Faction overview

• Trade Routes: Merchants collect 50% bonuses from Rares
• Eastern Connections: See all Rares in your territory
• Commercial Aspirations: Starts game with Market, and can trade resources from the start
• Master Financiers: Always trade resources with +20/-20 price bonus
• Guild of the Lords Five Hundred: -50% Merchant, Caravan and Market creation cost, they have +50% HP
• Men In the Middle: +1 limit to number of caravans

Strengths

Strong economic fundamentals centred around trade and Wealth generation, competititve advantage in early naval development and conflict.

Weaknesses

Weak cavalry and infantry, no advanced unit options, especially for siege weapons.

As befitting the mercantile focus of its historical counterpart, the Hoysala civ in Temüjin is a highly mercantile faction, very much like Venexia and Byzantium in faraway Europe invested in using water for fishing and trade, and then controlling access to that water. The abilities of the Hoysala early on are good for jump-starting and then fine-tuning your war economy, allowing you to build up and tech up faster than other factions, and then selecting the upgrades and units you need, providing you with tactical and strategic flexibility in how you want to prosecute your RoN game.

Like most Indian armies, Hoysala's military forces lie on the use of one single theme - light infantry, backed up by or supporting war elephants - which in many cases can be a potential game-winner. The elephants, by virtue of their anti-cavalry abilities, give the light infantry a portable "shield" from behind which those infamous Indian units, Longbow Levy and Longbowmen (and Renegade Longbowmen)  can then go to work, sending death to horse archers and infantry alike. However this is but only one part of the Hoysala story, for there too is another theme to the Hoysala - and that is the sea. Contrary to some who shun the sea for fear of losing their religion and thus their chances of moksha, the Hoysala (thanks to their alliance with the formidable Chola further south) are masters of the waves and in previous years, the Chola even managed to overthrow the piratical Srivijaya, establishing Chola control over Southeast Asia in tandem with their fellow Hindu allies, the Khmers. Hoysala's maritime force at the beginning is dominated by War Junks with support from War Canoes and Fire Vessels - an oddity, considering the strength of War Junks, and the near-dismal weakness of the War Canoe. However, with the upgrade to the Thoni, this creates light attack craft that are slightly more mobile and also easier to obtain (alongside an additional armour bonus). A Hoysala Thoni may be weak, yet in large numbers, Thoni with the right support units can wreak havoc on enemy shipping, destroying fishing fleets and disturbing maritime trade routes at almost no cost since a Thoni is much cheaper than a Dromond or a Barque.

However, this would seem to be where the strengths of the Hoysala end, for once light infantry, elephants and ships are dispensed with, the rest of the Hoysala roster belies the glaring historical weaknesses of a pre-modern Indian army - nearly naked infantry, no siege train and almost no cavalry to speak of. Although the Hoysala, like their northern Vaishnite Rajput counterparts, do get access to a horse archer unit, the Godeswari Shikkar or "Mounted Hunter" it will require a Level 2 Military tech upgrade to obtain. Thus, like Song China, Hoysala needs a map with ample water and chokepoints to be able to endure enemy cav rushes, before you can boom, and then retaliate with war elephants (of these, Hoysala has three like Annam) and infantry.

Unique units and structures gallery

AI leader names

• Veera Narasimha
• Veera Ballala
• Narasimha
• Vishnuvardhana

Settlement names