Sudanese Gunners? It musn't get any stranger than that!Quote:
Originally Posted by Furious Mental
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Sudanese Gunners? It musn't get any stranger than that!Quote:
Originally Posted by Furious Mental
Sure, but they're still Arquebusiers, not Musketeers, and there's a sharp drop off there... which is not compensated by having anti-troops arty like ribaults, mortars, rockets or serpentines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Furious Mental
I played thje HRE and I would not say that they are extremly hard to play. Good units...with a little bit of diplomacy you can go pretty far. Don´t care about the pope too much in the beginning.
Right now I am playing the Turks [as a lot of people after the HRE I guess]. Damm they are hard for me....I guess I was too slow in expanding in the beginning and bamm....there goes the Near East [except Aleppo] , invaded by Hordes and them Egypts. Byzant is constantly under attack by their former owners plus freaking crusader armies [who ain´t too much of a deal for Siphai armies].
Well, Cypress is still mine besides Asia Minor & 2 provinces over in Greece. But I can´t see my Turkish brothers on the road to victory these days [and it is already tunr 110]. 2nd wave of Mongols approaching and I didn´t even see the Timurid forces yet...but they are about to come I guess.
Venice is pretty much up there too IMO. The only real thing they have going for them is good militia inf. (Italian militia spearmen). For the rest, being hemmed in between the Milan (one of the most agressive factions), the HRE (it usually defends their Italian possesion quite fiercely), the Hungarians and the powerfull Byzantines. Furthermore, Sicily and the Papacy are closeby, so advancing down the Italian peninsula is not easy, and naval is a must if one wants to ship troops fast between the Balkans and Italy. And keeping your navy in one piece costs a lot of florins.
And more: Advancing into the HRE is made harder by the Alps. You have to use the mountain passes, which could be handy when defending, but are a pain when advancing (every other army there blocks your advance). The North Italian Valleu is spread with rivers, making it hard to transport troops, wchich can be blocked at the few crossings/bridges. It's really, really crowded there, éven when you are NOT at war with Milan or the HRE (and that will happen more soon than late). War with the Byzantines ánd Milan/HRE is not what you want in the early stages. And it happens quick.
Last: Logical expansion would be eastward, if you want to avoid war with HRE/Milan and Sicily (allthough seeing Milan, that is virtually impossible), or in the least want more assets in order to fight them better, but besides that there's Hungary and the Byzantines to fight, the lands in the Balkan are rather shitty. Hilly, with select river ans mountain passes, large tracts of lands and thus large supply lines make campaigning there very difficult.
At least playing Milan has one advantage. you won't be fighting the IMO most aggressive faction in Europe. And you have less neighbours, at least until you reach the Iberian Peninsula.
I've only played with England, Spain and Byzantium. Of these, the Byzantines are 10X harder than the Spaniards and 20X harder than the English. The Turks - you'll own them quickly as the Byz anyway - are not going to be an adequate buffer for the horde and the Egyptians get creamed very early - horde time. The Mongols are (even though not "a walk in the park") manageable, but the Timurids ain't. They steamroll over anything the Byzantines can throw at them.
Byzantium has two other great problems:
- Their unit roster SUCKS. They have awfully underpowered units and any small-time catholic faction (and even the orthodox Russians) are far, far, FAR superior. The only half-decent Byzantine unit are the Vardariots and they are toast when they face advanced western units.
- Despite the facts about the wealth of the East, the Byzans generate far less money than, say, the English isles. THat's simply ridiculous.
I think the hardest factions must be the Egyptians, HRE and Turks, and Byz should be right after them. The easiest probably are England and Spain... and if the AI behaviour is any indication, Denmark too (they expand like crazy).
I've played part of the campaign with the English but started another campaign with the Venetians--it was really easy to play as the English...
