Crusade desertion, what to do against it?

[Pjanssen]

Hi,

I was just playing as the Danes. The year was 1310, the Pope called a crusade on Antioch. Being a good ally of the Papal States, I joined.
I massed a full stack, mostly elite unit army at Arhus, where I had a fleet ready to ship them to the Middle East.

After ten turns everything was ready, and I joined. Two turns later I was at the channel, and already three units had deserted. The next turn I was in the Bay of Biscay, to the left of France. Then 6 units deserted!
So there I was, not even halfway to the crusade target and already half of my army had run off..
The next turn, the Polish and Venetian forces took Antioch and the crusade was over....great. Next thing that happened was a huge storm right on top of my fleet. Result: half of my fleet gone, one general dead, a priest and a spy drowned and two more units lost.

I abandoned the whole thing then, and decided to use the remains of my army to bully the Portuguese a bit. But I think that by the time I had come to Antioch it'd have been a merchant in a little rowing boat if it had continued like this....


Any tips to avoid these kind of catastrophes?

[mic111]

This is also making me a little disappointed. If you are not going exactly in direction of where the crusade is going to stop the units desert from the army.

[SavageFlyer]

Yeah you just have to keep moving towards your target.
Try moving your army closer to your target before actually declaring a crusade to begin with, or if travelling by sea will require you to move in the opposite direction (i.e. from England to the middle east), march across europe and hire merc ships somewhere in the Med. Sea.
Worst comes to worst...Crusader merc units are cheap and numerous and pretty effective.

[Pjanssen]

Thank you.

The crusade/jihad system seems to be somewhat off anyway.
I found a Portuguese crusade army (target Antioch) landing at Bruges, and a Moorish Jihad army (target Constantinople) near Dijon..

[SockMonkeh]

You get a huge movement bonus as a crusading army and you get a free pass to go through Catholic regions. So march your army directly (mostly) towards the destination and hire mercenary ships when you reach shore.

[deRougemont]

This is a bug. If you are starting a crusade army in Northern Europe, it's best to move across land down to the Mediterranean Sea. There you can hire some merc boats and sail the rest of the way. The key is to keep moving in the direction of your target city, otherwise the game thinks you are going somewhere else.

[Aurelius Maximus]

yeah i marched my english army from western france all the way to italy (i took like three turns) and no one has deserted. the key is to move in the direction of the target city. and i noticed a crusading army cannot attack another catholic faction even if that faction has been excommunicated.

[AcidJiles]

yeah i marched my english army from western france all the way to italy (i took like three turns) and no one has deserted. the key is to move in the direction of the target city. and i noticed a crusading army cannot attack another catholic faction even if that faction has been excommunicated.

if excommunicated you can attack them while on crusade. I do all the time

[Aurelius Maximus]

if excommunicated you can attack them while on crusade. I do all the time

oh really? then i must have gotten confused because i tried to attack milan, who was i thought was excomunicated and i coudln't maybe they were reconciled and i didn't notice...

[Trajan]

This is a bug.

A bug? I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. You know, I would even appreciate if there was a warning message before it happens next turn like when you leave crusading units behind. There's not even a way to turn it off or even lower the chances of desertion. It's just a price you have to pay when joining the pilgrimage from far away.

[mightyfenrir]

It's just a price you have to pay when joining the pilgrimage from far away.

That's why I like my wait until the last turn available to join while moving east the other nine turns... but that's me

[UhOhIt'sAnArrow]

That's why I like my wait until the last turn available to join while moving east the other nine turns... but that's me

Well when you join the crusade it's like you double your movement points also

(sorry moderators I don't get the double quote thing)

[mightyfenrir]

Personally I always keep a pretty high volume of soldiers dotted through out my empire. When the crusade is called I pick a likely general and begin moving them toward the crusade target and every turn check the status of the "join crusade" mission. When there's only one turn left I join the crusade and continue onward after that. That seems to work but it requires a lot of vigilant work in order to not miss the joining date.

[xxax]

i love it when you're in the middle of the Mediterranean sea and troops start deserting... What they swim to the coast?

[CEJ]

Similar event happened to me. Was in France. Joined the crusade with three generals and moved toward the target, Constantinople. In Italy, I was blocked by other crusading armies and ended up heading north. That did it; two of the three stacks ended up with 50% desertion and I abandoned the crusade with two of the three. Had I been closer to the coast, I could have hired ships and then went straight at it.

[todorp]

I group 4+ generals and just enough of the cheapest units to join the chrusade. Then I dismiss the cheap units and leave only the generals. The generals move twice faster. I go normaly by sea. I beat everyone else in the race and hire mercenaries when I reach the target.

[Routed Peasant]

I experienced the same thing when i did my first Crusade. Then i learned to move the army in the right direction. No moving around the Gibraltar, or Bosphorus straits.
Move your army to a point where it is easy to move to its destination in a straight line. I had great success by moving my army to the Adriatic sea and embark there, only then did i order the army to "Join the Crusade", filled out the army with the mercenary crusader units.
The expedition was a success.

[Lubeck]

Tip for northern europe countries...when you have some spare cash build up a 4-5 size unit fleet that will go pretty much untouched and get it into the Med to act as your Crusade fleet.

[Germanicus75]

Nice one Lubeck

[mrmouth]

I used to stop over in Italy and recruit the crusade cross unit before loading up the ships and heading for the ME. That seemed to help with desertions a bit, however now when I stop over I cant seem to recruit the cross unit anymore.

It was a nice touch to have it on the battlefield.