How to crusade

[Svullo]

Hi, so my dear king has been called to join some crusades now and then, but I'm not sure of how to join one of those.

Can someone clear things out for me?

Thanks.

[GoaFan77]

You mean the Pope?

Regardless, you can join a Crusade or Jihad by taking a General and 7 other units ouside a city, then from the general's information scroll there will be a "Join Crusade/Jihad" option. When you join a crusade or jihad, that army can move MUCH farther, will not pay any upkeep costs, and has the option to recruit some special cheap mercenaries. However, any army on crusade or jihad cannot attack other Catholic or Muslim factions respectively, and if you do not make sufficient progress towards the crusade target your troops will start to desert your army.

If you successfully complete a Jihad or Crusade, you'll get some florins, extra experience for all units that helped with the Crusade, and the general that conquered the target will get the maximum Crusader or Holy Warrior trait (with its useful bonuses to piety, chivalry and bonus fighting Muslims or Catholics). I regularly abuse that experience reward by having all my generals join the crusade on the turn I know I'll accomplish it, even though they were in the crusade for less than a full turn all units will still get free XP.

[Red Bat]

Sometimes it isn't even worth joining the crusade though. For example Scotland, Denmark, and England are probably better off ignoring the first crusade in most cases due to not having an easy way of getting to the holy lands. Crusading armies don't require upkeep though, so you can solve a bad financial situation by sending most of your troops on a crusade.

While you are crusading you can recruit special mercenary units that are often about as good or even better than the units you can normally use, although with higher upkeep costs when the crusade ends. Since only 2 factions can make a faction standard (improves morale), it might be worth it to swing by Italy before heading to the target so you can get a Great Cross, which does the same thing.

You also get crusade points for all your cities and castles when doing a crusade. If you get enough of them, you might be able to add a guild for one of the holy order knights, which is worth it since the only calvary that are better than them are France's Noble Knights. Although many factions can get units that are at least equal to them.

If you end up conquering the crusade target, but find it isn't worth it to try to keep hold of it, consider giving it to the Papal States after sacking it.

[Svullo]

I see, i thank you both for very thorough and useful answers! Now i know what to do next time the pope demands some ruckus down south.

[easytarget]

Here's my question about those nice units you can recruit on a crusade, how do you replenish them? They don't source from a city or a castle.

[GoaFan77]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Here's my question about those nice units you can recruit on a crusade, how do you replenish them? They don't source from a city or a castle.

There is no way to replenish any mercenary units except by recruting more of them and joining the units.

[Red Bat]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Here's my question about those nice units you can recruit on a crusade, how do you replenish them? They don't source from a city or a castle.

Most of the time you can't. However there are a few exceptions. For example I was able to replenish unhorsed knights in Jerusalem. However I wasn't able to replenish religious fanatics, even while on crusade.

Originally posted by CPPFZGoaFan77:

Originally posted by easytarget:

Here's my question about those nice units you can recruit on a crusade, how do you replenish them? They don't source from a city or a castle.

There is no way to replenish any mercenary units except by recruting more of them and joining the units.

Not true. The regular mercenary units can be easily replenished from castles or towns, however I think the requirement is that you replenish them from a territory that allows you to recruit them in the first place. Very handy if you need Mercenary Crossbowmen for a faction without crossbows such as Scotland.

[easytarget]

I see no way to recruit Crusade specific units, the ones I would be interested in replenishing, like crusader knights. The other units I can get elsewhere, I don't need spears or crossbows, I've got those.

[GoaFan77]

There are knight mercenaries in certain regions, like Serbian Knights in the Balkans or German Knights in Germany.

[easytarget]

Oh yeah, I mean I know there are recruitable knights for the various countries, I was just trying to clarify how or if you can replenish crusade specific units.

I'm still convinced you can't and I'm disbanding them once I'm done with them, much as I do with any mercenary unit that's costing me a lot just sitting around in a castle or city.

[GoaFan77]

Originally posted by easytarget:

Oh yeah, I mean I know there are recruitable knights for the various countries, I was just trying to clarify how or if you can replenish crusade specific units.

I'm still convinced you can't and I'm disbanding them once I'm done with them, much as I do with any mercenary unit that's costing me a lot just sitting around in a castle or city.

Yeah I think for crusade units you're screwed, short of the highering a new one on the next crusade and merging it with the old ones. I was just saying for a faction without heavy cavalry there are other options than crusader knights.

[easytarget]

Gotcha, thanks man. Suspected that was the case.

[electricatom]

Originally posted by Svullo:

Hi, so my dear king has been called to join some crusades now and then, but I'm not sure of how to join one of those.

Can someone clear things out for me?

Thanks.

Originally posted by Red Bat:

Sometimes it isn't even worth joining the crusade though. For example Scotland, Denmark, and England are probably better off ignoring the first crusade in most cases due to not having an easy way of getting to the holy lands. Crusading armies don't require upkeep though, so you can solve a bad financial situation by sending most of your troops on a crusade.

While you are crusading you can recruit special mercenary units that are often about as good or even better than the units you can normally use, although with higher upkeep costs when the crusade ends. Since only 2 factions can make a faction standard (improves morale), it might be worth it to swing by Italy before heading to the target so you can get a Great Cross, which does the same thing.

You also get crusade points for all your cities and castles when doing a crusade. If you get enough of them, you might be able to add a guild for one of the holy order knights, which is worth it since the only calvary that are better than them are France's Noble Knights. Although many factions can get units that are at least equal to them.

If you end up conquering the crusade target, but find it isn't worth it to try to keep hold of it, consider giving it to the Papal States after sacking it.

hey so good way to use crusades army is just next to you own border, just put the general with his army next to any city u want to invade then remove ur general from crusade and invade the town only with ur general, you dont have to let him leave the army, crusade will join automatically when they normally shouldnt, same thing you can do with moving ur crusade in opposite direction - units normally would revolt but u can just make general leave crusade and rejoin it to prevent units from mutiny, this is a little bit of cheesy way to play but hey, you could get rid of enemy fast for free using strong free units until crusade is at the end
when crusade is finishing its becoming a little bit of problem tho because units will most likely revolt anyway unless u will send them on the other part of the map, so i guess using them till they would get killed would be best option?