Hardest/easiest campaign?

Which unmodded vanilla or kingdoms campaign is the most/least difficult in your opinion?

Perhaps it's hard to determine the easiest since there's probably a lot of equally easy to beat campaigns. I'd have to vote for new spain in americas though. Being the only faction with strong cavalry AND gunpowder initially doesn't make things very interesting, even if you start with just 2 settlements... Then add in your free halfstack reenforcements of kickass troops that land here and there and you can't possibly fail.

Hardest one for me has to be Norway in Britannica, but then again I didn't sack my economy up, and I started by conquering Scotland :dizzy2: Norway has really good troops but a catastrophic economy and I probably chose the least profitable settlements to conquer initially which made the whole thing really slow started.

I'm playing the long road now personally which is refreshingly challenging, but why was the frighten enemy infantry removed from Dismounted Huscarls? For shame! =)

Cheers!
/Bored at work

For me the hardest was without question as the Teutonic order in Kingdoms. My present chivalrous campaign as Scotland in LTC has been quite difficult mainly due to the lack of money at the start: now I face the difficulty of getting England to attack me or assassinating all of thier family members to eliminate England as a faction so I can get London which is a victory condition for Scotland.

The easiest was as the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Crusades campaign, but it was great fun. Fighting Greek firethrowers was almost as entertaining as Timurid packing-heat-derms.

I haven't played Kingdoms, but the hardest in vanilla would be Russia or the Turks. Harsh surroundings, not many units with staying power, at least early on and the very real possibility of a horde of Mongolians descending on your 'safe' eastern holdings.
Easiest would be England or Denmark for the opposite reasons. You mostly choose your own wars and have a lot of planned amphibious landings, have lots of heavy infantry. And while your cavalry may be lacking, it can stand up in a fight. And those hordes are far away from anywhere you're really interested in (apart from Jerusalem, but that's obvious)

Then again, I found Hungary's playing style easy enough in a campaign I played as them once with a decent mix of eastern and western units.

Vanilla's just so easy :smash:.

Templars in Stainless Steel.

highly recommend this mod.

Though I can agree that the Turks lack early infantry with staying power, I find them to be quite easy to play nevertheless. I didn't pay much attention to the north east, but instead secured the lands between baghdad and constantinople, which helps to counteract the problem of moving troops great distances through the mountains.

With the armies the AI fields, i.e. nothing but byzantine spearmen for example, an army of horse archers can't lose. Fielding all cav armies against the byzantines early on sort of eliminates the need for a strategy other than circling the enemy and filling their backs with arrows. Don't even bother bringing infantry and you won't have to worry about whether they'll win a fight. If the AI fields archers he'll usually just suicide rush them ahead of his lines anyway, and you can charge them and then focus on the guys with pointy sticks. The AI is just too dumb to counteract massive HA armies.

Also I don't entirely understand why people think the mongols are such a pain in the ass. By that time you have Janissary Archers and infantry. You know about what year they'll turn up. Prepare, meet them at a bridge or in a mountain pass and it's entirely possible to beat them without crippling losses. Especially if you use stakes to your advantage. Contain them and don't let them choose the battlefield, unless they choose to attack your citadels ;)

I guess in the end any faction is easy to win with, you just have to know how best to exploit their strengths. You're right, Vanilla is too easy =)

I haven't tried Russia but i can imagine they'd be hard to get going with!

Easiest:

1) Denmark (no enemies at the start and right next to stockholm..need I say more)
2) English (beat scotland/hold caen win campaign)
3) Moors (take iberia/destroy egyptians win campaign)
4) Sicily (good location but dirt poor/attacked often)
5) Scotland (defeat england/expand to denmark win)
6) Russians (Take w/e provinces u want in any direction never won with these guys b4 tho)

Hardest:

1) Byzantines (constant war/crusades no pope help/proximity to mongols and tims)
2) Turks (front line for mongols and tims often/spread thinly/multiple fronts)
3) Polish (surrounded by foes/dirt poor/no good cities at start)
4) French (surrounded by foes/expensive units/many inland territories to hold)

HRE is both easy and hard Idk where to put it.

Best Fantasy Faction: Portugal!

Russia are quite hard to get going with. In my campaign with them, I had to rely on hordes of Kazaks to win my early battles. The next thing, once you've conquered most of modern-day russia, is to take out the Polish. Their nobles are brilliant compared to your boyar sons and its only once you've taken them out that the campaign becomes anywhere near easy. The Mongols arrived in Baghdad which made it so boring I stopped.

