How are crusade "winners" determined?

[MCMartel]

I was playing as barcelona when there was a crusade in Egypt, I decided to pitch in, and put maybe like 3-4k troops, and other members definitely put in more, I was driven out by a much larger army and was regrouping when the crusade ended and I suddenly was given all of egypt. What determines who gets the land in crusade? And is it winner-take-all?

Also, related, I was able to form an empire and gave one of my sons (not my heir) a single country in egypt, and suddenly all my egyptian territory is going to him on my death, even though he's not my heir, what happened there too?

 

[mrinku]

There are two sets of rules, depending on if you have patch 3.0 (Holy Fury) installed or not. In addition, there could be some variation between having Holy Fury itself active or not. But assuming you have patch 3.0 or later, it is the beneficiary of the highest crusade contributor that gets the Kingdom title. So if the ruler that put in the most troops and money nominated you, you get the prize even if your own effort was minimal. I think there is an option for the winner to keep it for themselves instead, but the Pope does not like this. Character traits probably affect the AI choice on that.

It is possible to pick up other territory that is not in the target Kingdom, if you are at least Ducal level and occupy all de jure Counties of a Duchy. Otherwise it's all of the target kingdom going to the crusade beneficiary.

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Crusades,_Jihads_and_Great_Holy_Wars

There are some special inheritance rules regarding crusade kingdoms, I think.

 

[MCMartel]

Do I have to have Holy Fury DLC, or just update patches?

 

[mrinku]

Do I have to have Holy Fury DLC, or just update patches?

The new rules apply if you have patch 3.0 or later. Holy Fury DLC doesn't matter, though it adds events that may affect how things go.

The previous rules that apply if you roll back to an earlier patch generally hand everything over to the largest warscore contribution.

 

[Bernard95]

The participation score goes almost entirely by sieging as far as I can tell, and is quite easily cheesed. In two recent games, without even really trying I happened to be first to the sieges, so I got control of them. In fact, it seemed like the AI were attaching to me for some reason (and I definitely didn't give an order for that). Despite there being at least 10k additional troops sieging with me, I got all of the credit. Think I sieged down like three provinces tops with the AI's help, the war ended and I had like 50% participation and everyone of note had around 10%. Both times the Pope gave me the kingdom, several complete duchies, an absurd amount of gold (10k? 20k?), and a few artifacts.

Edit: Okay... wasn't expecting 5 Disagrees. I swear I got the bulk of my participation from the sieges both times and I did almost no battles whatsoever.

 

[mrinku]

The participation score goes almost entirely by sieging as far as I can tell, and is quite easily cheesed. In two recent games, without even really trying I happened to be first to the sieges, so I got control of them. In fact, it seemed like the AI were attaching to me for some reason (and I definitely didn't give an order for that). Despite there being at least 10k additional troops sieging with me, I got all of the credit. Think I sieged down like three provinces tops with the AI's help, the war ended and I had like 50% participation and everyone of note had around 10%. Both times the Pope gave me the kingdom, several complete duchies, an absurd amount of gold (10k? 20k?), and a few artifacts.

Well, it's not a democracy. Your general got there first and set it up; the later arrivals end up effectively under his command in game terms. They follow normal ally rules as far as I know, though there could be a special PC perk as there sometimes is.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

Well, it's not a democracy. Your general got there first and set it up; the later arrivals end up effectively under his command in game terms. They follow normal ally rules as far as I know, though there could be a special PC perk as there sometimes is.

It does get silly a times though.

 

[Thrake]

Score is determined:
- according to battles that give a one-time participation score (I'm not sure how it is split if multiple people take part in it)
- according to occupation that give ticking participation score to whoever was siege leader
- maybe (?) there is a small ticking score for simply being around too, I've not checked for crusades specifically but if you fight a war for your ally for exemple simple being in the wargoal province will give you some participation %

The main issue is that the AI will willingly attach to your armies and give you full benefit, so indeed you can just sit around and amass AI armies to siege holdings while other big and bold AI will march to fight and keep the big armies busy while you sneakily siege and amass participation score. Another issue is that the WS happens too fast and crusades are won over a handful squirmishes and occupations even against big empires.

 

[Soladept]

blood also counts higher than the other metrics on crusade, if you load up say 10k men, go fight a enemy stack, lose 8k, you or your benifecary will probably get the crusade winnings

and he probably got the kingdom cause iv noticed latley that it seems to default on selfish for land granting if you dont tweak it yourself as the player. AI seems to make sure its their benficarys tho.

 

[Greybeard0815]

Crusades can be easily abused, but not with sieges. Sieges almost don't matter. You get much more participation score by just fighting battles, even if you just send your men to suicide. The longer you fight and the more you fight, the more participation score you get.

