Most overall powerful faction?

[DukeKent]

England, can't beat being an Island for defensible position. Economic might translates easily into military might. It is easier for England to concentrate on building an economic powerhouse. Things like converting castles into cities, I only have Nottingham as a castle in Great Britain, and 1 regional castle to every 4 - 5 cities on the continent. The longbowmen rule, and the English really aren't lacking in any other troops. Although worthless in vanilla, even the billmen are good after the 2hd bugfix. The game is really already decided by the time the late era troops show up anyway, and they only lack pikemen in the lategame.

[PaulTa]

England, can't beat being an Island for defensible position. Economic might translates easily into military might. It is easier for England to concentrate on building an economic powerhouse. Things like converting castles into cities, I only have Nottingham as a castle in Great Britain, and 1 regional castle to every 4 - 5 cities on the continent. The longbowmen rule, and the English really aren't lacking in any other troops. Although worthless in vanilla, even the billmen are good after the 2hd bugfix. The game is really already decided by the time the late era troops show up anyway, and they only lack pikemen in the lategame.

My beef with england is the lack of really shining heavy cavalry, and no anti-cavalry infantry to speak of. Gunpowder doesn't yield anything really amazing for england either, except for mortars.

Also, considering the AI's new tendancy towards naval invasions, England isn't really that amazingly secure.

[PaulTa]

Here is a post I made in the .com forums in reply to a "best catholic faction" thread-


You have to divide this question up into two segments, Pre and Post gunpowder.

Pre-gunpowder: France, no questions asked, no quarter given. They have horse archers, longbowmen, pikemen, halbredier troops, sword troops, three different kinds of excellent heavy cavalry, crossbowmen. The only thing that france doesn't have is french ninjas, which if were part of the french roster, would be more cost efficient than anyone else's ninjas by virtue of being part of france.

Post-Gunpowder: Here, the french start to decline. The focus isn't on heavy infantry anymore, because a new saltpeter based substance is sweeping the world. There isn't much of a point in investing in a wall of armored troops when they only provide a better target for a well placed musket bullet. Spain, in my opinion, takes the cake.

Why is this? Your late game armies need to have three basic elements, with the elements divided for special occasions.

Base Line Infantry >>> Tercios
Ranged Infantry >>> Musketeers
Cavalry >>> Gendarmes


Now the Tercios will hold the formation pretty well, especially against the one thing that late game armies seem to sport; heavy cavalry. Musketeers will take care of the heaviest of the heavy enemies, and Gendarmes with their good charge and armor rating will take care of any infantry that threaten the line.

If you need heavy hitters for city assaults, fear not. Spain has Dis. Chivalric Knights, some of the best foot infantry around. Spain also has, upon reaching the americas, the Dismounted Conquistador. This nasty son-of-a is just as good as the dis. christian guard that the moors have, and will whipe the floor with most other heavy infantry.

Artillery isn't a problem for spain either, since spain also has the basilisk.


Now as far as early game goes, one could even make a case for spain based entirely off of Jinetes and Almulghavars (sp?), which are killer troops if used with a little skill and intelligence.

Editted for spelling errors.

[IPoseTheQuestionYouReturnTheAnswer]

If we're counting ALL factions, I'd have to say the Timurids are by far the most powerful.

They get some of the best heavy lancer cavalry avaliable to any faction, and, of course, elephants. You don't need cannons when you have three units of Elephant Artillery - that's 45 Serpentines right there. Oh, and don't forget about rocket launchers. And if you go into the unit file and enable Elephant Rocketeers, there you have your best artillery unit mounted on top of your best cavalry unit, elephants.

Then add the obligatory horse archers, their armored ones being as good as the Byzantine Vdaroataaas[oasitoi.

The fact that they don't have any good infantry is belied by the fact that infantry are absolutely useless in M2 when you have elephants to knock them down and heavy cavalry to roll in right behind and trample them while they're down.

[MadKow]

Here is a post I made in the .com forums in reply to a "best catholic faction" thread-
(...)

Editted for spelling errors.

Although something has to be said about how easy each unit is to get and how costly it is, if you favor Spain, you can't dismiss Portugal.

Jinetes, check
Almugawhars, check
Tercio, Aventuros are superior
Musketeers, check, with a superb earlier unit in the Portuguese Arquebusiers
Cavalry, no gendarmes, best bet is Santiago, or Conquistadores, neither as easily available. Portuguese weak spot.

