Civilization Idea: Latins

The Latins represent the various Crusader states and military orders established in the Middle East, particularly the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Latin Empire, and the Knights Hospitaller. The campaign for the Latins would be centered around King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, a leprous leader whose nemesis was Saladin, tying into the original game. The Latins would have the Middle Eastern architecture, but with classic Monks and Mediterranean ship sails, as neither Middle Eastern default fits them. Their Castle is based on Krak des Chevaliers, and their Wonder is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The Latin specialty is monks and ships, but it also has pretty good infantry and decent cavalry, particularly the Knight line. Archery Range units are also quite good, as the Latins have a fairly wide tech tree.

Moving onto the civ design itself.

Civilization Bonuses

  • Market prices return to normal over time

This one requires some explanation. Every in-game minute, the exchange rate for the Latins goes down by 1, which means that if the Market is left alone for long enough, the exchange rate will return to what it was at the start of the game. Uniquely, this trait is restricted to the Latins, and their exchange rate is not affected by Market usage from other players.

The Holy Land was a major hub for trade in the Middle Ages, with Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia all buying and selling commodities with each other in this region. The Kingdom of Jerusalem took advantage of this, and its economy became dependent on the free trade in Palestine. In addition, tribute from adjacent cities and states became the predominant source of money.

  • Fraters, Knights, and Galleys affected by Sanctity and Fervor

Military orders were formed by the Crusaders in order to establish a significant foothold in the Middle East. These orders were religious by nature, but nonetheless highly trained, and their devotion to Christianity was a major factor contributing to their effectiveness in battle. In the 1100s, the Order of St. John, or Knights Hospitaller, formed a navy, which started in Acre, and eventually relocated to places like Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta, the latter of which became its main base of operations starting in the mid-1500s.

  • Monks with Relics move 10% faster and have +15 HP

The Latin Empire Wikipedia article claims that the sale of relics was important to its economy, and while this is plausible, the claim is unsourced. Nonetheless, as a religious kingdom, the collection of relics would’ve been important to both it and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as they would’ve brought in significant revenue from pilgrims.

  • Hospitals replace Monasteries

As the name suggests, the Knights Hospitaller were initially formed to build hospitals all over the lands contested by the Crusaders. While they eventually became more militaristic, building hospitals was still an important goal. They were run by monastic organizations.

  • Team bonus: Caravan free

Another important source of income for the Kingdom of Jerusalem was the taxation of merchant caravans passing through the region on the way to Egypt, Syria, or Arabia. This revenue allowed them to hire mercenaries to make up for the lack of recruits within the kingdom.

Unique Unit 1: Frater

  • This is an infantry unit that has similar stats to the Long Swordsman, with 65 HP, 10 attack, and 1/2 armor. It’s naturally a bit slower, at 0.9 tiles/second, but is affected by both Squires and Fervor, making it move at over 1.12 tiles/second, a little bit faster than Long Swordsmen with Squires. With Sanctity, it has 80 HP, making it quite tanky compared to its generic counterpart. The Elite version does not gain any more HP, but gains 2 more attack, trading 1 attack for 10 more HP than the Champion. It costs 65 food and 35 gold, making it an expensive investment.

  • This lesser attack value can be raised by being within 15 tiles of a Hospital, which raises its attack value by 3. While this attack boost goes away after leaving the area, it can effectively make the Frater a Castle Age Champion, but tankier and much more expensive. In the Imperial Age, an Elite Frater within range has 15 attack (17 fully upgraded), making it stronger than a Champion in every stat. Again, though, this attack boost is restricted to Hospital proximity, making it useful for controlling land, but not much else.

  • Frater was the earliest title used by the Hospitallers, which means “brother” in Latin. Brothers-at-arms had two major ranks, knight brothers and sergeant brothers. Sergeants were originally hired mercenaries instead of brothers, but became official brothers after their de facto brother status was made apparent. Fraters took monastic oaths of poverty, chastity, and obedience, just like ordinary monks and priests.

