Will you do anything about the Crusades?

[EviLine]

They are soooooooooooo boring.

1. The Crusaders don't need to deal with Republics for ships and can reach Jerusalem on foot very easily and unrealistically quickly.

2. They don't need to deal with Byzantium (or anyone for that matter) for supplies or support

3. Crusades are too cheap to organize so seemingly everyone joins.

 

[SaphireSeas]

4. Crusader states akin to Antioch and Edessa are never set up because the highest contributor is a king/emperor, and it is impossible to take land outside of the kingdom in a crusade.

I would be really neat to have crusades reworked, but I fear that it will not happen.

 

[EviLine]

I find it dumb, how everyone just jumps on a Crusade the very second the Pope announces it. It should be like - okay the Pope called for a Crusade, now you got about 5 years to build your army, build up your money, finish the wars you might have going and THEN go on a Crusade. And the attrition should be higher if traveling by land.

The Muslims (or whoever the target is) would also have time to prepare and consolidate.

 

[Cal585]

I'd love a timer where you can join a Crusade during a preparation phase. Even if it was just a year warning of an impending Crusade like the adventurer stuff.
Even more important would be some mechanic to set up a Crusader state, not blend the KoJ into France or Hungary. An event to give the title to an unlanded courtier/family member (or keep for yourself) and reset the recently conquered modifiers.
Really you could add some nice events impacting travel or relations with nearby lords for leaving/not leaving, or conflicting with others on the Crusade (the kings of France and Germany have become bitter rivals).

I'm not holding my breath for any changes though.

 

[Morgothic]

Crusading is a feature that this game has needed to rework essentially since vanilla. For Crusader Kings it's something that needs work. That said, they aren't exactly an easy historical event to mirror in-game, but still.

 

[Steel_atlas]

3. Crusades are too cheap to organize so seemingly everyone joins.

You mean a bunch of OPMs join and get anhilated by the Caliphs army while the HRE/Francia is blobbing against its christian neigbors ignoring the Umayyad Empire growing to the south.

 

[EviLine]

You mean a bunch of OPMs join and get anhilated by the Caliphs army while the HRE/Francia is blobbing against its christian neigbors ignoring the Umayyad Empire growing to the south.

In my games, the Kaiser of HRE almost always joins.

 

[Kumicho]

You mean a bunch of OPMs join and get anhilated by the Caliphs army while the HRE/Francia is blobbing against its christian neigbors ignoring the Umayyad Empire growing to the south.

I'll admit, most crusades fail in my games unless I personally get involved or the Middle East is so shattered that they can't put up a viable defense. A bunch of random petty kings send 3-5k men who get utterly stomped by ~25k doomstacks regardless as to where they land...

 

[Morgothic]

I mean if you think about it, Crusades worked counter to any existing game mechanics - and common sense. The first, mainly led by counts and dukes, succeeded and a kingdom was carved in the Middle-East. The latter Crusades, headed by great kings of mighty realms, failed. How one could possibly replicate this in-game without serious scripting is beyond me, they're such a specific part of history it's difficult to create a system to represent them.

That said, I am only taking about the Middle-Eastern Crusades - those that took place in and around Europe are far more simple and sensible.

 

[kmh42]

Ok guys, i read about a 'Crusades sucks' Thread once in a month and I also think that the current mechnaic doesn't covering the actual crusades in any way. But we have to think more broadly and think about the game then the real history.
The Crusades/Jihads/Great Holy Wars are a concept which is very flexible. You only need a religious head and a target realm. This way you can reformed the Germanic faith and have something as power full to counter Christian Crusades.
When the devs would make a concept which better simulates the real Crusades they would lose this flexibility. Already 100 years into the game the CK2 world is so different then the real one that a very specific concept would not fit the reality. So the dev did go with the simplest way which will work when Charlemagne got crushed by the Umayyads and the Hindus conquer Arabia.
That sayed, I think with some brainstorming and effort there could be a concept which satisfied us and the dev, so suggestions are always welcome

