My first bash at MTW :)

[Melbourne]

Afternoon lads.

Cleaning up my stuff I relise i had bought this game a while back without ever having a chance to play it (Uni :()

Ive done the tutorals and about to have my first crack at a Campain.

Im going to read though ' A Beginners Guide to Medieval: Total War'. Is there anything else you recommend reading before I start?

Also - can you recommend a faction which is easy for a first timer and give me a quick run down about why its easy and its pros and cons.

Much thanks.

[Zarax]

Byzantines: Lots of cash, excellent early unit roster, no pope and can play any style.

Spanish: Readily available iron, balanced roster through the ages and excellent positioning for expansion.

[BAD]

You may want to give "The Complete Total War Unit Guide" a look through aswell. I think it's in the same section as the "Beginners Guide" . Aye Byzantines and Spanish are good for 1st time games. Hmmm. . . I haven't ever played the Byzantines myself . . .

PS - Have fun.

[Melbourne]

Byzantines: Lots of cash, excellent early unit roster, no pope and can play any style.

Sounds like the ticket

[Zarax]

Yep, but you'd better have big armies before high as you won't get anything new and you will have a nasty surprise from the north...

[*Ringo*]

I like the English (but then again, i would ) Their homeland is easy to defend, as long as you put the French on the back foot early on, this should give you a good base of power for the rest of the game!

Also you will eventually get Longbow Archers, few of these chaps you won't need much else.

Welcome to the Org btw

[Melbourne]

Yep, but you'd better have big armies before high as you won't get anything new and you will have a nasty surprise from the north...

Bah, the bad news. :(

Not so sure now.

I like the English (but then again, i would ) Their homeland is easy to defend, as long as you put the French on the back foot early on, this should give you a good base of power for the rest of the game!

Also you will eventually get Longbow Archers, few of these chaps you won't need much else.

The English soudns good.

Welcome to the Org btw

Cheers

[Zarax]

Well, once you start making Varangian Guard there's nothing that will really worry you with the Byz, it's just a matter of quantity

[Ash]

The easiest faction to start with is probably the Byzantines. You can spend money right off the bat. You will have to be very aggressive though against the Turks or you'll get in trouble at one point or another. Same goes for the Egyptians.

My personal favourite are the English. You get to be very aggressive against the French. Plus you inherit rich French lands once you send 'em the way of the dodo...:)
The only downsides are you'll end up at war with HRE and Aragon/Spain very quickly because those factions also want France. So expect to get excommunicated at some point.
And you don't get any real high-tech units like most other factions get.
Although an army of CS, Billmen, CKs, Hobbies/Jinites, Gallowglasses/Clansmen and Longbowmen can't go wrong. And you get them in the early part of the High age.

Spain is also a very good nation to start with. You will have to be aggressive from the bat though, or the Alamohads and Aragon will cause serious problems. They obviously need to die.
Downside is their special units (Lancers, Gendermes) take AGES to tech up to.

[Melbourne]

Much thanks for the replys lads.

Bad news is if anything im more confused which side to start with than before I first posted

[Mithrandir]

Welcome Melbourne...

Easiest faction to really learn the game would be the English I think. This due to their tactical position on the map. Danes are pretty decent too.

[mfberg]

Byzantine or Egypt would be my choice for first game. If you have the Viking Expansion you can play a VI game as the vikings or Irish for a couple of turns and not have to worry as much about what to build first.

Read some of the posts in the Forum Guides, they usually have an answer about what buildings to build and why.

mfberg

[ichi]

Welcome Melbourne...

Easiest faction to really learn the game would be the English I think. This due to their tactical position on the map. Danes are pretty decent too.

Mith is right, either the English or the Danes. Either way, get ships and ports and trading posts early on and build up your sea trade to make lots of money.

ichi

[Zarax]

The English risks excommunication early and the Danes requires a solid grasp on trade and economy management, not exactly for starters

[Melbourne]

The English risks excommunication early and the Danes requires a solid grasp on trade and economy management, not exactly for starters

So what is the best for humble starters like myself?

[The Blind King of Bohemia]

The Byzantines in early. The English in early. The Egyptians in late. The Russians in late and the Turks in late are all easy, fun factions to play(i played these factions when i first started medieval and they should be what you are looking for.)


Also, the Spanish in most periods are quite an easy faction to start off with as are the almohads, especially in high.

[Zarax]

Like i said, Byzantines or Spanish, all depends if you want to care about the papal wishes or not... Anything else can be managed by a sizeable army.

[Goofball]

Mith is right, either the English or the Danes. Either way, get ships and ports and trading posts early on and build up your sea trade to make lots of money.

ichi

While I agree that the English and Danes are not overly difficult, I have always found the Almos to be the easiest to start with.

1) Only two border provinces to defend, even after expanding through Egypt;

2) Excellent, cheap, all purpose "meat grinder" unit in early: Almohad Urban Militia;

3) Good income from mining

4) A decent starting king/heirs

[sir_schwick]

For the Virgin campaign you have to go with English/Early/Normal and play until about 1200. By then you will have learned plenty and want to replay as the English or someone else to do early things right.:

* The France rush is relatively easy to manage and if you fail you can always fall back to Wessex.
* Although boring, Early Catholic Warfare is slow and simple enough to teach you basic tactics and give you a feel for marshalling.
* Trade goods offer modest training in navies and economy management.

