My first bash at MTW :)

[Melbourne]

Afternoon lads.

Cleaning up my stuff I relise i had bought this game a while back without ever having a chance to play it (Uni :()

Ive done the tutorals and about to have my first crack at a Campain.

Im going to read though ' A Beginners Guide to Medieval: Total War'. Is there anything else you recommend reading before I start?

Also - can you recommend a faction which is easy for a first timer and give me a quick run down about why its easy and its pros and cons.

Much thanks.

[Zarax]

Byzantines: Lots of cash, excellent early unit roster, no pope and can play any style.

Spanish: Readily available iron, balanced roster through the ages and excellent positioning for expansion.

[BAD]

You may want to give "The Complete Total War Unit Guide" a look through aswell. I think it's in the same section as the "Beginners Guide" . Aye Byzantines and Spanish are good for 1st time games. Hmmm. . . I haven't ever played the Byzantines myself ~:eek: . . .

PS - Have fun. ~D

[Melbourne]

Byzantines: Lots of cash, excellent early unit roster, no pope and can play any style.


Sounds like the ticket ~:)

[Zarax]

Yep, but you'd better have big armies before high as you won't get anything new and you will have a nasty surprise from the north...

[*Ringo*]

I like the English (but then again, i would ~D ) Their homeland is easy to defend, as long as you put the French on the back foot early on, this should give you a good base of power for the rest of the game!

Also you will eventually get Longbow Archers, few of these chaps you won't need much else. ~;)

Welcome to the Org btw ~:wave:

[Melbourne]

Yep, but you'd better have big armies before high as you won't get anything new and you will have a nasty surprise from the north...

Bah, the bad news. :(

Not so sure now.


I like the English (but then again, i would ~D ) Their homeland is easy to defend, as long as you put the French on the back foot early on, this should give you a good base of power for the rest of the game!

Also you will eventually get Longbow Archers, few of these chaps you won't need much else. ~;)


The English soudns good. ~:)


Welcome to the Org btw ~:wave:

Cheers

[Zarax]

Well, once you start making Varangian Guard there's nothing that will really worry you with the Byz, it's just a matter of quantity

[Ash]

The easiest faction to start with is probably the Byzantines. You can spend money right off the bat. You will have to be very aggressive though against the Turks or you'll get in trouble at one point or another. Same goes for the Egyptians.

My personal favourite are the English. You get to be very aggressive against the French. Plus you inherit rich French lands once you send 'em the way of the dodo...:)
The only downsides are you'll end up at war with HRE and Aragon/Spain very quickly because those factions also want France. So expect to get excommunicated at some point.
And you don't get any real high-tech units like most other factions get.
Although an army of CS, Billmen, CKs, Hobbies/Jinites, Gallowglasses/Clansmen and Longbowmen can't go wrong. And you get them in the early part of the High age.

Spain is also a very good nation to start with. You will have to be aggressive from the bat though, or the Alamohads and Aragon will cause serious problems. They obviously need to die.
Downside is their special units (Lancers, Gendermes) take AGES to tech up to.

[Melbourne]

Much thanks for the replys lads.

Bad news is if anything im more confused which side to start with than before I first posted :help:

[Mithrandir]

Welcome Melbourne...

Easiest faction to really learn the game would be the English I think. This due to their tactical position on the map. Danes are pretty decent too.

[mfberg]

Byzantine or Egypt would be my choice for first game. If you have the Viking Expansion you can play a VI game as the vikings or Irish for a couple of turns and not have to worry as much about what to build first.

Read some of the posts in the Forum Guides, they usually have an answer about what buildings to build and why.

mfberg

[ichi]

Welcome Melbourne...

Easiest faction to really learn the game would be the English I think. This due to their tactical position on the map. Danes are pretty decent too.

Mith is right, either the English or the Danes. Either way, get ships and ports and trading posts early on and build up your sea trade to make lots of money.

ichi :bow:

[Zarax]

The English risks excommunication early and the Danes requires a solid grasp on trade and economy management, not exactly for starters

[Melbourne]

The English risks excommunication early and the Danes requires a solid grasp on trade and economy management, not exactly for starters

So what is the best for humble starters like myself?

