Crusader States..Got a headache.

[Polycarpe]

So here's the thing, I've been reworking the CS unit roster, my first version is not bad but I'm questioning again on the units. So, I've got some lack of information about the military organization about the CS and now I will give you 2 choices of roster:
1)The unit roster is almost based on the Religious orders that was in the Outremer.
2)Make it kind more mercenary based, latin and religious order as optional units.

What do you think? If you have info on the CS, please share it otherwise, I'm kinda caught in fogs

[RollingWave]

neither were really correct, orders played a very significant part but most of the army was still based on a European Feudal system where the King summon vassal knights who bring their sergeants / auxillaries over , form up and march out. Orders were part of the vassals, though obviously working a bit differently than your typical feudal lords.

So in reality, the armies of the Crusader States would be similar to that of other Western kingdoms, with the exception of them having more Religious Order (or Knights on Personal Crusades) and their local auxillary would obviously have much more local variety (Turkopoles and other natives)

[Polycarpe]

neither were really correct, orders played a very significant part but most of the army was still based on a European Feudal system where the King summon vassal knights who bring their sergeants / auxillaries over , form up and march out. Orders were part of the vassals, though obviously working a bit differently than your typical feudal lords.

So in reality, the armies of the Crusader States would be similar to that of other Western kingdoms, with the exception of them having more Religious Order (or Knights on Personal Crusades) and their local auxillary would obviously have much more local variety (Turkopoles and other natives)

Yea, I just wrote these choices because we didn't really have precise info on them .
But I would like to make them more varied and differ (of course with a base of Western) from the other.
I remember the Templar faction, it was really fun to play because it was much more different. Too bad they were always destroyed in the first turns, never being able to do a campaign with them without adding some money to them.

[Ichon]

I think the religious orders should be key troops to the CS but mostly as elites. Rarely to compose the majority of the army. Mercenaries and personal levies should compose the bulk of the CS forces.

Something like this- left to right and top to bottom in order of declining availability

tier 1- 1 feudal levy (spearmen), 1 mercenary (slightly higher stat spearmen), 1 pilgrims
tier 2- 1 feudal levy (low stat AP axemen similar to current macemen), 2 mercenary (crossbow [italians maybe] and a latin cavalry mercenary-thugs with horses)
tier 3- 1 feudal levy (scout cavalry or similar), 2 mercenary (turkoples HA and latin swordsmen), 1 religious order(mounted men at arms)
tier 4- 2 elite religious order knights(2 hospitalers knights[foot/mounted] 1 templar knight cavalry ), 1 religious mercenary nobles retinue- nobles who went to holy land out of both religious faith and desire to gain secular rewards like 3rd sons etc- good fighters but lower morale[live to fight another day sort of bravery when seeking spoils] and armor [poorer then their older brothers] than most elites and lower upkeep as they fight for spoils not necessarily steady pay or land grants.
tier 5- ultimate elites 2- templar canons, knights of st lazarus, etc. probably tied to Jerusalem and Acre.

[Losthief]

I think the religious orders should be key troops to the CS but mostly as elites. Rarely to compose the majority of the army. Mercenaries and personal levies should compose the bulk of the CS forces.

Something like this- left to right and top to bottom in order of declining availability

tier 1- 1 feudal levy (spearmen), 1 mercenary (slightly higher stat spearmen), 1 pilgrims
tier 2- 1 feudal levy (low stat AP axemen similar to current macemen), 2 mercenary (crossbow [italians maybe] and a latin cavalry mercenary-thugs with horses)
tier 3- 1 feudal levy (scout cavalry or similar), 2 mercenary (turkoples HA and latin swordsmen), 1 religious order(mounted men at arms)
tier 4- 2 elite religious order knights(2 hospitalers knights[foot/mounted] 1 templar knight cavalry ), 1 religious mercenary nobles retinue- nobles who went to holy land out of both religious faith and desire to gain secular rewards like 3rd sons etc- good fighters but lower morale and armor[poorer then their older brothers] than most elites and lower upkeep as they fight for spoils not necessarily steady pay or land grants.
tier 5- ultimate elites 2- templar canons, knights of st lazarus, etc. probably tied to Jerusalem and Acre.

