New Crusading Mechanic

[BBBD316]

I was wondering if people would think of this as a useful way to change up Crusades/Jihads.

The Pope calls a crusade, it then allows 1 year for people to join and move their forces to meet the Popes at a crusader camp, ie. Venice. Once you raise these forces your troops are tagged part of the Crusader army, with a red cross on a white background. All crusader forces meet at this location, the player can choose to manage the campaign or allow the AI to do it. However all forces assembled are under the control of a single command, only unlanded nobles can be generals.

There would be a target of foces needed to be reached, so that if only 10,000 men turn up the crusade is called off, if the target is reached then the campaign sets off.

Once victorious the controller of the crusading army would be the one to divide the spoils up, but the unlanded generals of the army would be the logical choices for the new kings/dukes, which would then create a independent crusader state that would receive special bonuses if independent to make sure it hangs around.

 

[brovahkiin]

I like it

 

[apg]

Sounds better than the current system.

 

[unmerged(47028)]

Interesting but will it work? A doom stack would suffer enormous attrition. Having in mind that that would be only 1 stack mobile Muslims would simply outmaneuver the stack and liberate already conquered territories. However, I like the idea of giving the captured territory to landless generals.

 

[tuareg109]

Nah, I don't really like it so much.
Historically the crusades were under control of high-ranking nobles or sons of nobles of western Europe, and they and their sons became rulers of the holy land.
For example, Duke Godfrey of Lower Lorraine became the first King of Jerusalem after the First Crusade, and kept his duchy.
I don't want "Edmund of Winchester", son of Nobody Important, becoming King of Jerusalem and leading an army composed of the most prestigious rulers and knights in all of Christendom. It doesn't make any sense.
To determine the leader of a crusade, perhaps a combination/formula using Prestige, Piety, and Papal Relations should be used. If two rulers are close enough in this PPP number, they should be able to contest it between themselves somehow.
I still can't think of how to distribute conquered lands yet. Perhaps a combination of piety and relations to powerful crusader lords, with a small part determined by realm size or power in general?

So your idea is great, but some parts of it are not.

To clarify, a lord with the highest piety and relations to powerful lords receives the highest relevant contested title, along with a county or two; other lords receive the next-highest tier title, along with a county or two; then other lords receive a county apiece under those dukes; then other, less noble, lords receive baronies; and remote nobles or even non-nobles receive bishoprics and cities.
There should also be a mechanic to prevent heirs or near-heirs of very important men (the Kaiser, the Basileus, the Kings of England, France, Hungary, etc.) from gaining any titles except for the King title if they are highest rated.

 

[unmerged(133674)]

This is similar to some ideas that I've had regarding making Crusades better, I like that there's someone thinking along the same lines as I have been; a mass Crusader army on the march is a reasonable idea.

Some additional ideas/brainstorming:

- the First Crusade was called in part because of the crisis in the East, with the Byzantine Empire on the ropes; perhaps the First Crusade should only be called if there is some sort of "crisis" in Christendom? (a monarchy destroyed? certain provinces taken by non-Christians?). There should be better diplomatic options between the Byzantine Empire and the Papacy, with the ability to ask for aid, perhaps, and the Byzantines might be able to work in concert with Crusader armies. The Byzantines were also initially under the impression that the lands the Crusaders were taking would be under Byzantine control, but that's probably dealt with by the Swear Fealty mechanic.

- calling men to a Crusade should not be instantaneous, and the decision to go on Crusade not instant, either. The Pope might go on a preaching tour (as Urban II did), with temporary bonuses to manpower in the provinces he visits. Characters might have the opportunity to gain a "Taken the Cross" trait either by decision or by event (zealous characters more likely to experience the event?), which would give bonuses to vassal relations initially - however, the longer one puts off going on Crusade, the bonus would decline and eventually become a malus. This would model how some people took the cross, but didn't go on Crusade until much later, or failed to do so.

- going on Crusades was expensive. Incredibly expensive, for the time. On the one hand, if your kin or courtiers decide to go on crusade, they might want to hit you up for the money; providing them with the funds to go on crusade gains you piety. On the other, we finally have something that the Pope's massive income is good for; providing gifts and benefices for characters to go on Crusade. Of course, he might want you to lower church taxes in your demesne, or get rid of that free investiture nonsense in your kingdom...

