Holy War Triggers?

[VoiceGS]

Hey

So I'm playing as King of Sweden in earliest start with Norse religion and my plan is to conquer England and Danelaw so that I can do the North Sea Empire decision but I'm kinda worried about annoying the pope by taking over their Holy site.

How worried should I be if I do that?

Any advice would be nice.

Thanks.

[jpcerutti]

The Roman Catholic Church can be relentless with the holy wars for retaking holy sites they have lost.

You can 'work' it a couple different ways, but it is probably easiest just to leave Canterbury Catholic and/or under a Catholic vassal of yours.

[armyissue69]

Well, 1st IF a crusade is called against you, all the Asatru will join up AND before the battle starts you can see if you match up well. I have fended off crusades with a 3rd of the invading army size you just have to know how to pick your battles properly.

2nd, you can convert to their religion and convert back later if you want.

3rd, I wouldn't worry about it...If it's your 1st time going up against a crusade, fear not, the AI doesn't know how to handle itself .... Usually.

[brownacs]

I'd go with moderately. If/when you do take a Catholic holy site, and as a disclaimer this is a meta map-painting strategy, I'd try to have the 'By The Sword' cultural tradition for unlimited kingdom holy wars and I'd then make a beeline for Italia. If you're quick (and get a bit lucky with who owns the relevant kingdoms), you can take the whole of Italia and dismantle the Papacy after 1 crusade (which may or may not target you; could also end up being for Jerusalem).

And yeah like armyissue said, the crusading AI lets you win crusades you have absolutely no business winning. I've had armies 4-5x mine (and with more MAA/knights; just all around much better armies really) run away repeatedly until they all die from attrition and I win the crusade thanks to the defender war score ticking up. This behaviour's not guaranteed though. That was also in Spain where they're generally coming by land where-as England will probably let you take the enemy armies piecemeal as they're disembarking their ships.