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.

[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.

[Come Together]

Honestly, I didn't find france or the turks quite difficult. I would have to say Poland, I can barely do anything with them. Allthough, to be fair, i have never played the argonese, or the sicilians for that matter.

[Microwavegerbil]

The HRE is, IMO the hardest to play. On Hard/Very Hard and especially with mods, everyone else is so aggressive that's it's rediculously hard to fight them all off. A war on all sides is about impossible to avoid.

[The Darkhorn]

The HRE is, IMO the hardest to play. On Hard/Very Hard and especially with mods, everyone else is so aggressive that's it's rediculously hard to fight them all off. A war on all sides is about impossible to avoid.

Is it just me or does your avatar look like George Clooney?

[Microwavegerbil]

Haha, I guess he does slightly resemble him. Now I wanna change it.

Speaking of pictures, is it just me or does this santa look absolutely insane?

[phred]

Try the turks starting on High. I found that to be pretty challenging.

[Alim]

HRE is definetely one of the hardest factions to play, you will have to fight on2-3 (if not more) fronts at some stage. Also they don't get any light cavalry and no unique units until late. I imagine the Byzantines in Late must be a real challenge.
No-one's mentioned them, but I find the Danes really hard to play with. They do get very strong units but no cash with which to train them. Also their only route to expansion (apart from Scandinavia) goes through the HRE.

[Weebeast]

In XL, the small factions (with the exception of Danes, Venetians, Sicilians and Genoese) are pretty hard to play. I remember playing as Portuguese on early. Spanish and Almohad ganged up on me and I died. The starting king isn't that influential so it's hard for the player to secure its position.

Whether XL or original I find playing as HRE pretty easy on normal setting. It's just pretty much the western version of Byzantine. I find playing Poland or Aragonese more difficult.

[Martok]

In XL, the small factions (with the exception of Danes, Venetians, Sicilians and Genoese) are pretty hard to play. I remember playing as Portuguese on early. Spanish and Almohad ganged up on me and I died. The starting king isn't that influential so it's hard for the player to secure its position.

Whether XL or original I find playing as HRE pretty easy on normal setting. It's just pretty much the western version of Byzantine. I find playing Poland or Aragonese more difficult.

Yeah, Portugal is tough in the XL mod--although to be fair, all three Iberian Catholics factions are pretty difficult (the Spanish were pretty easy in VI, but they're much more challenging again in XL). I'm considering giving Aragon another crack, though; southern France is awfully tempting when the French get ex-commed.

I would rate the HRE as "fairly hard". They're not as difficult as the Polish or Aragonese, but you still get hit from all sides, and are always getting ex-commed by Rome since you're usually at war with one or more Catholic factions.

The Danes aren't too bad, as long as you expand quickly and don't turtle! Grab Scandanavia as soon as possible, of course, and then from there you have 3 main options:
1.) Send your armies east, and make the Baltic Sea your own personal mill pond. You can usually establish a strong northern kingdom this way in relatively short order.
2.) Given how they tend to be at war with multiple factions and/or excommunicated all the time, the Imperial provinces of northern Germany tend to be easy pickings, especially since their garrisons are often stripped of men to reinforce the Empire's armies on other fronts.
3.) Conquering England--although I've discovered this can be awfully risky. While they have pretty decent lands and are worth taking, I find I have to invade in large numbers, even if the island is lightly defended. The English people are surprisingly frisky, and require significant occupation forces if they're to be kept from rebelling.

[Samurai Waki]

hmmm....Elmo's can be hard, especially in High and Late. Also Byz in High and Late. I really haven't played a full campaign as HRE so I can't say much for them. My hardest Campaign was probably my Turkish Campaign, I started in Early, kicked the hell out of the Byzantines, and was well on my way to conquering egypt, then came the crusades, and just utterly wrecked me for like 100 years, started a civil war. Yeah Big Bloody Mess.
Then the mid 1300s came around, and I got my Janissaries, regained all of my lost territory and then some. In the end I won a minor victory, but I was happy all the same, toughest campaigns tend to be the most rewarding in the end.

[KrooK]

I think tourkey is easy into campaing but hard using single games.
I played turkey and I noticed that one jihad cost only 500. So when i played i was conquering prowince and withdrawin from it. Computers reconqueredit and then i couldsend jihads. Not one or 2 but usually 6 :) My army was soon undefeated and I was waiting on crusades :)

[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.

[Microwavegerbil]

Speaking of the difficult factions, in my friend's recent VI game as the Danes, the Spanish have conquered all of Western Europe (England and all through to most of Germany) and the Byzantines own all of Eastern Europe right up to Poland. The only remaining factions are the Danes who own the Meditteranean Islands and Ireland along with Scandinavia, and the Poles who own just Poland. It's look to become the battle of the century with the two largest AI factions I've ever seen already going head to head.

[Scias]

i would hav to say the hardest factions to play as on mtw is poland, sicily and germany. on vi i would say the picts, the welsh and the irish, as there units are not so gd but hav there purposes

on rtw i would hav to say the carths as even though they hav decent units but there starting point is bad as u hav territory in spain which causes problem if u want to expand in spain. also the fact that the numadians also want a piece of u.

[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!

[Cowhead418]

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.

I was always confused why the Almohads were never a threat in my games, though they are the most powerful faction right now in my Hungarian campaign on the XL mod. On that mod, I'd have to say for a challenge try Serbia or Bohemia on Early. Serbia is hard because there are no rebels to expand to and you are surrounded by the Byzantines and Hungarians, not to mention that you only start out with one province that doesn't make much money. I haven't tried Bohemia but they are surrounded by the HRE, Poland, and Hungary so there is nowhere to go. The Scottish and Portuguese are also pretty tough.

[Martok]

The Scottish and Portuguese are also pretty tough.

I'll second that! They're still fun to play, though. Both factions have very...interesting starting positions.

[matteus the inbred]

well, Lugh and Come Together, i reappraise my opinion of the French and Turks, both are rewarding if you can get the economies and horse archers working respectively, i have very successful campaigns going on both now. Poland, on the other hand, has twice been a sad failure...! can't be bothered with Aragon, having one province to start is dull.
Sicily looks tough, but in fact is not; good heirs, lots of ships, lots of mercs available. invading north africa and using crusades can get you a huge cut-throat Mediterranean trading empire very quickly, which is just as well cos loyalty (and therefore tax rates) is often a problem, as your king is usually cut off from most of his provinces by sea! keeping him in Tunisia or 'on tour' seems to work best.
war with the Italians is inevitable though, and i really hate the unpredictability of sea battles.

following more experimenting with VI, i found Scotland to be impossible and got 'vikinged' to death immediately. the Vikings themselves are great fun, but i eventually gave up cos all the AI factions promptly allied with one another and never broke any alliances in 150 years of play. consequently it got to the point where almost any province i raided had in excess of 1500 men in it...