Templar roster vs KOJ roster

[TheLastPrivate]

I have no qualms whether I start an early campaign or a late one, although I usually prefer early.

I noticed that their roster is completely different, and I doubt that Templars will suddenly have a Marian reform of its own and turn into KOJ (or do they?)

Considering that they don't ever do that, which roster would you recommend? Note that I've only played Poland, Kwarezm, and France so far.

[Gogolometro]

My bets are on templars because after long, hard games and amny turns sun will raise on your faction.Templars get papal swiss guards, macemans, arquebusiers, horse archers.Of course they have zweihanders and some templar style of DFK, but the mix of halebards, the best halebards maybe with gunmans, and HA with some castle late heavy is a wonderfull combo.
What I dont like about KoJ is they look like a german Tiger surrounded by T-43.Nice swordsmans&heavy cavalry but obsolete there.The generals of egipt will rape the western one(terrible when lose the full chilvary faction heir in siege killed by egiptian bodyguards of a dead general) and the spam of saracien militia, arab cavalry is more powerfull.When horse archers are present, ghulams, otoman infantry of egipt/turks face you the DFK, heavy cavalry dont look so great...

[Faramir D'Andunie]

If I remember right Templars are mostly an infantry faction with access to many kinds of infantry but a bit little cavalry. On the other hand KoJ seems a little more cavalry based. As for countering the Muslic bodyguards, don't try and risk your general with a frontal assault, rather tie them up sith something(spears, other cavalry) and have your general( or other cavalry)charge em from behind.


Anyway both are very good, but take what suits your play better. I prefer KoJ and its knights.

[Mune]

I haven't played as KoJ yet, so I can't be too definitive there, but I have certainly taken a look at their roster. On the other hand, I've had a great campaign with the Templars before, I might even go so far as saying it's been my favorite so far. They have the most difficult starting position (IMHO) which makes for a good challenge. Being deep in the holylands means you can make great use of crusades, and the starting diplomat next to Rome makes it quite easy to effectively start your campaign immediately with a crusade (on Antioch I recommend). This makes it easy to get high-chivalry generals to stick in some castles to get them to Citadel pretty quickly. Combine this with the fact that there are several large cities from Antioch and south along the coastline means that your expansion efforts (while hard-fought) become quite profitable.

I also greatly enjoyed their unit roster, but I must admit that my unit diversity was pretty limiting before around turn 50 (when Fortress/Citadel and Large City units come into play). My armies for the first 50 turns or so consisted mostly of dismounted and mounted Hospitaller Knights (pray that they offer you a guild early, it helps a ton), Trebuchets and Great Cross'. However, after about turn 50, it diversified into Hospitaller/Templar Knights (mounted and dismounted, both very similar units but the black/white makes it more interesting), dismounted French Archers, Templar Crossbowmen, Swiss Guards (great halberd unit), Trebuchets and Great Cross'. I had many a good battle with this combo, and the longbow units (always a favorite for me) were especially appealing after fighting a mainly melee-based war.

At any given time, your unit roster seems (to me anyway) to be geared towards having a great ability to either defend against or prepare a siege. Their militia have swords, making them much more useful at either defending a gate or capturing a wall than your average spear militia. the dismounted Hospitaller/Templar Knights do just the same, but are much better at it (and more cost-effective than the almost-as-good Feudal Knights). Having a couple Great Cross' near a gate when attacking or defending during a siege keeps your units from routing when the odds are against them. Your large cities even get to produce the Swiss Guards, which are a great help at the gates when defending a siege.

The only lacking part of their roster I found was no real high-end cavalry. However, you will likely get access to Hospitaller Knights early, which helps to alleviate this problem. However, they will pretty much be your only viable Cavalry option for a while, so learn to love them. I'd been having far too much success with cavalry-based civs lately anyway (either I'm a master at cavalry charges or they're just moderately OP in general) so their lack of cavalry options was more of an interesting challenge to me. I had to change up my usual battle tactics quite a bit, also due to the fact that I had gotten used to using plenty of archers (longbow-types especially) and didn't get the French Archers till around 50 turns (meaning I mainly didn't use archers until then).