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The Byzantines in early. The English in early. The Egyptians in late. The Russians in late and the Turks in late are all easy, fun factions to play(i played these factions when i first started medieval and they should be what you are looking for.)


Also, the Spanish in most periods are quite an easy faction to start off with as are the almohads, especially in high.

[Zarax]

Like i said, Byzantines or Spanish, all depends if you want to care about the papal wishes or not... Anything else can be managed by a sizeable army.

[Goofball]

Mith is right, either the English or the Danes. Either way, get ships and ports and trading posts early on and build up your sea trade to make lots of money.

ichi :bow:

While I agree that the English and Danes are not overly difficult, I have always found the Almos to be the easiest to start with.

1) Only two border provinces to defend, even after expanding through Egypt;

2) Excellent, cheap, all purpose "meat grinder" unit in early: Almohad Urban Militia;

3) Good income from mining

4) A decent starting king/heirs

[sir_schwick]

For the Virgin campaign you have to go with English/Early/Normal and play until about 1200. By then you will have learned plenty and want to replay as the English or someone else to do early things right.:

* The France rush is relatively easy to manage and if you fail you can always fall back to Wessex.
* Although boring, Early Catholic Warfare is slow and simple enough to teach you basic tactics and give you a feel for marshalling.
* Trade goods offer modest training in navies and economy management.

I would shy away from Turks or Egyptians because they rely on less conventional forms of warfare. Personally I love the Turks and all their units that never engage in melee combat, but its not good for the newly initiated. As for the Byzantines, the variety of tactical units and roles may be a bit confusing for someone new to TW.

Here is what I recommend:

1st Game - 100 turns on English/Early/Normal
2nd Game - 100 turns on Spanish/Early/Normal

After that it is up to you, although Turkey/Egypt/Hungary are good for learning about HA and how to use/counter them.

[ichi]

While I agree that the English and Danes are not overly difficult, I have always found the Almos to be the easiest to start with.

1) Only two border provinces to defend, even after expanding through Egypt;

2) Excellent, cheap, all purpose "meat grinder" unit in early: Almohad Urban Militia;

3) Good income from mining

4) A decent starting king/heirs

Plus you get camels!!!


The English risks excommunication early and the Danes requires a solid grasp on trade and economy management, not exactly for starters

Of course all of our recommendations are somewhat subjective and there is no one answer - different playing styles enters into the equation - and there's other factors.

That said I agree that the Almos are a good rookie faction, and the reasons are the same ones I use to recommend the Danes. The Danes have only 1 province to defend, an excellent Early unit in Vikings, and good starting kings.

I view the first game as an opportunity to learn and start to understand how the game develops - learn what's important and not without getting too complex (so I would not recommend starting as the Italians or HRE for example).

As the Danes you can easily develop a trade empire, which is a good skill to learn. You can learn about diplomacy, which is necessary to keep those florins rolling in, without lots of backstabbing (due to the relatively low number of contact points) and you can learn how to manage income/expenditures (necessary to keep from having to work with 89 florins per turn).

If you wait until the HRE is distracted or weakened you can easily expand into the north of Europe, or using your fleets take similar advantage of a weakened England or Novgorod (thus learning the skill of timing).

As the Danes you can upgrade some of your buildings easily so you are fighting with above average troops (another bonus for the less experienced).

The only drawback is the lack of Crusade. But thats the same for the Huns and the Orthodox and the Muslims, so no biggie in my book.

I remember when I first got MTW I looked for a post recommending a rookie campaign, and someone said Danes. I've always been glad that I tried them first.

But you won't do bad if you choose the English, Almos, Byz, or even the Spanish.

Good luck whatever you choose

ichi :bow:

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Go Germans. Quickly build up border military and interior economy. The French and Spanish should be to scared to attack you until later in the game when you pose a major thread to them. Ally Poland, Italy, England, and France. If its an age when England dominates most of France, when the English declare war, ally them. Expand into Croatia and take the Balkans. Leave Greece for later. Move north until the Polish are enveloped by your provinces. Stage a Blitzkrieg on Poland. Move north, destroy Novgorod. Ally Turks. At the same time, gather armies and betray the French for the English. Thats good for the early and middle game.

