Which is the most powerefull Faction and why?

[Basilios II Voulgaroktonos]

I think that you cant say that there is only 1 powerfull faction because it depends in the territory.The Egyptians for example cant fight very easily in europian soil because their units are for very big and open terrains (as they are not very heavy)so taht they can do manoeuvres and avoid the heavy infantry of the enmy.in the western Europe i think England is because they have the best archers very good foot soldiers and their cavalry is the same of the other major europian factions.in the east i think the Byzantines because they combine the mobility of the eastern forces like horse archers and light cavalry and the power of some heavy units like the Varangian guard or the Katarfracktoi.

What is for you the most powerfull?

[Furious Mental]

Lichtenstein!

[Subedei]

Lichtenstein!

Don´t tell...it is a secrect

[Redtemplar]

But powerful where in game or in medieval history?
In game:
- England, because the creators like them,
- HRE because they are united and they have a lot of provinces at the beginning.

[lars573]

The HRE only have 4 provinces at the start. Austria, Bavaria, Tyrol, and the papal states. In fact I don't think any one faction in M2TW starts out with more than 5 provinces.

[Phil17]

I think the english will be pretty powerful, due to their archers and starting position. But beyond this i dunno .

[Kavhan Isbul]

Isn't it a bit early for such a general question? And basilios, how do you know what units the Egyptians will have (and their stats)? Was there a faction preview I missed?

[Faenaris]

Lichtenstein!

Because of "Sir Ulrich von Lichtenstein"? :)

As for the topic: Isn't it a tad early to start asking who the most powerful faction is? Right now, we can only speculate.

[edyzmedieval]

The English. CA favourises them.

And the Byzantines also...

[Geoffrey S]

Bartix with Uranos Death Ray!

[CrownOfSwords]

Dont forget the Danish have very powerful units in the begining of the game. Each faction has its own strengths personally ive always like the Byzantines the most they have a well rounded unit line up.

[Polemists]

Yes I think he just hit key point which period are you talking about.

English are good as are HRE in there own time frames. However if I had to choose times I'd pick this for following reasons

Early-Danes, and Scotts, they have some pretty hard hitting early themed infantry.

Mid-Mongols-Lots of units, just outnumber everyone.

Mid-Late-English since they have billmen and longbows. Calvary wise i'd say french or hre

Late- Turks, they have a snit load of artillery units that scare me.


Just my thoughts. Actually HRE starts off with six provinces.

The Empire consists of six provinces including a town in Nuremburg, large towns in Bologna, Frankfurt and Vienna and castles at Staufen and Innsbruck.

-IGN

France also starts with six provinces I can see by looking at starting map. You are right in that the only four province nations are Almohads, Egypt, Turkey, and Byzantine.

Everyone else gets 2-3, cept poor denmark, scotland and milan. You all only get one :P

[A. Smith]

i think venice only gets one too. i might be mistaken...

[A jezy]

it seems like CA likes spain

[LadyAnn]

The Danes!

Annie :)

[satchef1]

Cant really say who will be the most powerful in M2 without playing it but the Byz were probably the most powerfull M1 faction. Theyre very wealthy and have a good range of units. Usually by the time theyre units are out-dated they own most of Europe and heavily outweigh every other faction in numbers!

[Barkhorn1x]

Which is the most powerefull Faction and why?

...the one you are currently playing of course, as you can outthink the AI and will institute a rational building policy!!!



Oh, and no doubt that CA favors the English - it's the typical Brit (Commonwealth) navel gazing when it comes to history.

Barkhorn.

[Aracnid]

To be fair the English Kings managed to wipe the floor with the French for several centuries, when the French were on home ground with bigger armies. Crecy, Poiters and Agincourt weren't flukes the English army was better than the French mostly because we had longbowmen and they were the medieval equivelent of machine guns.

[LadyAnn]

To be fair the English Kings managed to wipe the floor with the French for several centuries, when the French were on home ground with bigger armies. Crecy, Poiters and Agincourt weren't flukes the English army was better than the French mostly because we had longbowmen and they were the medieval equivelent of machine guns.

For several centuries? *points and laughs*

Anniep
After getting up from the floor and still laughing, LadyAnn clarifies:

The "Kings of England" are direct descendants of the Vikings, the Norman. Then they invaded England and defeated the Anglo Saxons, and William the Conqueror controlled England plus his home: Normandy, Anjou, Aquitaine, Maine, Touraine. These provinces are in current France. England started off with more territories than the French Kings. And that was around 1066. In 1453, England Kings lost all territories on the continent.

The victories you mentioned were between 1337 and 1453, the Hundred Year war proper.

Now LadyAnn is a bit more calm, she concedes that yes, it was a fascinating period.

