Slitherine

I'm a little confused about war support and wondering if it is working correctly.

I'm playing as England and launched a crusade at Jerusalem with the regional decision, backed up by other regional decisions sending units in support. This naturally put me at war with the Fatimid Caliphate. They sent me numerous peace offers during the crusade which I ignored as I was uncertain if the troops I had donated would continue to fight if I withdrew from the war. The crusade was eventually successful and conquered Jerusalem, after this it remained active for several turns, so I remained at war due to the lack of information as to whether it was safe for me to withdraw. Once I received a message that the crusade was over, I contacted the Fatimids to get peace terms, and I found that their previous offers of just a few turns ago had been replaced with very demanding terms (asking for 1000 gold and 300 or so concessions) because the war score had basically inverted from +50 or so to -50 or so. This seemed odd because we had never fought directly and they had just lost a crusade to the faction I supported.

I rejected the terms, and over the following 10-15 turns I have watched as the war score has steadily dropped to about -100, even though we have still not fought directly, so they have not inflicted any losses on me or taken any of my land. Indeed the crusader states that formed after the crusade have continued to take Fatimid land, and have now taken about 25% of the total starting Fatimid territory (most of the Levant coast and down into Egypt).

I do not understand why the Fatimids think they are in a winning position, where have they gained this warscore from, and why is it growing? I can only imagine its some kind of war weariness, but that should surely affect them at least as much as me, only more-so, as they have lost territory.

I noticed it says that troops you donate to a crusade retain your livery etc, but this seems redundant as I could not see the units I had donated, so if I have to move another unit that I still control nearby to see these units I donated crusading in my livery, well, that's a bit of a waste of time and money. Is it possible to make units you donate to a crusade remain visible to you so you can see their progress?

Hi Tharoz, and sorry for the delay in answering,

It's a bug identified in another forum, or let's say an unwanted feature. In case of war, to ensure that there is eventually peace, one of the two protagonists, the one with more regions and/or Authority, will gain warscore passively. It works well for AI vs. AI, but players are stubborn and don't want to be humiliated. So in this case, it does not work as well.

For version 1.01, this will be changed so that the two nations need to be neighbors, with the principle being that if you are neighbors, interaction can ensue more easily. If you were neighbors to the Fatimids, you would fight them.

As for your gifted units, they are now Crusaders. You could have ended your own war; they would have remained Crusaders. They don't lift the fog of war for now, but will report from time to time what they do. This is partially because radio technology was still in its infancy in the Middle Ages , and partially because we recently found a way to lift the fog of war based on any condition without using too many computations. So it will be added at some point, but not in version 1.01.

Thanks for the clarification and update.

You're welcome. Patch 1.01 has already many entries ...