this might be a bit off topic now, but it wasn't a few pages back, i do feel that the knight order idea is a great one, but it does seem kind of useless if it takes so long to equip them. i'm not talking about decking them out either, i just mean to give them any equipment at all. hell it would take 92 days to make an order of framers with farmers cloths, hat, stones, and butcher knives, add 23 (is that right? i forgot how long it takes to upgrade exactly) more days if you'd like them to carry pitch forks as well.
anyway, i never post on suggestion threads cause i'm never sure if my suggestions would be helpful or a waste of time, so im just posting this here as a humble thought. why not use a tier system T1, T2, T3 etc. where in T1 knights get ALL upgrade slots, but with limited quality items, regardless of the knights skill.
This would mean you could start in the direction you want, such as if you wanted archers, after only a short time, but they would only have equipment equivalent to a low level militia archer. then with the next upgrade they could unlock slightly better equipment and so on. as it is now, you could give your knights a bow with the first upgrade, but they wouldn't even be usable till the second upgrade when they get some arrows, and giving them leather gloves and a dagger is just a dream for a distant future.
maybe also once a tier is unlocked it could be possible to switch items out a bit faster. it doesn't have to be instantaneous. i get that the legalistic of reequipping an army would take a bit of time, it would just be a shame to miss the entire game as you're deciding if you prefer axes or maces.