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How to Beat the Knights Templar as English in AoE4 (Bronze Tier Matchup Guide)
This is part of my Climbing the Ladder series, where I break down how to win every matchup at every rank I’ve actually reached. Here’s the Bronze tier breakdown for English vs Knights Templar.
I want to start this one with a question.
You’ve probably played against French before. You know what French does. You know about the early Royal Knights, the cheaper Scouts, the Castle Age power spike. You’ve read the guide. You’ve got a plan.
So imagine loading into a ranked game, seeing your opponent lock in what the game tells you is a French variant — Knights Templar — and then spending the first ten minutes watching things happen that have absolutely nothing to do with anything French ever does.
No Scouts rushing your gold early. No Royal Knights thundering into your base in Feudal Age. Instead, there’s a Fortress going up — not a Keep, an actual Fortress — in Feudal Age. Robed Pilgrims are walking across the map toward a Sacred Site. A unit called a Serjeant is throwing axes at your Men-at-Arms. And the age-up screen didn’t even show Landmarks — your opponent picked something called a Commanderie.
What is happening?
Here’s the honest answer: while officially considered a variant of the French, the Knights Templar effectively play as a unique civilization, with no shared traits, bonuses, units, or upgrades between the two civilizations. They only share cosmetic elements such as some generic unit models, building templates with a modified color palette, and French dialogue lines.
In other words: the French label is basically a lie. This is its own civilization. And if you go in expecting to play against French, you’re going to get completely blindsided.
This guide is going to make sure that doesn’t happen.
What Makes the Knights Templar Unlike Any Other Civ
Let’s get the fundamentals down, because the Knights Templar does several things that exist nowhere else in AoE4 and you need to understand them before we talk strategy.
The Commanderie Age-Up System — No Landmarks. The Knights Templar age up with a unique Commanderie system, which grants the player a choice of three allies per Age to choose from, each of which provide a permanent unique bonus and enable training of a unique unit. Ageing up is similar to researching a technology at the Templar Headquarters, instead of constructing a Landmark.
This is massive. It means two things for you as their opponent. First, you cannot tell when they’re aging up by watching for a Landmark under construction — they just research it at their Town Center equivalent. Blink and you’ll miss the age-up. Second, and more importantly, the units coming at you change every single game depending on which Commanderies they pick. In one game it might be Serjeants and Hospitaller Knights. In the next it might be Chevalier Confrere cavalry and Genoese Crossbowmen. You genuinely never know exactly what army you’re facing until it shows up.
Fortresses in Feudal Age — Not Keeps. Fortresses. Fortresses replace Keeps and are available in the Feudal Age. Ranged units positioned near a Fortress have +15% increased attack range, and Stone Walls placed within the influence of a Fortress or the Templar Headquarters have +25% increased health and gain a default arrow. Fortresses behave as Landmarks but can be fully destroyed.
A Fortress is not a Keep. It has more health, more firepower, and it actively buffs every ranged unit and Stone Wall near it. A Knights Templar player who drops a Fortress in Feudal Age has just created a military anchor point that makes their Stone Walls shoot arrows and gives their archers extended range. Trying to push into a fortified Templar base in Feudal Age without a plan is a quick way to lose your army.
Pilgrims Instead of Traders — Sacred Sites Are Their Economy. The Knights Templar cannot train Traders. Instead they generate gold from successful pilgrimages. Upon reaching the Feudal Age, the Knights Templar may offer Safe Passage for Pilgrims to travel to a Sacred Site. Every 60 seconds, a group of Pilgrims will travel from the Templar Headquarters to the selected Sacred Site, generating gold upon arrival based on the distance traveled. The size of the group is increased by 1 for each active Fortress up to a maximum of 10.
Let that sink in for a moment. Every Fortress they build doesn’t just provide military utility — it also sends an additional Pilgrim toward Sacred Sites every 60 seconds, generating more gold. Sacred Sites aren’t just a victory condition for the Knights Templar. They’re an economic lifeline. The further the Sacred Site from their base, the more gold each Pilgrim generates. Controlling Sacred Sites doesn’t just deny them a win condition — it actively starves their gold income.
The Templar Brother — Their Elite Cavalry. The Templar Brother is an expensive, elite heavy cavalry unit with enhanced durability and damage. With 330 hit points and 29 melee attack, a fully upgraded Templar Brother is one of the tankiest cavalry units in the entire game. They’re not cheap — they cost 120 food, 140 gold — but when Knights Templar players can afford them, they hit like a truck and take forever to kill. Your Longbows need to be positioned and ready, not caught flat-footed.
Fanaticism — They Fight Harder When Hurt. This is the tech that separates Knights Templar players who know what they’re doing from the ones who don’t. Fanaticism grants Templar Brothers and Commanderie units +10% damage when below 50% health, and +30% when below 25% health. So the more you damage their elite units, the harder those units hit back. Don’t let a half-health Templar Brother sit in melee range of your Longbows — finish the job fast or back your ranged units up.