*antioch?

[Ichon]

*antioch?

? For elite based? It was the most feudal city in the area as far as I know... religious orders were closer to Jerusalem and south I thought? At least their main areas.

[k/t]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=379704

Also, pro tip: When in doubt, rip off a mod focused on a particular region. Those are the most historically accurate of all. Give the BC roster a perusal.

[Polycarpe]

I see, exporting units from BC with my own taste

This is what I was thinking:

Antioch: HQ of the Hospitallers, need to hold it to recruit Hospitaller units.
Jerusalem: Templar HQ, idem.
Acre: Teutonic HQ, idem again.

More variety of order units or just keep the base as the knights only? And that,s for sure, Teutonic units are in absolutely.

[Ichon]

More variety is cool but makes the religious orders really available when you have 5 or more different kinds of religious knights + the feudals and generals. Hard to balance that without the orders becoming large part of all CS armies.


St John knights should be with Tortosa and Margat... Antioch was feudal and then under Byzantine control then briefly its own dynasty again while knights of St John moved HQ to Margat then to Acre and Tortosa was one of the last strongholds to fall.

[k/t]

Make the units from each order recruitable only in one place but retrainable in several. That should reduce their numbers.

[Polycarpe]

Then again, better to keep one kind of unit per order?

[guyverlance]

tie-breaker!!! yeah i want Latin and mercenary based

[Mihajlo]

Something between. Military power of crusader state was in highly zealous orders, their knights, and in latin mercs/ domestic mercs.
Their elite troops was Knights of Jerusalem, jerusalem guard, and most powerful order knights: templar knights and st.Johns knights. There where teutons, st. Lazarus and few other but they was so little in numbers, comparing to a Templars and Hospitallers(Krak des Chevaliers was HQ to 1271...).
As for military structure, templars/hospitallers should look something like this: squire (foot only, axes/maces), sargent foot (medium armor, spears) and mounted (medium cavalry),brethren-sargent (armsmen type, medium forces, foot n mount) knights (foot n mounted- elite HC, they should rise dread in heart of their opponents, like it was in RL).
Other troops of CS did look something like this: levy troops (mostly crappy foot units) auxillary troops(frankish axe man, swordsman?, regular sargents type foot and mounted- light cav.?), turcopoles (same as auxillary troops, HA skirmish troops aswell),various archers: levy, archers, crossbows, heavy crossbows outremer knights (feudal type HC), order of the holy sepulchre (bound for Jerusalem, perhaps foot only, elite troops), Knights of the Jerusalem (elite HC, rise moral), Jerusalem guard (elite foot, rise moral).
Mercs: native HA, crusader sargents, knights, latine knights, frankish knights, genoa crossbows, armenian mercs.
HQ: acre for teutons, antioch (huh?) for hospitallers, jerusalem for templars. add templars chapter house at tortusa, and hospitallers in alepo (??, looking for current game settlements that are under CS command...).

[Polycarpe]

Hmm..Right, the models is not a problem (in fact I've found the most beautiful units I never seen for crusaders and I did get permission to use them). Somewhat, the pilgrims should be something that we need to keep in mind, they were different pilgrims (you have peasants, then soldiers then knights, etc.).

Here's my idea:

The Templar:

Knight Templars: The highest status of the Order, they will fight with a sword, heavy lance and shield. They are dreadful opponents, they will scare enemy footmen.
Dismounted Knight Templars: Following the BC model (but using a different one), they will dismount and fight with a large two-handed axe.
Templar Sergeants: They are under the knights, unable to join their rank because they were not born nobles. Still, they are valiant soldiers. Most of the time, they are mounted men but when dismounted they will use their maces to counter the armored units.

