The faction you could never handle

[Gilrandir]

In all my years of campaigning I have tried almost all factions in MTW proper and VI (not the Polish though, but they are on my to-do list one of these days). The only faction that I never could see through is Northumbrians. Started playing them 4 or 5 times - lost all of them. Sometimes the neighbors strangled me, other times neigbors and a civil war did me in; in my last campaign it was two civil wars combined with encroaching Saxons and Irish. The faction seems cursed.

Others are welcome to share their bitter experience and offer (and hope to get) advice on how to break the spell.

[Trapped in Samsara]

Hi

I never manged to get anywhere with Aragon in Early. Too small and too many predatory neighbours.

Best regards
V

Sapere aude
Horace

[Gilrandir]

Hi

I never manged to get anywhere with Aragon in Early. Too small and too many predatory neighbours.

Best regards
V

Sapere aude
Horace

Playing Aragon I usually tried to capture Navarra at once, and then Valencia with El Cid. It is true, though, that I started in High.

[Age]

The Welsh,Scottish,French,Polish and Egypt.

[LordK9]

In VI, for me, it was the Mercians. The Saxons have better units at the beginning and they'd snuff me out in the first few turns.

In MTW, Aragon and the HRE gave me fits.

In RTW, I could never win with the Gauls.

[Martok]

In the main campaign, it's the Turks that I've always particularly struggled with. (Note: I start my games in the Early period.) Starting as a landlocked faction means you're pretty much forced to go to war early on, and both the Byz nor the Eggies are fairly tough customers (albeit for slightly different reasons). In addition, I've admittedly never been the most adept at handling mounted missile cavalry in battle, which makes up a good percentage of the Turks' unit roster -- more so than any other faction in the game.

In the VI campaign, the Scots and Picts have both always been difficult for me. Poor starting lands, neither faction has a great unit roster (although Clansmen make for nice, cheap flankers early on), and both factions have to worry about the other one -- it's only a matter of time before they end up having to duke it out for supremacy of northern Britain.

Playing Aragon I usually tried to capture Navarra at once, and then Valencia with El Cid. It is true, though, that I started in High.

Yep, grabbing Navarre early and bribing Cid (when possible) and using him to take Valencia is key when playing as Aragon. If you can accomplish this, however, you'll have a decent base from which to to build on for further expansion.

In VI, for me, it was the Mercians. The Saxons have better units at the beginning and they'd snuff me out in the first few turns.

Really?? Astonishing. The Mercians have long been my favorite faction in the VI campaign (with the Irish being a strong second). Their starting lands are rich enough to allow me to maintain a decent-sized army early on (which helps in discouraging aggressive neighbors), whilst still developing my provinces. As for the Saxons, they're generally too busy fending off Viking raids to bother me much.

[Stazi]

The Welsh,Scottish,French,Polish and Egypt.

Egypt!? Really!? It has one of the best place to start and a lot of rich provinces around. One of the easiest factions for me.

[Gilrandir]

The Welsh,Scottish,French,Polish and Egypt.

I found Scottish surprisingly easy. The most difficult time was when I played tug of war with Picts. By the time I moved down to deal with huscarl-rich southern factions I had teched up to have titles that give stars and - very importantly - captured Reget - its governor receives two stars. Then handling Saxons and Mercians doesn't seem so hard - pin the huscarls with armored spearmen and flank them with clansmen. Northumbrians are even easier to subdue - in all my VI campaigns they teched up to training huscarles only once - too poor to afford them.

[Age]

@Stazi .I kept on getting disloyal generals who would turn and the Turks would move in on one of my lands.I do enjoy playing them
@Gilrandir .The same as a above and using highlanders vs the Picts I found them not be great.I found with Scots you need mounted units.There could be a better tactics in the strat form but never read it yet.

[AriesLA]

Hi

I never manged to get anywhere with Aragon in Early. Too small and too many predatory neighbours.

Best regards
V

Sapere aude
Horace

They're one of my favorites. Actually its not so difficult. The English and French will eventually be too busy with themselves to bother with Aragon. So your northern border is pretty secure.

Your choice is Either go after the Spanish or the Almohads. Go after the Spanish is easier as they only have two provinces but, you will hear from the Pope. Excommunication means your Northern flank/eastern coast becomes vulnerable because even the Genoans (I play Viking horde mod ) can invade and make things very complicated.

So you take Navarre, then Valencia and the Almohads. Always take axe troops to bridge battles. So you should have halbs in your mix. Hopefully the Spanish will take Cordoba and help you eradicate the Moors from the peninsula. Another problem is , the Spanish can stab you in the back and invade Aragon, or if you ally with them, you won't be able to attack them to get the rest of the peninsula. Its like a chess match, I stay neutral to them.

Against the Almohads, I use only CMAA's and Halbs. You only need Spears for heavy cavalry and the Moors cavalry isn't really that heavy. Not made for western battles. Usually I end up shoving them back to Morocco and then its a long protracted naval war while I improve my new provinces. Against the Spanish, its CSgts and Halbs. A couple archers for the Jinettes , I don't use too many cavalry, too easy to lose.

[LordK9]

Just curious; why can't you attack them if allied? Dog-gone AI did it to me practically every time.

[Gilrandir]

Just curious; why can't you attack them if allied? Dog-gone AI did it to me practically every time.

Kind of code of honor. I also try to follow it most of the time. Plus they say your king may lose some of his influence and consequently your generals may become less loyal and more prone to rebel.

[Martok]

Against the Almohads, I use only CMAA's and Halbs. You only need Spears for heavy cavalry and the Moors cavalry isn't really that heavy. Not made for western battles. Usually I end up shoving them back to Morocco and then its a long protracted naval war while I improve my new provinces. Against the Spanish, its CSgts and Halbs. A couple archers for the Jinettes , I don't use too many cavalry, too easy to lose.

Except for archers and Jinettes, none of those units are available in the early part of the game...

Kind of code of honor. I also try to follow it most of the time.

Same here. I typically don't agree to many alliances in MTW (or even strategy games in general, for that matter), but the ones I do, I adhere to pretty steadfastly.

Plus they say your king may lose some of his influence and consequently your generals may become less loyal and more prone to rebel.

This is absolutely correct. Break an alliance, and your faction leader loses Influence.

[LordK9]

Ok; actually, I do the same and, in addition, I rarely attack any kingdom but instead wait for the AI to attack me. That really might be a problem with Aragon - France, Spain, and the Alms really like to attack you often two at once.

On a different note - wish the game had Burgundy even if unplayable as they were a big factor in early and the following time span. Savoy would have been nice too (but then, the fakey "Italy" that didn't exist would have to go :) ).

[Age]

Just curious; why can't you attack them if allied? Dog-gone AI did it to me practically every time.

I wondered why can't cross their territory instead of going around them.

[Trapped in Samsara]

They're one of my favorites. Actually its not so difficult.

Hmmm... Are you sure you are talking about Aragon in Early? (The troop types you are referencing do not 'fit' with the early game. And my 'problem' with Aragon is surviving and developing satisfactorily during the first five decades or so.)

Also, my Aragon experiences were in vanilla VI. The faction could be faced with a significantly different situation in the mod you play.

Best regards
V

Sapere aude
Horace