I don't see how your idea will improve gameplay. Basically you give the player an extraordinary amount of control over pretty much the entire of Europe during the crusades. Not only is this historically inaccurate, it makes Crusades far too easy. I personnally already find Crusades fairly easy, why make the game less challenging AND more inaccurate?
New Crusading Mechanic
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All the accounts for what was actually said in the Council of Clermont greatly differ on "why" the council actually happened. Also, their is a huge debate between scholars about how important the Council of Clermont actually was. Personally I agree with the more recent research which argues that the First Crusade was a reaction to apocalyptic concerns many Christians had with the dawning of a new millennium, in which case it is reasonable to suggest that an armed pilgrimage eastward would have happened even if the Council of Clermont hadn't been called.
The Chronical of Lupus Protospatarius wrote: (This is my translation from the Original Latin, I will post both)
1095- De mense Aprilis in nocte quinta feria subito visi sunt igniculi cadere de caelo quasi stellae per totam Apuliam, qui repleverunt universam superficiem terrae. Et ex tunc coeperunt Galliae populi pergere, immo totius Italiae, ad sepulchrum Domini com armis, ferentes in humero dextro cruces vexillam.
During the month of April on the night of the fifth day (Thursday) fireballs were suddenly seen all around Apulia falling from the heavens like stars, which filled the surface of the earth. And then the peoples began to proceed out of Gaul, indeed all of Italy, to the Sepulcher of the Lord with arms, carrying in their right hands a banner of the Cross.
Notice, there is absolutely no mention of the Council of Clermont or helping the Byzantines. The author of this Chronicle says the beginning of the first crusade was because of a violent meteor shower. I have found the same mentioning of that meteor shower in chronicles from all over Italy, France, England, and even Prague. Many dont even mention the Council of Clermont, other mention the Council of Clermont only after talking about the meteor showers.
Here is a Chronicle from England by Orderici Vitalis: (Once again, this is my translation from the original Latin, but I dont have that text right now)
In the year of our Lord 1095 a day before Nones of April it was seen by an innumerable amount of spectators from Gaul, many stars running about. It was believed to be like a hail-storm, but of dense light. Many of these stars were falling, as explained in the Scripture, which says that, when stars fall from the heavens (Matthew 24:29).” The particular passage reads, “"Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
This idea of the First Crusade being motivated by fear of the Apocalypse is advocated by Dr. Jay Rubenstein, who teaches at the University of Tennessee, and wrote the book "Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse."
So, yes, I would argue that helping the Byzantines doesn't have much evidence to support it and that even the importance of the Council of Clermont has been greatly overstated.
Also, if you can read Latin you can look at a ton of Medieval primary source material at: http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/
And I am sorry if I came off as confrontational. I am doing research on this very subject in hopes that is will turn into something which will get me accepted into a Ph.D. program. I get a little passionate about the Crusades.
Just don't give the land to the player when a crusade is won, give it to a duke who led part of the crusade and won a fair amount of war score. Also what start date are you on!? Crusades are easy hell no, if you start at the 1066 start fatimids conquer Greece, East Africa, Some minor Sunni counties in Arabia, then Sicily in just a matter of years how could you ever find that easy?
I agree for a game called Crusader Kings, the Crusade mechanics are the worst part of the game.
did they change the fact that you couldn't become King of Jerusalem if you had a liege? that was my biggest annoyance.
did they change the fact that you couldn't become King of Jerusalem if you had a liege? that was my biggest annoyance.
Don't you miss the letters Alexios wrote to western kings and dukes ?
AFAIK it's also mentioned in the Alexiad.
At least that inspired the pope and nobles to go for it and for sure the propaganda of its days didn't mention the wordly reasons.
@the_hdk
Agree completely. Crusades need work.
Crusades need some tweaks but I believe it's correct that the contributors are independent of each other and there's no central command with direct control. Also, landed nobles, kings and emperors did participate and lead either troops or entire crusades (although a papal legate could be made to represent the pope with some decision-making other than peace).
Generally, the two parts that need reworking are:
1. AI behaviour;
2. contribution calculation.
Re #1, this is basically the doomstacks getting frittered on sieges, either through attrition or assaults, before the Muslim army comes and cleans it up.
Re #2, it currently focuses on who provides what share of the participating troops or something along those lines. The premise is not without merit but it's possible to come and win the crusade one's own basically, going from a negative war score to a win, and end up being the one the Pope declares to be the winner. Which is not exactly unrealistic of itself because lack of appreciation is part of life, as well as differences of opinion as to which leader enabled the victory, but one kinda expects recognition for doing something meaningful in a computer game.
Generally, the two parts that need reworking are:
1. AI behaviour;
2. contribution calculation.
Re #1, this is basically the doomstacks getting frittered on sieges, either through attrition or assaults, before the Muslim army comes and cleans it up.
Re #2, it currently focuses on who provides what share of the participating troops or something along those lines. The premise is not without merit but it's possible to come and win the crusade one's own basically, going from a negative war score to a win, and end up being the one the Pope declares to be the winner. Which is not exactly unrealistic of itself because lack of appreciation is part of life, as well as differences of opinion as to which leader enabled the victory, but one kinda expects recognition for doing something meaningful in a computer game.
Thanks, i'll try to check that.
No online link ? Maybe i find one or will look in my libraries. Maybe in the American Library, yes we have one.
edit: found it easily when i searched for the author.
edit2: Hmmm, the only argument i see against the claims of a forgery is that the byzzies wrote it in a tone especially for those barbarian christians up north and their zealousness.
Though not likely. Interesting.
