A short guide on the Crusader Kingdoms (not complete)

[Mightypeon]

Hi there,

I would like the to share my ideas for effectivly playing the Crusaders in the early campaign of 6.3.
This guide is written for Very Hard Medium. Lusted AI, Real recruitment, Extra assimiliation and permanent watchtowers.



1. Introduction:

Do you want to play as a "High tech" faction in the early campaign (meaning that, once you are build up, your units rock)? Do you want to have a guaranteed need of epic Castle defenses? Do you nearly never want to be troubled by beeing excommunicated? Then the Crusader States may be the right thing for you.

You start with with three cities, Antioch, Edessa, and Jerusalem itself.
Around you are a lot of rebel settlements, to the south are the Fatimids. For now, rebels also hold the cities seperating you from the Seljuks.
Your starting army is very unique in that it largely consists of Mercenaries. Afaik, nearly none of those Mercenaries will be retrainable. So, use them wisely.
The imho by far most optimal starting strategy is to crush the Fatimids early on. This has several reasons:
-The Fatimids have more cities, and more castles, and the money to actually build stuff in them. Each turn you wait they get stronger.
-Gaza is practially next door from you capital.
-You want to deal with them before the inevitable Jihad on Jerusalem.
-Your starting army is quite harsh.

Starting actions:
-Recruit the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Let your King stay in Jerusalem for one turn (the Title is awesome! As is the Pilgrim to jerusalem trait, just hope you dont get overflow bugs ;D ), let your Heir, with his own troops and troops from Jerusalem, Siege Gaza. Assault using multiple ladders (or via the Spy, if you are lucky). Take the army of Edessa, leave a single cheap unit there. Move them to Antioch, ignore the castle on your way. Hire a boat in Antioch.

In the second turn, assemble the armies of Antioch and Edessa, load them into ships and sail for Alexandria (Egyptian town furthest away from you), Meanwhile, you main army should progress towards Kairo.
Either of your armies will now likely meet the Egyptian main army.
-Egyptian form one big army to deal with your King+ Heir army. You should still be able to deal with them, as they wont have a lot of Mounted Archers yet. Some battlefield pointers:
-The Canons the main army has make total an utter mincemeat out of anything that is not a bodyguard charging them. Protect yourself from beeing charged by accompanying the Canons with Spearmen.
-The Amphibian army of Antioch+Edessa should have 3 or so Cilicians of Armenia. These shoot at longbow range. Treasure them and fire away.

Be not afraid to sacrifice Militias or Marinae in order to save/protect Armenian Archers, Crusader Knights or Knights of Lazarus. It will be a long time before you can rebuild any of them.
Nevertheless, the battles should not be particularly difficult.
Sack or Exterminate when you conquer. Otherwise unrest will tie you up for an extended period of time.
Building wise, I feel it is wise to prioritze the following things:
-Guilds of Saint John. Templar Knights are cheap upkeep wise, come from cities and look cool.
-Religios conversion, becoming the pope would be cool too.
-Anything that helps defense in Jerusalem. The Jihad will on average feature 3 Moor, 3 Kwarezmian and 5-6 Seljuck stacks, and they move really quickly.

Before you go temporally broke, make sure to:
-Get a diplomat for a nice alliance with the Romans. Occassionaly gift the romans money, their goodwill is highly usefull, treat the Romans like you would treat the pope with a normal Catholic faction.
-Sell your map to random Europeans
-I found that Merchants are kinda hard to make a profit of, since at turn 12, the extra 4 stars of the Byzanties, Kwarezmians and Seljuks will go for yours.


Afterwards, you will be locked in a semi eternal struggle with the Seljuks, Kwarezmians and Moors. Call Crusades (and dont join immidiatly, you waiting until the other Europeans arive can actually be usefull, and you could easily buy any settlement they take). It could be wise to call the Crusade on the moors, in order to let the Europeans deal with that front.
Spys will be of high imporantce. Spy where the AI is flunking the defense of their cities, and strike there. You dont have stakes, and no really great archers apart from the mercenaries you start with. Also, Templar spearmen are only available after the council of Troyes, so your spears will suck for time beeing.