[Saracen_Warrior]

I tried being German my first campagn. They have too much land to manage for beginners. AT least for me when I was a begginer. I played the english after losing my german campagn. I didnt get 100%, but i did get the 60% mark. English are a good choice for first campagn. Easy armies to control. Just get billmen and longbowmen and you can beat just about any AI army.

[Cha]

I noticed that the Catholic factions get a lot of money from the Pope. That's unless the Catholic faction invades another Catholic faction. That faction gets excommunicated then. France, England, and the HRE are very advanced in technology and their provinces are very wealthy. I never ran out of money playing as a Catholic faction.
All the Muslim factions have a good starting position. They have the advantage at home ground. The hard part is that they often get crusades from Catholic factions. The Pope even encourages Catholic factions to do it.

[Melbourne]

So playing as England, who can you attack without being excommunicated?


The Pope even encourages Catholic factions to do it.

Tisk Tisk.

[Zarax]

Any excommunicated faction plus rebels and pagans.

[mfberg]

Or you can attack other catholic factions as long as you finish all battles/seiges before the pope's time limit. (usually 2 years)

mfberg

[Cruelsader]

Actually it is quite easy to circumvent the pope. Pope can track only one warning at the time. So, let's say if you start war against France, Pope warns you and you cease hostilities as a good christian should do. But the next 10 years (the length of pope's warning regarding war against France) you can attack any other catholic faction without pope intervening (no excommunication).

However, you may want to avoid such strategy because it is unlikely the game was intended to work such way.

[Kralizec]

Byzantines:
Simply the best unit roster in the early period. Less dramatic later on because few new ones are added, but this also means you don't have to relearn everything the moment you pass into another period :dizzy2:
You can roll over both the Turks and Egyptians early on if you're careful enough, giving you acces to even more rich provinces. After that, there are few borders you need to defend.

[Zarax]

Few? AFAIK the Byz keeps the same roster they start with minus VG in late...

[Saracen_Warrior]

Can you just not build VG anymore, or do they disappear completely?

[Zarax]

You just can't build or retrain it...
But since it's one of the best units all around it's a quite bad loss IMHO.

[sir_schwick]

The big problem with Byz in early is that most Byz units require a pretty good tech level. That limits unit production to Constantinople except for HA and maybe Byz Lancers. Also, the Turks early unit roster is pretty powerful in the hands of the right general. They also can produce most early units in most provinces fairly quickly. Add in Jihads, Syrian assassins, and AHC within the first 20 turns. The Byz also have to deal with Hungarian Szelskey if you are playing VI.

[sephirothno12000]

The Germans in my oppinion are the best in the high and late periods. byzantines are great in the early period. For the Germans, it's great because not too many other factions screw with you. Also, the centralized local in Europe may cause you to become surrounded easily, but, you can launch crusades, and the Orthodox nor Muslims will screw with you until you launch crusades. Also, I've noticed that with the French and English always fighting, and with rebels always rising up against Hungary and Poland, it's easy to unify western Europe, it makes it especially easy when the Pope excommunicates the French, Italians, or any of the Europeans, except the Spanish and Aragonese, less you have ships. Also, the Germans get some pretty decent units in the Late period. :rifle:

[Kralizec]

Few? AFAIK the Byz keeps the same roster they start with minus VG in late...

They also lose the byzantine lancers. They don't gain anything but the gunpowder and the crossbow line of units, wich is what I meant.

[DisruptorX]

I would not recommend the "big" factions(byzantines, HRE), you end up with a great deal of micromanagement off the bat, and do not get to choose your fights as easily. Also, the Byzantines are just plain boring to play as/against period. The abiity to churn out hordes of Kataphractoi rather negates the fun and challenge, as well as their horrid purple colour. ~;)

[Ash]

The abiity to churn out hordes of Kataphractoi rather negates the fun and challenge, as well as their horrid purple colour. ~;)
The AI enjoys pumping out hordes of Varangian guards, Trabizond archers and Pronoiai Allagions.
Kataphractoi you get to see are mostly heirs.