Unique Unit 2: Crusader Knight

  • This is a direct upgrade to the Knight, replacing the Cavalier and Paladin. It has different stats from the current Scenario Editor version, having 130 HP, 13 attack, and 3/2 armor. In addition, it also has inherent conversion resistance and a +2 attack bonus vs Monks, unlike the existing version which cannot be converted at all. The upgrade costs 800 food, 950 gold.

  • Obviously, this is a reference to the fact that the kingdoms and orders the Latins represent were all founded by the Crusaders. The Crusaders fought on horseback and were heavily armored. Being highly religious, they were fanatical and basically never switched sides.

Unique Building: Hospital

  • This is a Monastery replacement that heals units 30 HP/minute for each garrisoned relic. It has a 6-tile square radius. Unlike the Monastery, it’s 4x4 tiles instead of 3x3, so it’s harder to find space for, and this is accompanied by a larger cost of 200 wood. Because the healing radius is so small, and it requires leaving relics vulnerable to attack, it’s best to build the main one within a safe area that can be used for healing, and any additional ones can be supplemental or used as a boost for Fraters in the front lines.

Unique Technologies
Turcopoliers: Light Cavalry and Cavalry Archers take -3 damage from enemy archer units; mercenary unique units cost -25%

  • Cost: 500 food, 300 gold

  • This technology causes Light Cavalry and Cavalry Archers to take less damage from all archer units the player is facing, making them much more effective against them. It sounds like a flat pierce armor improvement, but in fact also applies to bonus damage, making it much more all-encompassing. Plate Barding Armor and Parthian Tactics are both missing, and this technology can be a good replacement for those techs, at least against archers. (Skirmishers are excluded from this effect for balance reasons.) The technology also makes Genitours, Condottieri, and Imperial Skirmishers cheaper when the relevant allies are present.

  • Turcopoliers were leaders of Turcopoles, who were auxiliaries of Turkish descent hired by the Byzantines and Crusaders. Turcopoles primarily used light cavalry and mounted archers in combat. The term eventually became ubiquitous with any light cavalry auxiliaries, even ones who were not of Turkish heritage.

Chivalric Orders: Knights and Galleys attack 50% faster

  • Cost: 850 food, 700 gold

  • This technology allows the Knight-line to receive a higher damage output than its base stats would suggest, and makes up for the lack of Blast Furnace and the Crusader Knight’s lower attack than the Paladin. It also makes the Galleon attack faster than its Saracen counterpart, which gives the Latins a rather potent response to a Saracen water monopoly. This is an essential technology on water maps if the player can afford it, but it’s less important on land maps, since the Knight-line can’t be fully-upgraded.

  • The Order of St. John had a navy, as mentioned earlier. It was dissolved and integrated into the French navy in 1798, but it diligently protected Christian coastal interests for almost 700 years. It was ordered to assist Cilician Armenia in 1292, and by 1306, it had begun to gain naval superiority, transforming it into a maritime power. The Order of St. John is an example of a chivalric order, which was basically an order with its own organization, goals, and code. Most initial chivalric orders were formed to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land, but some formed simply for ceremonial purposes, particularly after the Middle Ages.

Tech Tree

Missing Units: Eagle line, Elephant Archer, Hussar, Battle Elephant, Steppe Lancer, Siege Ram, Heavy Scorpion, Heavy Demolition Ship.

Missing Techs: Parthian Tactics, Husbandry, Sappers, Plate Barding Armor, Blast Furnace, Architecture, Heated Shot, Treadmill Crane, Gold Shaft Mining, Guilds, Dry Dock.

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Isnt this mainly a venitian thing aka italians.

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You should “Outremer” as the most precise name for a potential crusader civ. Or even “Jerusalem” as it has more recognizability.

If they ever make a crusader civ, “Latins” wouldn’t be the best naming, as it is confusing (romans, italians) and the Latin Empire is short-lived and not more the main nor the best representative a Holy Land-Crusader state. The crusaders are more French than Latin.

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Simple but elegant design, I like it.
The only thing is that it seems to be inspired more by crusaders rather than the Latin empire but it’s not a bad idea to actually cram the two together since they were all western crusaders in a way.

But neither of those fit the naming conventions of AoE2, which is why I rejected them. If someone can come up with a name I’m happy with, I’ll be sure to use it.