The Hospitaller:

Knight Hospitaller: The second most important order in Outremer. These knights are as equipped as the Templars. They are inspiring their men into battle.
Dismounted Knight Hospitaller: When dismounted, they will fight with a sword.
Hospitaller Sergeants: Again, they were more often fighting mounted but they can dismount themselves and act as infantry. They will use a large shield and spear.

[Gogolometro]

I like how you make it the 3 layers of templars and hospitaliers.

[Mihajlo]

Yup,sounds like good proposal BG.

[Polycarpe]

Yup,sounds like good proposal BG.

Another suggestion:

I'll change the St. Lazarus Knights. I'll reduce the green luminosity (they are green neon-like) and making it more darker.
They will be really strong, not as must as the templars or the Hospitallers but good.

I found ridiculous that the dismounted version use a two-handed axe. They suffer leprosy and they cannot fight with this. As studying into medicine, leprosy causes problems in the muscles nerves, weaknesses, skins sensibility and skin damage and less endurance. Advanced leprosy may causes blindness, necrosis of the skin (like a decaying state), deformity, and it may attack the nervous system.

They will fight with a sword, a light one. They will not have a great endurance but they will be desperate (as such, +2 atk, -2 Def, less morale but they fight ot death), the KoSL were renowned to fight to death since they knew they will die anyway and in the catholic religion, those you suffer leprosy were cursed by god and they want to "redeem" themselves by fighting to death the infidels.

It is what I've done in my submod for the orders Gogolometro?

[Gogolometro]

Your proposals mate. In submod I have it some silver surfers and I choose to wait a new realese.

[Ichon]

I found ridiculous that the dismounted version use a two-handed axe. They suffer leprosy and they cannot fight with this. As studying into medicine, leprosy causes problems in the muscles nerves, weaknesses, skins sensibility and skin damage and less endurance. Advanced leprosy may causes blindness, necrosis of the skin (like a decaying state), deformity, and it may attack the nervous system.

Well probably not many of the cases of leprosy diagnosed that way were really leprosy. When you see how long some of them lived. Basically anything that caused outbreaks on the skin was usually diagnosed as leprosy. And since leprosy takes longer or shorter time to affect some people its difficult to tell. And since its spread by bacteria some people who had another disease but spent alot of time with lepers or around where the lepers first caught the disease might very well catch it themselves.

The knights were actually quite numerous but as you said many were sick and couldn't fight. I haven't found anywhere an accurate count of their numbers but some of the records of various orders indicate how many knights were left into the care of order of st lazarus and its quite amazingly high. Which is also another indication of that many of the "lepers" were probably suffering from something else.

If there is any such unit included their HQ could give health bonus and the unit itself inspire dread in the enemy. Not only from their high chances of fighting to the death but contact with lepers was full of superstitions and would likely scare any enemies that had to engage them.

[Polycarpe]

Yes I was hesitant about the dread ability for the Lazarus. I've done a little Order building for the Lazarus Order and it gives health bonus and retrain cost reduction to reflect that even sick, some of them will still fight.

St. Lazarus Order is a parallel branch of the Hospitaller Order. So basically, they were treating the sick and the wounded but what make this order distinctive is they were treating the men who suffered leprosy and Syphilis (I've read that 90-95% of the population was immune to Leprosy and Syphilis does similar effect of leprosy but on the contrary, it was easy to contract it because it was a STD).

As such, they were not many records about the number of St. Lazarus Knights but logically, men who contracted leprosy or syphilis in an early stage can still fight. Wounded, sickened men will take up the arm to defend themselves and they will fight to dead since they know they will die anyway. In game, they will be good units, not sure about a mounted version, (depending on the wealth of the member, some were knights, other were just soldiers) but they won't fight with a two-handed axe, they won't have the strength to manipulate the weapon.