Best faction under AI control?

[caravel]

All factions use the same AI, the difference is mainly down to starting positions and potential for income, including trade income. The Byzantine, Spanish and Egyptians have the best potential income to start with in the early era and are all in fairly strong starting positions. The unpredictable ones are the French, Almohads and Sicilians. Those are the factions that can suddenly get luck and take half of the map before you even realise it.

[Heidrek]

In VI the Vikings by a good margin, then the Saxons. In the regular campaign, the French seem to routinely be the power to beat.

I recently found out why I feared Huscarles so much. I figured it was just because I was new to the game before, then I fought a single battle that scared the crap out of me. I outnumbered and out gunned the enemy by a healthy margin.

Vikings attacked with a half strength Viking Landsmen, 2 units of Pesants, 2 units of Viking Thralls, and a single unit of Huscarles (the King, a 3* general).

Against them I had 2 units of Horsemen, 1 Spearmen, 1 Armoured Spearmen, another half strength AS, 2 Kerns, 2 Bonnachts and 1.5 units of Gallowglasses. Like Lambs to the slaughter I though and rubbed my hands together, anticipating the victory to come. Things got better when he sent his Huscarles off by themselves and sent his pesants, thralls and Landsmen into the teeth of my forces. They were quickly dispatched and routed. I made sure I kept a unit of Bonnachts and Kerns with full javelins for the Huscarles when the arrived.

The Huscrales arrived and literally tore me apart. I pelted them with Jav's, pinned them with the spears and proceeded to flanked them, charged them with Horsemen, Bonnacts and Gallowglasses from all sides and they STILL slaughtered me. The routed my entire army basically by themselves.

I watched in horror as my gallowglasses charged in from the flanks, and promptly started falling over dead! The spears collapsed and ran despie holding high ground. Armoured Spearmen arrived to reengage them and give my troops a chance to rally and hit the flanks again, but in moments they were down to 80 men, then 70, then 60 while the strike infantry finally arrived only to bounced off the Huscarles! The AS crumbled and fled - in desperation my Kerns general led a charge against the exposed viking flank. Soon the general was fleeing as well, and the Huscarles were still on 16 men.

huscarles mean business. Doesn't matter what you field against them, they will go through it. The only way I've found to deal with them effectively is to Javelin them to death. The image of my gallowglasses charging into the flank, and soon after fleeing for their lives will haunt me forever.

[Martok]

Yeah, Huscarles are definitely overpowered in the vanilla game. They're among a number of units whose stats will probably be overhauled in the Pocket Mod -- they need to be nerfed to at least a degree.

[Jxrc]

Usually in a campaign, the most successful AI managed factions are (early period):

- French (smash England and the HRE);
- Spanish (smash Elmos and Aragon);
- Byz (smash Turks and go wild in the steppes);
- Egypt (smash Turks).

For IA battles between Byz and Egyptians, my experience is that the outcome is greatly influenced by whether or not the Byz are able to ship troops across the Blakc Sea. If they can, they usually do well. I greatly prefer the Egyptians to be successful cause I kind of find them easier to beat than the Byz who can get almost unstoppable once they have grabbed the steppes and the entire Middle East

Of course, it all depends on which faction is managed by the player. If yiou select the Turks, one can hope that the Byz and Egyptians will not do too well ...

[Kamakazi]

Usually in a campaign, the most successful AI managed factions are (early period):

- French (smash England and the HRE);
- Spanish (smash Elmos and Aragon);
- Byz (smash Turks and go wild in the steppes);
- Egypt (smash Turks).

For IA battles between Byz and Egyptians, my experience is that the outcome is greatly influenced by whether or not the Byz are able to ship troops across the Blakc Sea. If they can, they usually do well. I greatly prefer the Egyptians to be successful cause I kind of find them easier to beat than the Byz who can get almost unstoppable once they have grabbed the steppes and the entire Middle East

Of course, it all depends on which faction is managed by the player. If yiou select the Turks, one can hope that the Byz and Egyptians will not do too well ...

Yes one can only hope the eggys or the byz dont ahaniallate you turkish force with a surprise attack and you lose.

lol

[drone]

Usually either the Spanish or Almohads do really well if left to their own devices for long. I usually try to get on the Iberian peninsula fairly early to prevent one of them from getting too large. In my current Danish campaign, I got side-tracked into central Europe, now the Spanish have the whole peninsula plus north Africa all the way to Cyrenicia. I'm allied with them at the moment, but I can't let them go for much longer, I already see stacks of Jinettes growing.

[Jxrc]

[QUOTE=Kamakazi]Yes one can only hope the eggys or the byz dont ahaniallate you turkish force with a surprise attack and you lose.[QUOTE]

No big expert with the Turks but it always seemed to me that blitzing the Byz ASAP is the only viable option. If let alone too long they will produced loads of slavs warriors who, together with the odd Byz Inf and Vagarian Guard, will be difficult to stop. On the other hand if backstabbed by the Egyptian after the Byz have been dealt with or minimised, you still have a good chance to prevail if they still fied too many peasants and camels for their own good (once they spam saracen infantry and leave their expert attacker general in charge, you are in for a much tougher fight).

[Martok]

Actually, the conventional wisdom is that it's usually better for the Turks to take out the Eggies first, and *then* turn on the Byz. Egyptian units aren't as tough as the Byzantines', in addition to which taking their lands will increase your income that much faster as well. I've not played as the Turks very much myself, but the vast majority of people who do tend to have better luck if they eliminate their fellow Muslims before going after the Greeks.

[Kamakazi]

[QUOTE=Jxrc][QUOTE=Kamakazi]Yes one can only hope the eggys or the byz dont ahaniallate you turkish force with a surprise attack and you lose.

No big expert with the Turks but it always seemed to me that blitzing the Byz ASAP is the only viable option. If let alone too long they will produced loads of slavs warriors who, together with the odd Byz Inf and Vagarian Guard, will be difficult to stop. On the other hand if backstabbed by the Egyptian after the Byz have been dealt with or minimised, you still have a good chance to prevail if they still fied too many peasants and camels for their own good (once they spam saracen infantry and leave their expert attacker general in charge, you are in for a much tougher fight).

this is a lil off topic but i was playing a polish campain this weekend and i let the byz live in like 3 provences and i went around them into africa and the like. I controlled all of russia also. I let them live though and they decided to attack me and break our alliance.....sucked to be them they were gone in 2-3 turns...lololol