My best battle-winning tactic is the hammer-and-anvil tactic. That's why I find eastern factions harder because there is no infantry to hold down the enemy while the cav circle around. Used to be much easier in Rome, even with Parthia.

Russia is one of the only factions to start with only rebel settlements for borders and also receives the 1st gunpowder units in the game (cossack musketeers) quite early in. (long before the late period handgunners/muskets etc of others)

Chances are you wont have handgunners yet by the time the commies...... ..er...russians are sending this unit to you. Although Im not a particular fan of this particular gunner, it is still an advantage.

Also, If you dont go to deep into the steppe areas such as kiev, sarkel , volga etc and let the poles or turks take em, they usually leave you alone and get attacked 1st by the mongols/tims.

Quick expansion is the Russian advantage ideally,riga,moscow,helsinki and stockholm. Also being orthodox there is no religion war penalty for any other factions but byz.

I found that playing as France and also Byzantium were the most difficult of the campaigns that I played so far.
France starts off in an area where you have so many major powers to confront- Especially Milan i find. It is also the way in which u get attack on all sides, and the fact that I don't like any of their units - they have nothing which is any different or better than the other factions, until very very late in the game.

Byzantium, is hard because it is easy to expand rapidly because the early game units you get are quite good - especially the Horse Archers. But after you receive the Varangian Guard, there is pretty much not much more to look forward too..The best units are still Varadaitori or whatever, which is available from the get-go.

Thats just my 2 cents ofcourse.. I never played as Russia yet...which is probably going to be the biggest challenge given their remote location and having to fight Poland - which i think is the most underrated faction..Stretckly, polish nobles etc.

I actually found Turkey to be one of the easiest campaigns, since they have such a versatile unit roster. They have an answer to just about any tactical situation, and many of their units are the best or most cost-effective in their class (Jannisary musketeers, Jannisary heavy infantry, Sipahis, Hashashim, Naffatun). Plus, the ability to build decent cavalry from cities. The only thing I can think of that they lack is pikes. With such an array of options for building an army it only seems fair that they have a relatively tricky starting position, otherwise they would be overpowered.

The most tricky campaign I've fought was as Wales in Kingdoms Britannia, largely because the code which is supposed to give you a huge bunch of reinforcements when you attack England is bugged. I ended up having to conquer virtually all of England with my Faction leader and faction heir and their starting troops. It was great fun though, taking on stack after stack of English troops with one ragged stack of spearmen and archers.

My hardest (and current) campaign is Lithuania in SS 5.1. From the start I was forced to fight a constant offensive war with very little money, very little rich cities close to me and with no crusade/jihad option. Also every time I took a settlement I was forced to convert it because it was mostly catholic or orthodox :dizzy2: Now I've finnaly killed Novgorod and Poland the Danes betrayed me and the teutonic order emerges :skull: Oh I forgot to mention that the pope called a crusade at my capital :wall:

Easiest campaign is England for sure.

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Originally Posted by Eyes330

Russia are quite hard to get going with. In my campaign with them, I had to rely on hordes of Kazaks to win my early battles. The next thing, once you've conquered most of modern-day russia, is to take out the Polish. Their nobles are brilliant compared to your boyar sons and its only once you've taken them out that the campaign becomes anywhere near easy. The Mongols arrived in Baghdad which made it so boring I stopped.

My best battle-winning tactic is the hammer-and-anvil tactic. That's why I find eastern factions harder because there is no infantry to hold down the enemy while the cav circle around. Used to be much easier in Rome, even with Parthia.

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I find the start as Russian as the hardest I have played so far in M2TW, for the same reasons that you mention; though nothing is truly "hard" in this game. :clown:

Easiest campagin: England and Scotland...once you get the british islands it's like a walk in the park

Hardest: I think HRE for there proximity to very aggressive factions and being smack dead in the middle, regions take time and money to grow and HRE has some of the slowest to grow.

I've played a bunch of mods, as well as vanilla and the kingdoms expansion, the only campaign I was ever really challenged in was in Stainless Steel mod, playing as Lithuania. Great fun!

Easiest campaign: any faction, in any version of the game, where you can recruit decent units from castle walls. Its just way too easy to get a good army raised right from the start of the game. You expand rapidly, easily, and the AI doesn't and never catches up.

In M2TW.
Easiest: England, Scotland, Denmark.
Hardest: Venice, Milan, France.

Huh, I actually found Denmark quite tricky. I found them a bit inflexible tactically, i.e. all heavy infantry, no decent archers or cavalry.