I like the fact that as Venice, you don't start off with a huge amount of land and basically have to start building your power through economy. I'm on turn 50 and have 6 coastal territories under my belt, at war with the Sicilians and the Byzantines (their cavalry pummeled me several times and prevented me from expanding further into their empire). I can't really go up north into HRE yet because my economy isn't strong enough to support a big enough army to take on HRE's empire (and the Germans managed to grow a strong relationship with the Pope) and I can't further destabilize rest of the Italian peninsula by starting a fight with the Milanese because they have the French backing them--I'd be letting the flood gates open if I did that. Good times. Good times.
BTW, why isn't Venice a real island in the game? Also, my Italian generals sound like they're Spanish--what the heck?!?
im playing as the russians and i would say they are probably my harderst campagin so far. i havent suffered too many setbacks, but i am expanding much slower than in previous campaigns.
two main reasons for this - russia is massive it takes ages to move around
no crusades- the lack of cheap mercs or movement bonuses means it takes you longer to get momentum.
in my last three (long) campaigns i was able to complete before the mongols arrived, i seriously doubt that i will be able to do that this time so i am hoping they come my way and expecting an interesting challenge.
Oh, they won´t disappoint you. They are a challenging bunch of arrow spraying invaders :jawdrop:Quote:
Originally Posted by KARTLOS
I've only done a Spanish campaign and part of a Byz one, but the Byz are so much harder. Jihads flying one way, Crusades flying the other, the threat of the Mongols, and a need to fight in the east and west as well as not having too much cash (I don't understand this) make the Spanish a walk in the park.
Right now I'm holding Ragusa\Budapest\Iasi as my western frontier, and trying to expand aggressively east (there are just not the forces to deal with the Turks\Egytpians and push into crowded central Europe).
I am looking at making my second campaign a much more challenging one.
Anyone have any updated thoughts on this topic?
Bah, the Russians were fairly straightforward, and I thought moderately easy. I love thier units. Cossack musketeers must be the best units in the game, bar none. And they're reletively cheap and easy to produce, so, score one for the Russkies.
I too thought Venice was tough. And the Byz. I never got a good game to take off with either of those two nations.
Venice is the only campaign I have ever actually lost in any TW game. The first time I played it I simply got destroyed. With hindsight I was able to win my second Venetian campaign without too much trouble, but that doesn't change the fact that the first attempt was a loss.
Venice may face a lot of factions, but they've got a strong economy and great troops from the cities with small amount of teching. They can pump strong militia armies quickly to counter enemy invasion.
Poland faces many factions, but as said earlier on this thread, they have the Polish Nobles, which are especially useful agaisnt the early Danes. Being an inland nation with somewhat poor cities to start with, expanding either to the Southwest or Northwest will soon yield some good income cities (Vienna or the Danish ones), so getting a strong foothold as the Poles is quite easy. And once you tech up a castle to churn out Lithuanian cavalry, which coupled with Polish Nobles will eat the AI's militia armies for breakfast.
Those are the two (VH/VH) campaigns I've played, and both have been very challenging at times, especially the Polish one where staying ahead of the finances needed some careful planning. With Venice losing troops wasn't significant, as rebuilding them was always quite easy, so Venice can probably be turned into an invincible state pretty quickly
I'd imagine HRE being quite difficult, with the castles lining the Southern part, and under pressure from 6 directions at the same time. Perhaps giving up some regions to the South and taking some to the North would create a strong nation able to defend itself against multiple enemies, and able to creep along the coast.
Expanding as the Turks takes time, but the Turkish homelands (I mean the modern day Turkey) can be a boon for a defender as well.
Hungarians have their great castle surrounded by mountains to fall back to if everything seems to work against them, accompanied with large plains to play with the Hungarian nobles (the HA unit, you know what I mean).
