Templar knights

**MTW2** · May 11, 2007, 04:03 PM

Has anyone playing as this faction actually managed to win or do good as this faction. Im playing them on VH/VH and when i am finally doing good and taking settlements, turks, byzantium and eygpt seem to all attack at the same turn and seige alot of my towns (i end up losing a few).

any tips on how to beat these guys back and prepare for mongols.

**Zhou** · May 11, 2007, 06:34 PM

Originally Posted by MTW2

Has anyone playing as this faction actually managed to win or do good as this faction. Im playing them on VH/VH and when i am finally doing good and taking settlements, turks, byzantium and eygpt seem to all attack at the same turn and seige alot of my towns (i end up losing a few).

any tips on how to beat these guys back and prepare for mongols.

I've been slowly expanding in the middle east. I think the key is to monitor your financial situation closely and use smaller armies to fight against the AI. Hold key towns with as small of a garisson as possible (I usually go for 2 units of templar spearmen + 2 units of archers and a General) and target your expansion at the richer cities in the area. Also, make sure that you develop a navy to keep your ports from being blockaded constantly as that will impact your revenue streams significantly. You may also want to convert some key cities from Castles into Cities (say, Acre once you've taken Gaza). I might do a more extensive write up after I've played the templars a bit more.

**MTW2** · May 11, 2007, 07:54 PM

Post your templar knights screenshots here:

**hydra** · May 11, 2007, 07:59 PM

Ha, im in a same situation. Im slowly taking on turks and just now i completely forgot about Mongols. They've appeared next to me and it will be costly

Its pretty hard playing on Vh/VH as teutonic order, this is the most challengin campaign ive played so far.

**hydra** · May 11, 2007, 08:18 PM

here we are, VH/VH. Notice the mongols, going to have to sacrafice a few cities to repel them, i thought they appear in 1260 so i'd have enough time to get rid of turks, now i have to stop with turks and start defending.

Btw, how many stacks do they get?

**Madden** · May 11, 2007, 09:26 PM

I can not complete the mod while playing the templars due to ctd's at the later stage of the game. I can blitz and get about 35 provinces with crusading but just something is up with the AI recruiting that causes ctd

**Eastern Red** · May 11, 2007, 11:11 PM

I'm playing them at vh/vh at the moment and so far quite healthy.
Lost 2 previous campaign also on vh/vh but took it as a learning curve.
What I've done so far is to turn Adana, Nicosia and Acre into cities so that I can recruit more merchants. I also accept only merchant guilds for these costal cities including Jerusalem and Antioch. Sent my merchants to Timbuktu and anywhere with goldmines, ambers and ivories.
Now, I'm focusing on Egypt. They are a constant pain in the arse and besdes Alexandria and Cairo are rich enough to add to the economic stability before looking into expansion into the Turks and Byzantium Empire.
If attacked when outnumbered, I always place all my units at the city square with archers at the back. The enemy A.Is won't last long when under fatigue and missile fire. I lost the defensive battles only to siege weapons such as trebuchets on smaller cities and castles.

**Favre** · May 12, 2007, 03:02 AM

At the beginning of the game, take your diplomat outside rome and wonder around all over europe doing this:

Offer - Alliance, Trade rights, Map Info (Optional).

Demand - I usually do 400-500 over 10 turns.

The AI accepts almost every time and then your on their good side. Its wonderful!

This is on Hard difficulty for campaign btw.

**Byg** · May 12, 2007, 03:52 AM

Playing best campign ever, as Templars.

I have taken the same settlements as Hydra did in his picture (above) except I have none west of the Red Sea.

I'm on vh/vh with some extra tough traits added to boost ai generals by 3 stars and reduce mine by up to 6 (so my losses are usually significant), plus a few more restrictions on recruitment. I also added some helpful stuff - faction leader can fight a heroic victory or take a city to recover from offending the nobility and Generals can do the same to become unoffended.

Anyhow, I'm at war with the Seljuks and Egypt, relentlessly and now about 6 full stacks of Mongols have appeared near Baghdad. They are currently wandering round the desert, which is just as well because I was barely holding out against the other factions. I can rarely build anything because finances go on repairing troops after battles each turn. All cities are behind with their upgrades.

The Mongols will not become my ally, so I am considering giving them a city near my enemies to deflect them that way. Maybe they will ally in exchange.

I think the game is up if I have to fight all 3.

Byz have been my allies since the start but they have just become vassals of Hungary who were giving them a drubbing and pushed them out of Europe.
Unfortunatley, Hungary are allied with the Seljuks so I hope Byz don't desert me now.

Sadly, none of my enemies' cities are available for crusading against. This would save me as I could then make another army with the money saved on crusader army upkeep.

With hindsight, more merchants are vital, though they dont give too much income unless you have a city with a great bazaar or equivalent and they are utterly vulnerable to ai merchants anyway. Also I'm not sure if i had the choice. being at war on two fronts meant I had to take as many cities as possible, fast, and for that all spare money had to go on troops.

My lands are covered with heretics, but thankfully it is also covered with benign inquisitors doing their best to kill them.

I could suicide some of my priests to save money, but am not sure if that is counter productive.

It's all a big emergency really. What a game!