[The Cobra]

Go late...

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

KOJ is a bout 10 times harder then the KoJ, beacuse KoJ has 4 castles, 1 city, no economy and no expansion possibility's close to home and then only by war with Ayybids who have 4 stacks constantly it seems.

[Landwalker]

KOJ is a bout 10 times harder then the KoJ

Wait, what?

Cheers.

[Skooma Addict]

KOJ is a bout 10 times harder then the KoJ, beacuse KoJ has 4 castles, 1 city, no economy and no expansion possibility's close to home and then only by war with Ayybids who have 4 stacks constantly it seems.

Ha Ha Ha...

Uh, go Templars. KOJ have stronger units to start with and Jerusalem. Templars don't have #@*! I suppose they are both challenging but the Templars I would surmise is harder keep in mind I didn't play as KOJ yet.

[Faramir D'Andunie]

Templars have a hard starting potiton but they are surrounded by dozens of rebel cities and castles. KoJ is surrounded by Egypt and Turks and will have to fight any of those(or both) to expand.

Then again to be honest the question is Late or Early campaign.

In any case both are an excellent choice, my suggestion is play both keep saves and each time you get bored with the one try the other.

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

whahaha bad typo

i mean KOJ is 10 times harder then templers lol that looked silly.

[Wolfcp11]

whahaha bad typo

i mean KOJ is 10 times harder then templers lol that looked silly.

you know, you can edit you old post

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

you know, you can edit you old post

you know i know that, but since that post wat quite old i didnt.

You are quite rude...

[Gogolometro]

A suggestion Madman Swiss Papal Guards+Turkopoles+Zweihanders.

[Ishoss]

you know i know that, but since that post wat quite old i didnt.

You are quite rude...

What was rude about what he said?

Anyways. I believe Templar Roster to be better. Three Swiss Guards and a tebuchet could hold any town you come across. They're just so... Overpowered!

+ Free upkeep!

[OneArmedScissor]

What was rude about what he said?

He essentially complained about someone making a post that was perceived as unnecessary, when he himself made a post that was quite unnecessary. He could have simply PM'd the guy if it was that big of a deal. Moreover, the guy didn't even provide anything of importance in his post.

Anyway, I'd suggest KoJ. I believe it's a far greater challange because you're basically gonna have to fight it out to the death with Egypt and they've got a ridiculously strong position.

[Inhuman One]

I prefer Kingdom of Jerusalem, but I would like them to have more Jerusalem units.

Next to knights, the jerusalem units are just mounted sargeants, arquebusiers and peasant archers. They definatly need some infantry too like spear militia, spear sargeants, light swordsmen or such so they dont need to depend on the templars completely.

[Skooma Addict]

I prefer Kingdom of Jerusalem, but I would like them to have more Jerusalem units.

Next to knights, the jerusalem units are just mounted sargeants, arquebusiers and peasant archers. They definatly need some infantry too like spear militia, spear sargeants, light swordsmen or such so they dont need to depend on the templars completely.

I think that's an excellent idea. Isn't there a mini-mod that kind of does that?

[MaDmAn_1988]

I was playing a campaign wth templars, got over it, so after reading this though/..... hey il try koj, man what a difference, iv got 3 generals crusading and epic battles every turn, im loving it, the simple difference wetween having 1 settlement to 5, i know people here are talking about the rosters but the gameplay in late era koj is si much better, unless you like the slow build up with the templars,

ps iwould love to see the templar zweighhandes(spelling) in koj roster to blend in with the rest of the army

[Zephyranthes]

The only thing that pisses me off about both campaigns is how the eastern Muslim generals gets a +10 armor bonus (correct me if i am wrong, -5 for KoJ and order, then +5 for the ME). So every time I surround their general with my Templar Sergeants, they will cut through somewhat 300 of them with ease. = [

[Faramir D'Andunie]

Try to tie their generals with some spear unit and have your general charge them from the rear (). Repeat that till that annoying general is dead.