Most powerful faction...

[Mandos]

In terms of units France, Turkey, and Venice/Milan are by far the most powerful (Not including Turimids). In terms of power on the campaign map I'd say the Byzantines, HRE, Venice, or England.

[Musashi]

I'm gonna have to say Russia and Portugal... Russia has the strongest heavy armored horse archer in the game, Berdiche Axemen are uber (Or will be, presuming CA fix their horribly slow animations), and even at the beginning they have very strong troops. Their strategic position is isolated by virtue of A) being a corner of the map and B) being surrounded by a huge buffer of rebel territories.

They have easy access to the amber fields, and Kiev is a high income province (You should be able to take this easily before Poland or Hungary can if you head straight for it at the beginning of the game, then move east after solidifying your western lines. If Turkey gets Sarkel before you get there it's no big deal, just means they'll have to deal with the Mongols instead of you ;) )

Portugal has the uber combination of musketeers and super elite pikemen... Plus Jinettes for awesome light cav and missile cav in one package... In terms of late game power Portugal has the "perfect" army. And of course they have a great strategic position, wipe up Spain and the Moors and you only need to station an army (Or a fleet) at the land bridge and you're all set on that side.

The moors are surprisingly good as well. Desert Cavalry, Granadine Jinetes, Tuareg Camel Spearmen... Easy control of the gold and ivory in Timbuktu and Arguin... Really good position, much better than the Emoheads in MTW.

[PseRamesses]

Hmm, tough choice but I´d say Milan. No other faction has the economy and the units that Milan can produce from the start. Not rarley they have 2-3 full stacks of good units very fast and expands quickly as Venice also does. In the hands of a human player any of the 4 Italian states are unstoppable. Personally I flavour Russia or the Turks.

[sapi]

I'm going to jump in here and say the byzantines. They've got a sound economic base and can field their best troops almost from the word go, so they've got massive room for expansion in the hands of a good player.

Their only weakness is that they have to fight on two fronts at the very least for the whole game.

[KARTLOS]

i think the game has been fairly well balanced, im a always dominating the game wen it comes to the later stages so my opinion wil be a bit skewed to the earlly to mid-game units. I wouldnt say all factions are equally strong but its fairly close.

turks have an excellent roster - you can win the most crushing victories with horse archers as the ai doesnt cope very well with them + by the later stage they have good infantry and gunpowder units later in the game.

the byzanties are arguably fairly similar to the turks, but the lack good infantry because of the bugged varangian guard.

poland- has pound for pound the best unit in the game in my opinion - the polish noblemen - available from the beggining. they are an excellent ranged unit - a few of these can easily take out generals or heavy cavalry, but their melee abiltiy is good as well and they have very high armour. poland also have excellent heavy cavalry and horse archers but arguable lack a strong infantry unit.

sicily has a wonderfully balanced roster - with most of the typical western army features like excellent cavalry, execellent milita units, good archers and crossbowmen plus a very safe starting position with easy options to expand away from catholic areas. for some reason the never seem to do well when the computer is controlling them - i think because of its reluctance to mount naval invasions so it is forced to push past the very strong italian states to the north.

russia does have a fairly good roster, but their earlly units are not very strong. however because it takes so long to get out of russia you should have the chance to tech up a bit by the time you expand in to germany.

the most powerful ai controlled faction? hmm the danes always do well. poland is hard to fight because their noblemen decimate your cavalry. hungary is similar in that reagrd with their good horse archers. I find the italian cities can be quite hard to fight becasue they seem to be able to pump out loads of large armies with their excellent militia + usually defend their cities with a full stack.

most dissapointingly weak faction - the egyptains - taking crusade targets is never a challenge.

[cambrax]

I'd have to say England, simply because of the starting position. Once you secure the British Isles, you can have (if you want) seven perfectly safe cities that will never be touched. Regardless of unit rosters and the like, that's such a huge advantage, especially as if you gobble up enough rebel provinces in France and Burgundy quick enough, you have a mainland empire the same as any other starting faction, in addition to your island kingdom.

Spain/Portugal are up there as well, for similar reasons. Not as good as England, though.

The AI always seems to do well with Denmark in the early to mid game, and then in my experience they'll be supplanted by a central/eastern european power alongside the spread of whichever Italian state has done the best (normally Milan).

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

While I don't think there is any single most-powerful faction that's above the rest, there are certainly some factions that are better than others. The Turks, for example, get essentially everything: heavy lancers with an AP attack, the best heavy infantry in the game, the best muskets avaliable to any faction, some of the best archers, and plenty of horse archers. They don't have quite the gunpowder artillery selection of some of the other factions, but they are still exceedingly powerful.

I would probably rank either the HRE or Moors right under the Turks in unit selection. You might be surprised at my choosing the Moors, what with all their unarmored crap units, but once you get to the highest levels of their unit roster you can definately field a strong, modern army that can compete with the best the Catholics and Orthies have to offer. The HRE get those nasty Gothics and Reiters plus lots of unique infantry, which is always a good combo.

In my opinion, the Timurids are as close as it gets to an all-powerful faction. Those Elephant Artillery are war-winning units. I managed to get ONE unit of them hired as mercs while playing the Turks, and the all-cavalry army they are in is holding all of italy single-handedly from a horde of Moors. In each battle I fight, the Elephant Artillery routinely finish with half the total kills I got in the battle, usually more. They don't seem to get EXP ever, though.

Still, the Timurids get no decent infantry at all, so even they have drawbacks.

There are definately some factions that are below the pack. The Scots, Byzantines, and Sicilians come to mind. None of them have any real redeeming qualities. They lack the basic, important units of other factions, and most of their unique units aren't nearly as good as those from other factions. Norman Knights are nice, but will lose to any other Catholic high-late era knight. Kataphraktoi aren't bad, but will lose to any other type of heavy lancers with maces. The Scots rely too much on pikes and infantry, two things that are extremely ineffective in M2.