Pulling individual units off a crusade stack?

[Saibot42]

I know there's some trick to it, but how?

[Strengelicher]

In vanilla, you can just abandon a crusade, remove the unit and then rejoin, I think. Otherwise, you can take a settlement and move on with your general. Any units left behind as garrison will stop crusading the next turn.

[Saibot42]

So it has to be taken and then left in the same turn, that explains it.

[Melooo182]

leaving them as garrison for a city or fort doesn't prevent them to "desert"?

[Strengelicher]

leaving them as garrison for a city or fort doesn't prevent them to "desert"?

If you conquer the settlement while crusading and then leave crusading units without a general in the settlement, they stop crusading on the next turn and therefore do not suffer from desertion. I must admit I haven't experimented much with this, so I can't tell whether the same would apply if you just build a fort and leave some crusading units behind in it without conquering anything or the like.