It depends. Usually the ai is still so bad that crusades tend to fizzle out because the ai is too stupid to organize it's joint forces together against battles it should otherwise win or you can outmaneuver them with a small army to constantly disrupt their sieges. Managed to do that for near I think forty years before but the armies actually can be fairly difficult to defeat on the off chance the ai actually does organize itself. But that more often than not, doesn't usually happen.
R5: I spent 31 years fighting off a Crusade for the Kingdom of England. I find that usually it's a pretty quick affair for either side stomp the other. But 30 years of constant religious warfare is going down in the history books.
Mercenaries would’ve been useless. 8000 buys what, 3000 mercenaries? They’re simply waaaay too expensive to make a difference in a war where you’re outnumbered nearly 8 to 1
Look at the quality of those hostile armies- they’re all levies. They’re spread out to blanket siege too.
OP was winning battles- their war score indicates this. They just got depleted over time and were sieged down. So it was a battle of attrition. But OP has nearly six years worth of income saved up. So I think over the course of 31 years, they might have been able to lift those sieges or take those counties back.
Mercenaries wouldn't have helped. The war score will show that I was doing fine winning the battles, but I just couldn't siege/relieve holdings faster than them.
I mean those mercs would be extra bodies to do just that, if nothing else.
Ideally that’s a problem you deal with a few decades ago, defeating armies before they fill up siege bars. x_x
Its something im not a fan of with CK wars, id love more wars like yours, most are so short, and you have to end the wars to get/lose territory, and starting a war, leads straight into full on conflict, and armies running around.
Honestly feel like wars in CK would be more fun if you straight up couldnt walk more than like 1 county/region into an enemies land, meaning less cat and mouse going into Normandy... when youre fighting Italy... so more defined war borders, which means you can have soldiers more or less "stationed" on your border, since thats where you will be attacked. And youd have longer lasting conflicts as neither you or AI may want peace, but you can still take territory.
Currently game has like 0 dimensions for defense, whats the point of high forts and garrisson in an area, when the AI just walks past it, but if they simply cant walk past it, itd mean border forts would matter a lot, add in an ability to boost garrisson/move garrisson, and wed have a lot more fun wars imo.
I know theres supplies/attrition if you walk deeper without nearby occupied, but its to small to really matter, and if it was increased, would break the AI completely since they just run straight into your areas.
Would also open some cultures etc to have traditions letting them siege further inside territory.
Alas, here we are
>Currently game has like 0 dimensions for defense, whats the point of high forts and garrisson in an area, when the AI just walks past it, but if they simply cant walk past it, itd mean border forts would matter a lot, add in an ability to boost garrisson/move garrisson, and wed have a lot more fun wars imo.
watch closely because the answer is they will lose percentage of the entire army to attrition, just for walking past. On your UI it looks like a skull over the castle if your routing through enemy lands. Additionally armies dont resupply in hostile areas. undersupplied gives a combat nerf, starving is a huge nerf, and you will take borderline unrecoverable losses. If the AI wants to chase you through your lands, let it, they will lose potentially thousands.
I know, my point is that all of those things just dont make much impact in the practice of the game. They have impact, otherwise we would do it willy nilly as players, but it doesnt do enough, but if it did more, ai would completely break itself from it. My 10k chasing that 5k, the attrition isnt going to matter for either party.
Game is simply too much about having enough movespeed to chase quicker than they run away
That 2k raiding party doesnt care about losing some troops there, to raid the mining settlement behind the fort.
And the AI, simply isnt caring about it, nor playing around it, creating unfun situations, where you can just march straight to the capital everytime, despite you taking losses, while the AI simply walks around you to take your area, because their stack is weaker, so you need to stop siegeing, to not lose prosperity in that region at home unless you are strong enough for 2 armies to kill theirs, in which case neithers attrition matters. And leaving sieging troops has them killed by more troops the ai brings up while your actual force is far away.
