Egypt will send full stacks against you but this has a side benefit in that you can get great experience for your troops. Another difficulty will be the lack of family members & generals. Ascalon must be guarded at all costs because if that falls, Jerusalem will be next. The Turks are not a particularly dangerous adversary but Egypt to your south is a different matter altogether. Antioch begin as your allies and effectively guard your northern frontiers. The Kingdom of Jerusalem starts off in a good position with scope for expanding into the far east of the map.
Kerak (Castle) – Practice Range, Knight’s Stables, Mustering Hall, Dirt Roads, Leather Tanner.
Ascalon (Motte & Bailey) – Mustering Hall, Bowyer, Dirt Roads.
Tyre (Wooden Castle) – Stables, Mustering Hall, Port, Dirt Roads.Arsuf (Motte & Baily) – Stables, Bowyer, Dirt Roads, Small Chapel, Leather Tanner.Acre (Minor City) – Town Guard, Town Hall, Dirt Roads, Brothel, Port, Small Church, Grain Exchange, Leather Tanner.Jerusalem (Large City, Capital) – Militia Drill Square, Crop Rotation, Paved Roads, Great Market, Cathedral, City Hall, Ballista Towers, Leather Tanner, Tavern.Adoptions will be very necessary to ensure that you have enough generals. Talking of family members, you will find it difficult to maintain field armies with family members commanding as family members are difficult to come by. Sadly he is only a general and can never be made part of your family tree as princesses are not agent-type characters in this campaign. Later in the game, the third crusade comes calling by and Richard Coeur de Lion is your to command and he comes with a special “hero” ability which immediately rallies all routing units. All these units are cheap and very effective. The Templar Sergeants are very easily recruited and will provide the bedrock of your armies until you gain Dismounted Knights of Jerusalem. Squires of Tripoli are cheap cannon fodder units which are quite capable for their cost. The melee infantry options available to the Kingdom of Jerusalem are very attractive. The missile infantry available to Jerusalem is average until you acquire the Templar Crossbowmen which have a missile attack of 15 and it is armour piercing. Turkopoles have a better attack than Sodeer Archers and can run down routers so I used them instead of foot archers. If you wish to have a speedy response force, you could do worse than a combined army of knights & Turkopoles. Turkopoles are useful missile cavalry and the only missile cavalry available to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Marshall of the Templars unique unit is the same as the Constable of Jerusalem except that it has the usual number of men in the unit and has 2 hit points per man. It is entirely possible that you might face more than one of the unique units within a single army. The unit can only be recruited by the AI and more to the point, the AI can recruit more than one of this unit so do please be careful before you decide to go to war against either of the crusader kingdoms. If you do lose the Constable of Jerusalem unit or wish to recruit a new one, change any castle to a military-focused auto-build policy. It can be retrained at any castle but if you lose it completely, it is awkward to recruit again. You also get unique units like the very powerful Constable of Jerusalem, which is a “double strength” knightly unit. Templar Knights are also a small amount cheaper than Knights of Tripoli but slightly harder to retrain. Templar Confrere Knights are merely a cheaper but harder to retrain version of Knights of Jerusalem. A fortress will be required before Templar Knights or Knights of Tripoli can be recruited. The Knights of Jerusalem are available early in the game and are relatively easy to retrain but the same cannot be said for the more powerful cavalry units. Mounted knights are the awe-inspiring anvil which the crusaders use to smash their enemies. Being a kingdom founded by Frankish crusaders, the Kingdom of Jerusalem shows many similarities with western European military norms. In the harsh & unforgiving environment of Outremer, Christian Franks fight & die to preserve their “holy land” against the Muslim hordes who themselves considered Jerusalem to be a holy city.