How To Play Knights Templar In 2026 | AoE4 — Transcript

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1. 0:00The Knights Templar is a civilization
2. 0:02built around tempo, strong unique
3. 0:04quality, and flexible game plan allowing
4. 0:06you to pressure early or scale depending
5. 0:08on the situation. In this guide, I'm
6. 0:10going to walk you through three key ways
7. 0:12to play Knights Templar in the current
8. 0:13meta. The first is a one TC aggression
9. 0:15style that focuses on early pressure,
10. 0:17map control, and forcing your opponent
11. 0:19into playing very defensive from the
12. 0:20beginning, potentially countering
13. 0:22strategies like fast castle. The second
14. 0:24is a two TC approach, giving you a more
15. 0:27economic setup that's good against
16. 0:28sieves like Roose where you can't do as
17. 0:30much damage early on with one TC
18. 0:32aggression.
19. 0:33Finally, I will cover some late game
20. 0:36setups, how you should play the late
21. 0:38game, what units you should use, and uh
22. 0:40in that I will also link the in the
23. 0:42description videos that go into detail
24. 0:45every single age up and its respective
25. 0:48commandery so that you know what your
26. 0:50options are, what units you go for, and
27. 0:52uh what bonuses you get.
28. 0:54The Knights Templar tech tree is
29. 0:56somewhat complex. It is nothing like its
30. 1:00parents, if the French, and so you have
31. 1:02to think about this civilization as its
32. 1:04own unique thing. It is quite complex in
33. 1:06the sense that you have nine different
34. 1:08age ups, and these age ups all have
35. 1:10their usage depending on what sieve
36. 1:12you're up against. I recommend again
37. 1:14check out the links in the description
38. 1:15that go into detail what these different
39. 1:18commanderies do uh as it explaining all
40. 1:21of it is going to be very complex. What
41. 1:22I'll just do is just kind of give you
42. 1:24some uh some first-hand pointers on what
43. 1:27to go for. So, uh what I recommend you
44. 1:28do is uh try not to play too much
45. 1:31France. Kingdom of France is kind of a
46. 1:33the worst one here in the Dark Age. Try
47. 1:35to infiltrate. Try to play Knights
48. 1:36Hospitaller or Principality of Antioch.
49. 1:38Principality of Antioch is quite good if
50. 1:40you play spear horseman against a sieve
51. 1:42like French or JD. Roose playing knights
52. 1:44just against knight sieves is quite good
53. 1:46cuz you can go to spear horseman.
54. 1:47Knights Hospitaller is a good sort of
55. 1:49baseline thing to go for whether you're
56. 1:50going second TC or one TC aggression or
57. 1:52whatever you're going for. It's good cuz
58. 1:54increases your economical potential
59. 1:56by buffing your villagers and they have
60. 1:59essentially faster movement speed and
61. 2:00more effective.
62. 2:02Then you have in H3 three different
63. 2:04upgrades here. You can go Republic of
64. 2:05Genoa, that's a good one. Kingdom of
65. 2:07Castile's probably also a very very good
66. 2:08one. Angevin is probably the most meta
67. 2:11pick right now. People are picking it
68. 2:12because of the heavy spears, but the
69. 2:13problem with heavy spears are they're
70. 2:15very slow. So, I don't really recommend
71. 2:18it too much unless you're playing a map
72. 2:19where it makes sense or match up where
73. 2:21it makes sense.
74. 2:22Then you have to in the Imperial Age the
75. 2:23Teutonic Order gives you a really good
76. 2:25but slow uh melee infantry unit, the
77. 2:28Teutonic Knight. Can be quite good if
78. 2:30you want to do slow pushes with siege.
79. 2:31Then you have Republic of Venice, that's
80. 2:33good on water maps, that's good if you
81. 2:34want to just trade more in the market.
82. 2:37And then you have Kingdom of Poland,
83. 2:38which is objectively the best one if you
84. 2:40have a match up where you can play mass
85. 2:42cavalry and you can mass the Szlachta.
86. 2:44So, those are the age ups.
87. 2:47Um
88. 2:47check out the videos again. You're going
89. 2:48to find there's going to be a lot of
90. 2:50info there in uh in regards to the
91. 2:52details of these.
92. 2:53We have of course other things as well
93. 2:55with the civilization like safe passage.
94. 2:56Getting pilgrims and stuff is very
95. 2:58important because it's your main way of
96. 3:00getting gold in the Feudal Age.
97. 3:02You also get more pilgrims by building
98. 3:03fortresses, which is a unique building
99. 3:06that you have in the Feudal Age that
100. 3:07grants huge bonuses to your buildings. I
101. 3:10believe it's like 15% range. There's
102. 3:12also some stat increases, especially if
103. 3:13you have um them put on around sacred
104. 3:15sites. They also increase your gold gain
105. 3:18with uh this unique upgrade here. They
106. 3:20increase the armor with this unique
107. 3:21upgrade here, and they reduce the damage
108. 3:23taken by gunpowder units with this
109. 3:24unique upgrade. They also have a
110. 3:25trebuchet emplacement on top. So,
111. 3:27overall a very unique um
112. 3:29uh defensive landmark.
