Scotts are weak... and here's why

[dismal]

the AI Scots have fought their way all the way to Dijon in my Byz campaign, and have attacked me in Milan. Not as a result of anything I have done as I've mostly been busy on the other side of the world.

Anyway, I don't think there's any meaningful comparison between what the AI does with a faction and how easy it is for a player.

Every faction I have tried can put together a stack that can consistently whoop the AI in battles, including the Scots.

In my experience, the biggest determinant of how difficult a faction is starting position. Corner factions like the Scots have only one front to worry about. You can essentially defend yourself against England with the same army you are attacking them with. If you play Venice or the Byzantines, on the other hand, you are going to be attacked by everyone from all directions, and you will have to make a lot of difficult calls about how thin a force you can get away with.

[Marius Dynamite]

Well Im Scottish (Glaswegian to be precise, which is very hard to spell.) and I think it's only fair to say that Scotland are naturally in a difficult position, since England were historically stronger...

But then again, this is for one simple reason, we never let the Romans in and they did, right?

Anyways if all human players were playing then I think you must remember that France would probably be keen enough to ally with the Scots with the common goal being the destruction of England. I mean, France knows that it is surrounded with the only reliable ally being the Scots and the most definite enemy being the English. Effectively it would be half the power of France and all of Scotland against England, with England being in a good position but surrounded nonetheless.

[Werner]

Im on my first scotish campaign right now and think its a really good faction so far. The lack of gunpowder units is lame and their special units aren't that special, but whatever.

[Marius Dynamite]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ICGjffAfh98

Slightly off topic but it does explain the diplomatic situation Scots find themselves in the world...

[_Aetius_]

In my experience, the biggest determinant of how difficult a faction is starting position. Corner factions like the Scots have only one front to worry about. You can essentially defend yourself against England with the same army you are attacking them with. If you play Venice or the Byzantines, on the other hand, you are going to be attacked by everyone from all directions, and you will have to make a lot of difficult calls about how thin a force you can get away with.

Yeah Byzantium etc have a rough time, it's not unusual for the Venetians, Hungarians, Turks and Egyptians to declare war on Byzantium early on and it can be hard to fight on all fronts at once. However the empire is vast after you expand abit so it isnt as bad as a really small faction like Milan.

Your right though the Scots really only have one frontier to defend, so their small size isnt as relevant.

[dismal]

Yeah Byzantium etc have a rough time, it's not unusual for the Venetians, Hungarians, Turks and Egyptians to declare war on Byzantium early on

You left off Sicily and Milan. Sicily was actually the first to attack - in turn 5. And for reasons I don't quite undertand, the Moors seemed to really want Iraklion so they attacked too. I think I had 8 enemies by turn 35 or 40.

Even the Pope was landing troops on me.

Eventually I got attacked by Russia, Poland, HRE, Portugal, and Scotland too. And of course the Mongols.