Free Wood Economy. Villagers automatically deposit wood without a Lumber Camp. Wood is gathered 20% faster in each Age, and 20% of the wood gathered is produced as additional food. This means Knights Templar doesn’t need to build Lumber Camps, their villagers are always depositing wood passively, and they’re gathering it faster than you while also converting a fifth of it into bonus food. Their wood economy is silently ahead of yours the whole game, funding cheap Siege Workshops and Fortresses.
What to Expect From a Bronze Knights Templar Opponent
At Bronze, Knights Templar players fall into roughly two camps — and which one you’re facing shapes your entire response.
Camp 1 — The Fortress Turtler. They drop a Fortress as soon as they hit Feudal Age, wall up behind it, let Pilgrims generate gold passively, and slowly build up an elite force of Templar Brothers and Commanderie units to push with in Castle Age. These players are often not aggressive early — they’re banking on you not knowing how to break a fortified position and just waiting out the clock. The Fortress gives them confidence that you can’t easily push them, so they sit back and let their economy roll.
Camp 2 — The Commanderie Rusher. They pick an aggressive Feudal Age Commanderie — usually the Kingdom of France option, which produces land military units faster and at reduced gold cost — and immediately push with whatever Commanderie unit they’ve unlocked alongside standard military production. At Bronze, this is often a confused push that’s part Serjeant, part Chevalier Confrere, with no real composition coherence. But the sheer weirdness of the units catches Bronze players off guard who don’t know what they’re looking at.
Scouting their base in Dark Age tells you which one you’re dealing with. Fortress foundation going up immediately after age-up? You’re playing against the Turtler. Multiple military buildings active with no Fortress yet? Commanderie rush is probably coming.
What Makes This Matchup Tricky at Bronze
There are three specific things that trip up Bronze English players against Knights Templar.
The unit variety is disorienting. You know how to react to Knights. You know how to react to MAA. But a Serjeant throwing axes at range? A Hospitaller Knight healing other units while fighting? A Genoese Crossbowman that deals bonus damage to melee infantry? These are units that do things you haven’t encountered before, and the instinctive reaction is to fight them the same way you’d fight standard units. That doesn’t always work.
The Fortress looks impenetrable. And it kind of is, in Feudal Age, if you don’t have the right tools. Bronze English players often either ignore the Fortress entirely and get shredded by its arrow fire, or throw units at it without siege support and watch them die. Neither approach is right.
Sacred Sites are easy to forget about. Most Bronze players aren’t thinking about Sacred Sites in the first ten minutes. Knights Templar is the one civ where you absolutely have to be, because those Pilgrims are funding everything. Ignoring Sacred Sites against this civ is like letting an opponent mine unchallenged gold deposits on your side of the map.
Your Counter-Strategy as English
Here’s the good news. English’s combination of reliable economy, Longbow output, and strong defensive network gives you the tools to handle everything Knights Templar brings — if you’re proactive about using them.
Contest Sacred Sites the moment you hit Feudal Age. No exceptions. This is the single most important thing in this matchup and I cannot overstate it. Knights Templar’s gold economy runs on Pilgrims reaching Sacred Sites. Every Fortress they build sends more Pilgrims. Deny them Sacred Sites and you are directly strangling their gold income, slowing Templar Brother production, and preventing the Fortress network from scaling. Send your Scouts to claim the nearest Sacred Sites immediately. Even holding one Sacred Site while denying theirs makes a measurable difference to their economy within five minutes.
Do not push into a Fortress without Mangonels or siege support. A Feudal Age Fortress fires powerful arrows, buffs the ranged units around it, and makes nearby Stone Walls fire arrows too. Sending Longbows to attack it directly is an expensive way to learn this lesson. If you need to push a fortified Templar position, bring a Mangonel in Castle Age to suppress the Fortress while your Longbows handle the units defending it. Without siege, fight the army in the open field — away from the Fortress range — not at the walls.
Longbows are still your primary unit. Use them accordingly. Whatever Commanderie units show up, Longbows handle most of them well from range. Serjeants are melee — they have to walk to you. Hospitaller Knights are melee infantry — same thing. Chevalier Confrere cavalry are the most dangerous unit to your Longbows at Bronze, so plant Defensive Paling stakes the moment cavalry threatens your line. Genoese Crossbowmen deal bonus damage to melee infantry specifically — keep your Men-at-Arms behind your Longbows and let the Longbows take the engagements at range rather than sending MAA forward into Genoese fire.
Watch for Fanaticism and finish off low-health Templar Brothers fast. When a Templar Brother drops below half health, it starts hitting harder. When it drops below a quarter health, it hits significantly harder. Don’t let one linger in your Longbow formation absorbing hits while it gets a damage bonus for surviving. Focus fire it down and move on. This sounds simple but in the chaos of a Bronze skirmish it’s easy to spread damage across multiple targets and leave a Templar Brother alive at 20% health absolutely wrecking your front line.
Use your Network of Castles to your advantage in engagements. Every Outpost, Keep, and Town Center you build triggers an attack speed buff for your nearby units when enemies get close. This is especially valuable against Knights Templar because their Fortress does the same thing for them — you want to force fights near your defensive structures, not near theirs. An English Outpost near the center of the map is cheap, builds fast, and turns a neutral engagement into a home advantage fight for you.