113. 3:30And yes, the Council is a landmark uh in
114. 3:32that if you build these, you won't lose
115. 3:35if you lose your main town center. You
116. 3:36will from the beginning only have one
117. 3:38town center. If you lose that town
118. 3:40center to all-in in Feudal or something,
119. 3:42you die. So, try to build these
120. 3:43fortresses in the Castle Age.
121. 3:46Okay, the next thing of course is uh is
122. 3:49going to be the units. There's so many
123. 3:50units here. Um check out the video
124. 3:52that's going to explain many of the
125. 3:53units here. You have a unique knight,
126. 3:54for example. It's a little bit more
127. 3:56expensive, um but it has more HP and I
128. 3:59believe a little bit more damage, but I
129. 4:00might be wrong about that.
130. 4:02Um
131. 4:03then you have monasteries that have
132. 4:04fanaticism, which is a very good upgrade
133. 4:05here. This is going to effectively just
134. 4:08with every commandery unit you have,
135. 4:10which you usually have a lot of, then
136. 4:12when they uh are below 50% HP, they do
137. 4:1510% more damage, and below 30% HP uh 25%
138. 4:17HP, they do 30% more damage. So, they're
139. 4:19very powerful. And then of course we
140. 4:21have the university, which has some
141. 4:22unique technologies as well such as the
142. 4:24counterweight defenses. Gives the
143. 4:26trebuchets that already shoot two
144. 4:27projectiles another projectile. So, you
145. 4:29now you have trebuchets that shoot three
146. 4:30projectiles.
147. 4:31You have chronikins, which gives your
148. 4:33crossbows uh extra range and extra
149. 4:35damage. You have brigandine, which gives
150. 4:37your light cav two more armor, so that's
151. 4:39your horseman.
152. 4:40And then you have silk bowstrings. Um
153. 4:42that's a very important one because
154. 4:43you're mainly going to be playing range
155. 4:45comps with this civilization as uh you
156. 4:48have a really good wood bonus that
157. 4:49allows you to gather food while you're
158. 4:51gathering wood. You also don't have to
159. 4:52drop lumber camps. Uh you don't even
160. 4:54have those. Your sieves uh just
161. 4:56immediately gets wood from gathering.
162. 4:58So, playing wood-based compositions is
163. 5:02very [snorts] good with this sieve. Try
164. 5:03to get a lot of archers. Get those
165. 5:05bonuses. You can get plus four on them
166. 5:07uh the archers in the Castle Age with
167. 5:09Kingdom of Castile and that gives you
168. 5:11just so much value. So, let's get into
169. 5:14the builds.
170. 5:16Okay, so for the first build order, I'm
171. 5:18also going to show you a game here. So,
172. 5:20the game is Knights Templar versus
173. 5:22Japan, and that's kind of important
174. 5:23because Japan likes to fast castle. That
175. 5:26means that if we play something like two
176. 5:27town center, we instantly die because
177. 5:29they make mass samurai mass mountain
178. 5:30samurai and then
179. 5:32take sacred sites and we just we just
180. 5:34dead. We can't keep up. So, we need to
181. 5:35play one TC aggression and disrupt that.
182. 5:38So, what we're going to do is I'm going
183. 5:39to first show you the build. What I do
184. 5:41is I put six on food and then I put two
185. 5:43on gold. If you played Knights Templar
186. 5:45before, you will know this double
187. 5:46pilgrim opening. But I'm going to
188. 5:48explain it for the new people here. So,
189. 5:51you have your TC. You rally two
190. 5:52villagers to gold. You build with one
191. 5:54food villager a house, and you have your
192. 5:56gold villager build a mining camp. If
193. 5:57you build this over here uh the house,
194. 6:00you not only do you make yourself more
195. 6:01vulnerable,
196. 6:02but you also uh end up um
197. 6:05you know,
198. 6:06having a house that can be torched in
199. 6:07the early game. And we are going to get
200. 6:08spear rushed here.
201. 6:09Um that is going to delay my build order
202. 6:12with one villager. So, usually you would
203. 6:13age up at 2:20,
204. 6:15um but uh you'll be aging up at 2:40
205. 6:17instead here. And that's because we had
206. 6:18to pull more villagers here to um to
207. 6:20gather the gold because in a moment
208. 6:21he'll come around with spears. So, six
209. 6:23on food, two on gold, rest of food until
210. 6:26age up.
211. 6:27And if you get spear rushed, pull extra
212. 6:28vills to deal with it. So,
213. 6:30here he attacks me on my gold.
214. 6:33I pull a few extra vills. I only need a
215. 6:34couple more so I can collect the gold. I
216. 6:36can see only 13 gold, but there's two
217. 6:37spears here.
218. 6:39So, I pull a lot of vills just to make
219. 6:40sure that I can pull villagers back and
220. 6:42not lose them.
221. 6:44You need the micro here. If you lose the
222. 6:45villagers, then you need to gather more
223. 6:46gold probably and uh also you can't lose
224. 6:48villagers. That's really really bad if
225. 6:49you do.
226. 6:50So, anyways, now it's about 2:40.
227. 6:52Normally you would age up at 2:20, but
228. 6:54we just have another vill while we're
229. 6:55aging up. That's fine. And we go up with
230. 6:57Knights Hospitaller. Knights Hospitaller
231. 6:59is great because it allows you to move
232. 7:00around faster, gives you your villagers
233. 7:02more HP, and it also increases healing
234. 7:05from all sources. So, those are very
235. 7:07nice bonuses for us.