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It is interesting. When I began looking into the First Crusade, I wanted to investigate if the leadership of the First Crusade would help confirm or negate some of the more recent critiques of medieval feudalism (background info: over the last several years scholars have suggested that feudalism never really existed...look up Susan Reynolds if you want mor info). Anyway, I wanted to see how these leader used the crusade the benefit them, because I thought these men where cynical ambitious lords. What I discovered was quite the opposite. Some crusaders were opportunistic and self serving, most notably Bohemond. Geoffrey Malaterra flat out tells us that Bohemond was one of these jerks....which is interesting because Anna Komnenos just gushes over him. However, a vast majority of these crusaders were peasants, at least in the camp of Peter the Hermit. Many of the nobles were persuaded to go by what they saw as signs from god, like the meteor shower I mentioned. Hugh de Vermandois supposedly saw an eclipse of the moon. And, a vast majority seem to be sincere, Raymond of Toulouse actually refused to be king of Jerusalem because he didn't feel it right to rule over Christ's realm.
I simply don't believe helping the Byzantine Empire had anything to do with it. Alexios didn't want that army there, he didn't aid or supply them. Several of the Crusader leaders flat out refuse to make oaths of allegance to him. Finally, many scholars are saying the the loss at the Battle of Manzikurt wasn't that big of a blow. It caused the Byzantines to begin fighting amongst themselves more than a Turkish threat. It just doesn't add up to me.
I simply don't believe helping the Byzantine Empire had anything to do with it. Alexios didn't want that army there, he didn't aid or supply them. Several of the Crusader leaders flat out refuse to make oaths of allegance to him. Finally, many scholars are saying the the loss at the Battle of Manzikurt wasn't that big of a blow. It caused the Byzantines to begin fighting amongst themselves more than a Turkish threat. It just doesn't add up to me.
@ TheLionHeart: It varries from game to game, but usually I don't find the Fatamids too hard to handle. The trick is in never fighting a direct war with them until your powerful enough to take them by yourself, then its just cleanup. I've played two games and one observe with current DLC and updates and the Fatamids have only gotten big once, and it didn't take more than 50 years to push them out of Greece and Egypt.
The only way I can see them improving the Crusade system is by providing more accurate distribution of captured territory. Not along the line of the abstract contribution numbers, but along the line of who holds what holdings. Since capturing territory earns you a much lower contribution than fighting battles, it then becomes advantageous to take as much territory as possible. It also makes it easier to "win" in a Crusade even when you can contribute >10k. I think it would be very cool to see the Pope give out holdings along these lines, with the smaller titles going to minor lords throughout Europe and the big title going to whomever contributed the most. It would also make sense that vassals from lower authority states should be able to Crusade independantly, perhaps gaining superior lands to their original holdings. Major dukes in France or Spain could gain their independance this way, by becoming King of Jerusalem.
The only way I can see them improving the Crusade system is by providing more accurate distribution of captured territory. Not along the line of the abstract contribution numbers, but along the line of who holds what holdings. Since capturing territory earns you a much lower contribution than fighting battles, it then becomes advantageous to take as much territory as possible. It also makes it easier to "win" in a Crusade even when you can contribute >10k. I think it would be very cool to see the Pope give out holdings along these lines, with the smaller titles going to minor lords throughout Europe and the big title going to whomever contributed the most. It would also make sense that vassals from lower authority states should be able to Crusade independantly, perhaps gaining superior lands to their original holdings. Major dukes in France or Spain could gain their independance this way, by becoming King of Jerusalem.
How about dealing with the conquered maluses differently in a crusade ?!
Lets say no more or much shorter cultural difference and recently conquered malus. Wouldn't that make sense with crusades ?
It would give a better survival chance for the conquered lands, especially if land is handed out to new independent lords and seems plausible historically with the levantine area.
Lets say no more or much shorter cultural difference and recently conquered malus. Wouldn't that make sense with crusades ?
It would give a better survival chance for the conquered lands, especially if land is handed out to new independent lords and seems plausible historically with the levantine area.
The first king of Jerusalem was just as much of a nobody as Edmund, earl of Winchester would be, which is not at all. The first two rulers of the kingdom of Jerusalem were second and third sons of a minor flemish count, not prestigious royal princes. It's perfectly historical. Kings on crusades tended to end disastrously (Barbarossa died of a stroke, Richard I was kidnapped on the way back for insulting the duke of Austria, Philippe Auguste got sick, Louis IX died of the plague). The most powerful lords in charge of the first crusade were a duke of Normandy, a count/prince/duke/marquess of Toulouse (the counts used all four titles interchangeably), and a margrave of Flanders.
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On a meta note, the Crusades violated a cardinal rule of warfare: Never journey far to fight wars.
My understanding from very limited reading and way to many history documentaries was that Alexios was reaching out to the west for something like a company of elite knights to help clean things up in his realm (kind of a aristocratic mercenary company I guess) and was indeed not expecting and did not want the Crusader Army that turned up. The whole thing with oaths of allegiance was an effort to turn this unexpected event to his advantage...
However what Alexios wanted or was expecting bears no real relation to why people went. I don't think you can underestimate the concept of salvation to the medieval mind. Life was brutal, nasty and often short; whereas heaven and salvation was forever and taken deadly seriously. The Crusades where an opportunity for extremely god-fearing but "full of sin" people (as their local priest would constantly remind them) to have a fast-track straight to heaven, all sins forgiven...
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It's true that Alexios did not expect that many crusaders to turn up, and it was correct that he was wary of the big crowd (that many strangers will make anyone nervous).
Yeah, it's pretty much that. I would love to see it somehow modeled in the game, even if by events.
Godfrey of Bouillon was only duke from 1087 to 1100, was never king of Jerusalem, and was the first and only duke of Lorraine in his family, since it was apparently granted more as a military governorship than as a fief. The first king was his brother Baldwin.