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To start a Crusade you will need the right diplomatic context, because you have to get the blessing of the Pope. So maintaining good relation with him in the previous turns is crutial. One advantage of starting a Crusade or Jihad, over participating in one, is the ability to choose the targeted city.
The Jihad works similarly, but in the case of Muslim, it must be started by an imam following the loss of Muslim territories. Since Imam are under your command, it quite easy to start one compared to the
Christian factions and the diplomatic requirement they face. It’s important to note that to join a Crusade or a Jihad, you will need a general with an army of 8 units.

Crusades and Jihads have few advantages.
The armies participating move twice as fast then normally.
The units participating cost nothing to maintain and many units are only available as mercenaries in the crusade and jihad.
When a crusade or jihad achieves its objective, the generals participating will win a lot of traits and gain commanding experience.
For a Christian faction, the relations with the Pope will improve in the case of a victory.
The fact that your army moves around fast may allow you to loot many cities on the way making your empire richer.

While the crusades and jihad can look attractive, using them at the right moment is very important. You need to know how to gain from them, since they offer interesting opportunities.

Before joining a crusade or jihad, you need to consider the following aspects:

Make sure that the objective isn’t too far from the territories of your faction.
Conquering a city far away brings with it many problems.

A newly conquered city in the middle of hostile territory increases your military cost and divides your forces.

If your crusade doesn’t advance fast enough the desertion rate will increase and weaken your crusading army. If many factions are participating to the conquest of the objective, you need to remember that only one faction will control the city by the end of the crusade.

This means that at some point you can have a general and his army in the middle of an hostile territory without any place to retreat. The process of bringing him back can be dangerous making his army ineffective and costly. It can then be considered a waste of resources.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Attila, Attila's FAQ, Medieval 2 Total War Tactics, Medieval II Total War, Strategy Guide, Tips and Trick, Video Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.