Planning a holy war with the Abbasid Empire

[GabrielLoki]

I've recently created the Varangian Guard as of 796 (there abouts) and feel like I may finally be ready to challenge the Calif for the rest of Antioch, as well as eventually Jerusalem. His army is still stronger than mine, but he has 70% decadence.

Going forward, I'm worried that even with the Varangian guard and 2500 strong retinues, as well as the roughly 14000 levies from my demesne and vassals, I may not be big enough to get very far without being completely slaughtered.
I'm also worried about how long it'll take for the guard to arrive from Sweden, I've never raised mercenaries before so I dont' know how that works.
Then of course, there is the limited supply in the desert, I'm worried environmental attrition may be a problem.

Any advice?
Oh, I'm also worried that raising all my levies will lose me Electors: currently my son is in line for the throne, but If i anger my vassals I may lose votes. 15 in his favor at this time, with my half brother as the runner up, 3 votes. My half brother was born in the purple, my son is just a despot.

 

[Silversweeeper]

I've recently created the Varangian Guard as of 796 (there abouts) and feel like I may finally be ready to challenge the Calif for the rest of Antioch, as well as eventually Jerusalem. His army is still stronger than mine, but he has 70% decadence.

Going forward, I'm worried that even with the Varangian guard and 2500 strong retinues, as well as the roughly 14000 levies from my demesne and vassals, I may not be big enough to get very far without being completely slaughtered.
I'm also worried about how long it'll take for the guard to arrive from Sweden, I've never raised mercenaries before so I dont' know how that works.
Then of course, there is the limited supply in the desert, I'm worried environmental attrition may be a problem.

Any advice?

The Varangians will arrive in Constantinople (or your capital, but that should already be the City of World's Desire) at your command. However, even with the Varangians and a retinue you don't want to engage in a holy war if you are outnumbered, as there might be other religious enemies joining in and your vassals might get uppity if you lose a lot of men. If possible, expanding elsewhere to get more levies/retinues before engaging the Abbasids is a good idea, as losing a massive holy war could be costly if your opponents strike shortly after the war.

 

[GabrielLoki]

My heir, the Exarch of Anatolia, is currently waging a holy war in mesopotamia. Rather than back him up, I was wondering if I should take advantage and follow suit, effectively doubling our gains. Would that work?

 

[Asiak]

The despot title will level the playing field with the brother just fine and at 15 votes that's pretty solid a vote.

As Silversweeeper said the varangians like mercenaries will just appear in your capital.

After that you are not wrong to be cautious but also not wrong to be hopeful with a Caliph at 70% decadence. And I find decadence to be key with this, and it does happen and it does matter. The moral hit to his demesne troops due to decadence has really saved the day for me a few times. But beyond that the question is really what else is he doing right now and how many levies does he appear to have.

And remember his levies will increase beyond what you see initially because he will get the defending vs infidels opinion boost with his vassals.

Now with decadence, and 14k troops and the guard, if his levies are at a base of 10k or higher I still might wait. Unless maybe he was distracted by a revolt or two as well.

With all of those factors and him having more 5k - 8k troops then I might consider taking something from him.

Keep in mind though that the closing move of decadence isn't broken like it used to be. At 70% decadence I consider it a safe bet that he isn't going to get better, that he is going to keep marching towards 90% and he will trigger a decadence revolt. At least 3 times I have seen a mighty Muslim blob fall entirely or to pieces to a decadence revolt. If he looses, which he can, half of his vassals may go independent or merely a few, either way he will be weaker.

Be it during the actual decadence invasion or after it, a weaker moment for him may be around the corner.

 

[Asiak]

My heir, the Exarch of Anatolia, is currently waging a holy war in mesopotamia. Rather than back him up, I was wondering if I should take advantage and follow suit, effectively doubling our gains. Would that work?

Yes. I often do this.

You can still do this as the liege.

You used to be able to do it as the vassal. If you saw your liege warring you could join in for some other county. But nooooo now you can't because you can't declare war on someone who your liege is at war with baawwww.

 

[StarSword]

On the strategic level, consider naval deployment rather than overland. You can outflank and crush smaller stacks while the Caliph is still forming up his doomstack.

 

[Aries666]

If the Abbasids are already defending a holy war then whatever the Caliph's info screen says for his levy wont change as he is already defending vs infidels. Even if marginally outnumbered I would attack, select a duchy next to the target you vassal has already selected and then keep my troops near to my vassals troops. Make sure that your stack in larger than your vassals stack, this will cause the Abbasids to attack your vassals stack when they do join the fight which should result in a big win though you wont get any WS for it.

 

[_Perun_]

Basically what StarSword said. I completely decimated Abbasids once, being twice outnumbered. They lead their armies blindly to the sieged provinces where I was able to slaughter them having superior leaders and terrain advantages.

 

[StarSword]

Basically what StarSword said. I completely decimated Abbasids once, being twice outnumbered. They lead their armies blindly to the sieged provinces where I was able to slaughter them having superior leaders and terrain advantages.

Yeah, I did the same thing to the Umayyads. Idled my marshal, who has Organizer, so I could GTFO if I saw a too-large stack coming. At one point I even completely retreated back to the ships so I could reposition my troops where my oh-so-distractable German "allies" happened to be besieging a castle in southern Aquitaine (some petty de jure scuffle with France). The Umayyads came after me and ran into both armies. Even numerical match; defensive terrain did the rest.

End result of all this running around, Umayyads finally crushed to around 3000 troops from somewhere upwards of 16k, and I was able to besiege my war target of Galicia without interference.