So, how can you get the most out of your spear militias?
Basically, use the following tricks:
-Have Spearmen directly behind a think line of good combat troops (dismounted Hospitallers, Canons etc.).
In a combat, there is a certain effect due to "pushing", a Spear militia and a Canon push in the same way. If Cavalry is charging, make you good guys move behind, and your spears move into the front. The disorder will cost you some spears, but it should not hurt much more than usually.
-On defense, use Spearmen in Schiltron formation as "wave breakers" in front of you normal line. This normal line can also consist of other spearmen. Basically, the enemy will lap around the Schiltrons (who dont receive a malus from beeing surrounded), exposing his flanks and rears to your second line in the process, charge and profit.
-On smaller unit sizes (bigger unit sizes get excessivly unwieldy in castles), this also works well for castle defense.


Other random units:
-Kurdish/Turkish javelineers are suprisingly usefull and available. Their Javelin pack a punch, and the can reliably defend caste walls against Militias (and wreck some havoc with their spears).
-Marinae have 4 uses, Arrow Bait, Cavalry Bait, bait for infantry so that you charge the infantry in the rear with something else. They are also your main garrison unit early on. Exchange them for better Spear militias ;D

[k/t]

You can buy Nicosia from the Byzantines and use Mourtatoi.

Malus =/= Penalty.

Since Spear Militia will be your main soldiers for a while, slapping some silver armour on them as soon as possible is a good idea.

Allying with the Turks early on will keep them off your back while you're occupied in the south. Once Egypt is dead, you can ally with the Byzantines and cream the Turks together.

Try to establish solid borders in the east, since the Mongols are way tougher in this version (of RR/RC, anyway).

[Supercargo]

I used a different approach in my current game. I allied with the Seljuks and Fatimids and used the starting troops to conquer all the neighbouring rebel settlements from Kerak to Adana. I built up the ecomony. I waited until the Romans conquered everything up to Caesarea, then allied with them and broke the alliances with the Seljuks. Now I have a strong economy, a 100.000+ treasury, so I won't have problems with killing off the Fatimids, i guess, and soon I will have access to the Constable of Jerusalem and Edessan Guard in Jerusalem.

Also, if you conquer them early on, you will have to build up the infrastructure in their towns, too.

[Avalanche]

I don't want to start another thread about CS so will post here my thoughts.

First of all you have to remember that not having castles at all means u have to value your current army as it will be hard to replace. Money is not problem for first 2 turns but having lots of mercenaries means it will eat your budget fast.

Solution - send your diplomat to Papa in Rome and hand him money. Start with map as gift and than multiple gifts of 500. Remember to do it in one turn -> gift 500, another gift 500 and so on. After gifting about 3000 in total your reputation should be "outstanding" and thats what you want.

Call crusade against Cairo - but don't join yet. Wait for Popes mission to join in next turn (500 extra + you get 1 more turn to prepare)

Never ally with any more of Cristian nations as long as you fight Muslim except with Pope (will explain later why). Recruit all forces you can. Send diplomat straight toward Sejluks. All army from Edessa send to Antioch (don't bother Aleppo) except one unit which send toward Mosul (you can leave Edessa empty with low tax as it will recruit one unit to keep town happy - low population will not cause any trouble).
Forces from Antioch besiege Tortosa.

Remeber to recruit galley in Antioch - you will use it next turn to travel to Alexandria or Damietta.

Okay, you are ready to click next turn

Soon after probably you will get some missions - crusade ofc is one of them and second is get Karak or Acre for money 2000 or troops. You will also probably get offer for some adoption (use it it will garrison in some cities this turn).

Combine forces of King and Prince and all excpet one troops from Jerusalem and join crusade. Split army - 2/3 siege Gaza - 1/3 (prince and weak forces like pilgrims) go south (Al Aqba).

Join forces from Edessa to those besieging Tortosa and after calling joining crusade assault city. Then sail towards Alexandria / Damietta.

Remember to capture Cairo in 2-3 turns as your forces will beginning to disband. Important - always accept Saint John's order (probably headquarter in Jerusalem) and reject Theologians (in beginning) - you will need to recruit those black dudes from all possible places (they rock )

After diplomat reaches Sejluks make trade and alliance - will need that to finish Fatimids and buy time to flip fronts later on. After that send diplomat to Kwazems (only trade or map).

Use your diplomat in Europe to sell maps for 1-2k. Make sure you dont ally with Byzies yet, just trade will be enough.