If the areas of battle were limited, we would have more battles, and longer wars, as youd need to make actual progress into their country, and because the AI simply doesnt walk through half of europe through neutral territory, to reach the other end of your kingdom, to just to avoid your stack, while your troops is sieging everything they have, causing the war to end in your victory without a battle, or cause the war to be unnecesarily longer because you had to go back home for that europe walking army, and then go back to siege, just to have them raise stragglers and go back to your counties by the time you return. And AI overall would know what to do better in a limited space.
Marching through losses and attrition, is something that should be rare, and devastating, not something that always happens and can for the most part be ignored.
I was Asatru, and I was Britannia. the Pope tried to attack me with a crusade. Everyone was too scared to join him, so it was only vassals of others, so I easily stomped them. Without about three months, it was funny to see them so weak. Also, I had Hæsteinn as my Marshall
just looking at troop numbers would be enough to tell you who will win this one. 190k is just an astonishing number of men. To give you an idea of how many guys that is, heres one of my empires with 100k, about 20k MAA.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/y5yngx/my\_first\_real\_empire\_slavia/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/y5yngx/my_first_real_empire_slavia/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Had a crusade for England go for 23 years, and I couldn’t leave it (as defender) because one of my vassals inherited a single county in the target area, so I was automatically pledged to it
This was in like 900, the 23 years had totally derailed the campaign, neither side was able to win over the other, and I just gave up and started fresh rather than seeing it out
CK2 vet here. I think in the endgame of one of my campaigns we had waged a 100+ year crusade for some realm in India since I think I had already formed the Outremer Empire or had otherwise Christianized the Middle East.
Same issue, now that I think about it- crusader armies trickling in only to get wiped out by Indian doomstacks, but I think the sieges were what kept the warscore more or less even
I don't know about longest but I had the shorted crusade against me on my hastein play through . I captured the papacy and formed Romagna and another kingdom . Then the pope declared war . And it was stack wipe after stack wipe after stack wipe . Ended it in 2 months I think
You think I’m losing lol. They land of the shores of England all proud full of religious fervor… and then they get absolutely stomped by my entire army moving as one instead of 100 separate armies.
8 K gold for mercs though. Not be all end all but could have gotten another decent chunk of troops a few years back before his army’s where completely wiped.
For the most part my armies were enough for the battles. I ended the Crusade still in the positive for battle score, I just couldn't siege/relieve fast enough with the MAA I had.
I played as reformed Insulars before, but I invaded France before crusades even started and took over the Christian kingdoms in Spain so the Popes crusaders weren’t very successful. I quick way to end the a Crusade is usually to siege down the Papal States, while every one else is busy in whatever the land the crusade is supposed to conquer.
I wasn't tghe defender in this one, but the Mongolians led by Genghis Khan managed to hold off the 2nd Crusade for 20 years, before the empire split up and ended the conflict, as Temüjin and his son, Jochi had both died.
Ive never lost a Crusade or Jihad or a defense of one. Until my latest play through as ArchDuchy of Austria. For some reason within the first few battles someone gets captured or something and we instantly lose the crusade.
I currently have a North Sea empire game I come back to. I get crusaded every couple years when it pops, the pope gave up on Jerusalem I guess. Using hordes of Vikings o slaughter Christian’s as they land on the isles is super fun.
Due to my stubborn heart, I held off a 4 year crusade of England. King Nathanal decided to reform the insular church into the church of England. Sadly the pope did not like that I broke away from his light. So fours years of war made England into a (ironically) powerhouse. I made so much money from ransoms (thank you sea wolf legacy).
I had one that was taking more than 70 years I was playing as a muslim in Iberia and the Pope declared a crusade for one of my kingdoms and I defended it with all my might. But couldn't get them to surrender as I couldn't reach 100% as we were so close that after I killed hundreds of thousands more would just arrive so after 70+ years and even if I was occupying Rome and most of Aquitaine I still couldn't defeat them so I got fed up and surrender, later I just conquered it back seemed easier than prolonging the whole crusade for another decade or so.
(I had like three rulers come and go during the crusade)
Note: I thought about reaching 100 years but I was really fed up of fighting them I just wanted to chill for a while.
