yup, 2/3 of all crusaders was Frankish people, tho for the sake of the game it would be maybe better to have crusader sargents to build, and french foot archers to hire like mercs...
Mameluks was mostly light and medium cavalry with quality armor, but still way lighter then western knights. their main strategy was to"poke" knights with boows, provoke them to charge, and then run-knights get tired horses, sun on heavy armors, and no foot soldier back up, so they was easy "snack" to mameluks. From 2nd crusade templars saw that foot troops are must, so from 1150ish crusaders adopt another style of fighting in deserts. However fact remain same: western knights (heavy cavalry) should have more armor then eastern, should have powerful charge too, but should have less stamina and their horses tired quicker then eastern... On the other side, mameluks, turks and others should have most powerful cavalry in horse archers. How to balance this, Im not sure, but atm I have rough time against heavy skirmish troops in my campaign