The Best Nations

[Warluster]

What is the Best Nation and why, Im wondering for when I get it.

[Quillan]

The best nation is the one you're most interested in playing. It has nothing to do with stats. This is a complex game that takes some getting used to, and if you hate the faction you choose, you're likely to get frustrated and give up on it. Play someone you like, you're more likely to stick it out and learn.

[Darth Nihilus]

Try them all out. that's the best advice i can give, then you're sure to find the one you like.

[Warluster]

I mean whats your favourite!

[Sir SillyDuck]

Hard to say. After playing one, you're interested in the other. Each faction has a few unique units. Maybe more than a few but I need to proceed further in the game yet (not yet quite 1200, I think I'm at 1180 atm).

Must say the Danish appeal a lot to me. I like infantry shock troops, and their axemen (huscarls, viking raiders) are great. The beat every spear they meet. Unfortunatly, I didnt meet a lot of sword-yielding infantry as an enemy yet, maybe because I'm only warring with poland and HRE atm, they seem to use mostly spear.

And I hear people saying that the Danish arent nice to have as an enemy, probably because of their axe-troops.

But I'm looking forward to trying billmen and longbows, and highlanders, and the French cavalry..

[Musashi]

Yeah... it's almost irritatingly well balanced for a compulsive min-maxer like me.. I kind of miss the first game and the three "All that and a bag of chips" factions (Russia, Byzantium, and Turkey, although Turkey had a bit of a dicey early game)... There's no faction that has that kind of uberness in this one. If you find a faction with amazing ranged power, they probably don't have the best cavalry defense... Basically they all have weaknesses you'll actually notice.

[IrishArmenian]

My favorite faction is Novgorod, the Rus! It takes a little while to get some steam going, but as soon as you have some momentum you can carve out your empire in the North Eastern corner of the map.
With Russia though, one has to know to take settlements and then just leave militia with free upkeep in most non-frontier towns/cities, otherwise, you'll get caught with a lot of money problems.
Their units are tremendous. Sure, one starts out with the run-of-the-mill spear militia and peasant archers but Kazahks (precursors to the Cossacks) are available too. Soon, Druzinas, Boyars Sons and their dismounted counterparts are ready. By 1250, I had armies filled with Dvor, Dismounted Dvor, Berdiche Axemen and Druzinas for shock calvary kicking Hungarian and Polish arse wholesale.
Summary (for the majority of you who skipped my whole post): Russia is good.

[Antimatter3009]

Well, having only played one nation so far, I can't say I have a well balanced opinion, but the English are very fun. The longbows are awesome, especially early on (they can easily win battles for you), and you can't beat the position.

As of right now I'm going back and forth between trying Milan and Denmark for my next time through. I was going to do Milan, but now I'm sort of leaning towards Denmark because of the axemen and because it would allow me to go east and fight everyone I didn't get to with England.

[Warluster]

In the Previous MTW I liked England the best for no one can get to ya and conquer you, plus excellent archers, is it the same in M2TW?

[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!

[Dayve]

My personal favourite is England... Their archers may be outclassed by later longbowmen, and they may not have a counter to cavalry or the best cavalry in the game, but the AI is dumb as a pile of dog poo, so it doesn't matter, you'll still win everytime.

As for them not havign any good infantry as someone above said... I count 5 different types of very good English infantry, so where you get "1" from i do not know.

[Captainrave]

Also having England you get to control all of the UK...not only is it completely safe from the enemy, but later on they are some of the most profitable provinces. Then you can send merchants to the richest resources of the game (Africa and the Middle East) and in addition your capital will be pretty far away (even if you decide to move it), so you will earn even more money. Playing England is great fun...plus they infantry kicks major ass. And indeed, they have alot more than 1 good infantry unit!

[KARTLOS]

hichever 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.

[geala]

I like nations with good troops in the end game as I am more interested in the times around 1500.That is for me HRE, Turks, Venice, France and Spain historically.

If you want to get grey hair on your way to suberb armies, play HRE. You have a lot to suffer a long time being in the middle of Europe. You are at war with 4 factions normally.

Most relaxed play from the above mentioned may be with Spain I think. Will perhaps be my next campaign. Turks look great also because of the very different scenario.

If not I will play as Scotland because of emotional reasons.

As a summary: there is no best faction for me.

[katank]

Actually the English really only get one viable type of infantry (armoured swordsmen). The dismounted English knights and billmen suffer major bug when fighting cav. Other dismounted types cost too much upkeep.

However, using stakes on longbows is good area denial tactic and stops cav charges. Retinue longbows are also amazing in melee as well as ranged combat.

Then again, troops matter little compared to command. I'm currently demolitioning most of Europe with my English spear militia/longbow/arty/mailed knights armies (distinctly low tech but effective).

[Burakius]

Turks.. Jannisaries own. otherwise. the russians .. cossacks own :D

[eefums]

I really like Egypt..You make so much money and constant war with them. Antioch(sp) makes 6000 florins per turn for me and I have 12 enemies and no allies on h/h and i'm still winning :)

[Lorenzo_H]

If i were you Warluster, I would choose one of the first six playable factions (whichever gives you the best first impression) at a short campaign. Win it and see what you think. I chose Spain and wasn't dissapointed. It's up to personal preference.

[TheFluff]

Egypt was one of my favroite factions actually. They get veery good medium infantry that can be used to the end of the game. The only thing with them is the mongols and the timunds and such. I find egypts archer line up very lacking compared to all faction and it hurt me abit during the mongol invasion.

However unlike cathloic nations, by the time your actually fighting them you NEED heavy infantry since dismounted fudal knights becoeme hard to counter. Other then that, they are pretty fun and i even wrote a guide on them in the guides section.

[Musashi]

I don't like the short campaigns personally... I hate games to be over so fast.

[malkuth]

Well in simple terms the British are the best. Once you take the Island, no worries of attack will ever come, since the AI does not seem to do much Naval Landings.

The only real problem with english is the lack luster Melee units.

[Xaziv]

TIMURIDS!! Because of ELEPHANTS!!!

but since you cant play timurid usually without mod... I dunno they are all good...

But MOORS are fun... I love camels!!!

[IrishArmenian]

Xaziv, you wouldn't be related to Mithrandir, would you?