 

[Morgothic]

Ok guys, i read about a 'Crusades sucks' Thread once in a month and I also think that the current mechnaic doesn't covering the actual crusades in any way. But we have to think more broadly and think about the game then the real history.
The Crusades/Jihads/Great Holy Wars are a concept which is very flexible. You only need a religious head and a target realm. This way you can reformed the Germanic faith and have something as power full to counter Christian Crusades.
When the devs would make a concept which better simulates the real Crusades they would lose this flexibility. Already 100 years into the game the CK2 world is so different then the real one that a very specific concept would not fit the reality. So the dev did go with the simplest way which will work when Charlemagne got crushed by the Umayyads and the Hindus conquer Arabia.
That sayed, I think with some brainstorming and effort there could be a concept which satisfied us and the dev, so suggestions are always welcome

Both a simpler system and a more advanced one could exist together, depending on the circumstances.

 

[Happy_Lonely]

We are getting more detailed ways of being sick. Surely more detailed ways of doing crusades could be something to spend some thought on, too?

Maybe a crusade could be a temporary title, similar to rebellions? You would then have similar two-three years period for gathering your forces, like other adventurers have. Maybe have the leader of crusade elected from the highest ranking nobles committed to it? Then go in as a single unified crusader army or two. Maybe have the king of the new crusader realm elected from among the dukes committed to the crusade? Then have some sort of truce or guarantee of independence to give the independent KoJ some chance of survival.

 

[Steel_atlas]

Ok guys, i read about a 'Crusades sucks' Thread once in a month and I also think that the current mechnaic doesn't covering the actual crusades in any way. But we have to think more broadly and think about the game then the real history.
The Crusades/Jihads/Great Holy Wars are a concept which is very flexible. You only need a religious head and a target realm. This way you can reformed the Germanic faith and have something as power full to counter Christian Crusades.
When the devs would make a concept which better simulates the real Crusades they would lose this flexibility. Already 100 years into the game the CK2 world is so different then the real one that a very specific concept would not fit the reality. So the dev did go with the simplest way which will work when Charlemagne got crushed by the Umayyads and the Hindus conquer Arabia.
That sayed, I think with some brainstorming and effort there could be a concept which satisfied us and the dev, so suggestions are always welcome

How about:

1. Minor Crusades: Basically current crusades but they can only target de jure Europe, so they represent the not Jerusalem Crusades, aka Crusades for Spain and the Baltic States.

2. Grand Crusades: Only crusades for K_Jerusalem, these function like the invasion CBs with participants with a certain threshold gain sieged territory outside of the Crusade Target.

So if the Pope calls a Grand Crusade for Jerusalem the top participant gets K_Jerusalem 2 and 3 get any territory they seiged outside of K_jerusalem.

Id also like a papal faction system, so the Pope or an influential King/Duke can start a Grand Crusade target and once the faction reaches X% of the targets levies the Crusade will get launched.

 

[Thrake]

We are getting more detailed ways of being sick. Surely more detailed ways of doing crusades could be something to spend some thought on, too?

Well, you'll get more ways to become sick in crusades

After spending months walking under the overpowering sun, King Surströmming of Sweden caught a sunburn.

During the siege of Lepanto, King Surströmming of Sweden got hit by a flaming arrow. Ouch, it burns!

 

[Ultima_Ratio]

The problem is that the GHWs are a bloody stupid mechanic and the universal application is holding crusades back. Crusades need to be reworked to actually make any kind of sense and GHWs should be replaced with more varied CBs.

 

[Rationalsanity]

Can we at least get a fix regarding Crusade targeting? The Pope going after Eastern India was only funny the first time. Now its game breaking.

 

[Happy_Lonely]

Can we at least get a fix regarding Crusade targeting? The Pope going after Eastern India was only funny the first time. Now its game breaking.

