Hardest Faction

[Byzantine_Fury]

Hey ya'll.... I was just wondering what you all think the hardest faction to play as in MTW is, because I am lookin for more of a challenge (since i normally play as Byz...)

[Strike For The South]

Try the HRE they are pretty weak internally and dont begin with much in the way of an infastructure. The French are also chalenging becuase of where they start. Ive also heard the Spainsh can be tough (Although I find them to be one of the easiest)

[matteus the inbred]

try the Turks...you get few provinces which only really come into their own once you can trade from them, largely crappy troops and have to fight the Egyptians or Byzantines pretty early, both of whom are richer and more teched up than you...and you don't get your best troops (Janissaries) till late. and you get Crusaders all over you.

oh, and to make it even more sucky, the Horde can sometimes arrive on your doorstep too. i've never got anywhere with Turks.

Hungary's pretty difficult too, surrounded by big factions...the most tempting target is the Byzantines, but you're better off stuffing Catholic factions as they don't have 9-star generals with Kats...

i have to point out, i'm rapidly developing Byzantine Kat-phobia from playing a lot of Turkish and Hungarian games recently.

Aragon's very hard too...you get 1 (one) starting province! aarrg.

[The Darkhorn]

France can be difficult. Poland is initially landlocked, making it quite difficult on hard or expert (harder to get money going while building defenses and tech).

[matteus the inbred]

my mate at work agrees with you Darkhorn, France is a cast iron b*stard to start with, apparently. it's one of only two factions i haven't used yet...(the other being Byz, too easy!)
they have a poor strategic position, the likelihood of at least one and probably two wars, on several fronts, against powerful Catholic factions, and no rebels to attack from the off.

presumably to make up for this their provinces are rich, and they start off with a fair number of troops?

[lugh]

France is easy. As is Spain. Both have good quick gains to be made against rebels, and an aggressive early assault can overwhelm nearby factionAI possesions. Deprive England of her continental holdings and she crumbles, same with the Almos.

Polans now, is a real challenge. You're landlocked and without crusades you've got to really work for your GA goals (or to make your King high influence for that matter).

The Turks are great, if it suits your style of play. They were my first non catholic faction so I really struggled, heh, ghulam just aren't capable of pulling battle winning charges at will, unlike RK!

The HRE are a challenge as mentioned, poor rescources and starting forces.

If you're playing vanilla VI, grab a mod, XL is good, it balances some economic issues cripples enemy ai. It also makes it harder for the player to bankroll massive armies.

[Lanemerkel1]

(the other being Byz, too easy!)

easy?


say that when your playing byz and you've got crusades from all Catholic Nations, Jihads from all muslim nations and 4 full stacks of invaders from the only other orthodox heading for constantinople



I don't know where I screwed up but I really P.O.ed everyone

[Martok]

Ive also heard the Spainsh can be tough (Although I find them to be one of the easiest)

The Spanish used to be difficult in vanilla Medieval because the Almos were major badasses and were very aggressive conquerors--they were actually somewhat overpowered originally, as they quickly overran western Europe (unless I managed to stop them, which was a wonderfully difficult thing to do!). Unfortunately, the Caliphate was greatly watered down with the VI expansion pack (its AI was altered so that it was more defensive-minded), and the Spanish suddenly became one of the easiest factions in the game.

Fortunately, since I downloaded the XL mod, the Spanish has become a more difficult faction again. The Almos have been beefed up, although they're not as ridiculous as they were in the original game. Perhaps just as important, however, is the addition of the Portuguese as a playable faction. Having four factions (Spain, Portugal, Aragon, and the Almos) fighting for control of the Iberian peninsula makes things much more interesting for all parties involved.

[matteus the inbred]

now i think about lugh, your appraisal of France is correct, i forgot Flanders...and paid too much respect to the Pope. i'll have to give them a go meself one of these days! France is one of the factions the AI plays quite well, to judge from comments elsewhere about how annoying people find them.

i found the HRE to be a great challenge, with a real feeling of being barely on top of things every turn instead of sitting there pressing End Turn repeatedly while waiting for my one decent province to finish building that keep...