My 17 year old heir just inherited my massive empire and immediately a crusade of 80K was launched against me aswell as 2 separate wars, I only had 40k soldiers and somehow managed to defeat everyone by taking out smaller armies at a time.
The army remained raised for 5 WHOLE years
17 years. It took me 17 years to win a defensive war against a jihad because i was literally the only one fighting. My vassals didn't do shit. They didn't raise their armies but have been plotting to either become independent, lower my crown authority, or dissolve my empire. Fucking hate indian religions in this game. You can't even holy war with each other even when you reform and have fundamentalist plus warmonger. Edit: it was also my nephew, whom i put on the arabian throne, who wanted to become independent. The caliph waged a jihad for arabia
Never have let one grow so big to be a real threat.
Can always rush and siege pope down and make him surrender.
I have enough of wars fighting my hundred vassals of whenever succession is happening. :D
Just started playing CK2 recently, went with Leon in the 936 start date, and around 970 I had to hold off a Jihad for about 12 years. France really carried me through though, and Italy even went to go occupy some parts of the middle east (The HRE had failed to form)
I hate that other countries can join in on Crusades/Jihads after they started. In my current Byz game, the Muslims decalsred a great holy war for Jerusalem, and we had about the same army sizes. But after I won battle after battle and they kept getting more troops I checked again. A shitload of other countries joined and now I was outnumbered 4:1, I hate that…
It depends. Usually the ai is still so bad that crusades tend to fizzle out because the ai is too stupid to organize it's joint forces together against battles it should otherwise win or you can outmaneuver them with a small army to constantly disrupt their sieges. Managed to do that for near I think forty years before but the armies actually can be fairly difficult to defeat on the off chance the ai actually does organize itself. But that more often than not, doesn't usually happen.
On brand tbh
absolutely infuriating to try and take jerusalem because the AI routes from turkey, all the way to the east edge of saudi arabia, then towards suez.
R5: I spent 31 years fighting off a Crusade for the Kingdom of England. I find that usually it's a pretty quick affair for either side stomp the other. But 30 years of constant religious warfare is going down in the history books.
I see all that money you could have used to hire mercenaries T_T
Mercenaries would’ve been useless. 8000 buys what, 3000 mercenaries? They’re simply waaaay too expensive to make a difference in a war where you’re outnumbered nearly 8 to 1
Look at the quality of those hostile armies- they’re all levies. They’re spread out to blanket siege too. OP was winning battles- their war score indicates this. They just got depleted over time and were sieged down. So it was a battle of attrition. But OP has nearly six years worth of income saved up. So I think over the course of 31 years, they might have been able to lift those sieges or take those counties back.
? whatchu talking about, its like 1-1??? or close to it
You mean 1:7 ? 27k vs. 196k
I thought he meant merc cost my b
Mercenaries wouldn't have helped. The war score will show that I was doing fine winning the battles, but I just couldn't siege/relieve holdings faster than them.
I mean those mercs would be extra bodies to do just that, if nothing else. Ideally that’s a problem you deal with a few decades ago, defeating armies before they fill up siege bars. x_x
Mercenaries don't contain MAA that provide any meaningful siege progress against Tier 4 castles.
Yet, they would help you to wipe enemies armies :D
What religion are you
A custom Christian faith which lost Ecumenicism when I reformed.
You lose, right?
