Quote Originally Posted by Mithrandir
As for the original topic:
I've only bought VI to enable me to keep playing online, I've only had a few games in that era, but it struck me as the most unbalanced era of the 4....
Yup, gotta agree with you there. Not that the Viking campaign isn't still fun. It *is* the era with the biggest disparities among factions, however.

It's not like the main campaign, where the difference among factions (in terms of difficulties and playing styles) are often a matter of degrees. The Mercians, Saxons, and Vikings are far and away the easiest factions in the VI campaign; while the Northumbrians and Welsh (some would also argue the Picts and/or the Scots) are easily the hardest. And the unbalanced factor is further magnified by the fact that the VI map has far fewer factions crammed into a much smaller area. On the larger map of the main campaign, the increased number of both factions and provinces helps cover for the various imbalances that exist; VI does not have this same double buffer.