M2TW is an interesting game to be sure, with most of the starting positions giving many possible approaches.
its simple, russia or the turks
poland could be a distant thrird but they have fairly early cav that are godly
NOTHING is equal to having both mongols at your door during the course of your campaign, nothing.
plus they have shit for early economy unless you try to blitz very early and then manage to tech up, while both have the same problems of the same fairly rich enemies early
personally i think spain is the hardest, consolidating the iberian penn is hard when milan and scily both go for valencia and zaragoza. then you have france attack you when you are about to go on the offensive against hte moors. portugal will back stab you or get to powerful. the 2 things spain has going for them are jinettes these guys are a lifesaver and the fact that if you take the 2 reb provs and upgrade to so they make money you can pull in near 3000 a turn, very helpful when you att the moors or portugal
Only played three campaigns so far - The Turks, HRE, and Moors, won with the first two. I found the HRE the hardest, and here's why.
I can't comprehend how the Turks can get on a 'hardest factions' list. They have a tough position but their units make the campaign so much smoother. Their horse archers are cheap and have low support costs but can easily defeat much heavier and more expensive knights when massed. Most importantly, they have lots of very strong city units, being able to field everything you'll need but Qapukulu there. This way, you can quickly and easily respond to a crusade or a new declaration of war. Basically, once you take Constantinople and knock the Byzantines out of Asia and kill off the Egyptians, you've already won. Good units, rich provinces...not a difficult campaign in my opinion. Luckily, the Mongols arrived at Sarkel and advanced far west to Kiev and settled in eastern Europe, giving the Catholics and Russians problems, which made things much easier. I won before the Timurids showed up, so I've never actually seen them before.
The HRE have given me the hardest time. Besides being my first catholic faction and therefore the first time I've had to deal with the pope, they start out completely surrounded with poor provinces and mediocre units. The greatest difficulty with the HRE is the utter lack of any redeemable city units whatsoever. I have to rely on mercenaries to defend my border cities because their city units are so useless, except maybe Forlorn Hope, which have too few men per unit to defend gates or walls well. All the expensive mercenaries nearly bankrupted me multiple times, so it's hard to balance your economy with defending your cities.
Still, I didn't find them exceptionally difficult. There were no "oh crap, this is over" points throughout my campaign. The HRE are all about steamrolling and (ironically) blitzkrieging everyone as quickly as possible. I found the hardest aspect of playing the HRE was balancing defending your cities, your advancing armies, bribing the pope to like you, and your economy without going bankrupt. Basically, as long as you focus on throwing everything you have in one direction and building a Siegfried Line along all the others, you'll be fine.
I would have to say Spain is the one that has given me the most fits...I bet i started and restarted that campaign 2 dozen times before i just gave up
really? i think spain is one of the easiest, it just stinks the early battles with rabble armies vs portugal and almohads you have to endure from turn 1, but you can wipe both off the land in a dozen turns
i am not a fan of horse archers, i find them tedious to play with...like trying to keep a herd of cats in good order :dizzy2: why i have trouble with turks...i prefer to field mostly infantry/missle armies
Try Spain in VH/VH they are closeset to the new world but they start with really small and weak reigons and have to fight the moors who attack them aslot need to fight portugal and france from the begining also when i played the knights of santiago came in a late part of the game.
block the land bridge, wipe portugal in the first turns, then just zerg almos with militia and jinettes...easy peasy, i always send my first diplomat to france and make an alliance, i use lusteds mod which uses ultimate AI...so people keep alliances for the most part
I started out as Spain. The game is over even though I have only half the holdings I need to win. It is just me steamrolling the rest.
Since I was Catholic this time I think I would like to go with a different religion.
So I think I am looking at Russia, Turks, or Byzantium. Which of those will present the greatest challenge?
i think russia, then turkey, turkey is hardest if you are using 2.0 timescale
the date in the corner starts to look like a doomsday clock
All of the eastern factions are cavalry based - each one of them has the units to let you form a credible force of all-cavalry armies. Since cavalry is so powerful in M2, I can't imagine any of these factions being difficult, unless the Mongols or Timurids show up next to you. That tends to happen to Russia a lot in my experience.