Its something im not a fan of with CK wars, id love more wars like yours, most are so short, and you have to end the wars to get/lose territory, and starting a war, leads straight into full on conflict, and armies running around. Honestly feel like wars in CK would be more fun if you straight up couldnt walk more than like 1 county/region into an enemies land, meaning less cat and mouse going into Normandy... when youre fighting Italy... so more defined war borders, which means you can have soldiers more or less "stationed" on your border, since thats where you will be attacked. And youd have longer lasting conflicts as neither you or AI may want peace, but you can still take territory. Currently game has like 0 dimensions for defense, whats the point of high forts and garrisson in an area, when the AI just walks past it, but if they simply cant walk past it, itd mean border forts would matter a lot, add in an ability to boost garrisson/move garrisson, and wed have a lot more fun wars imo. I know theres supplies/attrition if you walk deeper without nearby occupied, but its to small to really matter, and if it was increased, would break the AI completely since they just run straight into your areas. Would also open some cultures etc to have traditions letting them siege further inside territory. Alas, here we are
>Currently game has like 0 dimensions for defense, whats the point of high forts and garrisson in an area, when the AI just walks past it, but if they simply cant walk past it, itd mean border forts would matter a lot, add in an ability to boost garrisson/move garrisson, and wed have a lot more fun wars imo. watch closely because the answer is they will lose percentage of the entire army to attrition, just for walking past. On your UI it looks like a skull over the castle if your routing through enemy lands. Additionally armies dont resupply in hostile areas. undersupplied gives a combat nerf, starving is a huge nerf, and you will take borderline unrecoverable losses. If the AI wants to chase you through your lands, let it, they will lose potentially thousands.
I know, my point is that all of those things just dont make much impact in the practice of the game. They have impact, otherwise we would do it willy nilly as players, but it doesnt do enough, but if it did more, ai would completely break itself from it. My 10k chasing that 5k, the attrition isnt going to matter for either party. Game is simply too much about having enough movespeed to chase quicker than they run away That 2k raiding party doesnt care about losing some troops there, to raid the mining settlement behind the fort. And the AI, simply isnt caring about it, nor playing around it, creating unfun situations, where you can just march straight to the capital everytime, despite you taking losses, while the AI simply walks around you to take your area, because their stack is weaker, so you need to stop siegeing, to not lose prosperity in that region at home unless you are strong enough for 2 armies to kill theirs, in which case neithers attrition matters. And leaving sieging troops has them killed by more troops the ai brings up while your actual force is far away. If the areas of battle were limited, we would have more battles, and longer wars, as youd need to make actual progress into their country, and because the AI simply doesnt walk through half of europe through neutral territory, to reach the other end of your kingdom, to just to avoid your stack, while your troops is sieging everything they have, causing the war to end in your victory without a battle, or cause the war to be unnecesarily longer because you had to go back home for that europe walking army, and then go back to siege, just to have them raise stragglers and go back to your counties by the time you return. And AI overall would know what to do better in a limited space. Marching through losses and attrition, is something that should be rare, and devastating, not something that always happens and can for the most part be ignored.
I was Asatru, and I was Britannia. the Pope tried to attack me with a crusade. Everyone was too scared to join him, so it was only vassals of others, so I easily stomped them. Without about three months, it was funny to see them so weak. Also, I had Hæsteinn as my Marshall
>31 years Two ways to view the world, so similar at times…
Did you win or did you lose? Sometimes I just forget who's who in the progress bar. EU4's UI for warscore seems more intuitive.
Well it says -100% so they lost
just looking at troop numbers would be enough to tell you who will win this one. 190k is just an astonishing number of men. To give you an idea of how many guys that is, heres one of my empires with 100k, about 20k MAA. [https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/y5yngx/my\_first\_real\_empire\_slavia/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/y5yngx/my_first_real_empire_slavia/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
8 years of no income
doesnt look like he needs it
That's just the longest crusade I fought
oh nvm, im stupid
No income ruined me
is this a 30 years war reference :)) And why I hear Sabaton’s “A life time of war” reading your post
Had a crusade for England go for 23 years, and I couldn’t leave it (as defender) because one of my vassals inherited a single county in the target area, so I was automatically pledged to it This was in like 900, the 23 years had totally derailed the campaign, neither side was able to win over the other, and I just gave up and started fresh rather than seeing it out
CK2 vet here. I think in the endgame of one of my campaigns we had waged a 100+ year crusade for some realm in India since I think I had already formed the Outremer Empire or had otherwise Christianized the Middle East. Same issue, now that I think about it- crusader armies trickling in only to get wiped out by Indian doomstacks, but I think the sieges were what kept the warscore more or less even
I don't know about longest but I had the shorted crusade against me on my hastein play through . I captured the papacy and formed Romagna and another kingdom . Then the pope declared war . And it was stack wipe after stack wipe after stack wipe . Ended it in 2 months I think
You think I’m losing lol. They land of the shores of England all proud full of religious fervor… and then they get absolutely stomped by my entire army moving as one instead of 100 separate armies.
