Faction Recommendations anybody?

Hey everybody! I generally play M2TW on M/M, and hadn't played in about 6 or 7 months. I recently re-discovered my game in the pigsty that is my bedroom, and have just installed it. I've played a lot of m2tw, so although i'm not very good, i'm certainly not a beginner.

I know this is probably going to come off as an extremely stupid question to many, because to many i am willing to bed that this specific faction i'm looking for is the holy grail of factions that is still unfound. Nevertheless, I feel that it is my duty to persist, and ask the question:

I'm looking for a faction that is incredibly enjoyable in the early and middle stages of the game. As previously stated, I'm not very good--so preferably not too hard, but certainly not a stroll in the park, either. I am also hoping that they are militarily strong throughout the game, preferably more towards the early and middle stages, however. I don't play often and I don't play for long periods of time, which means that I'll probably never ever end up finishing an actual long campaign. Because of this, having a fun campaign map, as well as enjoying my battles, all in the early and middle parts of the campaign map are crucial to me.


Anybody got any faction suggestions? Actually, one more thing before I hit "submit new thread"--it seems as if the faction i'm looking for may be the byzantine's--i would prefer not to play as them, because i never have success with them, and i don't like the fact of having virtually no gunpowder at all, because I may end up playing this campaign until the end if i really like my choice of faction.


Thanks so much, and sorry if this seems like a stupid post--I'm just having trouble deciding which faction to start with.

PS: I DON'T have Kingdoms.

I think I might have to say France on this one. You are mostly surrounded by enemies, but have a strong economy and in real life is (and was) a strong nation. I have fun playing them, and they have a strong unit roster both early and late game.

Well, how do you like to play your battles?

If you like Heavy Infantry, then Denmark is probably the best choice for a faction with good early and mid units.

If you're master of the horse archer you can field HA only armies with Turkey right away, and then upgrade to better HAs mid-game :p

The Byzantines, I've only played them in Kingdoms Crusades though, should have some good stuff early on, but never get gunpowder, and have an interesting starting position.

Personally I love Venice, because of Venetian Heavy Infantry and Venetian Archers, but it might take some building to get them I guess.

Maybe you should give mods a try, e.g. Broken Crescent which focusses on the Near and Middle East. Have fun!

Stainless Steel is a good mod, yet for Kingdoms only.

I guess it really does depend on how you fight your battles. As others have remarked, Denmark, Venice, and Milan are all noteworthy infantry-based factions and so are England and Scotland among others. If you like charging headlong into formations with heavy cav then France (maybe HRE though they have great heavy inf as well) would be an option.

Personally, I enjoy Horse Archers and I would have to say Turkey is far from your only option in that category. In my opinion (and if we exclude the Byz which you say you hate playing) Hungary easily have the best HA's in the early game -- in fact, probably second or third best overall in any age and certainly far and away the best Catholic HA faction in the game. Hungarian Noble Archers are on par (actually slightly superior) with the best the Mongols and Egyptians can field in physical stat categories and you get them straight off the bat on the first turn. Magyar Cavalry are also superb for their price (just as good as Turcopoles -- though they lack a shield -- but in return are considerably cheaper in cost/upkeep) and you get those on the first turn as well.

Since it is a Catholic faction, you will be crusading, so it is a good bet that you might in the early game have access to Templars or Hospitallers (for heavy cav purposes) as well and you get Feudal Knights (and above) when other Catholic factions get them.

EDIT: Oh, and they have a nice variety of gunpowder artillery too.

hey all, thanks for all the replies. I actually have played a danish campaign before, and i really love the awesomely fun viking-inspired units. However, to me they are very hard to play, because they are trapped in a small area with basically nowhere to turn after they get hamburg and stockholm and oslo. I've had limited success at trying to conquer the english isles as well as Russia, and have always had extreme trouble whenever i've had to face off against the hre.


