Crusader MoD

[PvK]

Comparing to Iron Faith, which I consider a reasonably-balanced nation with a similar style, I see this comparison (assuming the skills, abilities, costs, resources, and weapons of Crusader are brought into balance as I suggested before):

Iron Faith advantages:
* Better mage/priests with higher magic levels and random picks, and inquisition bonus.
* Better-equipped and cheaper heavy infantry.
* Units with seige bonuses.
* Spy.
* Units with construction bonus.
* Arbalests.
* Has better initial gem income.
* Can use undead pretenders (I assume Crusaders shouldn't have any).

Crusader advantages:
* Huge variety of elite troops and leaders.
* Almost all special troops and leaders are sacred.
* Has a unit which can heal other units.
* Has elite sacred fighter commanders for SC use.
* Has a Holy-5 priest (I think this is unique in Dom 2 - he can Smite without an artifact or being a prophet - this makes up for a lack of magic).
* Units have great morale (probably should also be weakened a bit) and standard-bearers.
* Has fire-immune units.
* Has units with built-in magic weapons and armor.
* Has strong fighting units with recuperation.

So again, I think Crusaders have plenty of good advantages, and may still be over-strong, even if you reduce everything back to normal ability levels. The main weakness is lack of magic flexibility, but they are strong enough that they should be able to conquer themselves some mages and other things they don't have to begin with.

PvK