Russia is just huge. Logistics is a major issue there. The easy kazaks really help though. If you can run HA armies, you can do just fine. But it gets tedious trying to keep the rebel spawn down, and takes literally decades to get towers up everywhere to keep and eye on things. And heretics! Argh.
And if you like tidy little wars one at a time... skip Russia. With a front the spans the whole breadth of the map from early on, such luxuries are rare. The steppes are infertile compared to many areas too, and the cities are a long ways apart.
So, while it's not "hard" as in impossible, it's painful in mainy ways, and I find it hard to hang in there with. Turkey and Egypt are much easier, though they both have some distances to deal with also.
Mostly I suspect "different" is more of an issue than hard. People whole play infantry find any eastern cavalry (and especially HA) based faction hard... and vice versa. People who are used to compact little areas of intense combat activity find moving for a decade for one battle hard. And vice versa. But it's those differences that keep it interesting.
Yes, I don't think Russia is so much "hard" as "slow". You can field nice cheap HA armies, but it takes along time to get much of anything done due to distance and poor economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by vonsch
I probably had more trouble getting the Moors going than the Russians. They also have a big area to cover and a limited economy, but they don't get kazaks (their jav cav aren't as efffective or as cheap) and while I'm working on Spain, Portugal and France I have been naval invaded by half the world - Scotland, England, Venice, Milan, Sicily, the Pope.
i dont see how anybody sees moors, spain or portugal as hard factions, they are all the same as england wipe up enemies in 15 to 20 turns and you are in an easily defensed position, if your spain or portugal u can easily take the moors at your leasure after you take the pennisula, all you gotta do is block the land bridge and the stupid moor AI just stands there with a stack and wont move with ships to boot you out
On VH/VH as Moors I had Sicily and Milan land near attack Algiers around Turn 5 or 6. Eventually I beat them back and was able to take Tunisia, but this city has been irresistible to the AI. Sicily, Milan, Venice, the Pope and even the Byzantines have landed armies there. I have a screenshot of 5 different enemy armies all hanging around my one province.Quote:
Originally Posted by sabutai
On the Iberian peninsula, I dispatched with Spain early - turn 10 or so, and had Portugal gone by turn 25 or so. Around the time I was finishing off Portugal, I got full stack invasions from Scotland and England near Leon and France near Zaragoza. By the time I got these situations under control finished off El Cid and got an army down to Timbuktu and started expanding outside Iberia into France, it was past turn 40. 15 or so provinces around turn 45 is a pretty slow start for me.
Now, though, it should be pretty easy. But that's true of any faction at this point. I would only gauge difficulty by how hard it is to get to the point where you can steamroll whomever you choose.
Well, I admit that I've only recently started playing on the higher difficulty settings, but so far the only campaign that's given me trouble (after I got over the learning curve of never having played a Total War game) is my M/M Russia game. Now, this was my first time encountering the Mongols, and I've gotten better since then, but it's the only campaign where I've given up on winning. I was able to fend off the Mongol's without too much trouble (only lost Vulga-Bulger for a few turns), but it took me so long that within ten turns of dispatching the Mongols the Timurids showed up in my lands. I suppose I might have been able to fend them off with a war of attrition similar to how I beat the Mongols, but the time it was over I wouldn't have the time left to win. By contrast even my H/H HRE campaign or my current VH/VH Denmark campaign are both going a lot smoother.
By contrast, I haven't had the same problem encountering the Mongols/Timurids as either Egypt or the Turks because they have a lot more stable economic base, as well as more defensible borders, by the time the Mongols/Timurids appear.
Russia isn't hard. Missile cav units keep your kill ratio high so you don't need to replace units as much. It's just annoying with all the brigands spawning. During the middle, I just kept stacks of 2-3 heirs/named generals roaming my early cities and autoresolve brigand fights while my real armies are on my borders.
Dosen't work well vs. the mongols as most of their forces are eithier mounted or foot archers.Quote:
Russia isn't hard. Missile cav units keep your kill ratio high so you don't need to replace units as much.