Simple fix would be to target only kingdoms with holy sites in them. Leave all the minor targets to holy war CB, which should represent smaller crusades anyways.

 

[Bernard95]

At the very least, I'd say that there needs to be something that will create an independent Jerusalem versus Jerusalem ending up a part of some king's or emperor's personal demense.

This is just an idea, but I feel like you could have some kind of lottery system based off of participation score to hand out all of the titles. Let the character who gets the most score decide by event if they want the Kingdom title to go themselves (abdicate current title), family, a holy order of choice, or no one at all (large amount of piety by saying it belongs to God and perhaps the Zealous trait). Then let everyone else going down the list of participants make the same choice on the remaining duchies, with the option of being independent replacing the last option.

Some other things I could see is that for any crusade targeting Byzantine de jure let there be an event that either returns the land to the Emperor, forms the Latin Empire with the Pope's blessing, or forms the Latin Empire and gain gold at the cost of razed holdings, excommunication, and a few other maluses. Also, how about a rare random event for any commander to find a relic such as the Holy Lance, Holy Grail, Crown of Thorns, etc. on any Crusade? Each could confer a stat bonus and a decent chunk of piety. Could also see an alternate version of the "Conscript Merchant Ships" decision that only appears during a Crusade- it would cost more but spawn more ships. Finally, I could easily imagine having either the equivalent of tribal armies become accessible during any type of Crusade, though instead of prestige have them cost piety or have small, cheap merc bands that cost a bit of piety.

On the flip side for the Muslims, let them have a decision to form Rum, find their own faith's relics, and perhaps add in a event that grants piety to whoever retakes Jerusalem. I could also see a decision to restore/add-on to the Dome of the Rock following the reconquest as Saladin did for even more piety, but that might be a bit much since the Muslims usually retake Jerusalem with ease.

 

[Lord_P]

On the issue of being unable to create Crusader states like Antioch and Edessa:

It would be fun if Crusade targets were added like wargoals in Victoria II, but automatically, if they are duchies or kingdoms outside of the main crusade target.

Example: Pope calls for a Crusade for Jerusalem. Crusaders occupy Antioch. Antioch is added as a crusade goal. If the crusaders win the war, Antioch becomes an independent Crusader State and receives a new Christian ruler (perhas from one of the families participating in the crusade).

Of course, there would have to be limits so that just absolutely massive crusader states couldn't be created, like Arabia when your target was Jerusalem.

 

[gaaz453]

In my experience (over 2000 hours) since a few patches back (Way of Life maybe) it has become extremely difficult for a Crusade to be successfull, so they are not overpowered.

To make Crusades more interesting I would change them this way:

- The Pope call the Crusade, however the war did not actually start. The target of the Crusade recieves an event like the prepared invasion.

- Every Catholic ruler can contribuite to the crusade giving either money, ships or manpower (like in the Doge's elections). Manpower will simply consume a % of the ruler levies and keep them "occupied" until the end of the Crusade. The total amount of money and manpower will determine the size of the Crusader's host. Every character will also get a decision "join the Crusade". If they join the Crusade they will get the Crusader trait and they will be used as Commanders.

- After a fixed amount of time (12 months?) the Crusade starts creating a Host like the Adventurer one that will attack the target of the Crusade

- During the Crusade a series of event will allow the rulers to give further money, further manpower, to withdraw from the Crusade (weakening it) and a series of event will allow rulers to influence the Crusade (for example, in changing the Crusade's target like during the 4th Crusade)

- The Leader of the Crusade army is chosen between the dinasty of the top contributor of the Crusade. Events will allow to change the leader of the Crusade during it

- If successful, the leader of the Crusade at the time of the surrender of the Muslims will become an independent King of Jerusalem

- The KoJ if targeted by a Jihad could ask the Pope for a defensive Crusade. It will work like a regular Crusade, and there will be a little chance that the leader of the Crusade will usurp KoJ at the end of the Crusade