How to survive as Kingdom of Jerusalem?

[The_Nord]

Okay, so today i've tried two campaigns as KOJ on m/m and ive been reduced to only having Nicosia left both times. How are you supposed to survive when the seljuks and fatimids go berserk almost at the start of the game?? Any tips, links to guides, ANYTHING is welcome. The same goes for Teutonic order but I found its somewhat easier as them for some reason.

I play SS 6.2 with latest versions of RC/RR.

[PerXX]

Playing a recently started KOJ game myself, with PB's latest RR aswell, one thing I took notice of at once was this: You actually start with some rather powerfull units, for the beginning. The Armenians of Cicilia are amazing archers, and with a rather decent AP melee attack, can stand toe-to-toe with most enemies at the start of the game. You also have a some units of knights, and the crusader spearmen in Jerusalem.
The two facts about this is, firstly you have these units that are stronger than what the enemy can field yet. Secondly, they are damn expensive! So - put them to good use! Right of the bat, I sieged Gaza, which is already a castle. This'll give you quick access to the units needed to stand your ground, and also remove the Fatamids of their main armyproducing castle. If you then call a Crusade at Cairo, you can also rob them of their primary income-center. Either grap it for yourself, or allow another faction to take it. The latter would give them a new enemy to fight, and allow you some breathing room.

As for the Seljuk turks, they'll mainly field horsearchers, infantry archers, and javelin skirmishers. They'll kick your butt in an open field battle, but should be fairly easy to defend against in settlements. They should get into wars with both the Basilia ton Romaion, and the Kwarezmins, often also the Kievan Rus/Cumans, depending on who gains the land north of the Seljuks. After that, they'll easily accept a peace-offering, and most likely pay you for it. Even if they break it, they shouldn't be able to come at you in full force. Simply keep defending at your castles, and sue for peace. Your main focus should be to eliminate the Fatimids.

Sooner or later, a jihad will probably be called on Jerusalem. Don't worry too much though, as you've got access to the Canons of the Holy Sepulcher, which'll defeat anything on the walls. You've also got reinforcements ready in Gaza. Balista towers should be first priority in Jerusalem, and then armor smiths/barracks. Your king has enough chivalry to ensure growth for now.

[boss_tay]

Hi PerXX.
I don't see the strength of horsearchers and javelin calvary at all.
We can advance our mass-peasant archers (very cheap) to shoot them down, then weaken their infantry while charging their foot missle units with light calvary after the horsearchers are mostly gone.
My point is: the horsearchers factions (esp. the Turks) stand no chance against western forces until they get the Gulam units and melee calvary units.

Regarding the KoJ, taing Gaza is a must, like you said. When other factions are crusading Cairo, I took Damentia and Alexandria as my prize (Alexandria is richer than Cairo ). After the Fatimid is battered, advance north to take Antioch area. Then, you'll have 3 rich ports (Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria).
I achieved this when laying the KoJ with vh/vh. KoJ has very powerful units while the Turks is always overrunned by the Byzantum verytime I play.

[meese]

My point is: the horsearchers factions (esp. the Turks) stand no chance against western forces until they get the Gulam units and melee calvary units.

I don't know about fighting A.I horse archers but if a human player uses them, a horse archer army will simply annihilate any western force. Failing that, they'll kill half and run off, then repeat. On that note, I think you can get Turkomans which are quite good, though I don't remember their cost.

[boss_tay]

I don't know about fighting A.I horse archers but if a human player uses them, a horse archer army will simply annihilate any western force. Failing that, they'll kill half and run off, then repeat. On that note, I think you can get Turkomans which are quite good, though I don't remember their cost.

Oh, you're talking about full stack of horse archers. With the A.I, I only se 6-8 HA in an army at max.
For human player, If I see lots of HA, I'll also fill that much number of foot archer in my army. Unless you have good lancer like the Mongol or Khwarezmian to overcome the reserve spearman and strike the archers, you still lose eventually

And the problem of HA armies is that you cannot fight 3-4 full stack enemy armies which stick toghether (happens a lot in vh/vh), unless you have "Night fighter"

[meese]

Oh you don't need to win - horse archers are more about killing as many as you can and if you have a chance of winning the battle, even better. I think thus far, the worst kill - death ratio I've gotten with my main horse archer army is 1-4 :/ That of course doesnt' take into accoutn what happens after the skirmisher cavalry run out of arrows so yeah, there's no way I'd be able to fight 3-4 full armies, but I'd be very happy to kill 2000 troops at the loss of a few hundred before retreating.

The A.I probably isn't all that good at that tactic so enemy horse archers aren't that great. Still, they can usually accomplish the job of softening up your units which is all they need to do since they'll probably outnumber you.

[RollingWave]

yeah, I think the defualt SS 6.2 AI's biggest weakness is

A. relatively unimaginative use of skrimishers, espically the horse riding onces (javlin and archer)

B.predictable and sucky tactics in seige assults (though it's already an improvement over vanilla by a ton .. heh)

I mean if you flip the table and use those stuff yourself. you should be able to win easily, I had a Cuman campaign in 6.1 H/H where I easily demolished everything to the coast of the black sea and baltics. I basically build only Cuman HA , with only a few Cuman nobles sprinkled in (and my generals obviously) . a properly managed HA army should NEVER lose in the open field. in fact, they should never even win a less than one sided victory.

Sure. in THEORY foot archers pound for pound should outshoot u. but the problem is your target is stationary, while their's is moving, simply by running with loose formation really neglects most of the advantages the foot archers have already. not to meantion that they can't have full stacks of archers other wise you just charge right into them.