236. 7:09Immediately we'll switch and do a 3-10
237. 7:12split. Now we have another villager, so
238. 7:13we're going to put an additional one on
239. 7:14wood. So, it's going to be a 3-11 split.
240. 7:16So, three food, 11 wood, but normal
241. 7:20games without spear rushing it's going
242. 7:21to be three and 10.
243. 7:23Awesome.
244. 7:25Then we are going to uh immediately
245. 7:28queue a pilgrim. That's the first thing
246. 7:29we do in the Feudal Age.
247. 7:32Then we're going to queue two villagers
248. 7:35and then we're going to queue the second
249. 7:36pilgrim upgrade. That's going to cost
250. 7:38100 food and 250 wood, I believe.
251. 7:42150 food and 250 wood.
252. 7:45So, these are quite expensive upgrades,
253. 7:46but what's really important is that we
254. 7:48get this golden come as soon as
255. 7:49possible.
256. 7:52>> [clears throat]
257. 7:53>> The next thing we're going to do is
258. 7:54we're going to build archery range.
259. 7:55We're going to build a barrack.
260. 7:56We need to make units. I mean, we want
261. 7:58to make infantry so we can make more of
262. 7:59it. And then we want to use our gold
263. 8:01when we get it to get upgrades. We can
264. 8:03get very fast blacksmith upgrades and
265. 8:05that allows us to take down
266. 8:06civilizations like Japan in the early
267. 8:08game and sit on their gold with a ram
268. 8:09push. Your rams only cost 150 wood
269. 8:12because all of your siege units in
270. 8:14general are cheaper.
271. 8:16I think it's 25%.
272. 8:19So, get the mill. We get archery range.
273. 8:20We get barrack.
274. 8:21And now we're producing units.
275. 8:24The pilgrims.
276. 8:25What's really nice about this pilgrim
277. 8:27opening here is if you queue the first
278. 8:29pilgrim and two villagers
279. 8:30and then the second pilgrim upgrade
280. 8:32immediately after with no delay, you
281. 8:34will get the first pilgrim out and then
282. 8:37every pilgrim has like a tick of a
283. 8:39minute, so they come out every minute.
284. 8:41And it takes 55 seconds to queue both
285. 8:44pilgrim upgrades
286. 8:45uh and villagers, right? So,
287. 8:48that way we don't idle out. So, you
288. 8:50don't want to do double pilgrim
289. 8:51immediately after each other. You want
290. 8:52to queue two vills in between
291. 8:54uh so you don't have this redundancy.
292. 8:58Now we're making archers. We're making
293. 8:59spearmen. Second pilgrim
294. 9:01is out. We're going to start to get
295. 9:02gold, so we're going to get
296. 9:03horticulture. We're also going to get a
297. 9:05blacksmith so we can get ranged armor,
298. 9:06ranged attack. We can get siege
299. 9:07engineering if we need to push uh
300. 9:09something like a tower.
301. 9:11In this game I'm going to go for a
302. 9:12counter tower though to my opponent, um
303. 9:15but I think in general it's just better
304. 9:16to go for a ram. It's uh it's a little
305. 9:18bit more experimental here.
306. 9:20So, I pull a villager and uh it's kind
307. 9:22of fine because we have Knights
308. 9:23Hospitaller. The villager is more tanky
309. 9:24with 65 HP. And if you get um textiles
310. 9:28as well, it's even more, right? So,
311. 9:30really nice upgrades.
312. 9:32Tower goes up. Uh it doesn't go up. It
313. 9:34forces him to go into units here. So,
314. 9:35what I'm going to scout that here in a
315. 9:36moment that he's going to go into
316. 9:38archery range.
317. 9:39And because he goes into archery ranges,
318. 9:40we have a game that's really good for us
319. 9:42because now we get to make a lot of
320. 9:45wood units, especially archers are very
321. 9:47important because then we just in
322. 9:48general get a lot more resources. And we
323. 9:51also get to play a Feudal meta game,
324. 9:52which is a lot better than playing
325. 9:53against Japan that just goes straight
326. 9:55castle cuz then you just die. Uh the
327. 9:57units are so good. Their power spike is
328. 9:59amazing. So, we wanted to avoid that.
329. 10:00Now we've avoided that. We forced him
330. 10:02into Yumi.
331. 10:04Okay. So, he's making units.
332. 10:06We're getting our pilgrims. What's going
333. 10:07to happen now is we're going to start to
334. 10:09take the map. This is very important,
335. 10:10especially if you both of you are making
336. 10:12units in the feudal age like this.
337. 10:14And there's a lot of fighting going on
338. 10:15here, but what I'll talk about here is
339. 10:16this move out here. I take five vills,
340. 10:18build a mill, a tower so I can house all
341. 10:20of the villagers inside.
342. 10:22And then I start to get good food
343. 10:23income. I'll take this deer pack. I'll
344. 10:25take the boar.
345. 10:26And then I'll take the second deer pack
346. 10:27maybe.
347. 10:28And that way I will have a really good
348. 10:30economy. It's spread out, but it's fine
349. 10:32cuz I have units. And this is the way
350. 10:35you should structure your economy if you
351. 10:36have a game like this where both people
352. 10:39are making units. Gives you vision,
353. 10:40especially good on a map like Highview.
354. 10:42Just in general to have a lot of vision.
