Most overall weak faction?

[PureFodder]

Well, if someone's the strongest someone has to be the weakest.

My temptation is to say the Byzantines. Firstly they're one of the two Orthodox factions, so no Jihads or Crusades and you will pretty much always have to convert everyone to your religion when you conquor a settlement.
Expansion West will annoy the Pope and going East gets you in range of the Invasions. Crusading armies on their way to the holy lands will come trudging through your lands. In the late period they lack any decent cannons, any guns and have no anti-armour ranged fire. No really high quality spears as well.

What do you think?

[pevergreen]

Ill go with my Current Campaign (Italian Portugal)

Denmark.

They are getting crushed by the HRE.

Coincidently its the first time the HRE hasnt been smashed.
However, on Average, HRE AI is the worst.

[Musashi]

Scotland. No particularly brilliant archers, no cavalry worth mentioning. Great pikes and shock troops, but without either cool archers or good cav to back them up...

Oh, and they suck in the gunpowder age too. At least Byzantium can just go all cav...

I only go by unit lineup, strategic position is kind of irrelevant (IMHO).

[danfda]

^^^
Agreed completely.

Yeah, no gunpowder hurts...

[Darth Nihilus]

My vote would go to scotland.

[Cos3]

IMO, Scotland should have been an extremely powerful rebel faction, with time released full stacks of rebel scots that would make occupying the place difficult and require plenty of manpower. Which would have been historically accurate.

[Olmsted]

I think that Scotland is by far the weakest. The Byzantines get excellent horse archers, which give a competent human player a huge advantage.

[PaulTa]

Yeah, scotland gets my vote right off the bat. As far as weakest non-christian faction, I'd vote Egypt.

[PureFodder]

IMO, Scotland should have been an extremely powerful rebel faction, with time released full stacks of rebel scots that would make occupying the place difficult and require plenty of manpower. Which would have been historically accurate.

M2TW:Scottish Invasion!

[diamondback88]

Of course the poor Scottish should get the dubious honor, but Russia should actually get a mention too. Until they get Cossacks, their units are routinely outclassed by their neighbors: their horse archers are weak compared to the Byzantines, their heavy cavalry is even outclassed by the Poles early in the game; Polish nobles are significantly better than either Druzhina or Boyar sons and their infantry is nothing special, which hurts unless you deal with the Danes before they start cranking out Norse swordsmen and whatnot.

[hoetje]

Yea well,to be honest,the scots' unit roster is quite weak and uninteresting actually .

[alex9337]

I hear what everyone is saying, but I just love Scotland. Won my first grand campaign with them, thoroughly enjoyable!

[Derfasciti]

I love Scotland's voices...Just so awesome.

[Kraggenmor]

On topic: I've only played as Spain and Scotland so far so, can't really say overall.

In light of all the responses about the Scots being the weakest faction I was going to remark that I've had a much easier time with the Scots than I had as Spain.

Then it occurred to me that the Scots are benefitting from the hours and hours spent getting my butt kicked as Spain while I learned the game. Which made me realize that if I had started playing the game with Scotland, the game would have loaded up, and the the 'Faction Destroyed: Scotland.' message would have popped up.

[dismal]

In light of all the responses about the Scots being the weakest faction I was going to remark that I've had a much easier time with the Scots than I had as Spain.

I shall also say that my VH/VH Scotland campaign has been rather easy.

But then I tend to get by nicely with FKs and DFKs.

[General Zhukov]

Any faction that puts the emphasis on infantry, or that has a limited selection of cavalry, is weak. Specifically, lack of a good javelin cavalry unit is crippling, and lack of an early horse archer is a negative as well. So Scotland, England, perhaps Denmark. Strategically, this type of weakness isn't usually much of a handicap, since factions that are close to one another geographically tend to fight using similar methods.

[Bijo]

Well, if you expand as Scotland, you can still hire mercenaries throughout the lands more afar to fill up those HA spots and stuff. But if you ask me the Scots are pretty bad-ass. If an army selection has a weakness, it can still be exploited and used to its own advantage by the controlling entity, if carefully and thoughtfully done. Then weakness becomes a strength.

[PaulTa]

Of course the poor Scottish should get the dubious honor, but Russia should actually get a mention too. Until they get Cossacks, their units are routinely outclassed by their neighbors: their horse archers are weak compared to the Byzantines, their heavy cavalry is even outclassed by the Poles early in the game; Polish nobles are significantly better than either Druzhina or Boyar sons and their infantry is nothing special, which hurts unless you deal with the Danes before they start cranking out Norse swordsmen and whatnot.

Citing russia as a contender for the weakest faction has to be one of the most disagreeable things I have read all day.

[diamondback88]

Citing russia as a contender for the weakest faction has to be one of the most disagreeable things I have read all day.

You're right. Gosh, what was I thinking? I suppose I should have just made a heated, shortsighted, subtly-insulting post with no background, evidence or discernable purpose like yourself. I have much to learn.

[Rilder]

Any faction that puts the emphasis on infantry, or that has a limited selection of cavalry, is weak. Specifically, lack of a good javelin cavalry unit is crippling, and lack of an early horse archer is a negative as well. So Scotland, England, perhaps Denmark. Strategically, this type of weakness isn't usually much of a handicap, since factions that are close to one another geographically tend to fight using similar methods.

hehe we think completely different, I personally think any faction that puts an emphasis on calvary is weak... but thats just me.


As for weakest... hmmmmm its a tie between France and Scotland, france because they always seem to be wiped out the earliest in my games, and scotland which never seems to have an opportunity to expand.

