Best faction under AI control?

[Ironsword]

It struck me the other day that in the end game when there are two main powers remaining, - I routinely end up fighting the AI in the guise of the Spanish. - No matter what other faction I start as.

Is it just me or does the AI have differing success with different factions?

Anyways the question is I suppose, which faction do you routinely have to slog it out with at the end?

[Kamakazi]

yea the egyptians always get me. they might get destroyed but they always reappear to try to kill me off its not that their good its jus that they never stay dead!

[Brave]

The best factions will be the best under auto-resolve, this is what the ai uses to determine battle outcomes?

[Martok]

The Egyptians/Fatamids nearly always do well in my campaigns, dominating the eastern half of the map more often than not. The Byzantines, Spanish, and French are also usually pretty strong (although the Byz have a tendency to shrink and collapse later on under pressure from the Eggies). I've seen the Almos, Sicilians, and Novgorod get pretty big as well, depending on the circumstances.

[Youngie]

The Papacy by a country mile. Its the only faction that can keep on recurring no matter what. The fact they can also push other AI christian factions against you shows the power of this geographically small but powerful nemesis at best.

[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.

[Jxrc]

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.

Fair enough. As I wrote earlier, no big expert with the Turks. Perhaps it has to do with how fast you're able to get rid of the Egyptian. I've seen people claiming it could be done within a few turns after having taken the sultan prisoner a few time but I have never managed to do that

The two times I tried that, war with the Egyptian lasted quite a while and when I had finished the Egyptian I had an awful time against the Byz and catholic crusades and only managed a kind of stalemate .... Got to Constantinople in the beguinning of the high period ... Then the GH showed up ... then civil war ... then no more Turkish sultan (a sad story indeed )

[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

[Youngie]

.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

This has been the case in many of my encounters with the byz. They as well as egypt will always instigate a war, even if there is no feasible win for them in sight. Its almost as if they belive there a superior more capable force.

Playing as the polish has its advantages in the such short reach of Constantinople. My advice is unless you wanting to be excommunicated, head East.

[Kamakazi]

This has been the case in many of my encounters with the byz. They as well as egypt will always instigate a war, even if there is no feasible win for them in sight. Its almost as if they belive there a superior more capable force.

Playing as the polish has its advantages in the such short reach of Constantinople. My advice is unless you wanting to be excommunicated, head East.

Lol ive had the east for a long time i controll all of the stepps all of the middle east and all of the aftican privinces and one province into spain.

I have been heading west and now i own most of europe.... i got offered a 60% victory but i thought wut the heck why not go for it all.... the germans are all but dead so are the spanish the only real problem im gonna have is with the french..... I havent attacked the papacy yet but theyll be a push over.... Im lucky though that im even still alive with the GH commin at we in 3 provinces with 60-80k men in all we were having a good ol fight till i finally got them undercontrol and then killed....i tell u their units are too strong lol i attacked once with 3x their men and a better gen than them and they still won.....

Im building my navy up right now so i can take all the lil islands and win this beast...i dunno if im allowed but if n e one wanted it id give my ms name soo u can view my pics.....Am i allowed? lol

But yea it was a fun run into europe.

[bamff]

For mine, the factions that most usually morph into superpowers in AI hands are Spain and Sicily - and I always just figured that was down to favourable economic conditions.

The Byz and the Horde will both start strong but collapse...I don't know that I have ever seen either of these runners stay the course, so the key here is just to survive the initial onslaught.

The wild cards are definitely the Eggies and the Danes. When the AI gets these two cranking, it can be a steamroller all right!

My current XL campain as Serbia had an unusual twist - Spain was pretty dominant, then suddenly disappeared when the king died without an heir, leaving the balance of power poised between Sicily (controlling virtually the whole mediterranean, all of northern Africa, and most of the Middle East, and most of Britain, Serbia (me) with central europe and Iberia, and Denmark with most of Scandinavia and northern Europe, together with an ever increasing share of Eastern Europe (they are smashing the Horde).

The thing that intrigues me about AI superpowers is the huge numbers of troops that the AI maintains. Interestingly when I look at what they have in the above example, the Danes seem to be using almost all home grown types, whereas the Sicilians seem to have heaps of "bribed" troops from other factions on the roster....maybe Sicilian style, they "made them an offer that they couldn't refuse"....

[Heidrek]

I've had a couple of those suicide wars recently, where a faction has attacked me wtihout any realisitc chance of a win. First the English, who had a couple of provinces on either side of the channel, both of which bordered me, but had no navy at all to reinforce each other or retreat with.

They launched a half hearted attack on one province which I repelled pretty easily, and I proceeded to wipe them out in response. Two turns later no more english.

Next the Scottish thought they'd have a crack, attacking my navy, but not launching any land assault, giving me plenty of opportunity to prepare the borders. My navy regrouped and slaughtered theirs, while I beat back their single land attack next turn. Soon I'll take them to school. I expect the single province Irish will have a crack next.

Almo's seem to be carving up Iberia and becoming a real naval power now as well in this campaign.