That said, the Byzantines usually bite the dust in my games, although lately they're the ones becoming the superpower on the other side of the map.

[el_slapper]

Welcome Melbourne...

Easiest faction to really learn the game would be the English I think. This due to their tactical position on the map. Danes are pretty decent too.

seconded. I've always felt that the English are the faction the game is built around. If it is your choice, be sure to exterminate the french quickly(same goes other way : if you play the french, be sure England loses the taste for roastbeef - but French are tougher in the beginning).

Danes would be my other choice, because the computer NEVER attacks themas long as they've no grown a lot.(which makes them very strong, as you choose the speed of your expansion).

Byz have foes everywhere. Bwah! :embarassed:

[DisruptorX]

The AI enjoys pumping out hordes of Varangian guards, Trabizond archers and Pronoiai Allagions.
Kataphractoi you get to see are mostly heirs.

That said, the Byzantines usually bite the dust in my games, although lately they're the ones becoming the superpower on the other side of the map.

You are right about the Varangian guards, definately. Those things can beat any infantry unit you throw at them, except maybe Huscarles or something. I suppose I just had the luck of constantly facing large amounts of heirs in one battle, then. A good 30-40% of Byzantine armies I've faced have been Kataphractoi. The first time I played MTW I made the mistake of taking on the Byzantines in the Early Period. Needless to say, it isn't worth it, unless you are the Turks or Egyptians. They are beatable, but eventually one just gets infuriated at having to constantly face armies made up entirely of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry. I never take them on directly, but let the other computers do it for me.

Speaking of which, the Eygyptians are a great faction for beginners, they have great Early Period units, a great starting position, great trade provinces, and start off right next to the extremely weak Almohads. Easy pickings.

[Zarax]

The Almohads aren't easy pickings for the Eggys, a couple AUMs is enough to severely cripple the egyptian light inf and cav, especially without spanish help.

[DisruptorX]

The Almohads aren't easy pickings for the Eggys, a couple AUMs is enough to severely cripple the egyptian light inf and cav, especially without spanish help.

Really? What difficulty do you play? I play on Normal and Hard, and the Almohads are so weak that they often collapse by themselves! The Almohad territories bordering Egypt can't build urban militia, and are very poorly defended. I have yet to see Spain not drive them out of Europe, which deprives them of their best territories.

The Almohads are crippled by civil war and rebellion almost every game, I don't think I've ever actually needed to take them on directly.

[Zarax]

Really?
My strategy on normal is to quickly cripple the turks and then use the experienced troops plus reinforcements to take on the Almohads.
Usually cyrenaica falls easily but i find one or two AUMs defending algeria or tunisia with a lot of archer support and some muhawids.
Also in about 30% of my games the Almohads manage to crush or severly cripple the spanish while to the north the french becomes the superpower and finish them.

[ajaxfetish]

Actually it is quite easy to circumvent the pope. Pope can track only one warning at the time. So, let's say if you start war against France, Pope warns you and you cease hostilities as a good christian should do. But the next 10 years (the length of pope's warning regarding war against France) you can attack any other catholic faction without pope intervening (no excommunication).

However, you may want to avoid such strategy because it is unlikely the game was intended to work such way.

I've got to use this tactic recently for the first time in a German game. I started out forming alliances all around, but then everyone decided to join in the fun of attacking me, so one by one I was fighting the French, the Danes, the Polish, the Hungarians, and the Italians. Eventually the Byzantines and even the Pope himself decided to take me on. My armies were superior (mostly Swabians!!) but I had a lot of enemies and no friends. Whenever the Pope would warn me I'd decide who of all the others was the most troublesome and wage unrestrained war against them until ten or so years later I got warned about them. Meanwhile the only action I'd take against the enemy I was warned against was to defend my territories and raise sieges. I was constantly under warning, constantly aggressive, constantly shifting my focus, and always included among the faithful. It was a blast. The Pope didn't excommunicate me when he attacked me. Even though I was fighting Papal armies I guess he felt responsible as he was the aggressor and he let me continue communion! ~;)

[Don Corleone]

Melbourne,

I don't know if you're still looking for faction advice or not. I'm guessing by now that you've played at least one game, and by now you've discovered the hidden paradox in the game... even though it's a game dedicated to combat, that's actually the easiest part of the game. Diplomacy and economics are actually much tougher to manage.

