How do you roleplay your Crusades?

[Kilgore Trout]

After all of these years, I’ve still not come up with an acceptable plan.


The first problem is that a Crusade victory almost never pays off if you try to keep the city, especially if it is a target in the Levant. The cost of troop upkeep alone far outweighs any financial benefit. Yet gifting the city away to the Crusader States or the Pope seems rather gamey. And merely evacuating and leaving it undefended to return to the Islamic factions also seems quite odd.


I’ve always played SS6.4 with BGRIV or V, where at least there was a very, very good reason to at least send your King on a Crusade. If you didn’t, all of your generals would pay a heavy Crusade support fee that would quickly bankrupt the poorer ones, requiring them to be exiled from the land usually for the rest of their lives. In SHHIP, it appears to me that the very small hit you take in your favor with the Pope is not nearly enough reason to join a Crusade in the first place. The main reason I have been joining is because I think it also reflects in your reputation, though I imagine that may also be fairly insignificant. Nevertheless, I am joining, and usually ending up the victorious liberator. Yet even on capture of the Crusade target, I don’t notice my favor with the Pope actually going up much, if at all, in fact.


Thus, I am stymied on several fronts. I do join the Crusade, it does cost me lots of distraction and money, and I do usually end up winning, whereupon the cost of the whole endeavor continues indefinitely with no noticeable benefit to me whatsoever. Inevitably, I eventually continuously ask myself, what is it all for, merely the glory of God? And then I again tell myself that I should just forego the whole ordeal in 25 odd turns or so when the next one is yet again called by the fickle, aging, warmongering Pope.


Any ideas?

[Radosław of Bielitz]

I'm not sure if it falls for roleplaying, but for me it is often about getting a foot in the door (which might be expensive as you noticed). A smart king would plan his actions ahead and since he wants to be a king of Jerusalem (winning game condition), he need to take preparations for that.

I observed that after conquering the Jerusalem, a lot of other states are getting upset about the fact (a smart ruler would foresee that too, I guess? )
And when the Jihad is being called targeting Jerusalem, it's sometimes difficult to win that third/fourth/fifth battle of attrition with all the different states laying siege turn after turn.

Having another city/castle nearby seems crucial for getting to Jerusalem first in another called crusade and replenishing your forces (including hiring mercenaries) while trying to capture and/or hold Jerusalem in your hands.

Also:
- usually you can crown your leader in Jerusalem right away (when you know that you won't be able to meet building requirements in your other crowning cities anytime soon). I once went for a crusade just for that.
- sometimes your reputation with the pope is so poor that the game informs you about not joining the crusade resulting in excommunication. This will mean that the population will become unhappy, which will lead you to decrease your taxes, which will leave you with little money. So imho bankrupcy is still an option.

[Kilgore Trout]

That all sounds about right to me, Radoslaw. Getting Gaza or another nearby city so I can easily send reinforcements to Jerusalem later. That will be my plan!

[Steward Denethor II]

Yeah. Crusades can be extremely useful, but they have to be used correctly or they aren't worth it.

Crusades are best if you border a non-Catholic faction, or an Excommunicated Catholic one. You can use the Crusader army to expand through these lands and take tons of territory, and get lots of income through sacking. The free upkeep and double movement makes them incredibly powerful, and as long as you are moving in the right direction towards the Crusade target you will not get desertion. You can leave units behind to garrison the Crusade target as long as they were in the assaulting army; this makes units like Pilgrims extremely useful; they hold the settlement while your fighting force moves on. You can even use this to conquer land against the Orthodox Christians.

They are more difficult to use as a faction that is far away from non-Catholics, like Scotland or Norway. If you simply do what the AI does (and many newer players for that matter) which is march straight to the target, you will just have an isolated settlement that is not worth much and costs a lot to defend. Additionally you will have moved an important army away from where it is needed. This mistake can really damage otherwise healthy campaigns.

However, even as these factions you can still use the Crusade to capture/sack regions on the way, and then gift/sell them to a friendly neighbor, like the Crusaders/Pope, or maybe the Romans. I know that selling regions is considered an exploit by many though, but there really is nothing else to do with far away regions. It is much better to have a unified Empire than a split one. If someone else takes the target first; that is ok. Getting the Papal favor for conquering the target is great, but not if it causes you to do other things in a non-optimal manner.

A lot of players just get a message that a Crusade was called on Jerusalem, or wherever, and then rush there so they are the ones to get there first, take it and set up a little Crusader colony and try to hold it; this method wastes the potential and is not worth it. You should use Crusade armies to sack everything not Catholic on the way, then either try to hold the land if you are in a position to do so, or give/sell it to a friendly faction of your religion. Factions like Venice, Sicily, and Hungary are the best to Crusade, because you can conquer all the land on the way and keep your Empire connected, so you are using the Crusading armies like normal armies that have double movement and free upkeep.

Another advantage to doing this is it destroys Muslim factions. Muslim factions are a continuous threat due to Jihads; a strike like this where you destroy them and give/sell the territory to the Crusader States eliminates this threat. Additionally, if you eventually do return to the area, the land will be easier to hold, being converted to Catholicism by the Crusader States.

This strategy does damage your reputation in SSHIP, but it is still the best way to use Crusades.