Apply economic pressure before the Fortress network scales. The more Fortresses Knights Templar builds, the more Pilgrims they send per minute and the stronger their walls become. Early pressure that delays Fortress construction — Scout harassment of their villagers, contesting Sacred Sites, forward Outpost placement — directly limits how fast their economic and defensive system comes online. A Knights Templar player who only gets one Fortress up by Castle Age is significantly weaker than one who has three.
Don’t let the game go to Imperial Age. The Teutonic Order Commanderie in Imperial Age unlocks the Teutonic Knight — an absurdly powerful heavy infantry unit that gains power for each enemy felled in combat and reduces the armor of nearby enemies. A Teutonic Knight army supported by Szlachta Cavalry and Trebuchets firing additional projectiles is a genuine nightmare to deal with. This is a matchup where your Castle Age push window — before the Imperial Age Commanderies come online — is critical. Hit them hard before Teutonic Knights become a reality.
If You’re Losing by Minute 10
If a Commanderie rush is already in your base before you’re set up:
Garrison your villagers and use TC arrows. The Templar Headquarters fires arrows just like your TC does. So does your TC. Make the rushing Serjeants or Chevalier Confrere walk into that combined fire before your Longbows finish forming up.
Plant Paling stakes if cavalry is in the mix. Chevalier Confrere are the most common cavalry in Bronze Templar rushes. Stakes stun them on contact and buy your Longbows time to focus fire.
Target the Hospitaller Knights last. If Hospitaller Knights are in the push, they’re healing the other units around them. Prioritise killing the offensive units — Templar Brothers, Chevalier Confrere, Serjeants — before dealing with the Hospitallers. Killing the healers while the damage units are still alive just prolongs the fight in their favour.
And keep producing villagers. One Commanderie rush failing is very survivable for you. It’s often catastrophic for the Knights Templar player because Commanderie units are expensive and they don’t have the trader-based gold income that most civs use to recover quickly.
Key Things to Prioritize
- Contest Sacred Sites immediately in Feudal Age — this is not optional against Knights Templar, it’s the core of your counter-strategy
- Never push a Fortress without siege support — fight their army in open ground, away from Fortress range
- Longbowmen as your primary unit — they handle every Commanderie unit type from safe range
- Defensive Paling stakes whenever Chevalier Confrere or Templar Brothers threaten your line
- Focus fire low-health Templar Brothers fast — Fanaticism makes them dangerous when wounded
- Outpost near the center of the map to trigger Network of Castles in neutral engagements
- Harass their villagers early to delay Fortress construction and limit Pilgrim scaling
- Castle Age push before Imperial Age Commanderies arrive — Teutonic Knights are not something you want to deal with
Rocco’s Quick Summary
The Knights Templar is the most unpredictable civilization in AoE4 right now, and I mean that in the best possible way from a game design perspective and the worst possible way from a “I have no idea what’s coming at me” perspective. The Commanderie system means every game is different. The unit roster changes based on which allies they pick. And the Fortress network plus Pilgrim economy creates a snowball that’s genuinely hard to stop once it’s rolling.
But English has answers to all of it. Contest Sacred Sites obsessively. Fight in the open field away from Fortresses. Keep your Longbows positioned and your Paling stakes ready. Push hard in Castle Age before Teutonic Knights become their Imperial identity.
The Knights Templar wants a long, fortress-defended, Pilgrim-funded game where their Imperial Commanderies can come online. Your job is to make sure that game never happens.
That’s matchup seven in the Climbing the Ladder series. One by one we’re working through every Bronze tier matchup English faces.
Drop a comment if you’ve faced Knights Templar in Bronze and had absolutely no idea what Commanderie your opponent picked or what was attacking you. Those stories are always entertaining.
⚙️ What I Play On
If you’re grinding ranked and your setup is working against you, here’s the gear I personally use. No fluff — just what’s actually on my desk.
- 🖱️ Mouse: TUF M4 Gaming Mouse — ASUS did a great job with this one. Precise, comfortable, and it’s held up well through a lot of AoE4 sessions.
- ⌨️ Keyboard: RK-M75 Mechanical Keyboard — My first mechanical keyboard. It took some getting used to but I wouldn’t go back now.
- 🖱️ Mouse Mat: Gaming Mouse Mat — Turns your whole desk into a gaming surface. Once you go full desk mat you won’t go back.
- 🎧 Headset: Redragon Headset — Switched to this for my PC setup and the quality surprised me for the price.
Disclosure: These are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Next up: How to Beat Rus as English in AoE4 (Bronze Tier Matchup Guide)
Age of Empires IV is a real-time strategy video game developed by Relic Entertainment in partnership with World’s Edge and published by Xbox Game Studios.
It is the fourth installment of the Age of Empires series, and the first installment not developed by Ensemble Studios. The game was released on October 28, 2021 for Windows, and on August 22, 2023 for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
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