and with crusading/jihading armies, they will not attack anything on their way to the objective, although if the target is beseiged already then they will attack in the targets region.

[Ichon]

Crusading/Jihad armies will attack others than target but the odds must be very good for them. As for sieges I've never seen it happen... field battles do but are rare.

[vtec.dominion]

Crusading/Jihad armies will attack others than target but the odds must be very good for them. As for sieges I've never seen it happen... field battles do but are rare.

They won't siege other cities definiately. Adana was defended with a Governor and 2 units of Halberd Militia, Aleppo with around 6-8 units, Edessa filled with 3 maybe 4 units and they didn't attacked.
Crusading armies were at least 10 times stronger than my garrisons in these cities!
They didn't attack my forces marching here and there which were much more weaker than crusading armies.
I was truly annoyad!

[JorisofHolland]

Crusading/Jihad armies will attack others than target but the odds must be very good for them. As for sieges I've never seen it happen... field battles do but are rare.

Can it be modded to get a higher priority? I don't really know a lot about the AI files, but if it's there, it's modable, so the question is: is it there?

[Gorrrrrn]

The AI doesn't necessarily use jihad/crusade armies for the proper purpose - it is quite capable of raising a c/j army and then treating it like a normal one.

SavageAI has issues around c/j armies stopping near targets if their diplomats negotiate a ceasefire - which they then break a turn or too later.

Generally if AI armies are near target they won't attack others unless their access to target is blocked by enemy armies (including other c/j ones.)

[Ichon]

So you are saying Crusade/Jihad armies will siege sometimes? I've never seen it happen myself- several times an army stopped by one of my cities and waited there for several turns like the AI was thinking of siege but then moved on towards the target city after wasting several turns sitting. It was not as if those particular cities were well guarded either. Since I never seen AI siege a different city than target I don't garrison them when I see such armies on the march.

I've had field armies attacked by Crusade/Jihad several times when they weren't even close to the target region but always when they had large advantage of my army.