Add in Dismounted Portuguese Knights, a very different unit from its spanish equivalent, more of a flanker with high attack and armor piercing abilities.

Aventuros requirement of highest level barracks in a castle, make them hard to replace as you conquer forward, so in terms of the campaign Portugal may be a bit lacking compared to others, but unit per unit, you do have to consider it.

[Dave1984]

I'm going to have to go for an odd choice, the HRE. You begin with OK-but-not-great troops, but easily enough to hold your borders, and they are easily needed often enough, and in late game you have this juggernaut of a military machine that simply rolls over anything anyone else throws at it. You have prosperous northern Italian states and provided you act decisevely enough, from your very central position you effectively control who else rises and who falls. From that everything else is simple.

I would have said the English as they are the most vanilla of the vanilla factions and have their secure starting position and foothold in France. I don't believe the naval invasions have that much effect on the security of these islands because any fool can do the easy thing and build 2-3 full stack fleets and have them watching the channel and the Irish sea, but the preponderance of the longbowmen which can be a real problem but are easily nullified by a concerted cavalry attack and the rather limited infantry and cavalry choices mean that England slips down the most powerful rankings quite easily.

[PaulTa]

More units and accessability, and not so much starting position.

The starting position for spain could be relatively weak, and the position for England phenominal, but I could theoretically just pack up most of my military on a ship, take over england, and gift the spanish provinces to the pope or Portugal and moors, so that they destroy each other.


@ Madkow-

Portugual did cross my mind, but the lack of really great heavy cavalry and the dependance on castles for a good army sort of changed me back around.

Iposethe... -

This is just based on playable factions. Thanks for the warning on the timurids though.

[baron_Leo]

Why is the starting position weak of Spain? When you have conquered the Iberian peninsula, you have an almost as good position as England. And I am not using the patch (I think I am not the only one) but instead I am using mods for the bugs, so when I lock gibraltar, the only problem is the Pirenees (I still don't know how to spell them - someone please tell me) And if you coquer Tolouse, that will be the only city/castle which needs defense until you conquer further. And yeah Knights of Santiago...they rule.

[Braedonnal]

Jinetes, check
Almugawhars, check
Tercio, Aventuros are superior
Musketeers, check, with a superb earlier unit in the Portuguese Arquebusiers
Cavalry, no gendarmes, best bet is Santiago, or Conquistadores, neither as easily available. Portuguese weak spot.

My problem with Aventuros is really the impetuousness. I don't want them holding my line, personally. I agree on all the other points though and Portugal is very tough without a doubt.

[PaulTa]

I think that spain's biggest advantage is that they have all of the main bases covered from the city, which eliminates the need for castles in the late game.

[Czar Alexsandr]

The best faction hands down is Russia! None can stop the mighty hordes of Cossacks and mighty Tsar's Guard!

He he... my apoligies.. it's my favorite faction. What do you expect?

Well honestly they are really good. The Dvor horse archer is excellent, almost uncontested as the best heavy horse archer. Tsar's Guard can make knights pale when they're put into a close mellee. Boyar Son's used correctly can kill any othe javilien cavalry or at the very least in mellee. Dismounted Boyar Sons and Druhzhina can axe just about any armoured unit into bits. And the Cossack Musketer is excellent at his job. Only Janissary muskets are better. And even then only by a bit. The Basiliac can turn your enemy into early aviators -_O or the castles walls to rubble easily.

Oh and.. to clear up confusion... I'm not Russian. I'm British. Well.. sort of. I'm American of English descent.... -_-

[JCoyote]

I've been playing my first game with Portugal and they are pretty powerful compared to Britain. The trick is to learn conquest through diplomacy. In short order I had the Moors down to only Granada on Iberia and the Spanish trapped in Leon. Sent a team to Timbuktu but Moors beat me there by 1 turn. Went on to Aquin to grab it. Conquered the rebel provinces and grabbed Bordeaux before the Frenchies. The French attacked, were trounced and I got Toulouse from them as a peace settlement. Convinced the Moors to give me BOTH Granada and Timbuktu for a peace settlement, then crushed the Spanish in Leon. So I have all of Iberia, great buffers in Bordeaux and Toulouse against the Catholics with mountains to fall back to, great colonies. The only thing I need now is Marrakesh to hook it all together. I can defend against the Catholics easy without Papal interference and roll along north Africa towards the Holy Land.

ANY Iberian starting position can be worked into a powerhouse equal or better than the British Isles. Once you have Iberia... you can relax and go at whatever pace you want.