England or Scotland?

[HopAlongBunny]

In MTW/VI (w/o mods) Longbowmen/Billmen are English only; Sherwood Foresters are Welsh only(VI).
Mods may change that line up; I assume you are playing a modded campaign if you are concerned about the French and are looking at playing the Scots.

The French are almost assured of attacking you. If you let them take Flanders_Wessex is too tempting a target; if you take Flanders it is too rich for them to ignore. If you remain strong enough, you may get a sort of "armed neutrality" for a good long time, with minor transgressions here and there. If the French get tied up in a war with the HRE, you may even get an alliance, A friendly Pope might keep the peace by threatening excomm.

A strong fleet may also keep anyone from attacking you. I know some mods remove the "land bridge" between Flanders/Wessex; if this is the case, problem solved

If you've never played the English up to Longbow/Bills do it! The units are simply too good to be true. In a mod they may be more balanced, but I'm willing to bet they still give a good account of themselves.

Enjoy!

[caravel]

I believe chris34au is playing XL or XL/Tyberius so I will add the XL tag to this thread.

[I of the Storm]

Sherwood Forresters hide anywhere (you don't have to do anything) as long as they're stationary IIRC.

If you haven't played England yet, then go for England first. Mighty fun, especially in the high era.

[chris34au]

my bad. i'm playing XL with the Tyberius patch. the only province that i have on continental Europe is Normandy. i think i'll just try to make sure that Normandy's well defended and hope that discourages France from trying to start a war for awhile, or maybe they'll get hung up in a war with Germany and be too preoccupied with them to worry about me. i just don't want to get bored with the campaign before the high era starts and it seems like it'd be pretty boring if France is eliminated early.

[Roark]

Sherwood Foresters are Welsh only(VI).

I think you're thinking of Welsh Bandits, dude... (VI campaign)

Sherwood Foresters are trainable by multiple factions in Mercia in the various Medieval campaigns.