I rarely find myself using cavalry because i rarely fight any battles in battlefields. Instead, most of the battles i have in my campaigns are sieges, both on the offensive and defensive side. Because of this, I tend to heavily rely on powerful infantry. Whenever i play my battles, I tend to find that almost all of my infantry units sustain a good amount of casualties, while killing a lot more enemies, whereas my cavalry face almost next to nothing when it comes to action. What's more is that when i look at the experienced gained by each unit, i can sometimes see 2 or 3 bars for my infantry units, whereas my cavalry usually gets a big fat "0". However, this doesn't mean that I want no cavalry at all--I like using them as backup if my infantry's numbers or morale gets low. This way, I can use the cavalry to charge in and take out whoever is giving my infantry such trouble.

I have played with the venetians. In fact, when I first reinstalled m2tw a couple of days ago, the first thing i did was make a venetian campaign. I am doing incredibly well, in fact! But for some reason they are just incredibly boring to me right now. I can't seem to understand why, either. England seems like it may be a good choice--but i've always had a little bit of trouble with them, because they french are so goddamn powerful, and i don't really understand what to do if one of their units is about to flank me. I can flank perfectly, but i am clueless as how to counter an enemy flank, lmao. Anyways...

Milan, to me, is the same as venice, but without venetian heavy infantry, which is a big minus for me. I know they are, in reality, very different from venice, but i've always favored venice much more than milan, especially because of their tendencies to be incredibly aggressive no matter what when they are controlled by the AI.

And to Subedei, I'm still waiting for the mod-to-rule-all-mods, the alpha mod, Dominion of the Sword. :D

Make your line a little longer, it usually holds against infantry anyway. Put spears on the end, sacrifice them in a counter charge against flanking cavalry if needed, but they do better if they take it I think... I'm sure it varies with mods and I haven't played Vanilla in a looong time. May be good to keep some spears in the center too to counter if the AI cavalry shocks the center.I usually put stakes in my center with heavy infantry behind it, and pikes or other spearwall capable infantry on the flanks with cavalry or shock infantry ready to circle the ends of the line. If I have crossbows and stakes, I put my crossbows behind stakes and/or right in front of pikes, to incite the AI to charge the pikes. The loss of some crossbows is acceptable and also sometimes avoidable if you manually skirmish at the right time.

This only works on the defensive of course, but there are tricks to make the enemy come to you even if attacking, such as having more missile troops than your foe. Again, may vary with mods.
If I'm forced to attack someone with a lot of missiles I usually send cavalry far out on the enemy's flank, the AI sometimes start to shuffle his units around which gives the infantry time to close and charge with less casuaties to arrows and bolts. When they do, your cavalry is right where you want it.

Good luck!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shinderhizzle84

And to Subedei, I'm still waiting for the mod-to-rule-all-mods, the alpha mod, Dominion of the Sword. :D

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Let me know when it is out...would you happen to have a link? I am always interested in new promising mods....

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Originally Posted by Subedei

Let me know when it is out...would you happen to have a link? I am always interested in new promising mods....

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http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=492

there it is on twcenter. I think they've got a much smaller and unworthy little section here on the org, but then again, I could be completely wrong.


The preview itself blew my mind away--it was a powerpoint presentation that was like, 400 something megabytes!!! lmfao :D

yeah, it was really something, haha.

But yeah, right now i've got two really really successful campaigns going: one with the french and the other with venice.

I'm a little inclined towards the French, mainly because they're just so goddarn easy to make money with, and their cities like, NEVER EVER EVER rebel. Which is good for me, because i'd have to say that the weakest part of my already lackluster game is the city and castle management side.

However, I was looking at some of the faction's units in custom battles, and have come to the conclusion that spain/portugal has some of the most phenomenal, die-hard, completely terrific units i have ever seen. I rarely do campaigns in the iberian peninsula, because i like, never EVER make churchs or priests of any sort. I usually just send a diplomat to Rome and bribe that great, holy, and corrupt man whom people call the pope. So yeah, i once took over cordoba and the other moorish castle in the iberian peninsula with ease, actually...but then i had them rebel like, 10 turns later, lmfao, because of religious disagreements, haha.


