Getting 1% Crusade strength

[Angelo53]

Started in 769 as duke of Beneveto, slowly became Byzantine Emperor and now ready to help with crusade.

As of the Holy Fury update, crusades were given a great reform, however there was a strength requirement of 75% for crusaders or the crusade would be cancelled. I know savescumming is a last resort but when I've got the strength at 74% isn't there anything I can do in 20 days?

 

[jonjowett]

I'm assuming that the strength is based on troop count. Therefore, you want to do anything you can to increase your personal troop count.

Unfortunately, you don't have much gold, so you can't afford to hire normal mercs. But you could hire vassal mercs - eg. Varangians and/or your custom merc company. (Take Jewish/holy order loans if necessary.)

You have a lot of piety, so you could also try hiring a holy order? Vassal holy orders will be cheapest, but you can afford to hire several normal holy orders if necessary. Prioritise any holy orders that aren't pledged to the crusade - holy orders that are pledged might have their holy order troops included in the strength calc even if they aren't currently raised.

 

[Angelo53]

I'm assuming that the strength is based on troop count. Therefore, you want to do anything you can to increase your personal troop count.

Unfortunately, you don't have much gold, so you can't afford to hire normal mercs. But you could hire vassal mercs - eg. Varangians and/or your custom merc company. (Take Jewish/holy order loans if necessary.)

You have a lot of piety, so you could also try hiring a holy order? Vassal holy orders will be cheapest, but you can afford to hire several normal holy orders if necessary. Prioritise any holy orders that aren't pledged to the crusade - holy orders that are pledged might have their holy order troops included in the strength calc even if they aren't currently raised.

I was wondering if mercenaries would count towards my strength

 

[jonjowett]

I was wondering if mercenaries would count towards my strength

Well, they count towards your strength in the character profile, so they probably count here too.

Perhaps I should have said: take a backup before trying anything!

 

[Angelo53]

Well, they count towards your strength in the character profile, so they probably count here too.

Perhaps I should have said: take a backup before trying anything!

Yeah I normally do but I didn't expect either this nor the fact I'd need more time to wriggle round it

 

[Woifee]

Holy Orders might do the trick.

 

[Angelo53]

Holy Orders might do the trick.

They're both occupied rip

 

[jonjowett]

They're both occupied rip

Varangians?

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You only have 11 vassals. Can you make them like you more - or a lot more! - via honorary titles, council positions, viceroyalty titles, gifts, artifacts, etc?

I believe levy size is partly affected by opinion. This depends quite a lot on your current "obligation" settings - if noble obligations are already a long way to the right then opinion might not make much difference. But you're in a very early start date with what looks like very high centralisation, so there's a chance you haven't maxed out your noble obligations. If so, focus on bigger vassals and those that get a bigger opinion swing. I don't know how the opinion levies work exactly, but I would also focus on any vassals with small negative opinion that I could change to small positive.

Because of potential recalc delay, try to do as much as possible before unpausing.

 

[Angelo53]

Eh I just waited till the next Crusade for any necro lurkers. That 1% wasted too much of my time