Interesting but will it work? A doom stack would suffer enormous attrition. Having in mind that that would be only 1 stack mobile Muslims would simply outmaneuver the stack and liberate already conquered territories. However, I like the idea of giving the captured territory to landless generals.

You could potentially give a Crusader army reduced/no attrition. You could also choose whether or not to be part of the main Crusader army, or be separate and do your own thing, or detach to attack targets of opportunity, like Baldwin of Boulogne did to capture Edessa.

 

[BBBD316]

I agree in that it should be a landed Duke, etc. I am trying to get 3rd sons of kings to be the noble warrior, so those useless sons of the high noblility not just some random courtier. I just want to see the spolis be independent and I think that this would seek to allow that.

I have pushed before that the most martial participant shoudl also have a chance at leading the troops, martial is pretty much meaningless at the moment and trying to breed the next crusader general might make it more useful.

I also think that hopefully the AI, but especially the player would fight a smarter war, landing 4 7.5K stacks in neighbouring counties protect against the early doomstacks of the fatmids, that are generally 15 at most should give you a good chance to win.

 

[Bob_the_Insane]

Personally I think there are two key issues with Crusades currently.

1. Lack of any organization, to much organization would feel wrong but at the same time the lots of little 200 to 3000 man armies running around individually get easily crushed by the defending realms. I have not see a (early) crusade succeed in any of my recent games without player intervention (maybe that is how it is meant to be?) which means the player tends to end up getting the benefits of winning the Crusade because the the scale of the forces the player needs to throw at the crusade or the Crusade fails...

2. The one ruler gets it all end result of winning the Crusade...

Not sure about a solution for the first, but nominating one of the participating rulers as war leader so the allied armies would tend to gravitate to and link with his (given that the Pope does not bring a army) might help.

For the second I thought it might be interesting if the counties (and baronies) where handed out to the various leaders on the crusade in proportion to their individual war score. Thus the results of a Crusade would be a mess of states with conflicting loyalties and a whole new bunch of claims on each other...

 

[unmerged(596352)]

no,the idea bring too much stability to the crusades.

In reality ,the crusader armies were very unstable because of the different opinions of the leaders who came from all over Europe.

Maybe if there were some events that emulated the rivalities and daily argues betwen the christian leaders ,this would work

 

[unmerged(424234)]

How would it work for multiplayer?

 

[I Killed Kenny]

Well, the people with a Crusader trait could ask some land (if they don't have it already) from the king of Jerusalem ?

 

[Grubnessul]

Well, the people with a Crusader trait could ask some land (if they don't have it already) from the king of Jerusalem ?

Maybe the pope should assign the biggest contributor as king of Jerusalem, the second, third and fourth biggest contributor as dukes there, the next in line as counts and barons. That way the Crusades wouldn't be a winner takes all.

 

[tuareg109]

Maybe the pope should assign the biggest contributor as king of Jerusalem, the second, third and fourth biggest contributor as dukes there, the next in line as counts and barons. That way the Crusades wouldn't be a winner takes all.

So the King of England becomes King of Jerusalem, Matilda de Toscana becomes a duke (under the HRE), the King of Scotland becomes another Duke, the Duke of Aquitaine becomes another Duke...see how this idea would result in a terrible map, and a fragmented Holy Land?
I stick by my proposal: having some kind of combined Prestige, Piety, Personal Relations score determine who gets land in the land crusaded for; third sons and distant relatives of kings and emperors get some kind of weighted bonus/preference.

 

[Grubnessul]

So the King of England becomes King of Jerusalem, Matilda de Toscana becomes a duke (under the HRE), the King of Scotland becomes another Duke, the Duke of Aquitaine becomes another Duke...see how this idea would result in a terrible map, and a fragmented Holy Land?

They'd become a duke under the King of Jerusalem. We only need to rework the de jure working a bit so independent rulers can be vassals of other realms.

