Hardest Faction

Now that people have had the game for a little while I would interested to hear which AI faction they believe to be the hardest to achieve a win in a full campaign on vh/vh?

I have completed campaigns with Scotland and Russia and currently am finishing off as Denmark. I don't want to suggest by this post that I think the game is easy. I have had to do a lot of thinking in my campaigns and have been so absorbed I played until ungodly hours of the night, then dreamed of strategic solutions to my campaign problems. Kudos to the developers. I think this is the best Total War game yet and I am well satisfied with the way I spent my $50.

I have found Russia to be the hardest so far. I was cash poor until the end and the empire is geographically enormous which makes for difficulties fighting on more than one front. But the power of their missile cavalry and their ability to move quickly over the long distances in that part of the map really helped.

Scotland I found fairly straightforward. I captured the Rebel provinces quickly, then England, France, Denmark etc. The AI didn't do much to attack the British Isles and let me build up high end units and a good economy. Russia on the other hand the AI never left alone.

Denmark I think has strong infantry units and basically I am attacking my neighbors with good effect. It is a familiar area of the map however after playing the other two above-named factions and I feel like a change in geography.

So now I am looking for a new challenge so please post your suggestions?

I haven't played Poland, but it appears to be in a very tough map position. It borders the Danes, the HRE, Hungary and Russia.

I've never played either, but I'd think either the Holy Roman Empire or Russia. HRE suffers from being surrounded and inland. You'll almost certainly be at war with all of your neighbors at times, and frequently at the same time. Couple that with potential lack of sea trade and the economy suffers. Russia has a weak starting position, vast stretches of territory that must be covered by armies and patrolled to put down rebels/heretics, poor economy, and the possibility of the Mongols, Timurids, or both putting in an appearance.

Does HRE get favorable treatment by the Pope? Less chance of excommunication etc?

Ive played 8 factions so far and the most difficult and most fun is The Turks, its easy at the start if you play them right but so far ive had both the Mongols and the Timurids as well as the Egyptians come after me and that is hard, having both Hordes coming after you aint easy heh.

I don't think that would make much historical sense. I believe the Emporer and Pope began feuding almost immediatley after the Emporer was first crowned. And then there's the whole investiture controversy thingy, involving Pope Gregory VII and Emporer Henry IV. Funny stuff, that.

It's the complete opposite actually. The HRE is currenty huffing with the Papacy because around the time of game start (1080) the Vatican retracted the Holy Roman Emperor's power to appoint the new Pope and created the College of Cardinals to do it instead. So they're currently not on speaking terms, and the HRE starts off with the least crosses on the pope-o-meter.

I agree with Russia being the hardest, especially if you're doing the long campaign since you'll be facing both mongols and timurids
scotland i found to be too easy. england is dumb enough to actually not take any of the rebel settling until later on and by then i'm sieging london and northtumbria
danemark is probably the easiest faction yet. great units and nobobody tries to claim your scandinavian lands.

as for what's hard I think turkey has a challenge in the beginning and later in the game, but the mid part is quite easy
you get to face timurids and mongols, even though your units are slightly better than Russians, but you definitely don't get enough funding
janissaries and best muskets in the game also make it a bit easier when fighting other factions

HRE is in disadvantage through the entire campaign, so they're quite difficult as well. you don't have professional armies either and you're literally surrounded by enemies.
poland is usually the most trouble for HRE, but everyone, including venice and milan want a piece of you, especially if you happen to have bad relationships with the pope.
being on a good side of a catholic church was the only way I could sort of kick ass

finally portugal i think faces some difficulties during the entire campaign. you really have to take care of spain fast or they'll crush you like a bug. they have better units (apart from having same units as you) and are richer than you. but it's only one real enemy because moors don't usually cause much fuss

also i've noticed in every campaign i play portugal is the first to go all the time, so I'd say try Portugal on VH VH for a nice challenge
if you feel like they're pushing you off the continent, hold on till you can swim away to the carribean:) you have like the most direct route there from your lands

Venice is fun, especially in a long game (turn = 0.75 or similar).

Milan, Hungary, Sicily, HRE and Byzies were all at war with me from about year 3.... If i hadnt managed to get on the right side of the pope RIGHT at the start (vh/vh) I'dve been toast.... only some highly strategic Crusading saved me.

High dependence on towns and militia made it entirely different to England and clones.

