Is the KoJ overpowered?

[Burebista]

Hi all,

Superb mod (*playing 2.0 gold - downloading 2.2). One of my old managers made me play it after two derailed meetings as I don't like by default playing other mods than mine ... anyway = excellent job again.

I a bit upset with the recruitment system since I have a passion to relocate my nation and migrate before I conquer the world. As for the rest it is hard enough for me - still please review your unit’s stats as per below overpower issue:



Terrain does not matter anyway - enemy units should better group before attack - especially two armies

Thank you,
EAP BB

[Kiki52]

In my opinion, I think the KoJ does have some overpowered units. Most notably the Templar Axemen Knights and the Norman Knights. I thought that in the previous version of BC, the KoJ seemed like a balanced faction that didn't have any overpowered units. It seems like in the current version, the KoJ do not have any weaknesses. They have the best heavy cavalry (Norman Knights which are better than any other cav including Askari Nobles), the best melee units (Templar Axemen knights), one of the best spearmen (who are comparable to Khurasani Heavy Spearmen), and very powerful ranged units. With the way ranged units are now, KoJ's crossbows outperform any of the Muslim factions bow units in many circumstances (although not all). I liked the old KoJ from previous versions of BC, where they actually had faction strengths and weaknesses and in order to play them you had to play to their strengths and cover their weaknesses. Now they seem like an uber faction where they have pretty much the most powerful type of unit in cav, melee, and extremely good spearmen and ranged.

I personally think that the KoJ's weaker units should undergo having less cost and upkeep to keep a good sized army in the beginning of the game, and make some of their more powerful units less powerful.

[The Noble Lord]

Nothing unusual there, Kingdom of Jerusalem always had very strong units and they had pretty good stats. Plus, their heavy infantry has always been one of the best in the field.

[wudang_clown]

@Burebista, what difficulty are you playing at? And what composition have had Makurian armies?

@Kiki52, I can't agree with you, KoJ has its weaknesses. I wonder how would you discuss the matter with all those who think that KoJ is underpowered. Using such general statements don't help much. And stating that Latin crossbows outmatch any of Muslim archers is not true.

As for strength of KoJ infantry, there are people who regards Templar Axemen as underpowered unit in comparison to Mameluk Axemen. Without detailed analysis it's rather pointless to discuss. Regarding battle results Burebista has posted, it's weird indeed and we will look on this.

[Cochus1]

Makurian has the worst troops of the mod, and KoJ has the best cavalry (but i am not sure about infantry) of the game. But... whats the price of have a full cav armie?? they can destroy anything, but u pay for it abot 12000 dinnars for turn... best troops and the most expensive.

PD- The KoJ infantry isnt as good, they have only a decent unit (templars, and they cant win against mamluk axemen for example). And u have to see that this unit only can be created in campaing on acre, and each 5 turns (if i remember well)

[Kiki52]

Thats odd. I am speaking about the late period KoJ units, the Templar Axemen Knights, they can beat up Mamluk Axemen pretty good. There are two units of Templar Axemen. The regular Templar Axemen who are defeated by Mamluk Axemen, and the Templar Axemen Knights who are super strong and pretty much pwn everything they touch. In the new BC, they included the new Templar Axemen Knights who are basically more powerful versions of Templar Axemen.

About the Latin crossbows, do you think that it is only when looking at archer vs archer battles you see the crossbows win? Like if I take the dismounted Qara-Ghulams and have them attack a Latin Crossbow unit, the Qara-Ghulams lose when they get into a shootout. About having either of those two units shoot at lightly armored melee units or shielded spearmen, I would think that the bow archers like Qara-Ghulams should be better than Latin Crossbowmen at killing those units faster right?

[Cochus1]

The unit scale can be an important factor, i have with ethe normal scale and templar axemen cant win against the mamluks axemen. the reason? the numerical inferiority.

About the range units... i cant answer u for a simple reason, i cant understand ur comment xDD. My level of english is very limited and sometimes i cant understand what ppl wants tell me

[wudang_clown]

Originally Posted by Kiki52

Thats odd. I am speaking about the late period KoJ units, the Templar Axemen Knights, they can beat up Mamluk Axemen pretty good.

And I'm talking about those Templar Axemen which are present in the EDU. I couldn't find more but one such unit, and yes, these are knights. I'm not sure when they are available because I didn't play KoJ so long.

Originally Posted by Kiki52

I would think that the bow archers like Qara-Ghulams should be better than Latin Crossbowmen at killing those units faster right?

