I'd like to add one thing about horse archers and sieges. Though it is not very realistic, horse archers have the unique ability to march into the middle of a town and shoot down everything that comes at them. Foot archers, once bunched up in a giant glob, become inefective. They stop firing, except for the outer ring of said blob. However, with a blob of horse archers, ALL of the horse archers will fire, in all directions, at everything, with stunning accuracy. You can have maybe a handfull of HC blocking 3-4 hundred infantry that are to stupid to charge past in a roadway. All packed together, they die like flies under the fire of the horse archer blob not 10 feet away from them. As the infantry get closer, the blob moves away. Most infantry just rout and go back to the city center.

I would also like to add my vote to Scotland as the weakest faction, even though it breaks my heart. I would say the mongols make a close second. They don't even start with a province, and their horse archers are -just- ok. They arn't Byzantine/Russia/Turk standard. If it wasn't for all their powerups and numbers when they arrive..we'd probably just sort of snicker when the "dreaded mongol horde" arrives.

I'd say their best unit is actually their dismounted heavy archer. HE has the stats that the mounted heavy archer should have...