After capturing Cairo, Alexandria and Damietta - Fatimids will be left with 2 regions - Luxor and Tayma - decide to make peace (they will ask for it so no need to make diplomat). Get cash for ceasefire and another for trade. Of curse still march to finish them off. After capturing Luxor - immediately convert to Town - having castle so deep south is useless - it would take 2 turns to get to Cairo anyway - Damietta will protect late both Alexandria and Cairo.

Don't go to take Benghazi - Byzies and Sicily want it - let them fight.

Ah Tayma and southern provinces (Mecca and Medina) shall fall later on - no need to take it right now - although remember - rebels get stronger each turn After capturing convet Medina to Town also (dont remember it its to be converted or Mecca - anyway both shall be towns)

Okay south side secured - time to plan north. Again crusade will be your weapon so use it! Waiting for crusade flip your forces to north and take Acre, Karak, Damascus, Aleppo and Adana. As for Mosul its tricky but you can sometimes make it work using help of green allies (Sjluks)

After securing north rebel provinces - make sure to move most of strong forces + chivalry general to Adana - pump it. King will reside in Gaza pumping it like crazy.

After you can call crusade - call it for Baghdad. Wait for Christians to come but don't let them beat you - first will be probably Hungarians. Use forces from Adana to take Cesarea - its fast developing castle and will be as strong as Gaza in south in close future. Also will help to crush Byzies when you want to be ruler of Constantinople later on. When you at war with Sejluks also make alliance with Kwazems - after you take Baghdad will stop them from comming your side (till jihad that is ) - they will focus on Kumans. Also make alliance with Byzies - they fight Sejluks too.

When going toward Baghdad you can make stop to capture Quarisya (probably misspelled...). Here is tricky part - if you hurry you will be able to beat Byzies and capture from Sejluks Iconium and Ankara (first is crucial - second you can let go or trade later for Nicosia).

After finishing 2nd crusade you are pretty much set and can almost match Byzies. One of your enemy is gone and second crippled - but leave it for now - prepare for jhihad. If you are not ready yet make alliances with Muslims - they will breake it anyway and lower ur rep with Pope (? stupid i know but still) but will get some time and some of them might not join. With forces from Gaza and Black dudes (hospitalers) from Cairo, Damascus, Alexandria and Jerusalem itself it will be peace of cake.

With 3rd crusade finish Sejlucs and cripple Kwazems (go till you reach south east of Caspian Sea fortress and stop). If you feel not so strong you can stop sooner but will leave well developed castle to produce enemies... Your choice. Of curse till 3rd crusade some or many of european factions will be excommed so your choices of provinces you can call crusade may not match your priorities. Choose target that will fall for sure (best target Frankfurt or London). Join crusade only when you know it will succeed but send forces other way

After that don't bother east and west anymore i suggest take Kumans

A, one more thing, when Mongols come make alliance with them ASAP and they will go north of Caspian Sea or just to finish Kwazems. They never came even close to Baghdad if they are your friends Let them take Russia or Kiev - whateva - you are master and commander of Jerlusalem area
I usually play late era and that is my first strategy - ally with Mongol and stop invasion in my directions - before they develop i meet them south of Caspian Sea where our borthers stay till i make conversion and sabotage movements... But that is different story

Enjoy

Avalanche

P.S Sorry for hijack

[k/t]

The Mongols have no friends, only dorsal knife blocks.

Taking Benghazi will ensure that you have a "hard" border in the west.

[WelshDragon]

These are all good strategies... I usually play to take all the rebel settlements first until the Fatamids attack me, then I only retaliate, taking Gaza and Al whatever to give Jerusalem a buffer. Taking out the Fatamids early makes it too easy IMHO, and I like a challenge.

[wrcromartie]

I am currently playing a late campaign game with Crusader states, I think I'm around turn 50. The Mongols just kicked K-shah's teeth in, and I am about to face off against the Golden Horde. I have conquered all of Palestine, Syria, & most of Egypt without much resistance, as well as Baghdad and Caesaeria. That has me currently at #2 in population & #1 in production (HRE is first in both right now). The that I found is the key to the Crusader States is staying in good with the Pope & making the most of your crusades to keep your enemies off balance.

Playing in the late campaign you can actually call a crusade in turn 2 or 3 I believe, my first crusade target is Cairo. In my game I immediately allied with HRE & Pope, as well as England & France. I also provided trade rights & tribute to the Seljuks so that hopefully they would let me concentrate on the Fatmids for a while. By calling my 1st crusade on Cairo, I was able to count on European allies to disrupt the Fatamids & draw their attention towards Egypt while I press north and consolidate my position in Syria by taking Damascus and hopefully Antioch before joining the crusade with 2-3 turns left.