[Aracnid]

Crecy was is 1346 and there had already been several English victories before then, Poiters was in 1356 and Agincourt was in 1415. The Hundred years war was one long string of small English archers focus armies beating French cavalry armies several times their size. This trend had allready been noticable before Crecy though the difference was greatest during the hundred years war. Also France was a country of 14 million people was only 2 million people, that meant that France was a lot richer than us. The underdog won for over four centuries, from the Norman conquest to the loss of the final English footholds. The first time the English lost a land battle in the Hundred Years war was 1421 90 years after it started!

[cutepuppy]

The Hundred years war was one long string of small English archers focus armies beating French cavalry armies several times their size.

No, it wasn't. I agree that from 1340 (seabattle of Sluys) to 1360 (treaty of Brétigny) the English gained some great victories, even the civil war in Britanny was favourable for english armies. But in the period 1370-1380, the French under constable bertrand de Guesclin developped the right tactics to counter the English, who lost most of their conquered territories (they only held calais and a small coastal strip in aquitaine). In fact the english kings had never less territories in France during the middle ages (until 1453) than in that period. This situation continued (also due to dynastical troubles in england) until 1415, when Henry V was able to invade a torn up France (mainly due to the dynastic struggles between armagnacs and burgundians over the regency for a mad king).

The underdog won for over four centuries, from the Norman conquest to the loss of the final English footholds. The first time the English lost a land battle in the Hundred Years war was 1421 90 years after it started!

Do you even know how the English gained their territories in France? Until the second quarter of the 14th century, the English didn't conquer 1 square mile of French land (OK, I may be exaggerrating a bit for dramatic purposes).
William the conqueror acquired the county of Maine by his marriage with Mathilda of Flanders. When Henry Plantagenet, count of Anjou became king of England, they gained the county of Anjou. His marriage with Eleonore of Aquitaine assured the english the control of aquitaine and Auvergne. Henry II also took control of Britanny by marrying his son to the heiress of the duchy.Not much fighting for taking control of about 50% of the French kingdom, don't you think?

OK, the English did win the Battle of Brémule in 1119 (ever heard of this one, Aracnid?), but that was a french invasion in Normandy. Richard I was also quite succesful in some small battles and skirmishes against Philip August, but when richard died in 1199, it took Philip august only 5 years to conquer Normandy, Britanny, Maine and most of Anjou. When Philip August defeated a powerful English-Flemish-German coalition in 1214 at the battle of Bouvines, and his son (the future Louis VIII) defeated another english army at the same moment, the English lost almost all of their holdings in france, except from a big part (not the whole) of Aquitaine. In 1216 the French prince Louis was even proclaimed king of England (admitted, it only lasted for 9 months). The 13th century saw a further decline of English holdings in France, and when constable Raoul de Nesle invaded Aquitaine in 1295, the English lost almost all they still had. King Edward I reacted by sending an army to Aquitaine and another one the Flanders (which was a French county, but sided with the english, due to the importance of english wool for flemish cloth industry). The army in Flanders counted approx. 7800 soldiers (of which more than 5000 welsh, mainly LBM). Both of the English armies barely saw any action, because the French armies were so powerfull that they could hold the English armies in check. In 1297 the English signed a peace aggreement with the French that was very favourable for the French. It would take until 1325 before the english could reclaim a bit of the lost territories in Aquitaine, under the leadership of Oliver Ingham. They were, however, quickly abandonned after another peace treaty with the french.
12 years later the so called 100 years war started.



Oh yeah, the most powerfull faction should be a faction with the economical means to support large, well equipped and trained armies. I think the germans, turkish and egyptians are close contenders for that. (in MTW1 I think it was spain or the byzantines). Can't say anything usefull before playing the game

[Geoffrey S]

To be fair the English Kings managed to wipe the floor with the French for several centuries, when the French were on home ground with bigger armies. Crecy, Poiters and Agincourt weren't flukes the English army was better than the French mostly because we had longbowmen and they were the medieval equivelent of machine guns.

No, they didn't. The Hundred Year War consisted largely of skirmishes punctuated by the occasional large battle (of which you mention the most well-known) and many periods during which each side tried to catch their breath; the many skirmishes generally proved indecisive, and even the larger set-piece battles won by the English had little lasting effect due to the inability to keep an army going on the mainland. Besides, as cutepuppy pointed out the majority of english territory in modern France was acquired through hereditary claims. If anything, the main reason it took so long for the French to get their act going was because it was as much a civil war as an international war, with the king having very little central authority when compared with the english crown.

And all this is moot too, since in the end the english got kicked out anyway.

[Martok]

Anyway, back to the original topic....

