Knights Templar… water is good… but many many players don’t like or play water… on land KT are so soooo slow it’s sickening. Firstly, late game is no problem, no issues at all once you sit at 100-115 vils… however this leads me to my first problem, your “stronger army” is outnumbered, plus more expensive units than any other civ I believe. Like, mounted samurai are cheaper than Templar brothers? Why… they do the same damage and with their armour tanking a charge, probably have similar health too! Then KT eco is absolutely awful, 2TC is the only viable option but even then, 8 mins into the game still struggling to produce any amount of units is not fun, French running around without any worries for instance, slowing KT down even more, losing map control and any chance of pilgrims, it’s not a great experience until mid castle and late game, if you get that far.
The eco bonus for wood into food on water is great, but on land maps it’s not too useful, unnoticeable and completely pointless late game when you’re food and gold heavy, chopping wood isn’t really used much apart from siege. I suggest making forts 300 wood instead of 300 gold, maybe make some units less food/gold and replace the price with wood, like axe throwers 50/30/30 rather than 70/50 or chevilier knights for 60/60/50, or heavy spears 60/20/30 instead of 80/30, because wood troops arnt used as much and also, you play KT for cool unique units no? Make them viable. Genoese cross bows are not worth 50 extra gold… it’s crazzzzzy, but maybe with that 50 extra being in wood, leave more gold for other units and makes use of using wood throughout the game. Maybe make it so food gives you wood? That would be an early game dream to get pilgrims and 2TC and help with getting production buildings going, because currently it’s so sooo slow. Sengoku and Japanese both get gold/stone bonus from mining the other, which honestly makes so much sense for KT btw… that would be HUGE help for getting castles. Does anyone even use the luxury of making age 2 forts? No… they’re way too expensive in age 2, pair that with an awful eco and you have a really delayed age 3, more than it can be already, and if you do fort in age 2 you have no troops to secure it. I just think some little tweeks and reworks to land gameplay in the early game is needed. The win rate is high ONLY IN LOWER LEAGUE and that’s because lower league doesn’t punish slower starts. High plat and diamond KT is useless, and in conq… it’s impossible as I’ve found out. Also, side note, increase heavy spearman speed like you did normal spears… 1.13 is so slow… maybe make them 1.25 in imperial like normal spears were before they got a slight speed buff?
I have endless cool ideas for the civ and making forts more usable, the TC the first castle as you age up, it gets better until a full fort in age 4, the units more affordable or use wood as explained, pilgrim rerouting, even so you can get all of the unique units by making fort alliances with the countries you didn’t age up with… instead of a pilgrim, get another unit available instead… or multiple alliances with forts to the same country make the unit cheaper, like 3 polish kingdom forts give you 10/15/20% off szlachta, as long as the fort stands, again missing out on that forts pilgrim… production, you get cheaper unit… so losing pilgrims on the map doesn’t spell the end.
To conclude, make it so the civ actually plays in different ways rather than the same hospitaller age up into heavy spear and szlachta. The civ has so much more than that… rework the eco or make more unique units use wood to actually make use of our eco bonus… and make forts more interesting and needed, any thoughts?