[Darth Nihilus]

I personally don't think that Russia is very strong either until they get their Cossacks. I do think that Scotalnd is the weakest by far though, even though they are a lot of fun to play as (and they have awesome accents) . If I had to pick a second weakest faction I would probably say.........Egypt, although I haven't played as them. So that may be a shortsighted remark in my opinion.

[pevergreen]

I vote on what the AI does. Lately the Scotland AI has been beating the English, and the Egyptians control 1/4 of the map.

Ive only got 4 provinces!

[supadodo]

I would say Egypt for a Muslim faction. They have mostly similar early to high period units to the Turks and have crap late game units. Their only saving grace is their starting position.

For Orthodox I would go with Byzantines sine they lack late game gunpowder and Russia boast better selection of late game units then them.

For Catholic, from my experience, the HRE always get their asses wiped after about 20 turns. Though they have a cool unit roster, the absurdly amount of enemies means they never get a chance to use them.

[Marquis of Roland]

How come no one has mentioned the Moors? I haven't played with them yet, but they look pretty weak, and I remember them being weaker as the years go by.

[Olmsted]

The Moors are actually quite good. Along with the Russians they are very under-rated in my opinion. The Moors have decent low upkeep infantry and good early long-range archers. Later on they get the Tuareg Camels and Camel Gunners. Plus their economic position is superb due to their easily defensible position and proximity to Arguin and Timbuktu.

[Tyranus]

Yes I would agree with Olmsted, the moors are quite good. Chritian Guard, both mounted and dismounted, provide a very good staple of infantry and cavalry. Along with the cheap peasant crossbows that actually have long range. The moors also have desert cavalry and grenadine jinetes which are both excellent skirmish cav. Also, don't count out their variety of cheap spearmen, dismounted Arab and Tourag.
My vote for the weakest faction would have to go to Scotland. They lack any long range missle units and overpowering cavalry. They were easily cut down by long bows in my English campaign.

[Musashi]

Of course the poor Scottish should get the dubious honor, but Russia should actually get a mention too. Until they get Cossacks, their units are routinely outclassed by their neighbors: their horse archers are weak compared to the Byzantines, their heavy cavalry is even outclassed by the Poles early in the game; Polish nobles are significantly better than either Druzhina or Boyar sons and their infantry is nothing special, which hurts unless you deal with the Danes before they start cranking out Norse swordsmen and whatnot.

Dude, you're smoking something. The Russian horse archers are better than Byzantium's. The Dvor Cavalry are THE best horse archers in the game, bar none. Boyar Son's mean you have jav-cav, and Druzhina are MUCH stronger than their stats would indicate. Seriously, try them out in custom battle testing before you dismiss them, they rock, and crush most Polish cavalry in melee, and you get them almost from turn 1. Khazaks are just average, but they still provide you with horse archers at the game start.

Even in the late period, Tsar's Guard are actually very credible heavy cav. To say that Russia has a cavalry weakness is just plain ignorance, and I can only assume you've never actually tried to play as Russia.

Infantry wise they certainly have a spear weakness, but they have brilliant heavy infantry in the form of Berdiche Axemen, at least if you apply one of the 2H animation fixes (And you really should).

Dismounted Dvor in the high/late period and crossbow militia in the early period mean you never have a glaring missile weakness either.

All in all, Russia is a candidate for strongest faction. Easily on par with the overrated France and HRE.

[Armenia_Byzantium]

Its true that with the byzantines, religion matters, but not as serious as the effect of the mongol invasion, i have had a very bad experience playing as the byzatines during my previous campaign when i had mongols invading every every eastern settlement, mongols have very experienced units and they are quite dangorous, that is the main concern of every eastern faction i suppose

Well, if someone's the strongest someone has to be the weakest.

My temptation is to say the Byzantines. Firstly they're one of the two Orthodox factions, so no Jihads or Crusades and you will pretty much always have to convert everyone to your religion when you conquor a settlement.
Expansion West will annoy the Pope and going East gets you in range of the Invasions. Crusading armies on their way to the holy lands will come trudging through your lands. In the late period they lack any decent cannons, any guns and have no anti-armour ranged fire. No really high quality spears as well.

What do you think?

[Rurik the Chieftain]

I dunno, Musashi...those Vardariotai, while having one less attack (ranged and melee) point than the dvor, have both the disciplined and highly trained traits as opposed to the dvor's normal and trained traits. The Dvor morale is 9 compared to the Vard 11.The Vards also have one more point of armor, which I think is a little crazy. Neither they nor their horses are even wearing armor! Even with the Dvor's ability to formed charge and their armor piercing melee, I think it's a pretty close match.

It's true that as far as late game options are concerned, Byzantium gets the short, pointy end of the stick. Not only do they lack any "new" technology like gunpowder, but their biggest nearby rivals, the Turks and Venetians, get very powerful units in the late period. Also the whole worst of both worlds thing (Crusades and Western armies plus Timurids and Mongols) makes life difficult. I suppose it was CA's intention to make the game more difficult later for the Byz, since they were supposed to die out.

[Czar Alexsandr]

Dah! Long live the Tsar! Russia's my favorite faction. -_-

But of course this all a matter of opinion. And we are all entitled to one. This isn't Russia after all! I mean.. pre 1990 he he. -_-

But for weakest definately the Scots. Though thosse barbarians are a pain in the side when you're fighting France to as England -_-. Honestly even though England has bad cavalry to it still has better cavalry. The Scotish don't get any counter cav units either till the point where a good English player's already eradiacted them. Although.. if they can hang on the English will have to get on foot and fight them. Then they might need 2 English for every 1 Scot.