Knights of St. John/Strategy


 * The Knights of St. John are a campaign civilization that is only available for play in either the story mode of Age of Empires III or custom scenarios made from the Scenario Editor.


 * The Knights of St. John, though based in Malta, are in many ways very similar to the Spanish civilization because they have similar architectural styles, units, and Home City but speak the English language. Thus The Knights of St. John are essentially a mix of the two.


 * The Knights of St. John have produced many heroes, though in the confines of the game Morgan Black is the primary example. He constantly attacks the Ottoman Empire and is fixated on destroying the Circle of Ossus and the The Fountain of Youth.


 * With the exception of the mortars, falconets, highlanders and warships the Knights are the only major campaign civilization to be unable to train or ship gunpowder units and may face difficulties against the Ottomans or Spanish if managed carelessly. Their lancers somewhat make up for this fact as they can kill most infantry in 2-3 hits and you get a lot of them for free using home city cards.


 * Priests have the best build experience to population ratio out of all of the Knights units, each Priest trained is worth 20 experience points and only costs 1 population. When used in conjunction with Mill construction you can build up quite a few levels in a game which runs for an hour and a half. Use the maps wood to build mills after the enemy is crippled, the gold to build priests and the food from the mills as a source of limitless gold (to train more priests or buy more wood).


 * Highlanders while very good are mercenaries, and you only have a finite amount of them which reduces their overall effectiveness somewhat. If their small numbers are properly utilized however they can change the outcome of a battle in the Knights favor.