Strategy Help

[GPDA01]

I know this is a Shogun 2 thread after reading everything, but I need an immediate reply to this. In my recent Turkish campaign in M2TW, I took all of the middle east and egypt, invaded eastern Europe killing off Byzantines and Hungarians, invading Venice and Poland. Then, thanks to the VH/VH difficulty, the Papacy declared a crusade on my capitol, Antioch. Every Catholic nation joined in and I lost all of my Eastern European settlements to the catholics, holding them off at the choke points at Constantinople with full stack fleets and full stack armies. That stopped them and the Crusade failed, but then the allied Timurids and Mongols came out of nowhere(I wiped them out, leaving each with only about 100 men in total for their overall military force) with full stacks each long after they got there and reinforcements shouldn't have come. I lost all of the Holy lands to them, the Papacy sailed a fleet over to Antioch after declaring another crusade on it and took it with a full stack, then he raped Asia Minor with the help of Milan. My only ally, the Moors, invaded Sicily but got annihalated, and so here I am. These are the only provinces I have left: all of my initial settlements, Baghdad, Tblissi, Trebizond, Nicaea, Smyrna, Rhodes, Iraklion, Nicosia, recently reclaimed Acre, the three Egyptian settlements, and Corinth. I'm currently decimating the Poles and the Venetians out of Constantinople with a series of guerilla warfare techniques with what is left of my 2 full stacks I had guarding the choke points, laying siege to Thessalonica. I'm 20k in the hole, gaining 100 florins a turn. Yerevan and Baghdad are on the verge of revolting(thanks to both being huge cities and having populations upwards of 34k, and a bare minimum garrison), the mongols and timurids finally went to war with each other and are annihalating the holy lands. Any suggestions as to what to do? I'm thinking about declaring a Jihad on Venice and sending a huge holy warrior mercenary army through Greece and Italy, but any help here would be welcome.

Edit: I'm also new to the forums, hello everybody! sorry for the ungodly long post

[Nergui]

GPDA01, Time-wise, it sounds like your campaign is almost over. If it was earlier, you could abandon the low income regions and concentrate your forces in your highest income regions and rebuild from there.

For future games, invest heavily in getting an assassin guild HQ. A team of high rank assassins can kill off a crusade faster than multiple stacks of your best troops. Yes this will give your leader high dread, but I've noticed the AI is less inclined towards war when facing a faction with a 10 dread leader and an army of rank 9 assassins. The AI doesn't spam your provinces with agents either if you're diligent in killing any that overstay their welcome.

[GPDA01]

k, and I have the turns set to .5 instead of 2 years, so I still have anywhere from 100 to 140 turns left as an estimation. and whats a rage quit? where I just go on a killing spree and rape all the land I can before dying?

[The Glorious Moldovan]

k, and I have the turns set to .5 instead of 2 years, so I still have anywhere from 100 to 140 turns left as an estimation. and whats a rage quit? where I just go on a killing spree and rape all the land I can before dying?

yeaaaa- no
its actually when you get mad on the game on a stage when you reached progress and simply quit

[YD23]

Moved to Medieval II Total War.

[The Glorious Moldovan]

do what we all do..rage quit

[AJenny58]

I would create the largest army you can in a single place without letting your defenses fall too much, then go on a sacking spree. Pick a direction and march, conquering and sacking every settlement you can. Don't even try to hold them, but raze the buildings for the extra cash (this will also devastate the economy and troop production of whatever faction takes it back). Maybe leave one really weak unit in each so that your enemies at least have to lay siege instead of waltzing right in. 20k in the red isn't that bad. I recently sacked Milan for 23k. You could even try to sell whatever you take or even just gift them to allies as a buffer. Pillage, pillage, pillage!