Rampant Desertion

[miserable09]

Hello,
Playing as England. I joined the crusade and sent nearly a whole stack off to Antioch. While traveling by sea, my guys got maybe to the tip of spain before nearly half deserted.

By the time they reached the straits of Gibraltar, I had the general and maybe two units left.

What gives? Is land travel any better?

[Lusted]

You need to use the shortest route, so whilst your going round Spain the game thinks your heading away from the Hoyl Land so desertion occurs.

[FriendoftheDork]

Hello,
Playing as England. I joined the crusade and sent nearly a whole stack off to Antioch. While traveling by sea, my guys got maybe to the tip of spain before nearly half deserted.

By the time they reached the straits of Gibraltar, I had the general and maybe two units left.

What gives? Is land travel any better?

THis is a vanilla bug/feature. Since I haven't played England I have never had it. Going by land is better unless you're going through europe, as you will often get blocked by enemy (or even fellow crusaders!) stacks. This happened to me one round and at least 300 deserted even though I only had to go from Paris to Genoa.

Strangely I had no desertion whatsoever playing Spain and Venice.

Tip:Go by land throug france, rent merc ships (cheap), and then head for the holy land from there.

[Revan The Great]

I was Jihading from Iconium as The Turks. I stopped at Adana on my way to Antioch, beseiged it, next turn about 240-50 men deserted.

Doomed the Grand Islamic Restoration of The Holy Land

[Foreign Fruitcake]

I hate desertion.

[johnhughthom]

There are always merc ships available when on a Crusade it seems, so if you are using the English and don't want to have to wait until you send a fleet all the way round Iberia you can march your crusade to the south of France and hire some merc boats there. You don't lose anybody to desertion on the way doing this.

[cunobelin]

There are always merc ships available when on a Crusade it seems, so if you are using the English and don't want to have to wait until you send a fleet all the way round Iberia you can march your crusade to the south of France and hire some merc boats there. You don't lose anybody to desertion on the way doing this.

Also land your ship just before the end of the green arrow and hire more merc ships, this has the bonus of being able to recruit more army units and prevents a crusade from coming to a sudden end when a stack of ships attacks you !!!!

[Daovonnaex]

This gets expensive, but I usually ship the army to the Holy Land and then declare a crusade.

[johnhughthom]

This gets expensive, but I usually ship the army to the Holy Land and then declare a crusade.

The problem with this method is you don't get as big a choice of units to hire into the crusade.