355. 10:46Now he's going samurai and archers. I'm
356. 10:47not really scared of that. Horseman
357. 10:49archer is usually very good against this
358. 10:50composition because you have faster
359. 10:52units that can move around them.
360. 10:54Of course, Yumi are very very strong
361. 10:56because once they're fully upgraded like
362. 10:57this with the plus two from the
363. 10:59Bannerman and the the blacksmith, then
364. 11:01your archers just cost 15 more and you
365. 11:04get the same value. So, what you want to
366. 11:06avoid here is playing archer war against
367. 11:08Japan.
368. 11:09Uh so, that's a little bit more match-up
369. 11:11specific. Instead, we're going to go
370. 11:12into horseman.
371. 11:13So, my opponent has better archers. We
372. 11:15don't want to play an archer war.
373. 11:16Uh we want to instead play um the
374. 11:19counter unit.
375. 11:20We throw our infantry here. We don't
376. 11:21really need them anymore.
377. 11:23And then we start making horseman. So,
378. 11:25second stable being dropped now.
379. 11:26Horseman archer.
380. 11:28And then we're going to do it go take
381. 11:29the boar now. So, that's why we're
382. 11:30building a tower up here. This is also
383. 11:32really nice because we can kind of plan
384. 11:33around a pilgrim route, which is moving
385. 11:35to the right here.
386. 11:36Have the tower that's going to protect
387. 11:38both the pilgrim route and the boar.
388. 11:42Same time we're fighting a bit here. Now
389. 11:43we've shown him our horseman. That's
390. 11:45probably going to prompt spears.
391. 11:47Um we could also go into horseman
392. 11:48himself. So, there's a few things we
393. 11:49need to watch out for here cuz if he
394. 11:51goes into full horseman with um
395. 11:53Bannerman and everything, he actually
396. 11:55beats my composition. So, I need to be
397. 11:56careful.
398. 11:58Alternatively, he just defends English
399. 11:59castle as well. So, we need to keep the
400. 12:01pressure up.
401. 12:02Now we move the vills out. We take the
402. 12:04boar.
403. 12:06And uh yeah.
404. 12:08We just keep making units. We're getting
405. 12:10all of our upgrades. All this pilgrim
406. 12:11gold is being spent on wheelbarrow,
407. 12:13melee upgrades, and ranged upgrades of
408. 12:15course.
409. 12:16Uh eco upgrades.
410. 12:18And so, what's really important is and
411. 12:20I've heard this from some people is
412. 12:21okay, you struggle with having a lot of
413. 12:24gold in bank because pilgrim gold
414. 12:25becomes quite feudal age. That usually
415. 12:27stems from playing feudal age too long.
416. 12:29I recommend that you age up around 12
417. 12:31minutes if not a little bit later so
418. 12:33that you can get into spending that gold
419. 12:35a bit more. Alternatively, you can just
420. 12:37build a market and start buying wooden
421. 12:38food if you're really really forced to
422. 12:40make any units in the in the feudal age.
423. 12:44It's a bit of fighting here. I'm just
424. 12:45going to speed a bit through otherwise
425. 12:47this video will be too long. I'm just
426. 12:48making units. I'm taking the map.
427. 12:50Nothing special.
428. 12:51Then I'm basically just making archers
429. 12:53right now.
430. 12:54And I'm going to raid with my horseman.
431. 12:56Always raid with your cavalry if they're
432. 12:57not doing anything.
433. 12:58And then I'm going to go castle age. The
434. 13:00reason I can go castle age here is
435. 13:01because archers are very cheap to make.
436. 13:03I have good food incomes. I will start
437. 13:05to bank now for castle age as I get the
438. 13:07gold from the pilgrims.
439. 13:09We took enough good trades for us to be
440. 13:11able to do so.
441. 13:13We have a We have a thousand more army
442. 13:14value.
443. 13:16And
444. 14:51a little bit more But I really don't
445. 14:53like those too much because what you're
446. 14:54going to face a lot of times with
447. 14:55Knights Templar are spear rushes.
448. 14:57So, I like to kind of have the same
449. 14:59opening and then be a bit more flexible,
450. 15:00being able to move into a second TC if I
451. 15:02want to. Whereas if somebody spear
452. 15:04rushes me, I can then immediately go
453. 15:05into aggression just like the game I
454. 15:06showed before.
455. 15:08Meaning,
456. 15:09I'm going to go for the same opener, but
457. 15:10I'm not going to go into pilgrims in
458. 15:11early feudal. I'm going to gather stone
459. 15:13instead.
460. 15:14So, we're going to put six in food, two
461. 15:16in gold.
462. 15:17Rest to food. That's Then it's the same
463. 15:18thing as before. That's nice and easy.
464. 15:22We are very flexible this way.
465. 15:24And uh yeah, this time we're going to
466. 15:25age up at 2:20 cuz we don't get spear
467. 15:27rushed luckily.
468. 15:28So, age up is cute now, 2:20. Nice
469. 15:31Hospitaller. And then what's going to
470. 15:33happen is we're going to leave one in
471. 15:34food
472. 15:35to start to bank a little bit of food so
473. 15:36we can make villagers again.
474. 15:38Uh when we get into the feudal age,
475. 15:39we're going to put six in wood here and
476. 15:40we're going to put six to stone. Now, I
477. 15:42make a small mistake here. Basically,
478. 15:43what you want to do is you want to build
479. 15:44a mining camp now. I forget to do that.
