Scotts are weak... and here's why

[Didz]

I'm playing a documented Scottish Campaign even as we speak, so this will give people a pretty good idea of just how weak Scotland is a starting faction.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=85754

So what does Scots have against their neighbour England? Nothing. They start out with one city, and outclassed in all of their units compared to England. Again, I know that if you play against AI, you can beat anything... but imagine if all the factions were played by human players. That's why I think Scots are the weakest faction in the game.

These points are valid but they can also be considered strengths as well as weaknesses.

True Scotland only has one city at the start of the game, but at the same time it has almost unchallengeable access to Inverness and Dublin which means that provided the player gets his priorities right it should very quickly have three cities.

It also has quick access to York and Caenarvon which ought to be reasonably easy to capture unless the English make Scotland their main opening target.

The big bonus for Scotland in the opening game is that it’s only viable opposition are the English, and the English have the big problem of having to defend on two opposing fronts and so can’t effectively mass their forces against the Scots.

This issue would not disappear even if the factions were player controlled, and in fact the problems for the English player would be even worse than those suffered by the Scottish. Imagine playing England with a Scottish player waiting to pounce on York, a French player waiting to pounce on Caen and a Danish player poised to land a besieging army on Nottingham and reclaim Northumberland.

Personally, I’d rather be the Scottish player, the victory conditions are pretty straight forward, its geo-political situation is simple and all you need to do is stab the English in the back every-time the French distract them.

Can I suggest you travel to Scotland, repeat all your comments in Glasgow on a Friday night.

I have actually been to Scotland and Glasgow. We took a holiday break at Hill House in Helensborough. My impression of Scotland was quite dissapointing in some respects. The scenery was astounding, but rarely seemed to be appreciated or respected by the Scots themselves, I was amazed to have dinner one evening in a restaurant overlooking Loch Lomond only to find that the restaurant had no windows facing the Loch that you could see through, which I found bizarre. I was also dissapointed that despite spending a day in Glasgow, I only saw one Scot wearing a kilt the entire week, and never heard a single bagpipe. I also drove past Glen Coe without even realising it due to lack of signage and ended up eating in a restaurant on the slopes of Ben Nevis with a line of Leylandii Cypress blocking my view of the mountain. Weird or what.

I hated Glasgow btw: very scary place especially along the river front. I was glad to get away from there, and I'm used to working in some of the bad area's of London.

I concluded that Peterborough on a Saturday is more proud to be Scottish than Scotland, at least there you can see a Scot wearing a kilt and playing the pipes, even if he problably comes from Northampton.