The Chronicles of the Golden Cross Redux

Hurrah, the Holy Roman Emperor has come! He has come to fulfill his promise and his lifelong dream, and with his might, Jerusalem shall prevail!

That is, of course, provided that he does get to Jerusalem. I mean, he is quite old, so nobody would be surprised if a few... accidents happened here and there and the frail emperor would to suddenly fall over, and, oh I don't know fall into a lake? I mean, with his weak constitution heavy armor, he surely wouldn't survive; if he manages to even stay afloat it would be a miracle. It would be quite a pity, I mean it's not like anyone meant for him to fall over...

... Whaaat? Don't look at me like that just because I'm fangirling for Saladin. It's not like I was implying anything there... *cough**cough*

Still, nice to see the progress so far. The war results were quite unexpected; I had almost expected you to be able to cut through Saladin's lines with ease, but what a lucky strike during the Battle of Ascalon. Quite suspenseful set of events thus far - Saladin's troops from the South marching towards the Levant, and the Holy Roman Emperor himself with his large host of troops, who will probably be soon followed by Phillip of France and Richard the- Oh wait, you already have Richard, xD. You sure do keep one quite excited as to what happens next, don't you? ;P

Mind, where did the Pope call the crusade on? Alexandria or someplace?

Hyo said:

Hurrah, the Holy Roman Emperor has come! He has come to fulfill his promise and his lifelong dream, and with his might, Jerusalem shall prevail!

That is, of course, provided that he does get to Jerusalem.

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With your luck, he goes to a Muslim county and sieges, while you get taken out.

Epic. Will any other nations be coming to the party?

Very exciting. I look forward to future updates on the edge of my seat.

Well, not really, because that would be rather silly.

Let's hope Barbarossa doesn't drown in ankle-deep water like he did IRL.

Gripping! I gather the Kingdom doesn't have enough manpower to fight a protracted war of attrition with half the Middle East, so you'll have to act quickly to give Saladin some decisive blows. Hopefully Barbarossa will provide enough of a distraction. What's the crusade target?

Unless something happens and forces Saladin to get his attention placed away from Jerusalem, I don't think that the KoJ will survive. Barbarrosa may give some victories, but the Kingdom will get in a very bad shape after this war.

We all know that a crusade to protect Jerusalem will result in the Barbarossa and his 50000 go to Jerusalem and sit there. Saladin and his army will stay at Darum because that's where all the levies are marching towards. Richard can retake all the territories lost except Darum and rebuild his forces.

The Pope and Barbarossa doing the right thing.That is pretty darn awesome. That's two miracles. Barbarossa's young son could be suiitable for Richard and Sibylla's daughter. And Richard's presence in a demesne seems to be able to find troops hiding in strange places. He's a troop magnet. Saladin's only likely to move once all his reinforcements are either dead because they've been intercepted or with the army.

I don't see why it would take Jerusalem long to recover. Saladin isn't doing a scorched earth on the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

From what I know more people died durning the disorganized withdrawal and pursuit rather than in actual combat. You can easily say that Richard is reorganizing troops that fell back to the capitol and its neighbouring provinces after they saw the banner of the Marshal of Jerusalem disappearing in the heat of the battle (lowering banner was the signal to retreat, or that was what I read somewhere about banner signal for medieval period). Or say that all knights of the Christendom are journeying to the Jerusalem to defend it to explain how fast you troops can recover in the Middle East.

Chief Ragusa said:

I don't see why it would take Jerusalem long to recover. Saladin isn't doing a scorched earth on the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

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No, he's not doing that, but the manpower lost in the battles should take a bit to recover. After all, the Latin population of the kingdom was pitiful small.

Kurt_Steiner said:

the manpower lost in the battles should take a bit to recover.

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Casualties in battle include a lot of fleeing men. The Kingdom of Jerusalem depended on locals in their army, not just the latins

"Huge mangonels were brought up to fling projectiles coated in flaming naphtha at the towers and curtain walls. A battering ram broke through the first gate, only for the jubilant assailers to be slaughtered inside the gatehouse by boiling oil poured down through the murder holes in the ceiling, which was compounded by a withering rain of death through the arrow loops."

This line reminded me just how grisly siege warfare was, "shudder".

Congratulations Primus, you're WritAAR of the Week for this week! Well deserved

Congratulations AP! This one is a nailbiter... if Barbarossa gets to Jerusalem with even half of his forces, that could swing the tide. Richard and the Kingdom need to hold on by their fingernails!

Congratulations on the award, Alexander. Quite the honor for your little story!

Excellent stuff, a really tense update filled with action. I thought after Ascalon all was over for Jerusalem but Richard has saved the day alongside the Pope who is proving rather more able than it first appeared. Hopefully with this Crusade Jerusalem will not merely be able to survive, but also to prosper, gaining some land from Saladin.

Intense, nail biting reading, just as we've come to expect from you Alex.

Very good point. It only makes sense -- if Jerusalem's levies really were completely slaughtered, it would take an entire generation to rebuild the army, rather than a few months.

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Not exactly an entire generation.

The Hundred Years War - most of the nobles (or so I read) has been killed at the Battle of Agincourt (read: they weren't superior force in cavalry terms anymore) and both kingdoms of France and England could still wage their war for half a century after that battle. If two powerful kingdoms were able to battle one another for a hundred years then how could the Jerusalem's forces be completely eradicated after one or two battles?

Also, people can breed really fast and 16 years old is considered an adult in medieval terms (if I am not mistaken even less, but I am not sure here) - per each year you'd get all 15 years old boys you couldn't muster before and with each passing year you will get more troops and family poll of each pair in the kingdom is different - it can be a single boy or a whole army of boys, in different age, too. Even if you couldn't recover your armies to full strength with your boys alone, you would certainly do so with fresh knights from all the other realms (from what I heard the Guests of the Teutonic Order held third of the banners at the Battle of Tannenberg/Grunwald) as well as routed (and not killed) full-abled troops that escaped the battle.

There are many ways to explain what happens in the game. In reality even during the Age of the Powder and Artillery the europeian states were able to reinforce their military forces fast enough and they could kill one another faster. Even after WW1 and WW2 human resources recovered suprisingly fast.

Holy.Death said:

If two powerful kingdoms were able to battle one another for a hundred years then how could the Jerusalem's forces be completely eradicated after one or two battles?

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One may also note that the medieval kingdoms, due to inferior logistics, unwilling subjects and inefficiently organized farming, simply could not levy a significant number of their population into a maintainable army. Its not like in industrial times where one could get levy an entire generation and send em to war. The levies killed or incapacitated would represent a quite tiny percentage of the total population. Nobles are a different thing, as they were fewer and obliged to turn up to a man. But even then they would make sure to keep a few sons/cousins/uncles at home, lest their dynasty get wiped out, who could get dragged out of their castles when you're forming the next army.