Well, a crusader state doesn’t really fit what the game would consider a real civ either, the civ names represent the cultural/ethnic group of the population, the closest to a culture name (and what they called themselves) is “Outremerians” (way better than Latins, that is the most generic and confusing name ever for a medieval civ).

It is like if they have called the Holy Roman Empire just “Romans” instead of “Teutons” or “Germans”.

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I really really hate the name.

If you really want something like that, call it the Crusader State or something, or if you really want one of those military orders as a civ, just make it that, like The Hospitallers, but “The Latins” just sounds like some made up entity.

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Yeah, I agree the name isn’t the best, but it’s hard to find a Crusader-related name that fits the conventions of the game.

Its because the whole idea is really forced. The civ you want is basically France, or Francia, because that is essentially what the Kingdom of Jerusalem was, it was a crusader state established by people who were mostly from France. The stand in for France currently is the Franks, so you could argue that the civ is already in the game, but as a political entity France is only really the western portion of the Frankish empire.

I would argue a better way to go about this is to actually create another civ all together called France and while you’re at it, redo the whole Jean of Arc campaign. But then you’d really have to redesign The Franks, and maybe make them lose their late game gunpowder units so that they are realistic at least. Its not too dissimilar to how we have Italians and Romans, although in this case there is at least a more contiguous connection between the Franks and France which doesn’t really exist in the case of Italy and the Romans. But in any case I doubt this will ever happen.

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Return Khevsurite model to the Georgians and give crusader knight model to ‘Armenians’ as they supposedly represent the Kingdom of Cilicia which was heavily integrated with Outremer and the campaign is as much about Reynald de chatillon as it is Thoros, this is a great opportunity to shoehorn crusaders into the game.

It’s a complicated issue, because for a few centuries, both parts of the (Eastern and Western) Frankish Empire still called themselves Franks; for example it was Philip II the first king to call himself king of France. Maybe Franks in Late Antiquity could use the Goth build set or something, I don’t know

Yes I agree which is why I am not particularly in favour of this whole idea, but if the OP wants some sort of Crusader themed civ I would rather France than something called “The Latins”. Even to this day, the term “foreigner” in the Middle East is derived from the word Franks (or France) and it calls back to the days of the Crusade and is a nod to the fact that France was the bulk of what made up those Crusader entities. But really I’m fine imagining the late Imperial Age Franks as the game’s representation of early France.

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This just sounds like a better italian civ. If we tilt away from the crusade angle (crusader knight, castle, wonder) and add more native Italian stuff from the existing civ, this would be a pretty solid remake for Italians.

Can you elaborate? Because I’m not seeing it.

I also really really don’t like that we have “Italians” in the game. Specially after addition of Romans, which even though a lot of people hated I actually prefer because now you can have wars between Romans and their contemporaries like Huns and Goths etc


Honestly I’d much rather we add civs like Lombards and Vandals and Alamanni before any of these kinds of weird military order civs that were merely an outpost of their original civs in far away lands.

Edit: In fact while we’re at it, why not an entire Germanic DLC with all the civs from the Migration period?

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I dont really know what to elaborate. The civ is more or less the everything the Italians of the day did to support the hospitaller order.

It just makes more sense to me if the merchant, naval, and hospitaller were assimilated into the civilization that developed them as opposed building an entire civ out of whats essentially a private army.

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I second what he said


As the game currently stands, the Italians represent pratically the Kingdom of Italy. All of northern Italy, whith the Papal States which were part of the Holy Roman Empire for a long time. Were they on good terms with HRE? Absolutely not, since every opportunity was good to rebel against the German emperor. Barbarossa had to go down to Italy six times.

As a bonus, they also included Venice. And the new UT comes from there by the way.

I wouldn’t mind the Vandals honestly, along with the (Anglo-)Saxons.

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Both of which are concepts that I’ve done before and posted here.

Yea I feel like if we have Anglo-Saxons we’d have to redesign Britons, so they end up as the pre Anglo-Saxon invasion Britons. At the moment what the game calls “The Britons” is essentially the English.

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