480. 15:46So, I'm going to build that now.
481. 15:48There we are.
482. 15:49Doesn't matter too much, but still a
483. 15:51significant little bit of idle time.
484. 15:53And then we're just going to gather
485. 15:54wood, stone. We're going to plan out
486. 15:56where do we want our second town center?
487. 15:58Second town center should pretty much
488. 16:00always go on deer.
489. 16:02Uh boar is also really nice. Here I can
490. 16:03get both of them. That's really nice.
491. 16:05And it should somewhat be in the back.
492. 16:08So, up here is prime because it's also
493. 16:10wallable.
494. 16:12What's going to happen a lot of times
495. 16:13when you play against civilizations that
496. 16:15fast castle against you when you do two
497. 16:16town center is they will just spam you
498. 16:19with units and then you have nothing to
499. 16:21do.
500. 16:22Um whereas if you can wall, you can buy
501. 16:24yourself a little more time to get into
502. 16:25crossbows and knights yourself. So,
503. 16:27don't put a second TC out here in the
504. 16:28front. That's just asking to be taken
505. 16:31down whether in feudal age or in castle.
506. 16:33Put it instead somewhere that's
507. 16:35wallable, maybe in the back. Um
508. 16:38maybe on a wood line, maybe on gold if
509. 16:40you have a high pressure game going on,
510. 16:42right?
511. 16:44So, yeah. We're just rallying food now.
512. 16:45When we got to the feudal age, we
513. 16:46started rallying food. And we're going
514. 16:48to start moving our villagers up towards
515. 16:50that boar and and that
516. 16:53and that deer. So, we could basically
517. 16:54build a second town center now, but we
518. 16:56have a little bit of idle time from
519. 16:57walking up here. That's going to happen.
520. 16:58That's normal in your games. Don't worry
521. 17:00too much about not getting the best TC
522. 17:02timing. Worry instead about securing the
523. 17:04right amount of resources and having the
524. 17:06right
525. 17:07adaptation slash answer to what your
526. 17:09opponent
527. 17:10is doing in the games.
528. 17:13So, for example, if my opponent went
529. 17:15straight units immediately in feudal
530. 17:17age, I would probably also make units.
531. 17:19But I've already committed to the the
532. 17:21second TC now. So, that would be a two
533. 17:23TC defense instead.
534. 17:26We're going to fight a little bit
535. 17:26against these scouts here. Try not to
536. 17:27lose our villagers.
537. 17:30We're going to end up killing two of
538. 17:31these scouts actually, which is very
539. 17:32very nice.
540. 17:34We're building our second TC. We're
541. 17:35going to take the boar and then we're
542. 17:36going to take the deer as well.
543. 17:38And then in the meantime, I'm going to
544. 17:40figure out what is he going to do. So,
545. 17:42I'm going to scout him. I'm going to see
546. 17:43the Kremlin. And then when I go to his
547. 17:45base, I'm actually also going to see his
548. 17:47H3 landmark. I'm going to lose my scout
549. 17:49here, but I got the info that I needed.
550. 17:50The Kremlin and the Abbey of Trinity.
551. 17:53So, he's going to fast castle. And that
552. 17:54means I'm going to wall up my base here.
553. 17:57And I'm also going to go for castle age
554. 17:59immediately because I don't want to end
555. 18:01up in a situation where he's making
556. 18:03horse archers and I'm forced into feudal
557. 18:04age units. Then I want to be able to go
558. 18:06Genitors. Uh Genitors are amazing for
559. 18:08dealing with horse archers.
560. 18:10I'm also making another scout as you can
561. 18:11see.
562. 18:12Just to make sure that he's going to go
563. 18:14into
564. 18:15into horse archers.
565. 18:17And uh yeah. If he's going to go
566. 18:19men-at-arms, it's something I can go
567. 18:20crossbows and knights.
568. 18:21And the age up is usually very fast for
569. 18:23this civilization. It takes 45 seconds
570. 18:26to age up to
571. 18:27age three, which is very very speedy.
572. 18:30That's like aging up with like 12
573. 18:31villagers, I believe. Something like
574. 18:32that.
575. 18:33Now I see him having a stable.
576. 18:35So, the stable signals he's going to
577. 18:36make knights instead. Making knights in
578. 18:38castle age is Roose. That's okay.
579. 18:41Because now I can go Spearman. So, what
580. 18:42I'm going to do is I'm going to click up
581. 18:44to castle. And then I'm going to drop
582. 18:45barrack and archery range and start
583. 18:46making spear crossbow. I know in this
584. 18:47game I'm probably not going to get any
585. 18:49relics. That's fine. If I have a second
586. 18:51TC that's unpunished, I can make up for
587. 18:53it that way.
588. 18:54Also, he will run into significant food
589. 18:56problems at some point in the game
590. 18:57because he didn't go high trade house.
591. 18:59Because he didn't go high trade house,
592. 19:01he's now forced to go on the map a lot
593. 19:02more. And because he's forced to go on
594. 19:04the map a lot more, we can punish that
595. 19:05early on the moment we get enough units,
596. 19:07which is easy to do against knights
597. 19:09because they're expensive and there are
598. 19:10not that many of them.
599. 19:12So, he's moving up with all his vills
600. 19:13here, making double stable.