For me the easiest campaign that I have done/am doing is probably the Pope. Everyone loves to give you stuff and be your friend with the exception of 2 factions - Usually a toss up between Milan Venice Byz and Sicily. In my game only Sicily went for me at first so I kicked them outta Italy and Cagliari, leaving them only Tunis and Tripoli, offered them to be reconciled and got 1000 for 10 turns off them. Same with Milan, they attacked Ajaccio, I kicked them outta Italy so they only have Dijon and the other town near there (SS5.1 i'm playing btw). I have a decent economy, 1 or no enemies, decent troops - shame about lack of cavalry though.

Hardest, probably Moors or Russia. Russia just because of piss poor starting position but after I discovered that exploding westwards into Scandinavia and UK while turtling eastwards with a small stack works a dream, they ain't so bad. They're troops are quite rubbish though, Boyar Sons, for what they are, just don't cut it in my experiences. Even as General killers they aren't too hot. Spanish Jinettes or Desert Cavalry are far better and (possibly) cheaper. With my Moors campaign I just couldn't get a hold in Iberia and I had France and Sicily invading Algiers and Granada while I struggled to keep Cordoba. Gave up on that one with 40 turns because I just couldn't get anywhere. Any advice on Moors would be cool 'cause as a faction I do like them, but I just couldn't get to grips with it at all.

The easiest is probably: The HRE, Surrounded by lots of rebel provinces, has decent infantry, missiles and cavalry from beginning to end, easy to blitz and all your neighbours are a lot smaller than you once the rebels are yours.

The hardest: Russia, Turks, or the Byzantines. They have close Proximity to Mongols and the Timurids and altho the Byz has good early units they lose out on Gunpowder. Russia, since them and the Byz are Orthodox, they don't have a holy war and they might become a target of one. The Turks, can have a tough war against strong Byzantium, especially in the early game.

A little off topic, but still relevant lol.

I'm currently playing Chivalry: Total War - an RTW based mod that expands into the same era as Mtw.

In this game im playing as Armenian Cillicia; a very difficult faction.
I'm jammed between muslim turks and fellow orthodox (but very suspect) Byzantines.

Every move has to be carefully calculated to make sure i can win the battle without pissing off the nations and having all of their might descend on my onew army. EEEEK!

Hard campaign :P

SS (Stainless steel) (No paticular order)

Easiest
-Kiev (Providing you Expand south soon as possible and the simply blitz west which is quite difficult)
-Moors (No True enemies at start, the 3 iberian factions are typically smacking each others face in)
-Denmark (ARHUS IS ******* RICH!)

Hardest
-Templar (Poor as anything, no starting cities, only 1 castle, starting army sucks a donkey)
-Scily (So poor...)
-Byzantine (Not only you have to face turkey, but now you have egypt, hungary and kiev bearing down you!)

Ones that sort of depend how you act:
-Lithuian (If you expand early and take parts of Denmark + Norway no one will want to fight you and you'll be safe, but act slow and you'll be over whelmed by crusaders, your infantry also seem to pwn everyone elses)
-Ireland (Slow to begin, but as soon as you take dublin you'll want to start colonies on the less "Pope Pleasing People (PPP)" your begining infantry arnt top notch but fine, and you can get Long-bows like the english but not quite as powerful)
-Scotland (Simular to Ireland, but you should just stomp out denmark and then you just take norway and sort expanding east from there)

Hardest hands down was turks in vanilla. 4 front war with byz/egypt/all the crusaders on the planet/mongols at the same time: Mongols just ate up my stacks like they were muffins. Lucky i had the oven on...
easiest: Russia no one bothers you at the start you get good militia and late units, head start on musketeers and you get basilisks. Pew pew pew you're dead

Easiest....
England
Spain
Venice

Hardest....
Milan
HRE
France

Easiest:
Spain in Americas
Ireland in Brittania
Spain in vanilla

And right now, I'm having a great start as the Danes in Teutonic. Everybody else has picked a sparring partner (HRE v. Poland, Teutonic Order & Mongols v. Lithuania/Novgorod), so I got plenty of time to mop up the Norwegians. I own all of Scandanavia, the big island off of Sweden and three regions in northern Russia, plus my initial territories down to Hamburg. I just declared the Kalmar Union, which gained me a biggish army and two navies, and now get to decide who to beat on. Because I've been allied w/ both Novgorod and HRE from the start, and because they've both been in full-scale war on other fronts, I have nothing but garrison troops in front of me. ... Either way, I'll have three of five Hanseatic League cities inside of 10 more turns.

