When England Dies...

[Kagetora]

I'm not suer about reapearing faster but you can go to the Dungeon section (This section is not in the entrance hall) and learn how to mod the game so that the English have a better starting advantage with their buildings, also there is a cheat code in which you type something in at the beggining of the game, again somewhere in this forum there is a place that will explain how to do it, and the code will allow you to play as other factions and switch around from one faction to another.

[katank]

if catholic, use inquisitor or use assassin otherwise to eliminate the French king and all heirs.

they all turn rebel and the Brits may very well reappear.

[Chimpyang]

How about playing as the Aragonese and taking on France early on in the game and weaken it by Taking toulouse and maybe Campagne whilst you're at it. That'll mean the Frnehc will be too weak monetary wise to beat the English.

[AssasinsShadow]

Yea, I feel the same way. I hate it when the English or Byzantines get taken over. I sometimes go out of my way to save one or the other. What annoys me even more is when; for instance; the Byz reappeared on the Island of Cyprus with 6,000 men, all Byz inf, Kats, and Pav Arbs. Yet they went into debt the first year and couldn't even get a boat to make it to the mainland. They just sat there the whole game. Really annoying.

[munrock]

Don't forget: England in MTW is Norman England. The Posh and Becks and Tony Blair of the day spoke French. The England in MTW is a conquered one, and the Reds vs. Blues is more of a civil war, the Frenchmen fighting for the Duke of Normandy/English King were probably more loyal to him than the Englishmen.

If you were to play as the Holy Roman Empire, encompassing the people of Saxony, you could conquer the British Isles and it would be fair to say that you had liberated it (the Saxons in Germany have noble families, while in England their estates were confiscated). Then if the Welsh were to attack you and kick you out of Britain it would be fair to say they had liberated it.

So first thing is to find out whether you're Celt, Pict, Saxon, Norman... probably a mix... chances are if England is conquered by France in the game, it technically makes no difference to you.

When I get RTW, if any faction tries to wipe the Iceni out I will give the Iceni a city in the corner of my territory. Then I'll wipe them out myself, later, if that's how I unlock them.

[Nerouin]

That is actually quite a good point, especially with the example about the Almohads- in several of my games, I've seen them come back in Portugal MANY times, only to be smashed every time! Perhaps this is because of the rebelliousness of Portugal, who knows.

[EatYerGreens]

Don't forget: England in MTW is Norman England. The Posh and Becks and Tony Blair of the day spoke French. The England in MTW is a conquered one, and the Reds vs. Blues is more of a civil war, the Frenchmen fighting for the Duke of Normandy/English King were probably more loyal to him than the Englishmen.

I've often wondered about how 'French' the Normans actually were, as well as what language they spoke at the time. Is it solidly laid down in the historical record that they were French-speaking?

I've come across one theory (admittedly through TV, instead of proper stuff, like books) which suggested that the word 'Norman' is a contraction of 'Northman'. Not north as in north of France, either. North as in Scandinavian. In other words, they were descendents of Vikings, so who knows whether or not they maintained the language and culture from that part of the world? They certainly hadn't lost the invasion instinct

Somewhere along the line, I've got the impression that French became the language of the English court thanks to (?? Henry II, was it??) who spent most of his life in France and to whom England was a mere land posession. Whether the gentry also spoke French outside court is somewhat moot. Either way, the rest of the population continued to speak (what became) English and, eventually, French fell out of fashion even for the ruling classes so, at least in the linguistic sense, the English were not 'conquered'.

This begs the question about whether the Normans were French-speaking at all. They took possession of the land, sure but they failed to impose their language and culture on the population afterwards. Either that or maybe they spoke the same language as the Brits - some variety of Anglo-Saxon?

[DisruptorX]

If it answers your question, yes the Norman nobility and kings spoke french.