The Best Nations

[Warluster]

I also heard of elephants with cnnons on there backs! Is it true?

[Ice]

I enjoy Sicily. They are in a position where you can pick where you want to expand. Africa, Spain, Italy, or the Middle East? I enjoy their selection of troops also.

[TheFluff]

Well the best nation as far as starting out would be any itilian one i thiink solely based on there strong milita units and pavise crossbows.But i've allways liked infantry with a possible mixture of units, so i would go with the HRE, France and danes in that order of "best" nation. The only problem is, the french and germans dont shine untill you have a citadel and the danes have alot of redundent units makeing it hard to know what one to use.

I think the worst nations are ones that rely to much on cavalry units, because cavalry need good terrain and alot of skill to use, and money!

[Musashi]

I would tend to say that Venice is an excellent faction for a beginner... Solid militia (Including the awesome Pavise Crossbow Militia), and later on the Venetian Heavy Infantry, which is one of the strongest shock infantry in the game, musketeers, mounted crossbows... cavalry militia... what more could you want?

[HaroldVonBraver]

The Holy Roman Empire. You start in the middle of Europe. A very fun faction to start with. I'm having a blast playing with them now.

[sapi]

Byzantines - my first and only (so far) campaign. You're besieged on all sides by rival religions and factions, and it's a delicate balencing act right through to the endgame.

Having such a massive empire means you have severe supply problems, so while you can beat european armies with better troops and your tactical skill, they'll overwhelm you in the end.

[PaulTa]

The Holy Roman Empire. You start in the middle of Europe. A very fun faction to start with. I'm having a blast playing with them now.

You know, I would have agreed had you caught me yesterday.

Germany has some of the most awesome units in the game. You get landschnekt pikemen, Zweihanders, and Gothic knights. To top it off, you have a great cannon selection, sweet accents (who could be more believable as a conquering voice?), and really great general speeches.

But you'll never get to see any of those great units until you've killed off every major power that could stand up to you, and you do it all with armored spearmen, merc crossbows, and mailed knights. When Venice isn't chewing on Vienna, Milan wants a piece of you, the Danes are knocking on Hamburg, the Poles are eying prague, and the French want a crack at Stauffen... Not to mention Norman knights knocking on your southern Italian doorstep. By the time you can actually sit back and tech up for those awesome units, every faction in Europe is suffering from anything to extinction or a severe nose bleed, so you get to pick off the remnants of whatever these shells can throw at you.

If I had to pick a "best" faction, I'd either swing Russian or French. The french get a great infantry line-up later on, with great cavalry. The Russians get all the options in the world for expansion, and units like Dismounted Dvors and Bedirche Axemen.

Danes? Crap axemen that get outclassed fast, no archers to speak of.

English? Overrated archers that can't hold a candle to top tier crossbowmen, no anti-cav unit, and one usable type of melee infantry.

Spain? No usable infantry until way later in the game. Their javelin troops have decent stats, but are useless against cavalry.

Venice? Same problem as HRE. Once you deal the nosebleed to byz, HRE and milan want a piece of you. Then Sicily gets cocky.

Hungary? No usable infantry compared to neighbors.

Poland? See hungary.

A muslim nation? Sure, if you want to be full of cavalry that can't do the one thing cavalry are really good at in MTW2... charge.

[pevergreen]

I also heard of elephants with cnnons on there backs! Is it true?

Yes that is true. When the timurids arrive, they posses that unit..rocket launchers in the text. Look round the forums but from the unit card i saw, its a towered elepant with a great cannon on its back...looks like fun!