I would shy away from Turks or Egyptians because they rely on less conventional forms of warfare. Personally I love the Turks and all their units that never engage in melee combat, but its not good for the newly initiated. As for the Byzantines, the variety of tactical units and roles may be a bit confusing for someone new to TW.

Here is what I recommend:

1st Game - 100 turns on English/Early/Normal
2nd Game - 100 turns on Spanish/Early/Normal

After that it is up to you, although Turkey/Egypt/Hungary are good for learning about HA and how to use/counter them.

[ichi]

While I agree that the English and Danes are not overly difficult, I have always found the Almos to be the easiest to start with.

1) Only two border provinces to defend, even after expanding through Egypt;

2) Excellent, cheap, all purpose "meat grinder" unit in early: Almohad Urban Militia;

3) Good income from mining

4) A decent starting king/heirs

Plus you get camels!!!

The English risks excommunication early and the Danes requires a solid grasp on trade and economy management, not exactly for starters

Of course all of our recommendations are somewhat subjective and there is no one answer - different playing styles enters into the equation - and there's other factors.

That said I agree that the Almos are a good rookie faction, and the reasons are the same ones I use to recommend the Danes. The Danes have only 1 province to defend, an excellent Early unit in Vikings, and good starting kings.

I view the first game as an opportunity to learn and start to understand how the game develops - learn what's important and not without getting too complex (so I would not recommend starting as the Italians or HRE for example).

As the Danes you can easily develop a trade empire, which is a good skill to learn. You can learn about diplomacy, which is necessary to keep those florins rolling in, without lots of backstabbing (due to the relatively low number of contact points) and you can learn how to manage income/expenditures (necessary to keep from having to work with 89 florins per turn).

If you wait until the HRE is distracted or weakened you can easily expand into the north of Europe, or using your fleets take similar advantage of a weakened England or Novgorod (thus learning the skill of timing).

As the Danes you can upgrade some of your buildings easily so you are fighting with above average troops (another bonus for the less experienced).

The only drawback is the lack of Crusade. But thats the same for the Huns and the Orthodox and the Muslims, so no biggie in my book.

I remember when I first got MTW I looked for a post recommending a rookie campaign, and someone said Danes. I've always been glad that I tried them first.

But you won't do bad if you choose the English, Almos, Byz, or even the Spanish.

Good luck whatever you choose

ichi

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Go Germans. Quickly build up border military and interior economy. The French and Spanish should be to scared to attack you until later in the game when you pose a major thread to them. Ally Poland, Italy, England, and France. If its an age when England dominates most of France, when the English declare war, ally them. Expand into Croatia and take the Balkans. Leave Greece for later. Move north until the Polish are enveloped by your provinces. Stage a Blitzkrieg on Poland. Move north, destroy Novgorod. Ally Turks. At the same time, gather armies and betray the French for the English. Thats good for the early and middle game.

[Saracen_Warrior]

I tried being German my first campagn. They have too much land to manage for beginners. AT least for me when I was a begginer. I played the english after losing my german campagn. I didnt get 100%, but i did get the 60% mark. English are a good choice for first campagn. Easy armies to control. Just get billmen and longbowmen and you can beat just about any AI army.

[Cha]

I noticed that the Catholic factions get a lot of money from the Pope. That's unless the Catholic faction invades another Catholic faction. That faction gets excommunicated then. France, England, and the HRE are very advanced in technology and their provinces are very wealthy. I never ran out of money playing as a Catholic faction.
All the Muslim factions have a good starting position. They have the advantage at home ground. The hard part is that they often get crusades from Catholic factions. The Pope even encourages Catholic factions to do it.

[Melbourne]

So playing as England, who can you attack without being excommunicated?

The Pope even encourages Catholic factions to do it.

Tisk Tisk.

[Zarax]

Any excommunicated faction plus rebels and pagans.

[mfberg]

Or you can attack other catholic factions as long as you finish all battles/seiges before the pope's time limit. (usually 2 years)

mfberg

[Cruelsader]

Actually it is quite easy to circumvent the pope. Pope can track only one warning at the time. So, let's say if you start war against France, Pope warns you and you cease hostilities as a good christian should do. But the next 10 years (the length of pope's warning regarding war against France) you can attack any other catholic faction without pope intervening (no excommunication).

However, you may want to avoid such strategy because it is unlikely the game was intended to work such way.

[Kralizec]

Byzantines:
Simply the best unit roster in the early period. Less dramatic later on because few new ones are added, but this also means you don't have to relearn everything the moment you pass into another period
You can roll over both the Turks and Egyptians early on if you're careful enough, giving you acces to even more rich provinces. After that, there are few borders you need to defend.

[Zarax]

Few? AFAIK the Byz keeps the same roster they start with minus VG in late...

[Saracen_Warrior]

Can you just not build VG anymore, or do they disappear completely?