A question about crusades in EUIV

[Ten Year Old Squeaker]

So I'm playing the game as a Catholic nation (Austria). I assumed the Papacy and am now able to order a crusade against another nation. I have succeeded in breaking the Personal Union between Poland and Lithuania, and since I have expanded to border both, I would like to order a crusade against the fatter of the two (Lithuania).

Only the game blocks me. I get a message saying "We cannot order a crusade against fellow Christians, heretics or not, as tempting as it may be."

Did the makers of EUIV ever read about the Fourth Crusade? In 1204 the Papal States and Venice owed an army of mercenaries some several hundred thousand silver coins to compensate them for their services. To pay the mercenaries off, Pope Innocent III (innocent indeed

) and Doge Enrique Dandolo ordered a redirection of the crusade (originally meant to target Islamic caliphates) and ordered the army to march on the Eastern Orthodox holy city of Constantinople. The city was sacked, Byzantium was desposed of, and Latins controlled the region for several decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade

So here is my question. If in history the Catholic church had no qualms against ordering the mass murder of fellow Christains and the seizure and theft of their assets, then why can't I as Austria do the same unto Lithuania?

 

[Anatur]

Byzantium was sacked out of pragmatism,get rid of unrully heretics and get loads of moneyz,a crusade is suposto be a war for christ against heathens,you cant have a proper crusade if the people you are killing also have the cross and also worship jesus.

While its true the crusaders were mostly a bunch of looting rapists it still has to have at least some heathens as a target to justify the whole "when you die here you go to heaven" thing.

 

[GiftGruen]

Also, 1200 << 1444. The times of "real" crusades were over. The papacy called some more crusades sometimes to give some guy they liked an excuse to take a chance of opportunity (aka "Holy War CB"), but none are really considered crusades nowadays because no one who mattered took part in it or because they were unsuccessful. Be honest: You think anyone who is not a history nerd or an EU IV player knows about the crusade of Varna?

 

[firecage]

Okay. Let me put it in simpler terms. Originally the crusaders ordered ships from Venice, but, not all the crusaders showed up, and since Venice made ALOT of ships, they wanted all the money, which the Crusaders couldn't afford. So Venice struck a deal with them, if the Crusaders attacked a certain town for them, the debt would be payed and they could get the ships. The Crusaders agreed, and so they destroyed that town. This made the Pope VERY angry, so he excommunicated every single crusader. This kind of messed everything up for the Crusaders, especially since they had no money. So a Byzantium Prince hired them to overthrow Byzantium's throne for him in exchange for a lot of money, which they did do, and so they waited for the money. They stayed in Constantinople as they waited for the money, but then they got cheated, they never got payed. So they literally raped and pillaged Constantinople from the inside-out.

So in reality, it wasn't actually the Fourth Crusade which did a crusade against Byzantium. It was a mass of extremely poor excommunicated crusaders who got cheated twice over.

 

[SignedName]

Fourth Crusade is a bad example. Albigensian Crusade is more of a "vanilla" crusade against schismatics sanctioned by the Pope.