Hardest:
Russia in vanilla (I played it twice ... the first time the Byzantines got clobbered out of the blocks, so I was facing Roman Catholics from the Baltic to the Black Sea almost at the start, and an aggressive Poland meant I was at war with a Catholic faction from the start, which meant every Catholic faction disliked me on contact. By the time I got the upper hand against Poland/Hungary/Venice/HRE/Denmark to the west/southwest, the Mongols came knocking at my lightly garrisoned back door ...
The second time, the Byzantines at least kept the Magyars preoccupied and it was easier, although the Danes got Stockholm early, which really reduced my income.)

I am shocked to see at least three who think that France is hard, as I found it to be one of the easiest as is HRE. I certainly would not say Scotland is easy, even with the pikes having their secondary weapons removed.

It depends what you plan on doing, i mainly turtle, so HRE is not ideal, as is Milan or France, Scotland is easy depending on what you do, if you can successfully boot england out of england, then it can be quite easy, but if you leave them in england, they become a pest.

I would say France is mixed, if you take over bordeaux, rennes and caen, and secure some clean frontlines, it could be entertaining, but i have never doen this successfully, so my opinion remains the same

Well, the easiest in vanilla are England, Scotland, Venice, and Milan. England/Scotland have the British Isles for a safe staging area, while Milan and Venice sit in Italy with enough available cash to make God feel Poor.

As for the hardest, I'm gonna have to say Russia, the Turks, and the Moors.

The Russians just don't have any money unless they beat the Danes to Stockholm and even after that, they end up having long distances between settlements (no good interior lines or army staging areas), better equipped enemies like the Poles make expansion into Central Europe difficult, and oh yeah, the Mongols arriving up your butt does nothing to help the situation.

The Turks have a lot of the same problems with little money, and some settlements that are so far removed from their main areas that they are almost a different country. If the AI knew how to use HA, they'd also have a problem with the Byzantines. As it is, they're out gunned in every department besides HAs at the beginning of the game, and right when that starts to change, the Mongols pop in.

As for the Moors, they've got that everyone hates them problem, and although they only have two possible fronts, Sicily taking Tunis almost always means they'll be fighting on two fronts. They're simply a light calvary dominated faction that only has javelin calvary as an answer to their better armored 'friends'.

Hardest- poland
Their location is pretty bad, HRE to the west pretty much blocks you from expansion early on in that direction, expansion south is risky since you will get in trouble with the pope and those hungarians are tricky sometimes. Going east is alright since russia isnt some tough enemy except of course then the mongols will prolly come nd screw you over.


Easiest- England
After you secure your islands, you have a good stable economy and a castle on the mainland from which to launch your attacks. Then late game you will be very quick into the americas if you need the extra 6 or so settlements to win and everywhere else would be too much of a pain.

Hardest by far was the Order in the Teutonic Campaign. The Order finds its lands split coupled with a very poor starting economy. Combine this with endless stacks of Lithuanians and expensive Order troupes makes for a dicey situation. Eventually, both Russia and Poland will turn on you forcing you to fight a multi-front war. This also disrupts trade rights, which never really lets the Order become an economic power house until it controls half the map.

Easiest was the Kingdom of Antioch in the Crusades Campaign. KoA splits its main foes, the Turks, in two allowing you to focus one front, then the other. Its southern flank is protected by the KoJ who will maintain the alliance even if your reputation plummets. Also, KoA unit roster is one of the best in the game easily taking out the Turks (once you can force them into melee). I beat the campaign before the Moguls arrived so maybe it would be more challenging if I had advanced more slowly.

This is my first post. Hello all. I've been visiting the Org. for about 9 months now and finally decided to start contributing. Man, I wish I would have know about the Org. when I was playing Sogun and the original Medieval Total War a few years ago, would have saved me some frustration.

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Originally Posted by Duke Bart

Hardest- poland
Their location is pretty bad, HRE to the west pretty much blocks you from expansion early on in that direction, expansion south is risky since you will get in trouble with the pope and those hungarians are tricky sometimes. Going east is alright since russia isnt some tough enemy except of course then the mongols will prolly come nd screw you over.


Easiest- England
After you secure your islands, you have a good stable economy and a castle on the mainland from which to launch your attacks. Then late game you will be very quick into the americas if you need the extra 6 or so settlements to win and everywhere else would be too much of a pain.

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I tend to agree with this post. Poland & Hungary have never been easy and England is a walk in the park. In Kingdoms, try Norway in Britannia. Wickedly hard, as noted in a previous thread, hard to keep the economy afloat.