Quote Originally Posted by Varyar
Dear Sir, I think what you really meant was third and second Because the best gunpowder unit in the game is the Moor Camel Gunner. Hands down. It's the gunpowder equivalent of the horse archer with all the advantages of the latter combined with the wonders of gunpowder. With long range. And as if that wasn't enough, there's the camels. With the 'freak-out-horsies' bonus. This is the ultimate morale killer, easily able to take out any knights sent after it. It has no equal. There is no army I would rather have than one filled with these guys, backed up by some Christian Guard and Granadine Jinetes. Also there's good artillery(cannons) and better-than-average arquebusiers in the Sudanese Gunners.

All in all, the fantastic later-game units of the Moors more than compensates for their poor earlier units. And that is why, IMHO, the Moors are the most powerful faction in the game. The muslim advantages of Jihad doesn't hurt either.
I don't know. Camel gunners are better on the field, but you can only recruit them in castles, they are more expensive, both to build and to maintain. Since you can build cossack musketeers in cities, in mid game you are able to produce large quantities of them easily. They are also much more useful on the offensive, since they can be easily rereained in almost every city.
When you are on the offensive with camel gunners, you have to conquer a castle and then spend several turns building both caravan stop and caravan saray, if you want to retrain them. Great unit, but not as versatile as cossack musketeers, IMHO... And of course, cossack musketeers have 120 guns, while camel gunners have 80.