Best strategic faction

[hundurinn]

I want to know what faction has the best stratetic place at the beginnig in the erly, high and late period. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[desdichado]

hundurrin,

it really depends on your style of play although I have only played a few campaigns so I'm not the best person to ask.

For me though it is the danes, english and egyptians. I basically like having a wall at my back or being on an island that you can cut off. They also have good access to trade which is my preference.

I do want to try the spaniards as if they could annex from cordoba to aragaon I think they would be quite hard to dislodge - good trade income, access to iron in 4(?) regions, choke points making land invasions tricky.

Only problem I can see with spanish is bad starting position and portugal is bloody rebellious - I think I have 1000+ troops in there after I captured it playing as danes and loyalty is still only 130% although seems to be improving.

I'm sue other people have different ideas though.

p.s have only played early so far

[Rosacrux]

Danes, period.

They need only a tight alliance to ze Germans to fair a really happy game. Skandinavia, the baltic provinces and - why not - Ireland are open for them, and they shall keep out of the warring shit until they are ready for it. Plus the longboats give them a great potential for trading moguls.

Other than that, the two Arabic factions (Almohads-Egyptians) have awesome starting positions, but they both need to expand quickly, and thus making lots of enemies - not to mention the constant threat of the crusades in the first decades of the game.

The english have a great starting position and if the French let them live long enough, they dominate the north-west map.

But all around the Danes are in a better position.

[MonkeyMan]

I don't think there is really any good answer to this. It really does depend. Quite simply in STW you could get 3 powerful stacks and take the whole county, this is much different and you can win with any faction, the real adavantage comes if your playing style matches the faction. Personally i hate the muslim factions (even the turks with their janissaries) because i love powerful melee units. MTW is really quite balanced in these terms, but if i were to choose a best faction in all eras for a player i would take the english. They have isolation and great units in the high period.

[MacGregor]

If you can drive the Aloms out of Spain the Spanish have a pretty good defensible position, the Danes are very good in position, but in the beginning fielding enough troops to drive out an HRE army will be tough so it's best to not piss them off. The English have a problem with their holdings in France, but your homeland is pretty defensible. You may lose your mainland Europe holdings, but you can easily stay in the game and not worry about being anihilated.

The Germans have a horrible starting postion, you have to garrison practically every province if you want to be 100% sure you won't be caught off guard.

[Foreign Devil]

Playing as either France or England, I can usually eliminate the other. By this time, i've teched up to feudal men at arms/seargents. The HRE garrisons along the border at this point are still composed of urban militia and peasants. If your careful, you can push back the HRE along the entire front before they can react. Oh, and its fun to outfland them with your hobilars. Those little horseys can give you a real edge in the earlier years.

[Alrowan]

the HRE actually have quite a decent start, try not to get into early wars with france or italy and you end up fine. my aim is to take denmark asap, stop them from dominating the norther areas, once you have that, try drive into italy, and divid the contininet, also eliminating a border, as i find the pope isnt too agressive.

once that is done, pick eith east ro west, and conquer from there

[Zauba'a]

Egyptians without a doubt. Their provinces are all cash cows. The Turks are weak and will crumble after early attack, and the Almohads are pretty trustworthy neighbors in my experience. However, I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the Egyptian units though.

Russians haven't really been mentioned, but I think they have a reasonably good position. Just make friends with the Poles, conquer all the rebels between Muscovy and Kiev, and watch out for Byzantine northward expansion (and don't forget about the Horde of course).

I'm having a good stint with the HRE right now. As mentioned before, just befriend the Italians and the French (or English).

[TenkiSoratoti]

Poland really

[Leet Eriksson]

The best strategic location goto the almohads but their selection of armies is pretty crappy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif quick expansions and outnumbering your enemy is the best tactic so far for the almos,and granada+cordoba have some pretty good trade items.also you can really cripple the egyptians becuase egypt is only one turn away(you can also get the spaniards if you managed to take over navarre and castille)also the pope won't bother you becuase muslims won't listen to himthe only crisis is when the other factions get better units(especially HRE,italians and spain but since you can make AUMs just make sure you flank there tanks with them and let the muwahid do the dirty work)

[Alrowan]

Aragonese are NOT the best.. one of the worst, been playing a mod where i can play them an ive just been slaughtered by 1260... ah well moving along to my next game

[DoggFood]

The Russians in the high period have two provinces that can build halberdiers with 3 armor upgrades along with Boyars and Steppe Cavalry. With those three units you can take most of Europe. Just make sure your ready for the Mongols when they appear.