How to survive a Jihad?

[Working Lunch Official✅]

So, the sunni caliph has declared a jihad on me, bringing the entire muslim world down on me. I'm playing as the byzantines and have reformed from and can get upwards of 100,000 men if i raise my leves. Trouble is, the Muslims have what seems like 10x that number and keep throwing never-ending doomstacks at me that just keep coming again and again. Even if I try to fight the weaker ones, they are always reinforced. Does anyone have any tips on how to survive this bollocks?

[Evil Crusader]

What did you reform? I highly doubt they can muster that much troops, so there probably are some glaring strategical errors on your part (especially since you get the +75 defending from infidel boost).

However, the ideas are the usual: mass all the troops in a single stack, or a few if you need to get around supply limits, and let attrition do the work for you till you are outnumbering them 2:1.
If you can, wait on a mountain province over a river, try luring an enemy and reinforcing the army (needs practice for the correct timing, though).
Last but not least, get all the mercs/holy orders you can afford.

Good luck!

[Jormundgand]

The usual tricks will likely work; lure their armies to attack over rivers in defensive terrain and try to have superior leaders; drag their armies around the world to suffer attrition, let them siege down stuff to lose troops -- you can pull off some amazing feats of combat that way. 10x the numbers doesn't have to mean defeat if you're smart.

[Kust]

First off, you having 100,000 and them having 1,000,000 troops seems HIGHLY unlikely to me. Secondly, as everyone here has already mentioned, you need to slowly (slowly mind you) wear down their army. Sure, you'll get a negative warscore, but if you can destroy the main body of their army or defeat them just once in battle you'll be able to retake everything, win the war, and make a boatload of reparations.

[Evil Crusader]

Then you immediately counter-holy war them to death while their levies are depleted and their coffers empty.

[Panda]

Call allies, draw their armies with fleet tactics (aka hop into their capital, draw attention, hop back into boat, repeat), plug your borders with tons of troops.

Remember that supply cap is a key aspect, if you keep near max supply near borders, they will have to lose troops to attrition while they mount up forces for a push through. During that time, you can counter attack, etc.

Another way is just a money war, go for lots of mercs.

As for the "never ending war" that is sort of what all great holy wars are like, literally half the world is constantly reinforcing and throwing troops at you. The point of a holy war is survival like you stated, not outright "victory" normally.

Every month? (maybe 2, 3 months) it will automatically tick the warscore 1% into your favor, so a war of attrition you can probably win as long as you can blunt their attacks.

Furthermore during a holy war your vassals will NEVER rebel, so feel free to levy it up.

[Blue Knight™]

Publicado originalmente por Stannis Baratheon:

So, the sunni caliph has declared a jihad on me, bringing the entire muslim world down on me. I'm playing as the byzantines and have reformed from and can get upwards of 100,000 men if i raise my leves. Trouble is, the Muslims have what seems like 10x that number and keep throwing never-ending doomstacks at me that just keep coming again and again. Even if I try to fight the weaker ones, they are always reinforced. Does anyone have any tips on how to survive this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥?

Your the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BYZANTINES ACT LIKE A PRETEND ROMAN AND FIGHT !!!!

[Working Lunch Official✅]

Well, I suppose as long as I take on their armies that are spread out, then i'll be ok. The HRE have joined the war so it's just a ,atter of waiting until they can help. thanks for the tips.

[Fail_Knight]

in my byzantine campaign jihads are no problem, I have arround 60k and even though they have more man (70-100k) they are easily beaten. I just bait them with tiny army's into following me to isolated places where they can't run. then I bring down 50k on a 20k stack. We spend repeating this for about 2-5 years and then siege the caliph's personal holdings. (don't forget to blind or castrate all prisoners ;D )

[Working Lunch Official✅]

If i capture the Caliph i'll make sure he won't be having any more kids

[Captsavmhoe]

haha

[Jormundgand]

Publicado originalmente por Stannis Baratheon:

If i capture the Caliph i'll make sure he won't be having any more kids

Better to capture his sons and make sure they have no children... family line = dead end.

[Evil Crusader]

I am more inclined to ransom a lotta money from him, or if the war was going badly and I capture him, to force him to yield.

[Xaxi]

Pray harder - King Stannis

[Mikey]

Well I've tried a few byzantine runs as well and I always run into the same issue.
Jihad gets activated, Abbasid caliph decides he wants to mess with your cereals and gets half the world involved with him.

Personally I always have the Varangian Guard and as much retinue (cataphracts) already mustered and ready to conquer/defend. During the first Jihad that is usually some 8-9k troops.
Using the last attempt as base, Abba called on Armenia (I had ignored his Levant holdings only taking Tripoli and Antioch), within a month I had 30k enemy troops chasing my 8k and unfortunately catching it.
Called up my levies, 23k, then lured their army into a trap. Their army was wiped out and I lost some 5k during the fight (18k remaining total Varangians still decimated and no cash reserves for mercs, never seem to have more than 500 gold at any time) and started taking back a few holdings.
6 months later, I have lost around 2k men during sieges due to events and low and behold... 35k Abbas marching on my army...
Managed to wipe it with the skin of my teeth. Now only 5k army remaining, Levies depleted, Varangians have recovered to about 1/3 strength and no retinue. Right after that a 30k Tullunid army appeared and I decided to throw the match.

[Eradicator8]

I've been working on a Byzantium game too and have been able to form the Roman Empire but along the way the Arabian empire was certainly my greatest foe. Something I've learned from previous games as the Byzantine empire is that the Arabian empire needs to be kept in cheek, because you're right those guys can summon one heck of an army.

If you are at the point of having a 100k army and they are still giving you problems then they must have gone unchecked. I would say, if you haven't yet make weakening them one of your top priority's. If even their army levies are enough to give you pause then keep an eye on the rulers decadence. Over 75% decadence and they start to have decadence revolts during these revolts they are at their weakest and are pretty open to attack. Besides that just always be looking for opportune times to make a move on them and soon enough you'll have control of the situation.

Another thing I've learned, never send an army in with out plenty of back up armies other wise as you may have learned you'll just get picked off. Keep your armies near each other and if you need to you can try to lure some of the enemy armies away from their main point of interest by taking a bit of their own territory so you can pick them off, instead of the other way around.