Usually with crusades I want to take the objective for myself, but in this case my strategy with Cairo was to help HRE conquer, with the hopes that they would take a long-term interest in the region. I hoped that by giving the HRE the tempting city of Cairo, they would continue to lend their power against the Muslims after the crusade ended. As HRE took Cairo, I took Alexandria and Damietta so that HRE was still totally dependent on me for access to the region & hopefully would sell me Cairo back at a discount later. This strategy proved to be very successful for me as the HRE was always ready to roll with me against the Fatmids/Seljuks & have not backstabbed (so far at least).

Once Cairo was gobbled by the HRE & (my) 1st crusade is over, I'm on my own for a while against the Fatmids. With my western flank secured by HRE & the Seljuks busy with the Byzzies it wasn't too hard to mop up in Syria. During this period I continued to work on leveling my merchant guilds, building my generals & consolidating my position in the holy land. I continued to suck up to the pope as much as possible, and maintained perfect relations until I had the option to call another crusade.

For my 2nd Crusade target I picked Baghdad, which was in the hands of the Seljuks. Time to get messy! At the onset of the crusade I decided to take diplomats to the europeans & ally with as many catholic nations as I could - I had allied with the HRE, Venetians, English, Aragon, French, Polish & Teutonic. The key here was for me to wait long enough for many european factions to join the crusade & actually walk their armies down into the region before joining myself & declaring war against the seljuks.

Once I had 4-5 allied crusader stacks in close range, I joined the crusade with a full stack & sprinted to Baghdad. From there I laid siege (& here is the key) *I did not attack even though I had overwhelming odds*. Crusade armies have free upkeep, so there is no rush . Instead I just sat there for 8 turns or so sieging Baghdad, but not allowing the crusaders to accomplish their objective. More and more European armies came & surrounded my army at Baghdad. At one point there were 5-6 stacks of allied armies supporting my army.

The Seljuks weren't letting baghdad go without a fight, so it was just a matter of sitting there with Baghdad under siege. The seljuks would try to break the siege, then I'd just let my allies run over the Seljuks attackers. When I finally took baghdad, many seljuk armies had been wiped out by my allies & I had taken 0 losses. Meanwhile I had been free to continue building armies to attack the Seljuks in Asia Minor while my best army had free upkeep & they were distracted by trying to protect their best city. As an added bonus, since Baghdad is so deep within Seljuk territory, the crusader armies took another few shots at the seljuks on their way out of town.

From there it was time to mop up - I had already nearly wiped out the Fatmids so it was a simple matter from there - in my game an assassination actually did them in & converted their remaining holdings into rebel provinces. I took out Edessa & Ceasaria and focused on my building my economy. At this point the Seljuks were no longer much of a threat, but the Mongols had just finished clearing out K-Shah and conquering Persia. I had the option of allying with the Mongols & deflecting their attention to Russia. That would definitely be the more prudent option - but where's the fun in that?

The glory of god lays in fighting the endless hordes in the final battle for Christian dominance of the holy land! This part of my campaign feels a lot like revelations or tolkein - a massive, merciless & godless enemy descends upon humanity and no allies will heed the call to aid. Rather than the German plain, I plan to make the Holy Land the place where the Mongol Floods receed.

I have Baghdad, but unfortunately the Mongols beat me to Basra, meaning I won't be able to pin them in the mountain passes at the Iraq/Iran border like I wanted to. Instead it looks Baghdad will stand alone, with enemies all around. My plan is to stuff it full of spears & elite infantry so that if it falls it at least takes a few stacks with it. From there I will force the mongols to come across the arabian desert & fight me in Syria with a much longer supply line. By the time they arrive I plan to have enough Templar spears to stack all my garrisons & I'll bleed them dry.

I am hoping that if they do successfully take Baghdad I can call a Crusade & get some reinforcements from Christendom.

Once the mongols are done, it will be time for the Holy Land to rise up & remove the pretender-pope from his throne & burn the world!

Really epic, great campaign with a ton of personality. I am reading a History of the Crusades at the same time which gives me some great color to what actually was going on during this period.