The only thing I really fear in my Cuman campaign were mass catapult + magnols, mostly because it's too unpredictable in nature and thus hard to really defend against other than praying they don't accidently kill your generals

But yeah, like other's have pointed out, the key to the Crusader states is to exploit the AI's poor use of seige assaults. espically easy when your a western faction versus eastern (who tend to have less armored troops) and hopefully cripple the Fatamids fast.

[meese]

This is a bit off-topic but I like your sig. RollingWave. Though no. 4 would be: The guys who write histories are always biased and can't be trusted.

[Jynx]

HA are very effective, but only if you use them right which the AI doesn't so it shouldn't be too hard.

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You're too nosey

[arcanek]

Another way is to delay Seljuk and Fatimid attack by allying with them. Do it in the first turn when they will be willing. I can usually get like 1500 florin from each for alliance. They will eventually attack but at least it's delayed.

Blitzing Gaza seems nice but I doubt it can be possible, because as soon as you pull out units from Edessa and Antioch, the rebels from Aleppo and Tripoli will besiege those cities immediately.

[Walternat0r]

For my m/m campaign;

1st turn - Gather troops outside of Jerusalum (sp, whatever ) and Tortosa. And train as many catapults/Trebs as poss. Send your princess/diplomat to Seljuks straight away.
2nd turn - Assault Gaza and Antioch, take both.
3rd turn - Take Aleppo and Damietta (use a boat for Damietta)

Basically, just bribe the balls off of the Seljuks to keep your relations up and try to get alliance with the Byzantines. After 3 turns, if all has gone well you've removed the Fatimids 3 castles and 1 major city. Now you can move on Damascus (thus removing one front from your war), and crusade on Cairo/Alexandria. Essentially, job done

EDIT:

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Turn 4 and 13 respectively.

[The Noble Lord]

@Walternat0r
How can you bribe the Seljuks for such a long periods of time and at the same time conduct operations against other Muslim factions??

[airborne guy]

For my m/m campaign;

1st turn - Gather troops outside of Jerusalum (sp, whatever ) and Tortosa. And train as many catapults/Trebs as poss. Send your princess/diplomat to Seljuks straight away.
2nd turn - Assault Gaza and Antioch, take both.
3rd turn - Take Aleppo and Damietta (use a boat for Damietta)

Basically, just bribe the balls off of the Seljuks to keep your relations up and try to get alliance with the Byzantines. After 3 turns, if all has gone well you've removed the Fatimids 3 castles and 1 major city. Now you can move on Damascus (thus removing one front from your war), and crusade on Cairo/Alexandria. Essentially, job done

EDIT:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Turn 4 and 13 respectively.

Where is Damietta at?

[airborne guy]

How did you take all those settlements so quickly. What additional units did you recruit? and what kind of research did you do? I have so many ?? I love this mod, its just that Jerusalem is so difficult to play. I just tried what you showed in your post and I was able to get Antioch and Gaza. Damascus would fall a couple of turns later but Allepo and Damietta was impossible. Also waves of half stacked Egyptions sieged Gaza every turn. I would fight off one but another would soon follow, before I could get all my units re-trained they would siege and siege until they had it then they would hit Jerusalem and the GAME OVER. This is the most difficult faction for me, but I love playing the hard ones. The input would be nice. Actually any input would bevery helpful. Im skunked on this.

[King Siegfried]

Calling a crusade helps a lot.

[meese]

Between Gaza and Alexandria I think, a castle.

[Deadly Rabbit]

Damietta is the Egyption castle between Gaza and Alexandria on the mediterranean Coast. If you take Gaza, then Damietta, the Egyptians have to march troops all the way from luxor or even Benghazi. You will still have a tough fight to knock them out, but you've effectively stripped them of their best troops if you can take those two castles.

[cedric37]

Playing as KoJ it is very important to secure at least one of your borders, i always choose the turcs which are less agressive than egyptians. I somehow manage to ally with them then turn on egypt and nearly empties my northern settlements to concentrate on the south, with, as a priority, take gaza-kerak-al'aqaba then alexandria-cairo-damietta. Normally this can be done by launching a crusade on alexandria and you can take all those settlements "on the way". If you do this very quick (let say before turn 10) then egypt have no time to react and they are dead when you hit turn 25... This was true every time i played KoJ in SS6.1, now i cannot speak for SS6.2 or RR/RC. Maybe it is a way more hard.

Note: it is very important to take Gaza as it is their main recruitment source and alexandria/cairo as they are their main income source. If you can manage to take those 3 settlements from them very soon, they are dead meat...

[arcanek]

If you empty northern garrison rebels from Tripoli and Aleppo will besiege Antoich and Edessa - quite annoying. Taking Gaza is always a must. My suggestion is to take Kerak by turn 3 with given units in Jerusalem (cannot reach Kerak with infantry in 1 turn), start recruiting whatever crap unit you can have your hand on there, and about 10th turn siege and take Gaza, as it usually has only a general there. Then rightaway call crusade on Cairo or Alexandria, but take Dalmietta first and finishing Egypt shouldn't be that hard. And allying with Seljuks is quite nice, but even if you don't make alliance they might just leave you alone and focus on war against Byzantines or rebel settlements. It would be safer to go into alliance though.

[JorisofHolland]

Take Antioch by using the garrisons of Nicosio and Tortosa, their army often stands in the field so you should be able to take it down and take the empty city afterwards. Gaza is a must, as is Damascus. Take Gaza with the armies from Jerusalem and Kerak, use Acre's troops for Damascus. Works well for me, playing VH/VH (as always) on 6.2.