601. 19:15I'm going to be aging up right now.
602. 19:17Knights of Kingdom of Castile. And then
603. 19:19I'm going to go into spear crossbow.
604. 19:21And as you can see, we've walled up over
605. 19:22here so we cannot get raided. We
606. 19:24continue to have our food income. That's
607. 19:26very neat.
608. 19:27Also shifted some of the boar vills over
609. 19:28to wood cuz I want more production
610. 19:29buildings.
611. 19:31We're in castle age now. We are not
612. 19:33making a monastery cuz he's already
613. 19:34taken the two closest relics. We know
614. 19:36we're not going to get any of them.
615. 19:37Instead, let's focus on making units.
616. 19:43Archery range, barrack, second archery
617. 19:45range, defending against the knight.
618. 19:49Get a second barrack.
619. 19:52Spear crossbow.
620. 19:53And then we're going double check if
621. 19:54he's going to start adding archers
622. 19:55because the only thing that counters
623. 19:56spear crossbow is archers.
624. 19:58Um our archers and uh right now I just
625. 20:01see him making knights. So, I'm pretty
626. 20:03confident that in a moment I can push
627. 20:04him.
628. 20:05I still don't see an archery range. I'm
629. 20:06going to lose my scout here, but it's
630. 20:07worth it because I get all the info I
631. 20:09need. And then I'm just going to start
632. 20:11pushing.
633. 20:12So, there's a connection there between
634. 20:13can I move out or not? If I can, then I
635. 20:15will do so.
636. 20:17You can also do fancy stuff like this to
637. 20:18catch knights. Build a quick wall, spear
638. 20:21crossbow, kill the knights. This is huge
639. 20:23for me. Uh it allows me to do a lot
640. 20:25more. I have a trap through here, so he
641. 20:27got a knight in, which was a bit
642. 20:28annoying. Uh but he ends up leaving
643. 20:29anyway, so it's good.
644. 20:32And we're going to push.
645. 20:34Spear crossbow, push push push push
646. 20:35push. And then at some point here, we
647. 20:37start taking pilgrims, so we just did
648. 20:39that. And then we're also going to put
649. 20:41five villagers, maybe a little bit more,
650. 20:42onto stone so we can get fortresses.
651. 20:44Because we are after all playing a
652. 20:46second TC game. That means we're not in
653. 20:47a rush to end the game. What we're doing
654. 20:49right now is trying to make uh the
655. 20:51castle age absolutely miserable for him,
656. 20:53uh while we're also pushing uh
657. 20:56out fortresses and pilgrims. We're also
658. 20:58making stables now for horsemen as we're
659. 21:00anticipating he's going to go into
660. 21:02archers next. He has to, otherwise he
661. 21:04loses the game.
662. 21:05So, um we know that's a forced response
663. 21:07and so we have to follow up immediately
664. 21:08after with horsemen.
665. 21:10Decapping the sacred sites with the one
666. 21:12spear here, one spear there.
667. 21:13One spear in the middle. And then
668. 21:15immediately we have a big army just
669. 21:17moving straight for his food sources
670. 21:19right now. So, he has to evacuate all of
671. 21:21his villagers here. We have these guys
672. 21:23here, they're moving up to find those
673. 21:24vills. So, this is a lot of idle time
674. 21:26right now. His food income is going to
675. 21:27plummet.
676. 21:28He's also making archers now, so it
677. 21:30makes good sense for us to start making
678. 21:31horsemen.
679. 21:33And he's just losing much more than I am
680. 21:35here. This is really good for me.
681. 21:37Destruction value is 3K for me, 1K for
682. 21:39him. I'm going to lose a little bit more
683. 21:40crossbows here, but in the end it's fine
684. 21:42because I'm already now on a pretty good
685. 21:44income compared to me. I have zero food
686. 21:46income because of this raid. So, this
687. 21:48was absolutely worth it in my book.
688. 21:50Also getting upgrades like blacksmith,
689. 21:52ranged armor, ranged damage.
690. 21:54Pushing with this army here. Don't move
691. 21:56back, just keep pushing.
692. 21:57When you on two TC, you can afford to
693. 21:59lose units usually. Not too much though,
694. 22:01uh but you can usually afford to lose a
695. 22:02bit units if you can get some damage
696. 22:04from it as well, some idle time, that's
697. 22:05amazing.
698. 22:07And then we're moving here. We're going
699. 22:08to start to make horsemen. We also make
700. 22:10a few janissaries and then spear
701. 22:11crossbow. Spear crossbow horsemen is
702. 22:13usually a very good composition.
703. 22:17I think it counters everything.
704. 22:18You just have to balance it right.
705. 22:21So, he's sitting on this sacred site
706. 22:23here with all his archers. We just move
707. 22:24there with our horsemen. We have stone
708. 22:27coming in right now, uh being gathered
709. 22:28over here. So, we're going to push to
710. 22:30the middle with spear crossbow and then
711. 22:31drop a fortress here.
712. 22:35And now we're getting our healing, our
713. 22:36extra damage. These are just huge
714. 22:38bonuses for us. Janissaries are through
715. 22:40now as well. They're good for sniping
716. 22:42out ranged units.
717. 22:43Also incredible unit against civs like
718. 22:44Order of the Dragon and stuff cuz it's
719. 22:46really hard to deal with stuff like hand
720. 22:48cannons and crossbows, but if you have
721. 22:49janissaries, which you can.