If we're referring to the game, then I agree with satchef1 that the Byzantines should be the most powerful faction, especially in the early part of the medieval period. They were ridiculously wealthy, owing largely to the trade and tolls that passed through Constantinople--and indeed, the "Big C" raked in copious amounts of cash in MTW once you had trade routes set up.

In addition, if their unit roster in Medieval 2 is as varied as it was in the original game, then the Byz should be well-equipped to deal with their foes on the battlefield. I didn't find their lack of gunpowder units to be much of a handicap, and you could always hire cannon crews as mercenaries in any case. Their only real tactical definciency was that they didn't have any heavy spear/pike units to counter heavy cavalry--one had to rely on either Varangian Guard units (which are very expensive), and/or Byzantine Infantry (which are pretty cheap, but require significant valour/morale upgrades to withstand heavy cav). I'm hoping that Medieval 2 will give the Byz a better anti-cavarly unit, although I'm not sure how historically accurate that would be.

[CaesarAugustus]

that scare me.Everyone else gets 2-3, cept poor denmark, scotland and milan. You all only get one :P

No, Milan definently gets two (milan and Genoa), and I think Scotland id divided into two provinces as well.

On topic, I have to agree that England will be the strongest Western, and the Byzantines the strongest Eastern. However, I prefer to think of factions as "more challenging" and "less challenging".

[Aracnid]

First of all I am willing to admit that my pre-Hundred Years knowledge is mostly limited to what I have read in books about the Hundred Years War (i.e.scene setting). I also admit that England gained very little land via conquest, it mostly came from marriages or straight diplomatic deals though the difference between the two was zero.

I agree that big battles were rare but if you look at the big battles England won most of them. They kept losing large amounts of land because England was a poor country and quite often they couldn't afford to put an army into the field. With a few exceptions when the French managed to regain some of France it was against very light resistance, when England could afford to, or was willing to bankrupt the country in order to put a large army in the field it normally won. The lesson isn't that England was more powerful, it wasn't, it is that the English military structure/tactics were superior to the French ones.

[Kavhan Isbul]

Back to the topic - I still have a problem understanding the question which started this topic. Is it asking for:
A) The most powerful faction in M2TW we anticipate based on limited and incomplete information
B) The most powerful faction from MTW
C) What should be the most powerfulf action from a historical point of view

On A) I really cannot comment - before the release of the game anything is more or less a wild guess.

On B) - That would depend very much on the starting period and the game version. Overall, the Almohads, Byzantines (in early only though), the Turks, and the Egyptians were in a better starting position than the rest of the factions, and from the rest the English and the Spanish had a really strong starting position.

On C) - I completely disagree that the Eastern Roman Empire should be very powerful. At the end of the 11th century, it had just suffered a huge defeat from the Seljuks (not the battle itself as its consequences, which ultimately lead to the death of the Empire), the rift with the west after the Great Schism was in place (ultimately leading to the IVth Crusade), and the decline of the military system was just starting, leading to the Empire's increased reliance on mercenaries, such as the Variangian Guard. It also needs to be noted that The Eastern Roman Empire was prone to civil wars and rebellions in a manner similar to that of the HRE. Therefore I do not think that the "Byzantines" should be the most powerful faction for the start of the game - they ahd too many problems.
Actually, at about A.D. 1080 there probably was not a faction that was noticeably more powerful than the rest of the factions in the old world. The Seljuks come close, with their Great Seljuk Empire, and then the Ottomans most deffinitely became a super power, but that happened only as early as the late 14th century. The Fatimids were powerful, and the Mameluks even more powerful, but the Mameluks of course came later. The Almohads and the Almoravids - I guess if you lump them together, like the game tends to do, they should be really powerful (and indeed they were in MTW before VI). The rise of Venice was spectacular, but it too happened later. The Sicilian Normans are interesting, and I think that as far as the starting period is concerned, they most deffinitely should be one of the more powerful factions - after all the 11th and 12th centuries were their greatest period. The Spanish - Castilians and Aragonese should also be powerful, but not early in the game. The Kievans should be powerful, but so should be their closest adversaries, the Cumans, which unfortunately are not even in the game. The Poles should be a super power, but again, very late in the game.
Again, I am coming to the conclusion that the absence of periods and different starting dates takes a lot away from the game. Hopefully I am going to be proven wrong soon.

[blahblahblah]

Depends on the user.

[Lord of the Isles]

Which is the most powerful Faction and why?


SEGA.

The "why" left as an exercise for the reader.

[JR-]

how many provinces does England start with?

[anders]

Back to topic, the russians should be mighty with their safe flanks, lots of rebel easy pickings and some nice cavalry units.

of course, when the tartars show up they will be anything but mighty for a while..