England is by far the easiest due to the security of the UK and the inevitable *sit behind stakes and pummel the enemy with longbows* tactics. Maybe when the passive AI is done for this might change.

England should be MUCH harder than it is, and the French more aggressive.
I find the Danes become dominant in almost every game in the far north europe. HRE gets creamed every time (so far).

In the longer games those factions with the better late period units struggle more at the beginning as you can find yourself at 1150 or so with many of the buildings max'd for the time and then a long wait using those units until gunpowder arrives.

Which can be very good fun - you certainly get far more respect for castles when you know the best weapon you will get for another 200 odd turns is still the trebuchet and getting those to work against a level 1 upgraded castle isnt easy.

Edit - i've tried playing at 1.0 but its too quick, 0.5 is a bit slow, so plumped for 0.75 atm which seems good so far... cant remember the number of turns offhand and dont even think about age-per-turn.

I saw a poll on this at the Total War center and out of like 140 or so votes, the HRE was voted hardest by like 100 of those. I haven't played them yet, but if its anything like the original, I'm sure they're the hardest by far.

By the way, you should make this into a poll.

I'd say the ERE or the Turks. Their position makes them prime targets for everyone. Plus they are both directly in the cross hairs of the Mongols and Timurids.

im playing the HRE and so far so good. It really depends on who attacks you, and WHEN. One gripe is there special units dont come untill its at a point where you dont need them, there for even though they are supurior to other late infantry.

I still think the hardest faction would be egypt or turkey. They go through alot and havent many late unit options.

Played England VH/VH. Walk in the park.

Currently playing HRE VH/VH. It's tricky, but I'm getting there - usually have at least one city under siege every turn, am at war with France, Sicily, Venice, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Egypt (crusaded to Jerusalem...) And I've been excommunicated. My battles are largely being fought with low level militia units.

In short, HRE as hardest +1 vote.

I've found that the HRE and Turkey are two of the hardest factions to play as.

If you're the HRE you can end up at war with France, Milan, Venice, Poland, Hungray, Denmark at once :dizzy2: this is a horrid experence if you're not the pope's little buddy. They also have to fight many different types of armies ranging from meele cav armies, the italian armies, archer cav armies, and infantry strong armies.

I kinda like Turkey's position at the start of the game, in a corner with only Byz, Egypt, and Russia to fight. This becomes a problem when the hordes come... :no:

HRE is up there, but hungry dosn't have much going for it, its got russia and poland plus ities and the rest below.... id say Portugal is in a bit of a sticky situation as well.

turkey and poland have been mentioned but neither are particularly hard.

poland have prbably the best pound for pound unit in the game with their nobles.

with the turks their early game is quite challenging, where you will be fighting the egyptians and byzantines. if you take them out earlly on then you are sitting in a fairly nice position. their horse archers are excellent against european armies. yes there are the mongols, but you should have a long time to prepare for them and at any rate can complete before they arrive.

i havent played as the hre yet but i am guessing they are the hardest, at the very least they always seem to do the worst when the ai is control of them, wheras with other factions there is some variation in which come out on top.

milans options for expansion seem limited earlly on as well so i imagine they are reasonably hard.

Without modding, the Mongols arrive by around turn 67. I'd say that's pretty early. You'll be lacking a lot of the good Turkish units by then.

I think anything in the east is pretty hard because of the Mongols. They arrive midway through your teching up to get the units that can really stand toe to toe with them.

Aside from that, HRE is the hardest because of how many nations surround them and how little coastline they have at the start. The only good noncoast province is Vienna, which is really good for a landlocked province. It's giving me 4k+ every turn, compared to Venice's 6k.

venice has good units but i have a hard time starting out w/ them.

I dont think there is a really "hard" faction... I guess maybe Russia but its still completely doable...
Russia starts out well... all those rebel factions make easy territories.

I'll bet the Portugese have a hard time. I am doing a Russia VH/VH and I can tell you, it is hard trying to manage such a large empire with so little money (Take Stockholm).
The Hungarians seem hard to play as and later on, the Byzantines will have a really rough time seeing as they get outclassed.

What about Sicily?

Seems to me like Sicily is in the worst geographical position to conquer anything.

I haven't played the HRE but my pick is for turks or poland. I've played russia and even though money is tight you still have an edge of the map to protect so aren't surrouned. Poland are :(. Turks have to deal with crusades/a tough spot and multiple invasions.

HRE, hands down. It shows in the fact that they are always the first faction out in any campaign.

