Which Faction to play first

[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.

[IrishArmenian]

If you can unlock them, the Russians! Excellent variety. They seem to pick and choose what they like from other factions and then combine them, adding a distinct flavor and then blend them together. The result is an incredibly fun, challenging campaign in which you always have units to deal with your enemies, you just didn't know it!

[Grimmy]

Another aspect to starting with England is that you can sit back and play around with building cities/forts without having to worry about invading armies once you have the island secure and a decent navy protecting your shores.

There's lots to get used to that's different. Cities and forts are different beasts, each builds different stuff.

The recruiting system is very different (and much better imo) than previous TW games.

So, if you want to spend some time sitting safely and working out what's what and what makes what and what gives what and how to get who then it's hard to beat England.

[Garnier]

I played venice for my first campaign, (lasted some 60 turns) then I played england for 25 turns, then spain for 60 turns, then milan for 110 turns, then HRE for 30 turns, now Ive been playing france for 20 turns and counting. I never settle down to one campaign for long.