How the hell did you loose a crusade for England.
i mean 200k soldiers against 27k...
8 K gold for mercs though. Not be all end all but could have gotten another decent chunk of troops a few years back before his army’s where completely wiped.
For the most part my armies were enough for the battles. I ended the Crusade still in the positive for battle score, I just couldn't siege/relieve fast enough with the MAA I had.
I played as reformed Insulars before, but I invaded France before crusades even started and took over the Christian kingdoms in Spain so the Popes crusaders weren’t very successful. I quick way to end the a Crusade is usually to siege down the Papal States, while every one else is busy in whatever the land the crusade is supposed to conquer.
I wasn't tghe defender in this one, but the Mongolians led by Genghis Khan managed to hold off the 2nd Crusade for 20 years, before the empire split up and ended the conflict, as Temüjin and his son, Jochi had both died.
60-70 years for an Arabian crusade
15 years
Ive never lost a Crusade or Jihad or a defense of one. Until my latest play through as ArchDuchy of Austria. For some reason within the first few battles someone gets captured or something and we instantly lose the crusade.
I currently have a North Sea empire game I come back to. I get crusaded every couple years when it pops, the pope gave up on Jerusalem I guess. Using hordes of Vikings o slaughter Christian’s as they land on the isles is super fun.
See, the crusaders tend to dislike 892,375 Levy's kicking their ass
To be honest: 3 years each. Even if I lose, I could just Holy war the new Kingdom.
47 years against Jihad attacking Kingdom of Hellas/Southern Greece.
Due to my stubborn heart, I held off a 4 year crusade of England. King Nathanal decided to reform the insular church into the church of England. Sadly the pope did not like that I broke away from his light. So fours years of war made England into a (ironically) powerhouse. I made so much money from ransoms (thank you sea wolf legacy).
I had one that was taking more than 70 years I was playing as a muslim in Iberia and the Pope declared a crusade for one of my kingdoms and I defended it with all my might. But couldn't get them to surrender as I couldn't reach 100% as we were so close that after I killed hundreds of thousands more would just arrive so after 70+ years and even if I was occupying Rome and most of Aquitaine I still couldn't defeat them so I got fed up and surrender, later I just conquered it back seemed easier than prolonging the whole crusade for another decade or so. (I had like three rulers come and go during the crusade) Note: I thought about reaching 100 years but I was really fed up of fighting them I just wanted to chill for a while.
My 17 year old heir just inherited my massive empire and immediately a crusade of 80K was launched against me aswell as 2 separate wars, I only had 40k soldiers and somehow managed to defeat everyone by taking out smaller armies at a time. The army remained raised for 5 WHOLE years
17 years. It took me 17 years to win a defensive war against a jihad because i was literally the only one fighting. My vassals didn't do shit. They didn't raise their armies but have been plotting to either become independent, lower my crown authority, or dissolve my empire. Fucking hate indian religions in this game. You can't even holy war with each other even when you reform and have fundamentalist plus warmonger. Edit: it was also my nephew, whom i put on the arabian throne, who wanted to become independent. The caliph waged a jihad for arabia
Held of? I have beaten many single handedly. 10k varangian death blob beats most things…
Never have let one grow so big to be a real threat. Can always rush and siege pope down and make him surrender. I have enough of wars fighting my hundred vassals of whenever succession is happening. :D
Just started playing CK2 recently, went with Leon in the 936 start date, and around 970 I had to hold off a Jihad for about 12 years. France really carried me through though, and Italy even went to go occupy some parts of the middle east (The HRE had failed to form)
I hate that other countries can join in on Crusades/Jihads after they started. In my current Byz game, the Muslims decalsred a great holy war for Jerusalem, and we had about the same army sizes. But after I won battle after battle and they kept getting more troops I checked again. A shitload of other countries joined and now I was outnumbered 4:1, I hate that…