So yeah, my venetian and french campaigns are both very similar in greatness economically, militarily, and other-ly--they're both around the same time period, both have got the same amount of money, and they've each got their pros and cons. For example, while the french are much easier to manage due to population happiness and the ability to tax the hell out of your poor citizens, their biggest city is paris, which is currently 2 turns into building it's first "large stone walls". In my venetian campaign, the smallest city i've got is florence, and that is a minor city who is currently building their large stone walls. I've got 3 huge cities (venice, Milan, and bologna) and everything else is a large city. Ragusa is already a citadel :D

I'm having some difficulty in deciding who i should continue my campaign with. Anybody wanna help sway my decision, based on the points i've given up above??? Thanks so much, again, guys and girls, and so sorry for the insanely long posts--it's the creative/dramatic writer in me.

Hungary, Milan, Venice, Scotland and Denmark are good factions wich are not really hard in the early game, unlike Poland, Russia and Turkey. England is too easy, take over the rebels in southern france and you've halted their expansion, while the french fight a losing war aginst the milanese. The good strategy for Denmark is too push down south, HRE will have problems in the south, while you can quickly take Stettin before the Poles do; if they declare war then take another settlement from them, then negotiate for peace, your main occupation is with Germany. Concentrate on your economy in Denmark, and pump out those sweet infantry units from the citadels in Germany.

A good bet would be Spain or Portugal, they have the same standard units as Western Europe, and they have a non-catholic neighbour, the Moors. :logic:

Ohhh Yea.... Spain is super easy. Bribe his Holiness then kill the Portuguese. Once you have the Iberian peninsula you can score uber points with the pope while you campaign against the Moors. Then it gets a lil'hard to expand east after you have captured all of North Africa. Its a great distance to travel to make a fight against the Egyptians and then be kicked out when the Mongols and Timurids Arrive. You can also try Denmark but it all has been said on the Posts above.

I have just started a Byzantine campaign. Having never played them before, I find they have weak infantry that have problems with their neighbors to the west. However, if you like fighting, they are the faction for you as all of the other factions can attack you without incurring the wrath of the Pope / catholics or the muslim nations. Just be prepared to be attacked on every front.

SG

For a straight forward and easy game, I generally play Milan.

As soon as you've got your third level of Barracks in any city, you have just about become unbeatable.

Goals for Milan are
1) Turn everything into a city
2) Build up your economy
3) Turn out Crossbow's backed by good spears

At this point you will be killing just about anything you fight because of how good Milan's crossbows are.

About mid-game, you start turning out good swords and heavy cav in your cities. You get Militia cav with your fourth level barracks (or merchants guild) which are OK heavy cav you can house for free in your cities. After that, you will be getting such fun units as Famiglia Dulcate and your broken lances. Nothing beats heavy can and swordsmen you can turn out from your massively economically cities...

Since don't appear to be very keen on cavalry, I'd second the suggestion about playing Milan or Venice. Both have great positions. Milan may be somewhat easier at the higher levels of difficulty because the Byz seem to come after Venice rather early on usually.

I'd say try Denmark, I just tried them they are fun.

The beginning can be easy mostly do to rebels surrounding you. Your first war will probably be with HRE so you have a nice large power to challenge you. They have some of best early infantry in game and even in mid game can go toe to toe with most as the AI rarely upgraded beyond armored sergants.

Your only decent calvary other then stardard knights will be whatever chapter house you get, Templar, Hosptalliers, etc.

As technology advances Denmark starts to fall behind so more challenges as time progresses.

Once gunpowder hits then things get interesting. :beam:

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Originally Posted by Polemists

I'd say try Denmark, I just tried them they are fun.

The beginning can be easy mostly do to rebels surrounding you. Your first war will probably be with HRE so you have a nice large power to challenge you. They have some of best early infantry in game and even in mid game can go toe to toe with most as the AI rarely upgraded beyond armored sergants.

Your only decent calvary other then stardard knights will be whatever chapter house you get, Templar, Hosptalliers, etc.

As technology advances Denmark starts to fall behind so more challenges as time progresses.

Once gunpowder hits then things get interesting. :beam:

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Tough fight for Denmark when going Vs Cavalry based Factions (I.E- Mongols/Timurids)