This has become a problem in an MP group I was in, where it essentially just became a race to "who can attack the target's army first, even if it means suiciding your men."

 

[Lewa263]

Losing troops gives you score, even if it isn't productive toward the actual war score. So if there's a province with a low supply limit, just march your army there to die. The Pope demands blood sacrifice.

 

[Hawkslime]

There are two sets of rules, depending on if you have patch 3.0 (Holy Fury) installed or not. In addition, there could be some variation between having Holy Fury itself active or not. But assuming you have patch 3.0 or later, it is the beneficiary of the highest crusade contributor that gets the Kingdom title. So if the ruler that put in the most troops and money nominated you, you get the prize even if your own effort was minimal. I think there is an option for the winner to keep it for themselves instead, but the Pope does not like this. Character traits probably affect the AI choice on that.

It is possible to pick up other territory that is not in the target Kingdom, if you are at least Ducal level and occupy all de jure Counties of a Duchy. Otherwise it's all of the target kingdom going to the crusade beneficiary.

https://ck2.paradoxwikis.com/Crusades,_Jihads_and_Great_Holy_Wars

There are some special inheritance rules regarding crusade kingdoms, I think.

The main crusader title can also go to the de iure ruler of the area if he is still landed, I think

 

[MCMartel]

The new rules apply if you have patch 3.0 or later. Holy Fury DLC doesn't matter, though it adds events that may affect how things go.

The previous rules that apply if you roll back to an earlier patch generally hand everything over to the largest warscore contribution.

So is it that you put in the most troops and money meaning donated more or raised ore levies or what?

 

[Karlington]

Crusades can be easily abused, but not with sieges. Sieges almost don't matter. You get much more participation score by just fighting battles, even if you just send your men to suicide. The longer you fight and the more you fight, the more participation score you get.

Though every successful siege adds to the pot of gold, meaning that they increase the reward at the end.

 

[Serenity84]

So is it that you put in the most troops and money meaning donated more or raised ore levies or what?

You don't need many troops. 5-8k or so work just fine without using any cheese. Which you can easily do as a duke by saving money and hiring mercenaries. You just need to use them smartly. Doing some sieges doesn't hurt, but you can watch out for smaller Muslim armies to defeat. You can also sail before the crusade officially starts. That puts you ahead of the others

 

[knppel]

The technical details in the order they matter to leech contribution:
-Blood. As mentioned, if you can , lose battles. It will increase your contribution. Exception from this rule is if you can reach 100% warscore before anyone else arrives of course.
-Presence. Armies who are stationed, sieging, marching or , best, fighting in the target de jure territory of the crusade, will contribute score daily.
-Sieges. Do not matter at all for the contribution, unlike the Count of Orkney wants to make us believe. If the HRE had 10k soldiers to siege the city down, you as siege leader can get all the events up to the Holy Lance if lucky, but contribution for the crusade will be made up by the presence of 10,000 HRE soldiers easily toppling the presence contribution 6 split up soldiers can score.

 

[MCMartel]

They really need to revamp this mechanic, ATM it makes no sense. Frankly it seems like Warhammer 40k with the pope chanting "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

 

[Karlington]

They really need to revamp this mechanic, ATM it makes no sense. Frankly it seems like Warhammer 40k with the pope chanting "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"

It is possible to build a skull throne in a wonder if you are Cruel and have at least 100 kills.

 

[MCMartel]

It is possible to build a skull throne in a wonder if you are Cruel and have at least 100 kills.

100 across the whole dynasty, or with one person?

 

[Thrake]

The technical details in the order they matter to leech contribution:
-Blood. As mentioned, if you can , lose battles. It will increase your contribution. Exception from this rule is if you can reach 100% warscore before anyone else arrives of course.
-Presence. Armies who are stationed, sieging, marching or , best, fighting in the target de jure territory of the crusade, will contribute score daily.
-Sieges. Do not matter at all for the contribution, unlike the Count of Orkney wants to make us believe. If the HRE had 10k soldiers to siege the city down, you as siege leader can get all the events up to the Holy Lance if lucky, but contribution for the crusade will be made up by the presence of 10,000 HRE soldiers easily toppling the presence contribution 6 split up soldiers can score.

No. You are completely overlooking the sieges. You get ticking contribution for occupying lands, so unless the war is very short occupation will yield a lot of contribution, and as the count of Orkney did you can do that with a token army. I won the crusade for France as a weak duke with just 1500 men with the AI attaching it up to 15k men and occupying a handful settlements. I did that under the nose of kings and holy orders with a real army. Even disbanding my army when I realized I would win when I did not deserve it at all was not enough.

Sending it to fight would have earned everyone in the 15k doomstack some contribution, whereas I earned the contribution for 15k worth of men occupation. This is what makes sieging so good and abusable, whereas you need men to get contribution from fighting.