You start out in woeful disfavor with the pope, you have a crappy economy, and are surrounded on all sides by much larger and richer opponents. Once someone attacks you, usually everyone else follows suit.

The first time I played HRE I found them very hard. I didn't expand enough in the first twenty turns, taking only Metz, Hamburg and the city of Venice. Eventually I ended up bogged down in a war with everyone besides Hungary, the main issue being the constant attacks by Venice (the faction), Milan and Sicily on Bologna and the city of Venice. The second time I played HRE (on very hard/ very hard) they were actually easy because I had a clear plan of what to do in the first twenty turns- I expanded to grab Hamburg, Bern, Metz, Bruges, Antwerp, Prague, Stettin, and Magdeburg, I withdrew my garrison from Bologna, demolished the buildings, upped the taxes and let it fall to rebels (this was partly what allowed me to grab Bern), and converted Staufen to a city. The result was that I had income generating cities in Germany, Austria and the Low Countries, protected from my main enemies on the northern and southern frontiers by castles, and because I had gotten rid of Bologna all the Italian factions fought amongst themselves rather than fighting me. If I had wanted I could probably have grabbed Breslau and Dijon as well, and made more cash off Bologna by selling it. On paper the HRE's starting position is weak but the opportunities for expansion are considerable and with only your starting garrisons and some mailed knights and mercenary spearmen and crossbowmen you can very easily become the largest and richest faction, and once you asume that position my experience is that the AI factions will prefer to attack each other, unless you make yourself a pariah by attacking them first. If you bungle your way through an HRE campaign leaving it as a disjointed faction which is large but has obvious weaknesses then yes, all the AI factions will attack you and eventually your position will become intractable, but play the early game well and you can avoid that. If you don't play as HRE then obviously they will be the first faction down in the any campaign because the AI isn't smart enough to convert their weak position into one of strength.

In a long campaing, Egypt must be fairly hard too. They have lots and lots of crummy units, their best infantry are 2H axemen who will not try and hit horses (OK, that's a bug, but still :laugh4: ), and you'll have to fend with both lots of crusaders AND the Mongols/Timurid by the time you're done. And, you know, the über-Turks too. They are also completely inadequate in the gunpowder era, be it arty-wise or musket-wise...

Sure, they have on of the best starting positions and roll in the dough pretty early, but that only goes so far.

Poland is actually not that hard. If you manage to get a wall of castles to the West early on (Szekelzln (can't remember the name, that 0% christian castle next to Hamburg),Magdeburg, Vienna) and keep them properly garrisoned you'll be able to fend off anything thrown at you from your Christian side, meaning you only have to worry about your Russian front, and seaborne invasions into your city-heavy heartlands.
Plus of course, Poland has awesome units (mounted Polish nobles are just sick, dismounted ones are very solid spearmen very early, Lithuanian archers have stakes, good horse archers to give you the range the Lithuanians footmen don't have... all in all, a solid roster)

I have played with about 6 different factions so far and some of them more than once. So I'll weigh in with my opinions. Sicily has a very, very easy start, and has an excellent position to expand anywhere in the Med. Milan is also somewhat easy because of the insane amounts of money they generate. I also think Milan has solid units too.

Denmark is pretty easy too, but you have to be careful where you expand to. I played some with Portugal and they were very easy in my campaign as well.

I'm currently playing as the Byzantines (for the 2nd time) and I have almost all of Asia Minor. The Byzantines are not easy at all. Thier units are ok, but they are between Islam and the crusading Catholics. Plus, everyone wants Constantinople. I'm sure there are harder factions, but this one isn't easy. They are definantly the hardest one I have played as so far.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by popemobile

What about Sicily?

Seems to me like Sicily is in the worst geographical position to conquer anything.

---

I've had endless bother with Sicily on vh/vh. Just could not get started... wherever you try to expand to you get attacked by superior naval and land armies, inevitably all at once. Had the Byzantines, the Moors, the Venetians and the Germans all at war with me, and no navy to connect Tunisia, Albania, Corsica and Sardinia (the obvious starting provinces to take) to my main two provinces.

Had more luck with Milan (my current game) as the start is made easier by their good cashflow. Once you secure the Italian peninsula plus Venice you're up and running.

What I did with Sicily (with success) was take Sardina and Corsica first. Next, take some, if not all of the Italian peninsula. By this time you should be making good money. After that, I built up some sizeable naval forces so I could transport my troops to North Africa. This next thing is somthing I do on all campaigns; go to the Moors and buy Timbuktu off of them, the gold and Ivory down there for merchants is insane. Merchants in Timbuktu can get you up to 3000 florins per turn. After that, I suppose its your choice.

