SS6.1: Kingdom of Jerusalem & Templars adjustments

[cedric37]

Hello,

I was playing as the Kingdom of Jerusalem faction and noticed some illogical/unbalanced things IMHO.

First, why can't you build St-John chapters ? Since you are acting as an independent kingdom and not as knights templar (and knights templar faction can build st-john chapters ... :eek), i don't see any good reason for that. The strange thing is that you can recruit canons of the holy sepulcher and they belongs to the hospitallers...
Speaking of the knights templar, i suggest not to be able to recruit them in castles but in chapters as usual. Instead, for Infantry, you could recruit Edessan guards in fortress (they are not so great to be recruitable only in citadels); and you could recruit Canons of the Holy Sepulcher in citadels (replacing the dismounted knights templar; you can still rely on dismounted knights of antioch for highly armoured troops). For Cavalry, i suggest to replace knights templar and Templar Confrere knights by Constables of Jerusalem (with slightly better stats as today) - which can be recruitable in citadels.
About Canons and Constables, i also suggest that they are not available anymore in the City of Jerusalem (they are now part of your citadels pool of units).

For the Knights Templar faction; i suggest that you cannot build St-John chapters anymore (remember: you play as the military order of the Knights Templar!). In Castles, i suggest that you can recruit Frankish knights (they are a pain compared to Knight templars and both are recruitable from fortress and citadels). So this way they won't be obsolete and you can have an effective cavalry at start (turkopole cannot count as an effective cavalry IMO).

And to finish, i suggest that all factions that can recruit knights templar can recruit dismounted knights templar in their chapters too (as for the hospitallers). Today when the computer propose me templar chapters i systematically refuse until it proposes me St-John chapters where i can recruit bith infantry and cavalry and moreover i gain a sanitary bonus !!

Just my 2 cents...

PS: I have made the adjustments in both EDU and EDB and it seems to work (just had to copy the tga's for dismounted kinghts hospitaller in the jerusalem units/unit_info subfolders).

[Caesar Clivus]

Cedric you may wish to check out the latest RR/RC mod. The Templars and KoJ have been merged to a single Crusader States faction that combines units from both factions and includes a lot of the suggestions you make (if memory serves)

[magraev]

I think the suggestions above make a lot of sense.

I'm a bit worried about using frankish knights and turkopoles though - both are extremely expensive compared with units of the same strength, so it could completely gimp the AI's finances. They are both about 200 more expensive pr turn than other comparable units.

I suggest making turkopoles cheaper and maybe exchange frankish knights with mailed knights (or make them cheaper too). If that makes the merc pool unbalanced you could make them less available as mercs.

[cedric37]

@Caesar Clivus: I once tried SS6.2/RR/RC and found plenty of bugs in it. Also i did not like the abyssal rate of recruitment; which tended to ruin my interest in the game. So i disinstalled and i am back now to SS6.1.

@magraev: thanks for your suggestions, i will see if i can lower cost for both turkopole and frankish knights.

The other possibility would be to exchange turkopoles with french mounted archers (? why not since later you can recruit dismounted french archers as well ^^) and also change frankish knights with mailed knights as you suggested.

Also i would like to change the pisan and genoese sailors with something else (never understood why pisan sailors were plaguing my far east cities; plus kingdom of jerusalem was a child of french kingdom...). Right now the sailors are not free upkeep units and have a very expensive upkeep (200), which tends also to ruin jerusalem AI finance (since you can only recruit this unit from villages to large towns and templar sergeants are only available in cities upgraded militia barracks... Maybe i coud substitute with templar spearmen from knights_templar faction ? (less effective than templar sergeants but also cheaper).

[Kawee]

What bothers me most is the fact that they lack late-game units. You would think that had the states survived to the 14th and 15th century, they would adopt the latest technology, especially full plate armour.

[cedric37]

Yes i do agree with the fact that all factions (including jerusalem) are not well extrapolated in the latest period; but you must keep in mind that the kingdom of jerusalem is located in a very hot country with a lot of deserts. They don't want to burn into their armors; look at the heat factor in the EDU. So IMO, they should stay in half plate at max, in regards of the climate where they are used to fight.

[Caesar Clivus]

Yes i do agree with the fact that all factions (including jerusalem) are not well extrapolated in the latest period; but you must keep in mind that the kingdom of jerusalem is located in a very hot country with a lot of deserts. They don't want to burn into their armors; look at the heat factor in the EDU. So IMO, they should stay in half plate at max, in regards of the climate where they are used to fight.

Exactly. The armies of the Middle-east didn't wear heavier armour for a reason. If the KoJ had survived later than what it did, I'm guessing that they would have adopted more middle-eastern styles of arms and armour more than the latest heavy plate armour from europe.