722. 22:52They're kind of like a like a mounted um
723. 22:55javelin, right?
724. 22:59Building a fortress here that forces him
725. 23:01to push. He also popped his Kremlin. And
726. 23:03then we kill his army and it's GG.
727. 23:06Cool. Let's take a look at a little bit
728. 23:09of a late game setup.
729. 23:11So, I wanted to show you this game here.
730. 23:13It's a rather complicated one that has
731. 23:15been going very long at this point.
732. 23:17We're 35 minutes in. But I wanted to
733. 23:19explain a few concepts about the late
734. 23:21game of Knights Templar. In this game,
735. 23:24I've been making fortresses. We've had a
736. 23:25second town center as well. The second
737. 23:27town center was added in the castle age
738. 23:29after feudal age aggression and this
739. 23:31allowed me to get a lot of relics. As
740. 23:32you can see, I've had four relics. This
741. 23:34would not have been possible if I just
742. 23:36went straight second TC. My opponent
743. 23:38went straight second TC in this game. I
744. 23:40did a little bit of back row, just like
745. 23:42one or two uh carry units in the feudal
746. 23:44age into age three.
747. 23:46Then I took relics, got four of them,
748. 23:48added a second TC, built a fortress, and
749. 23:50uh started walling up the left side
750. 23:51here. So, what this allowed me to do is
751. 23:54to set up a stable food uh gold income
752. 23:57through the pilgrims. Every time I add a
753. 23:59fortress, I get more pilgrims. This is
754. 24:01your late game
755. 24:03gold generation. If you have a lot of
756. 24:05fortresses, you get more gold. And this
757. 24:07also gives you bonuses around the map.
758. 24:09I'm also playing Kingdom of Castile.
759. 24:10When I'm playing around sacred sites, I
760. 24:12get extra damage.
761. 24:14And uh yeah. The thing with Knights
762. 24:16Templar is with the food economy in the
763. 24:18late game, you really have to try to get
764. 24:21a little bit more farms than you would
765. 24:22normally. The way this works is because
766. 24:24of your market. So, the market has this
767. 24:27called uh
768. 24:28letter of exchange something. Don't
769. 24:31question my French. I don't know French
770. 24:32at all. I took Spanish. And then use the
771. 24:35pilgrim loan abilities. These are three
772. 24:37different abilities that have different
773. 24:39foods
774. 24:40uh investment that gives you a passive
775. 24:42income of gold.
776. 24:44So, if you have a lot of food in the
777. 24:46late game, uh you can't make traders,
778. 24:47but you can uh invest your food and then
779. 24:50get your gold back this way.
780. 24:53So, when all the gold on the map is run
781. 24:54out, use this. Have like 100 farmers and
782. 24:57then 100 units and then just keep
783. 24:59spamming these abilities to get more and
784. 25:00more gold. Very useful.
785. 25:03Other things are your unit compositions.
786. 25:05Here I'm playing the Teutonic Order
787. 25:06because of the map and the matchup. So,
788. 25:08we're playing a map where we're very
789. 25:09close to each other. The cliffside map
790. 25:12here, you're notoriously uh close to
791. 25:14each other and you need units that can
792. 25:15stand and fight. This is not necessarily
793. 25:17as much of a cav map.
794. 25:20You can still run cavalry on this map.
795. 25:22And Kingdom of Poland would have been
796. 25:24decent as well. But I like Teutonic
797. 25:26Knights a lot because they are very very
798. 25:28powerful. They can fight for a long
799. 25:29time. I've combined them against uh OTD
800. 25:32here with elite janissaries. They do a
801. 25:34lot of bonus damage to uh ranged units,
802. 25:37especially gunpowder. So, hand cannon uh
803. 25:40are very very weak to janissaries and
804. 25:43the janissaries are very um uh what's it
805. 25:45called? Cheap to make. So, you can
806. 25:47counter uh OTD ranged units very easily
807. 25:50since there are not a lot of them.
808. 25:52So,
809. 25:53uh we're doing a lot of pushing here. We
810. 25:54have our janissaries. We're getting
811. 25:56pushed a lot here. We're going to lose
812. 25:58uh our second TC in a moment, I believe,
813. 26:00because there are so many units.
814. 26:02But we're just trying to make units um
815. 26:05as much as we can. Right, um let me
816. 26:07switch this around here. There we go.
817. 26:09So, we're making crossbows, we're making
818. 26:10janissaries. Right now we're being
819. 26:12pushed back, but it's somewhat okay
820. 26:14because uh we can still make a lot of
821. 26:16units.
822. 26:18So, we're going to make uh Teutonic
823. 26:19Knights. We have crossbows. We stick to
824. 26:21our fortresses when it starts to get a
825. 26:23little bit dicey here.
826. 26:24Uh and down goes the main town center
827. 26:26here. But the late game is still fine.
828. 26:28Look at how many resources we've got
829. 26:29coming in.
830. 26:30This is very nice for us.
831. 26:32And now we're using our janissaries to
832. 26:34snipe archers, to snipe hand cannons.
833. 26:37This gives us a huge destruction value
834. 26:39advantage. We're 15,000 resources more
835. 26:42in destruction value, as you can see
836. 26:43here in the bottom left.