 

[unmerged(601350)]

I like the idea and I don't at the same time. Truth be told, the First Crusade was very poorly organized. It really wasn't a single juggernaut army marching eastward, but many small, even tiny groups of soldiers, knights, pilgrims, women...etc. Some of these groups combined when they reached Constantinople, some tries to march through Turkey, suffered heavy losses and fell back to Constantinople to link up with a different group. Some armies only combined during sieges, while other groups, like that of Baldwin of Edessa and Tancred abandoned the Crusade entirely to carve out their own lands. Furthermore, the Pope had absolutely no say in who lead these expeditions. Godfrey of Bouillon didn't become King of Jerusalem because the pope said so, nor was is because he was the most distinguished leader, or the highest born. Raymond of Toulouse was offered the crown first, but rejected it either out of sincere piety or a desire to continue fighting else ware (or a combination of the two).

Overtime, however, crusades actually became more organized and began to look a little more like what the initial poster is talking about.

I actually dont have anything wrong with the current Crusading system, I think it is pretty authentic. Scholars to this very day say that the success of the First Crusade was nothing short of a miracle, maybe a successful First Crusade in the game SHOULD be near impossible... because it was. The problem is that the Fatimids are too well organized in the game and too strong. If you look at Muslim accounts of the First Crusade, they all blame each other for letting Jerusalem fall. The Turks blame the Fatamids, the Fatamids blame the Turks. Fatimid rulers blame other Fatimid rulers. But then again, the First Crusade is very difficult to understand because to a large extent, it wasn't a military operation, the brought their wives and children and called themselves pilgrims. It is doubtful that Pope Urban actually intended these pilgrims to actually capture Jerusalem, I think it is more likely he intended the expedition to be an armed pilgrimage and nothing more, which Latin Christians had all ready been doing for centuries. Lastly, I am not convinced they were actually sent to help the Byzantine Empire, the Greeks had been using Latin mercenaries for centuries prior, why ask the Pope for help?

The only change I would make is how the lands are divided up after a successful Crusade.

 

[BBBD316]

I can agree with that baseballkrba10, I guess I just see that most games actually contain little crusading for the majority of players, why? Cause you have so little chance to win and if you do, you either get the holy land that you don't want or one of the blobs get it.

I would like it if the fatmids had to deal with constant revolts and it was possible for single duchies to have a go at snagging one or two counties.

Also I think that if you don't lead your army to the holy land, that the commanding general may choose to take the land themselves.

 

[ZechsMerquise73]

I like the decentralised elements of the Crusade as is. But I would like some cool events involving following a greater crusade leader (perhaps the biggest, most pious, highest diplomacy, of the highest rank above King (or general nobility of same descriptors). Perhaps you could branch off and do your own thing, or he'd send you to hit another part of the holy land. It would add some interaction between leaders in wars that is clearly not in the game at all right now.

Perhaps the crusaded lands should go to the overall most liked noble among the crusading forces, then by highest prestige, then most pious. Generally, though, I think it should go to a duke rather than the person with the highest war contribution (= largest/most consistently deployed army)

you either get the holy land that you don't want or one of the blobs get it.

Give it to your brother, then.

 

[Kalderus]

I'm fairly certain there's a record of the Basileus specifically asking for western support from Urban himself.

 

[TheLionHeart]

I agree with this for a game called Crusader Kings, the actual crusades and holy wars are my absolute least favorite part of the game. (Mostly due to those dirty fatimids) But I would really like the ability to request a crusade from the pope if you or a friendly neighbor have lost a holy war recently, and have enough piety and relationship with the pope. I know this isn't all too historical since the 1st was the only crusade really like this, but in my first play through as Castile I was doing very well until...DOUBLE JIHAD FOR GALICIA. Yeah you can probably guess the outcome of that "war" *cough Fatimids. I was still around and quite large but a few days later the pope calls a Crusade for Jerusalem while Muslims have taken over most of Iberia, all of Italy, and Aquitaine. But of Course the pope thinks Jerusalem is much more worth reclaiming than his own house. (naturally)

 

[unmerged(601350)]

And I agree, some tweaks may make Crusading more enjoyable. If you go on the First Crusade, if is pretty much you vs. the Fatimid and their allies, other Crusaders are useless. And if you stay home, if has no impact really. I think if would be cool if your vassals, or enemy vassals picked up and left for the Holy Land so it may have some effect in Europe. But then again, I am not particularly convinced that the First Crusade did have much of an effect on Europe. I don't know what the answer is, I don't necessarily want it to be easier, maybe more dramatic. I agree, something is missing.