In that vein, may I humbly submit my beloved Italians. Italy starts with a dockyard. There's rebel territories within reach. As you start building your fleet, you'll notice ports springing up all around the meditaranean... every one you link to is more cash ~:cheers:

The Italians tend to generate a lot of princesses (though not as much as the Danes). They also have some great early units... Genoese archers are almost half again as fast as normal archers, and their moral is better. The UM coming out of Tuscany with +1 valor is a big help.

Plus, when you finally build a castle and a spear maker's guild somewhere (I'd suggest Milan), your enemies days are numbered because behold, the rise of Italian Light Infantry. For the next 50 years, you will OWN (or PWN as they say around here) all the AI cavalry. ILI are just too good for words. Look at feudal and chivalric sergeants. Each has their relative merits (CS are better defense & armour, FS have better attack and moral). ILI are the best of both. Quite simply put, they are a coup that are actually good enough to be used as an attack unit.

If you want to really drag the game out (I've never done it) the Italians are one of 2 units that get Gothic units. And their Knights Hospitalier are better than Knights Templar (French, English).

The only challenge to playing Italy is resisting the urge to start trouble with your neighbors. You have enough cash at hand (or will, once you build the farms & trade) to sit tight. Try to build alliances and wait for one of your neighbors to attack. If you repulse their attack, most likely everyone else will take your side. Then let 'er rip. By the way, this is usually the HRE, as they consider your territory upstarts and they want it back. But, France, Poland and Denmark all want a piece of them too. Be careful of the Pope. Even when allied, if you leave a neighboring province thin, he'll take the hit on influence and attack you as an ally.

[Melbourne]

Melbourne,

I don't know if you're still looking for faction advice or not. I'm guessing by now that you've played at least one game, and by now you've discovered the hidden paradox in the game... even though it's a game dedicated to combat, that's actually the easiest part of the game. Diplomacy and economics are actually much tougher to manage.

In that vein, may I humbly submit my beloved Italians. Italy starts with a dockyard. There's rebel territories within reach. As you start building your fleet, you'll notice ports springing up all around the meditaranean... every one you link to is more cash ~:cheers:

The Italians tend to generate a lot of princesses (though not as much as the Danes). They also have some great early units... Genoese archers are almost half again as fast as normal archers, and their moral is better. The UM coming out of Tuscany with +1 valor is a big help.

Plus, when you finally build a castle and a spear maker's guild somewhere (I'd suggest Milan), your enemies days are numbered because behold, the rise of Italian Light Infantry. For the next 50 years, you will OWN (or PWN as they say around here) all the AI cavalry. ILI are just too good for words. Look at feudal and chivalric sergeants. Each has their relative merits (CS are better defense & armour, FS have better attack and moral). ILI are the best of both. Quite simply put, they are a coup that are actually good enough to be used as an attack unit.

If you want to really drag the game out (I've never done it) the Italians are one of 2 units that get Gothic units. And their Knights Hospitalier are better than Knights Templar (French, English).

The only challenge to playing Italy is resisting the urge to start trouble with your neighbors. You have enough cash at hand (or will, once you build the farms & trade) to sit tight. Try to build alliances and wait for one of your neighbors to attack. If you repulse their attack, most likely everyone else will take your side. Then let 'er rip. By the way, this is usually the HRE, as they consider your territory upstarts and they want it back. But, France, Poland and Denmark all want a piece of them too. Be careful of the Pope. Even when allied, if you leave a neighboring province thin, he'll take the hit on influence and attack you as an ally.

Much thanks mate.

Is there a walk though guide anywhere for the Italians?

Cheers. ~:)

[Zarax]

Look into the guides section, there are tutorials for every faction.

[Butcher]

You definately want to have Viking Invasion and the patch for it as well, just makes MTW that little bit better overall.