[Tyford]

I agree about the HRE. The HRE also have the problem of being an easy target for every faction surrounding it (Poles, Hungarians, Italians, French, English in Early, and the Danes), and it's even worse in XL Mod. I'm not saying XL Mod is bad, it's really good, but the HRE's position is bad, although challenging might be a better word. The HRE in XL also have the Burgundians, Genoese and Bohemians to worry about. The Italians may not be a problem, but the Venetians who replace them are practically the same.

[KrooK]

OK first of all - depend if you are talking about single or multiplayer.
In single interesting are bizantine and poland on late era, maybe arragon too.
In multiplayer hardest fraction is egypt on all terrains exept desert.

[Abokasee]

Try the HRE they are pretty weak internally and dont begin with much in the way of an infastructure. The French are also chalenging becuase of where they start. Ive also heard the Spainsh can be tough (Although I find them to be one of the easiest)

there hard at the begging but really easy once you killed aldohmaouds and start crusade against russian and mongols (i started from age 1)

[ajaxfetish]

Aragon can be very hard. You have only one province with decent farming but no trade goods or mines, plenty of powerful neighbors, and a none too impressive royal line. Unless you are very aggressive and somewhat lucky right at the beginning it's very easy to get boxed in and stagnate.

Ajax

[Cowhead418]

I have VI installed now but in my vanilla MTW campaigns the Almohads were never much of a threat. Only once did they conquer the Iberian peninsula. The rest of the campaigns they were usually killed by the Spanish within the first 25 turns. I never noticed this "extreme aggressiveness" because they were never a major player. The powerful factions always seemed to be the French, Byzantines, and Spanish.

[Martok]

I have VI installed now but in my vanilla MTW campaigns the Almohads were never much of a threat. Only once did they conquer the Iberian peninsula. The rest of the campaigns they were usually killed by the Spanish within the first 25 turns. I never noticed this "extreme aggressiveness" because they were never a major player. The powerful factions always seemed to be the French, Byzantines, and Spanish.

Damn, you must have an alternate-universe version of Medieval then.

Seriously, though, I think you might be the first person I've heard say that. In the vast majority of games I and my friends played in vanilla MTW, the Caliphate would conquer all of Europe west of the Rhine, and would sometimes even have possession of the Holy Land (if they'd managed to catch the Eggies with their knickers down). From time to time a European faction (usually the Spanish, English or the HRE) would manage to keep the Caliphate in check, but that was pretty rare. Even if I myself was playing a western European faction (usually as the Spanish or English), I often was unsuccessful in stopping the Almos from crossing north over the Pyrenees.

Now it's true that in most of my games, the Almohads were eventually defeated--usually through a combination of faction re-emergences, invasions by a coalition of the surviving Catholic nations, and the Egyptians giving the Caliph a good hard shove out of Jarusalem and/or Cairo. Either way, however, a long and bloody campaign was almost always required to contain them, much less destroy them.

[Quessa]

In MTW I used to get my arse banged while I was playing as the HRE. Another faction I found relatively irritating was (quite strangely) the Danes. It's not that her military strength would have been too weak (although pissing up wrong king-wannabe-jackasses seemed to do the trick, which is having myself destroyed big time) but my faction's treasury ended up dropping cold after a few miserable turns.
Although HRE was irritating as hell to play with (was my second MTW game, the first being an anti-triumph as the Britons) I have to admit that emptying HRE's Swedish bank accounts and sacking Rome was quite beautiful. Apparently the Pope didn't like my brightest idea that much and thus had me excommunicated - the little bastard!

[Psiloi]

HRE: Financial problems, expansion, the Pope, Civil War, reconquest, expansion, the english and the russians, the Pope-Civil War-english-russians-danish-financial problems...

I win with the HRE, but building only militia sergeants (the more cheap of make and support, with a good chance) and declining to fight the battles.