[wrcromartie]

I am now up to turn 66 in the aforementioned campaign. I control Baghdad & am facing a massive tide of Mongol armies. The following is basically my Anti-Mongolian campaign strategy. This strategy has been very effective at keeping the Mongols from laying siege to Baghdad and getting rolling. In fact I haven't lost a single region to the Mongolian invasion even though they've been on my doorstep since day one. Even though the historical Baghdad event occurred many turns ago my Mongols have yet to lay a finger on Baghdad proper. I feel that Baghdad is a great place to make a defensive stand, as if they get through to open ground their superior mobility makes them tough to beat.

I have basically been just camping armies on two bridges of the Tigris & Euphrates rivers and always forcing the Mongols to fight me on bridge crossing maps. I try to defend the bridges with spear militia and trash infantry up front, with missile units directly behind. Heavy infantry & cavalry are all poised to charge in once my spearmen have soaked up a lot of the arrows and the Mongol armies are breaking through the choke.

Even when smashed up together on the bridge maps' choke points, the mongolians throw off so many d@mn missiles that they are pretty devastating. As such, I try to use my cheap troops to suck up as many arrows as possible. If the Mongos try to cross the bridge leading with heavy infantry, you can try to use some of their missiles against them by rushing some trash infantry troops right at their heavies. Your troops will route pretty quickly, but in the meantime the entire mongol hoard is shooting their own heavies in the back & you can get some pretty good friendly fire going.

Usually on bridge crossings my front line troops are completely destroyed d@mn quickly regardless of how many I throw up there, so I try to only have 1 or 2 spear units plugging the bridge at a time with the rest sitting just out of range ready to charge in. Definitely do not put your best troops up front as they will be completely destroyed by missiles before they get a whack in. If you have enough horse archers, they can also be used very effectively to give the mongols a taste of their own medicine on your end of the bridge. In this setup I'd ideally have 2 light infantry (missile catchers) 4-5 spearmen, 4-5 horse archer, and the rest as heavy infantry / heavy cavalry.

Bridge-Plugging-Plan
#1 - Sacrifice Light Infantry & try to cause friendly fire
#2 - Use spearmen 1-2 at a time to plug the end of the bridge
#3 - use horse archers to inflict as much pain as possible until the spearmen are about to break
#4 - charge all heavy cav/heavy infantry/horse archers into mongo clump-mass
#5 - hopefully they route, if not try to charge repeatedly.
#6 - ????
#7 - profit


The other main way to combat the mongols is forcing them into siege battles. One effective way is to place forts right on the inside of the Tigris/Euphrates river crossings (or really any good choke point). The downside here is that if they so desired they could lay siege & wait you out, forcing you to fight them on open ground which I feel is a death wish against their far more mobile troops. The upside however is huge - the mongols aren't nearly as well suited to siege warfare as they are to fighting in the plains. The standard late-game fort by this point is pretty sweet (& totally unrealistic for an army to throw up in a few months I might add).

I have found that the Mongol AI brings a lot of trebuchets to most siege battles, which was scary until I figured out that if you take light cavalry units & charge right into their trebuchet units, the Mongos will shoot so many arrows at your cavalry that they end up killing all their own guys! I recently fought a battle where I was able to sacrifice 2 units of beat up light cavalry to take out 8 trebuchets & and create a lot of collateral damage right at the beginning of a siege battle in which I was outnumbered 2:1. Without their trebuchets to knock down my walls, all it took was a careful use of walls & corners to protect my troops from arrows and a crafty application of my own crossbow militia to get those mongols running for their mommies!

I have supplemented my bridge-stopping efforts by directing a crusade against the Golden Horde capital of Damghan. My allies continuously pump stacks into Mongol territory, which distracts Mongol big stacks as they go around chasing the crusaders. Even when the mongols stomp on the allied crusaders quickly it still takes some of the bite out of their stacks. I always have at least one of my own generals participating in the crusade - ideally running around in their territory recruiting mercenaries and either ambushing mongol generals or setting up a fort in some very inconvenient place (or right next to the crusade objective).

The third thing I have been doing is running a massive assassination campaign against the Mongolian generals. It seems that the Mongol AI prefers to have generals lead sieges, so if I am able to kill the AI general, their army seems to stop its progress towards Baghdad & run around for a while trying to figure out how what to do next. All this buys me more time to replenish the bridge defenders - which I need because am running a long supply chain with Acre, Caesaeria and Gaza supplying most of my non-militia troops.