"They are also completely inadequate in the gunpowder era, be it arty-wise or musket-wise"

Don't Sudanese Gunners have an attack value two points higher than basic European Arquebusiers?

I just started the HRE campaing on vh/vh. Doesn't seem to be much of a challenge to me.

I started the came by capturing all the rebel camps I could reach. The only one I could not get was Bern. Milan took it. I also send diplomats to all directions and made alliances, trade rights and traded maps. I added regular tribute to all deals so that the proposition was balanced. This gave me huge amounts of starting money.

Now I am on 20th turn. I haven't lost single town or castle and I am only at war with Venice. I have taken the city of venice and one other town from them. If I recall correctly I now have 16 regions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furious Mental

"They are also completely inadequate in the gunpowder era, be it arty-wise or musket-wise"

Don't Sudanese Gunners have an attack value two points higher than basic European Arquebusiers?

---

Sudanese Gunners? It musn't get any stranger than that!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furious Mental

Don't Sudanese Gunners have an attack value two points higher than basic European Arquebusiers?

---

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KARTLOS

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:

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.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vonsch

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.

---

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.

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

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sabutai

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,

---

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.

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.

Quote:

---

Russia isn't hard. Missile cav units keep your kill ratio high so you don't need to replace units as much.

---

Dosen't work well vs. the mongols as most of their forces are eithier mounted or foot archers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carl

Dosen't work well vs. the mongols as most of their forces are eithier mounted or foot archers.

---

Convert Sarkel into a Castle early on and just hide there. It should be a Fortress or Citadel by the time they come, and with 3 rings of walls you can't lose.

Quote:

---

Convert Sarkel into a Castle early on and just hide there. It should be a Fortress or Citadel by the time they come, and with 3 rings of walls you can't lose.

---

That depends, I suspect the buffed Mongols from My Rebuild-ProblemFixer will blow many nice holes in your walls without significant issues:laugh4:.

I don't find it very reassuring to have my whole Mongol defence based around having the ai attack Sarkel and not jsut move to anther city. There are a few good bridge and river crossing spots that are good for camping when facing the mongols though

free armies for several turns who if you have aimed jihad/ crusade properly mean 4-5 cities taken (more money) and reserves transported massive distance make muslim factions very easy (i play vh/vh. currently moors and black death about to start i own to stockholkm north ans constantinople east)
i plan to wipe out every catholic faction and see if pope can respawn with no priests left aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...sorry better now) catholic not quite as easy to start crusade but still get big help from these. just remember that it is not the crusade target that matters but how many cities on the way you get. anyway means that orthodox faction will be harder. not trried russia yet but for me byzantium was hardest. HRE second for me so far.
moors seem easiest since england. that free merchant money rocks (timbuctoo) and the mongels will soon meet my stack of camel gunners that i am making as a special gift just for them

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carl

Dosen't work well vs. the mongols as most of their forces are eithier mounted or foot archers.

---

I think you'll still be losing fewer troops compared to fighting them as non-missile heavy factions, though.

I was remarking on the comment that you could use missile cav to beat your oponnents with minimal losses. Of course it's easier as a missile heavy faction.

I haven't found Turky too bad as long as you Jihad Jerusalem and take Acre, Antioch, and Aleppo. Do that in the early turns and you'll roll in the money.

I haven't played them but Hungary looks to have a pretty bad unit roster and a bad position.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Carl

I was remarking on the comment that you could use missile cav to beat your oponnents with minimal losses. Of course it's easier as a missile heavy faction.

---

My point still stands, though. I was remarking that you take fewer losses as a missile cav specialized faction than a standard one. Against the Mongols, you won't take minimal losses, but you'll still be taking fewer losses than a standard faction.

I've played English, Scottish, Danes, Russia, Moors, Portugal and HRE (not in that orer, but still).
Danes I played using the Lands to Conquer Mod, the others with Vanilla M2TW.

Of these, I found Russia the hardest. I actually quit the game after running into massive debt!
Big provinces which take long to cross, almost no income in the beginning plus I'm used to Infantry-heavy armies and simply wasn't used to rely on massive HA instead.

They did have some cool units, though. I'll need to start up a second Russia campaign once the next patch hits. That should keep me busy till the expansion comes out ;)