837. 26:46And the collected resources is a little
838. 26:47bit more for my opponent, 10K or
839. 26:49something. So, we're generally speaking
840. 26:51taking better fights.
841. 26:52So, right now what I have is I have a
842. 26:54cav group, I have an infantry group, and
843. 26:56I have a uh uh ranged infantry group as
844. 26:58well.
845. 26:59And then I'm just microing my
846. 27:01janissaries to snipe down all of the
847. 27:02ranged units. OTD ranged units are by
848. 27:04far the strongest units that they have.
849. 27:07And so, if you kill them all the time,
850. 27:08you can usually deal with their front
851. 27:10line units a little bit better.
852. 27:12On the top side here, we have all of our
853. 27:13farms. Everything is sort of pointed
854. 27:15towards the north. Not really much going
855. 27:17on down in the bottom, even though there
856. 27:18was made an attempt to take it.
857. 27:21So, as you can see, this game has a bit
858. 27:22of history.
859. 27:23Um but I didn't want to show everything
860. 27:25here because it doesn't matter too much.
861. 27:29Um so, now we're just making units,
862. 27:31crossbows, spear, Teutonic Knights
863. 27:33um instead of men-at-arms to front line
864. 27:35and then janissaries to snipe all of
865. 27:36their ranged units.
866. 27:38That is the comp that we're going for.
867. 27:40And that is
868. 27:41very specific to playing against Order
869. 27:44of the Dragon.
870. 27:45Uh these units are very very powerful
871. 27:46against Order of the Dragon. And so, um
872. 27:49that's kind of what we're rolling with
873. 27:50here.
874. 27:53We push a little bit back here. That's
875. 27:54very nice. Janissaries kill units.
876. 27:57And then we start to take down this
877. 27:58proxy that he has. And he's going to
878. 28:00make a push for the top side instead.
879. 28:03We're feeling confident here cuz we've
880. 28:04got a lot of income.
881. 28:08We also want to get our TC up and
882. 28:10running again so we can get our pilgrims
883. 28:11out. I believe they don't spawn when the
884. 28:13TC is taken out.
885. 28:16So, we're repairing the TC. We're taking
886. 28:18decent trades here.
887. 28:20Be careful because the El Spaco is in
888. 28:21the middle with the relic inside, so it
889. 28:23does huge amount of damage.
890. 28:26And then we're making trebuchets in a
891. 28:27moment here to take down buildings.
892. 28:31So, now my opponent is getting raided
893. 28:32here by my spears.
894. 28:38More trades.
895. 28:44We're just pushing slowly.
896. 28:51And now we have the TC going again and
897. 28:52we start to get a lot of gold income
898. 28:54again. So, we have three fortresses plus
899. 28:55the TC. Uh that means we have five
900. 28:57pilgrims every time. They're giving us
901. 28:59104 gold.
902. 29:01108 gold, 104 gold. Very nice.
903. 29:04And this becomes a little bit more gold
904. 29:06income because of an upgrade in the
905. 29:08fortress. And that upgrade is the same
906. 29:10one um
907. 29:11the same one that applies to relics. So,
908. 29:15the um
909. 29:17where is the fortress?
910. 29:18Here.
911. 29:19Treasure carts. So, this gives you 20%
912. 29:21extra gold on pilgrims. Kind of like
913. 29:23Republic of Genoa.
914. 29:26Yeah. So, we push a bit more here. We
915. 29:27have our crossbows killing the OTD
916. 29:29knights that are raiding us now.
917. 29:34Take down the ranged units here. You can
918. 29:35see how powerful those janissaries are.
919. 29:38Push the middle.
920. 29:40And now we do a comeback.
921. 29:45This was an excruciatingly long game,
922. 29:47but taking down the Elzbach allows us to
923. 29:49fight on the sacred site. When we fight
924. 29:50on the sacred site, we get huge bonuses.
925. 29:52Just look at the Spearman here, plus
926. 29:53five, very nice. This Teutonic Knight,
927. 29:5524 and then plus seven.
928. 30:00This Janitor does 15 damage.
929. 30:03And we get healing as well. It's kind of
930. 30:04like a coral type from the Mongols.
931. 30:11Our destruction value is now 40,000
932. 30:14more.
933. 30:15That's just because we have such good
934. 30:17counting us.
935. 30:20Push the middle.
936. 30:21Go into his base. I'll wipe out his
937. 30:22whole economy.
938. 30:27Can drop keeps in here if you want to.
939. 30:29Can also just slow push it.
940. 30:31Make siege units, take everything out.
941. 30:33We're being raided a little bit here,
942. 30:34but nothing too crazy.
943. 30:39And this is going to allow us to to then
944. 30:41win the game. Just by having a better
945. 30:42unit comp, having a decent economy,
946. 30:45making sure that we always have the
947. 30:46pilgrims going. And uh yeah.
948. 30:49This game didn't end up being a game
949. 30:50that had no gold left. That's because
950. 30:52it's Cliffside. But if it was a game
951. 30:53with no gold left, I would have 100
952. 30:55farmers buying
953. 30:57buying gold through the market.
954. 30:58Yeah, I hope you guys have enjoyed this
955. 30:59video. I hope it was useful for you. Let
956. 31:01me know if you have any questions and
957. 31:02I'll see you guys in the next one.
958. 31:05Peace.
959. 31:24Yo chikana.