Which Faction to play first

[OMGLAZERS]

My opinion is as follows.. English. Medium or Hard ( depending on your level ). Don't play TOO much. Maybe fifty turns. The reason why, is that the English have to use a large amount of naval, army, financial building and diplomatic actions early on. Plus. a nice cadre of easy to get rebel territories. Then, make your own decision. Play a short campaign as the English, and kill off Scotland. Then, play as Scotland, and kill off the English. I suggest short campaigns to learn the new system and then fling yourself headlong into a VH/VH game with a crappy nation like Denmark or Scotland. Heck, it's turn 50, i'm Scottish, and not only I destroy the English, i'm about to overrun Denmark and Germany and the Egyptians cower at my expanding Jeruselum/Gaza/Allepo/Antioch etc states. Don't use a difficult nation or a weird one early on, and don't play for TOO long. Just enough to learn to play, and then start over with a new faction. I played about three games (English, French, Spanish) to learn the workings of the new game, and this is my first real 'Going to complete it' game, and I don't regret a second of it.

[Doug-Thompson]

If you want to unlock the other factions ASAP, play the Spanish.

The goal of a short game is to gather 15 provinces while wiping out the Moors and Portuguese. That's a whole lot easier to do if you're not getting excommunicated.

As the Spanish, you can expand immediately and without Papal complications because you are bordering Islam. The fact that your victory conditions require wiping out the Moors is just gravy.

Eventually, Portugal will get jealous and attack you. They'll get themselves excommunicated.

Read my post in the Guides section about the Spanish, and let 'er rip.

[Aenlic]

If you're goal is to unlock the other factions, then it's easier just to follow the unlocking guide posted somewhere around here. It takes a simple change, deleting two lines from a script file.

If your goal is to pick a faction to play to learn the game quick, then both of the above suggestions - English and Spanish - work well.

If your goal is to have fun without pulling large amounts of your hair out in utter frustration, then take the Egyptians or any of the non-Catholic factions. This is because inquisitors are annoying and impossible to kill and fun-killing and annoying and game-wrecking and annoying. Did I mention annoying? They'll burn your crusade generals and factions heirs and governors at the stake. They'll rampage through your kingdom killing anything they can get their grubby little hands on. They'll ambush your army stacks, which are heading to do pious things like attack Islamic factions and decimate them before they get halfway to the goal. Whichever CA programmer dreamed this all up should be forced to listen to Barry Manilow.

Aenlic - Reformed Catholic faction player, now playing any and all non-Catholic factions with glee.

[Flavius Gonzo]

My H/H campaign as the English has been very fun, and a good challenge, definitely moreso than my last VH/VH RTW:BI campagin.

England has excellent missle troops, and plenty of options for expansion. The big disadvantage early in the game is your first crusade, where you will like have to march through all of France to get there (vs. Venice, who just gets to sail from home.)

Also, I don't know why you'd want to not finish your first campaign... I'm chomping at the bit to finally get gunpowder troops, invade the new world, and finish off the damn French for good. I'm sure I'll play another campagn or two when I finish this one, but I have absolutely no desire to start over now.

[KARTLOS]

whichever nation you choose i would suggest starting with a catholic nation as i have found the realtionship with the pope adds a whole extra element to the gameplay and makes it a bit more exciting. (particularly the opportunity to go on crusades)

england are fairly good fun if you feel any affinity to them.

of the classic european nations however i would urge you to go with sicily as they have been my favourite campaign.
plusses of sicily - most of the western european nations are fairly similar .e.g france, hre, milan, england, italian states at least in terms of their early cavalry - the sicilians however get norman knights and dismounted norman nights early- these are not only awesome units but they look incredibly mean

asides from the normans they have a very nice varity of troops with good archers, spearmen and crossbowmen later + all gunpowder units

in fact the sicilian units are so good, i am finding it hard to stomach starting with another western nation.

the second major plus is their central starting position - you can expand in every direction giving you the opportunity to fight a great variety of troops. in your imediate vicinty you have the italian states, hre, byz and the moors. i took the rebel provinces of valencia and bordeaux early on placing me in early contact with the spanish, portugese and french.

another plus point with sicily is that if you expand into north africa and send your priests there, they will gain piety quickly from converting the islams- meaning that it is fairly easy to get a good standing with the pope.

poland are also a really fun faction - they still get the fun of being catholic but have some very good unique units. I would say that that the polish noblemen are pound for pound the best unit in the game- thier armour piecing javelins are great for killing general and heavy cav.

[Werner]

I guess I'm the only one who started as the germans (Holy Roman Empire). I don't know how they stack up compared to the other 4 or 5 starter nations, but I know that the area your capital city is in at the beginning always sees action. Right now I'm only 55 turns in on my first campaign and I'm just about to wipe out Denmark, Milan, and Venice. My short game goals are control 20 regions and wipe out Denmark and Venice, so I'm half way there. After this campaign, I'm not sure who'll I'll play as, maybe Scotland or Denmark.

[ArneHD]

I would say English. Simply put they are the most fun as you can use just about any unit early on, while other factions, such as Venice, I find much harder work with. Their units are good, sure, but in comparison to the English, they are weak in my oppinion, and difficult to train.

You might also want to go with the French. Havn't played them much, but they seem fair enough.

[TheFluff]

Well dont play as the turks or egyptans your first time around. I say this because at some point you will get your self handed to by the mongols and if you want to learn the game mechanics this is not the best way :P

I think that after you play the tutorial you'll want to keep playing as the english. However if you want to play a really "easy" faction, get your feet wet and mabye fight a few nations, russia is pretty good because they are isolated at first, but have potental to make alot of money via land trade and later sea trade. Plus they use a mixed army type that has alittle of everything, but mostly cavalry units. For the first 10-20 turns or so you'll be fighting rebels and mabye the poles at some point, but you dont have to worry about the pope and you have alot of time to tech up your citys and make them finical centers.

[Lorenzo_H]

I dunno bout everyone else, but im gonna do Spain.

[Ice]

whichever nation you choose i would suggest starting with a catholic nation as i have found the realtionship with the pope adds a whole extra element to the gameplay and makes it a bit more exciting. (particularly the opportunity to go on crusades)

england are fairly good fun if you feel any affinity to them.

of the classic european nations however i would urge you to go with sicily as they have been my favourite campaign.
plusses of sicily - most of the western european nations are fairly similar .e.g france, hre, milan, england, italian states at least in terms of their early cavalry - the sicilians however get norman knights and dismounted norman nights early- these are not only awesome units but they look incredibly mean

asides from the normans they have a very nice varity of troops with good archers, spearmen and crossbowmen later + all gunpowder units

in fact the sicilian units are so good, i am finding it hard to stomach starting with another western nation.

the second major plus is their central starting position - you can expand in every direction giving you the opportunity to fight a great variety of troops. in your imediate vicinty you have the italian states, hre, byz and the moors. i took the rebel provinces of valencia and bordeaux early on placing me in early contact with the spanish, portugese and french.

another plus point with sicily is that if you expand into north africa and send your priests there, they will gain piety quickly from converting the islams- meaning that it is fairly easy to get a good standing with the pope.

poland are also a really fun faction - they still get the fun of being catholic but have some very good unique units. I would say that that the polish noblemen are pound for pound the best unit in the game- thier armour piecing javelins are great for killing general and heavy cav.

You've convinced me, I'm going as Sicily.