After about 10 turns of fighting, I have reduced the Mongol's lead significantly & am up to 33% of their military strength per the faction overview. I believe I started at about 5% or something ridiculous. So the finish line is almost in view. Once I have these mongol chumps rolled up & put to bed the rest of the world doesn't stand a chance.

[Big-Tony]

Wow, what great timing on this thread! I just started playing a late era CS game,(M/M, no BYG, Savage AI).

I've gotten the Egyptians taken care of (with the help of a massive crusade on Cairo), but before I turn around to backstab the Turks, I'm trying to get some things in order and my economy stabilized as I retrain/re-recruit some units and get some settlement upgrades.

One thing that I'm having trouble deciding on, is a standard army composition. With a treasury only bringing in about 7k profit I can't go hog wild on the elites, so I'm thinking 8 or 9 (cheap-er)infantry units (Templar Sgts, or Light Men at arms) 6 or 7 Cav. (KnightsTemplar/St Laz./Hospitaller/Knights of Jerusalem, etc) and 4 Hvy Infantry.(Foot Knights of Jerusalem/Cannons of Holy Sep./Edessan)

This still seems too expensive, even with the upkeep on the Templar Sgts being so cheap, so I'm looking for any input or thoughts from others on how you'd work to set up your stacks. ( I'm not a big fan of Archer units until I get access to the better ones, like the Templar Longbow, or French foot archers, and since i'm like turn 25/ 1245AD? they're a long way off)

Thanks,
-Tony

[wrcromartie]

Tony -

To get your economy humming, make sure you are making the most of your merchants. The crusader states have good access to a lot of great resources - gold down by Mecca, silk in Syria, and some other goodies that should be able to get you up to $2/3,000 per year in Merchant income alone. There are quite a few merchant guides on this forum that you can search if you'd like more information on that. Also make sure you secure trade agreements with all the Europeans & build up your ports and merchant warehouses to beef up your trade fleets.

Also make sure you max out your free upkeep feudal knights. Knights of Jerusalem and Foot Knights are free as long as you keep them in castles (up to like 3 per castle starting out). If you time your crusades right, you can spend a lot of time shuffling these units in between castle & crusading stacks, so you don't have to pay much upkeep. I particularly enjoy full-stacks of crusading knights, as they can move uber-fast and you get a free stack of knights as long as the crusade is going which can save you ~$5k per turn.

In the early game my favorite cheap attack-stacks were something like this (these should be ratios if you want a full stack) -> 3 heavy cav knights; 3 templar sergeants ; 2 foot knights; 2 crossbow militia.

Crossbow militia aren't terrible as early missile units, they just don't have great range. They aren't that great in siege battles either due to their straight line of fire - but they can be fairly effective in the field. I basically used them as throw-a-way units that I'd put upfront in my formation & use to pelt their generals or heavy infantry. I turn off skirmish mode & just let them absorb the charge from the enemy & then engage with my infantry. Once infantry is engaged, move cavalry around the flanks & execute the hammer and anvil. You take losses in your throw-a-way units and preserve the good stuff

If you can take Edessa, Ankara or Caesaria you should start pumping out turkish archers ASAP which are a great compliment to your forces. I personally also get great results out of Turkoman Missile Cavalry, so I start pumping those as soon as I have access to them. They will help big time when you start having to face the Mongols later on.

[Big-Tony]

Thanks wrcomartie, good suggestions all. I didn't realize that the foot knights are free upkeep in castles. (I was surprised when I looked closer, that there are seemingly so few units that *do* get free upkeep in castles)

What are your thoughts about the special units? i.e. Cannons of the Holy Sep, Dis. Knights of Laz., etc? The Cannons are almost unstoppable as I discovered when took Cairo, but very expensive.

[wrcromartie]

Cannons of the Holy Sep. are worth the price & should be trained/retrained constantly. If you're using RR I'd recommend trying to keep using your Cannons in battle & ranking them up, then sending them back to Jerusalem to retrain.

Lazurus Knights aren't really that awesome IMO - Templar Knights / Hospitalier Knights are better elite units & your Knights of Jerusalem have better stats and get free upkeep in castles + can be retained more easily.

[wrcromartie]

Also I'd recommend trying to work towards the highest Militia Barracks tier in Jerusalem as eventually that will enable the Constable of Jerusalem which is a massively powerful unit.