Well, okay, but my question is: why QG should be better? LC win because they have shield (+4 to defence) and IIRC more ammunition. Given that potential duel happens vis-a-vis it's nothing surprising that those shields protect their owners. Question "should they have shield and more ammunition?" is a completely different issue.

[Holy winter]

1) I agree KOJ have some stronger units like Norman Knights and Templar Axemen Knights. But this does not mean the faction is overpowered. Other factions have also their strong units like the HA and elephants. You can also say the Rayputs are overpowered.
Some factions like Makuria are weaker than others, but their is no faction that is standing above all the others.
2) I also think X bows are more powerful than archers but archers have also their benefits: fire arrows, reload faster, they don't need to stand in the front of the army.

3) We need to know what battle difficulty? And what composition have had Makurian armies? (like Wudang asked).
4) The Ai (in general) is always underpowered vs human player.
5) The army of Burebista are experienced soldiers.
6) The 2 Makurian armies have a captain, not a general and it makes a huge difference.

[wudang_clown]

Yes, balancing the stats is very complicated, I guess. Frankly speaking, I shouldn't discuss balancing issues because I know nothing about it.

[Lupu]

I wouldn't say KoJ is overpowered, sure they have good units, and are the only faction that can field so many different heavy units, but you should also look at other factions, it's not like KoJ has anything special, others don't, it's a very balanced faction, their speciality is a good cavalry charge and crossbowmen that can be more useful than archers. You were fighting against makuria, and as far as I know they have only 2 real elite units that it takes forever to get(compare your experienced full elite army :p ), so it's not that strange, also you are the human player, the AI is mostly chanceless, I would advice you to try BC in multiplayer!

In BC, elite units can get really powerful, I did a test a few months ago, I still remember it, it was 1 unit of abyssinian champions(makurian elite infantry, really underpowered against high tier units I think, but awesome against lighter ones) against 3 units of those light ayyubid macemen, in the end there were 20 champions left, the ayyubids, with I think 6 times the numbers all fled.

[DirtyACE]

I have to disagree with the OP to a degree. The KoJ do have some rather powerful units and perhaps some are overpowered a bit but not to the degree that's suggested. I've ran many tests of various units in custom battle. All these tests are 1 vs 1. I ran tests of Norman Knights vs Royal Mamluk Cavalry, Knights of St. John vs Royal Mamluks, and Mamluk Tabardariyah vs Dismounted Templar Knights. In a large majority of these tests, the KoJ units did not come out on top, actually. Even with the anti-cavalry bonus that the Knights of St. John have, they still could not overcome the Royal Mamluks who simply hacked them down in melee with their large axes. In a larger scope of things, it's all about how you utilize each unit a battle where multiple units on each side are involved. You kind of have to pick and choose whom you want your units to engage. For example, you want spears to fight cavalry, and melee units against spears, and so forth.

Plus, the example shown in the first post is not really that good since the Makurian faction is somewhat lacking in terms of top tier units. You can inflict very similar casualties on them with an army less advanced than the one the OP used.

I think a good test is to wait until Baybars shows up near Qahira with his armies of Mamluks and then send the best KoJ armies against him and see how they fare. By this time Koj should have nearly its entire unit roster available for recruitment apart from Knights of St. John.

[The Noble Lord]

Originally Posted by Cochus1

Makurian has the worst troops of the mod,

That's probably the reason why I never played them .

[jermagon]

Originally Posted by The Noble Lord

That's probably the reason why I never played them .

I don't like them either.

[Echbart]

I think that in BC KoJ is really difficult to play. As experienced player i have to play on M/M, or if im for real challenge on H/H. And crusade armies are doom for your economy - i will never ask pope for assisatnce ever! Great mod!

[The Noble Lord]

Originally Posted by jermagon

I don't like them either.

I know that they were added in because of the need to have more diverse faction list and such. But, their faction slot could've been given to someone else. Some other faction.

[wudang_clown]

Originally Posted by The Noble Lord

I know that they were added in because of the need to have more diverse faction list and such. But, their faction slot could've been given to someone else. Some other faction.

Makuria is where it is also to prevent Ayyubids from becoming a power right from the start.

[Echuta]

Please dont remove makuria, it would break my hearth :/.

[wudang_clown]

It's rather sure that Makuria will stay.

[Bull]

KoJ is not overpowered.

The OP has an army of experienced elite units, fighting one of the most lightly armored armies in BC. It is not so hard to understand why Makuria lost. In fact it is intriguing that the OP lost so many infantry, a few charges by those Templars, Normans, and Germans normally would have routed these armies.