preferd non catholic faction

[Brogie]

whats a good non catholic faction to use ( ones that can do jihads ) i dont use cavalry that much

i hear a lot of people like turks but moors have some areas in spain

[Yun Dog]

I found egypt to be alot of fun, and a relatively secure starting position

Im looking forward to playing the turk but they have it a bit tougher

If you dont like cav then the eastern races are not going to be fun because they have very good cavalry

the turks have some nice infantry too like Janisarrys - but your stuck between the Egyptians and the Byzantines, and then the Mongols and then the Timurids and some crusaders as well.

I think the moors have some good infantry too - but am yet to play them

so are you looking for good challenge or good roll over the world

[Brogie]

i am wiht england at the monent, almost taken spain, wiped out portugal and the moors, done 2 successfull crusades...(popes anoyong me)

moores seem more accessible,foothold on europe and africa, with england u go to go quite far for the crusades etc unless a european power gets excom

[Kobal2fr]

Well, "don't use cavalry that much" rules out Russia, Turkey and Byzantium. So it's a toss-up between the Moors and Egypt, and everything Egypt does, the Moors do better so... go go orange camels !

[andrewt]

I've played only Moors and Turks so far. Go with Turkey if you want a change of pace. Moors are a lot closer to Catholic factions at the end. The Christian Guard and dismounted Christian Guard are the same as the Catholic knights and dismounted knights, except better. The Moor campaign is also a lot easier.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

All Muslim are HA heavy especially in the early game. The Turks have very good late era infantry (everything with Janissary in it). The moors suck in spears, but get very good heavy infantry/cavalry later in the game (Christian guard mounted and dismounted). They are very close to a lot of very angry infidels (Christians) who hate you. Once gunpowder is discovered their Africa Corps Camel gunners rule everything. They are very expensive but invincible.

[Doug-Thompson]

go go orange camels !

I'll second that motion.

[magnum]

I enjoy the Turks the most. HA armies early on, Infantry armies later on. They can be really challenging with all the opponents (Byz, Egypt, Mongol, Tims, and usually either Russ or Poland.)

The Moors were more difficult for me early on. Their unit selection is lousy for my style of play. Once they get their advanced units they do very well though. So if you can survive Spain, Portugal, and Sicily attacking you every chance they get (with an occasional Papel attack) then you'll roll up territiories later on.

Egypt is the easiest hands down for me. The Turks and Moors are usually fairly peacful towards you as they have other bigger worries. Gives you time to expand into several very nice territiories and build them up. When you do move out you can be fairly high teched.

[Tusk]

I like the Turks because they are close to Antioch and Constantinople - two of the best money-machines in the whole game, and they are not too far from Europe, so if you expand your empire in that direction you don't sit with ridiculous distance and corruption penalties.

I also like their well-rounded all-purpose infantry, like Ottoman Archers and Janissary archers: Wicked archers in their own right, and also decent in a melee. Early-game horse archers are also sweet.

[Shahed]

Timurids. edit: oh wait you're asking which is good for you. NVM the Tims then. I guess maybe the Byzantines ?

[Kraggenmor]

The only one I've played is Egypt and I really enjoyed it!

[andrewt]

Egypt seems to me like it has the least interesting roster of the Muslim nations but a very good starting position. Except for the Tabardariyya, it seems everything they have, the Turks have a similar, but better unit.

[Doug-Thompson]

Well, I have to defend the Egyptians a little. Yes, it's a pretty easy starting position. However, you pay for that when the Mongols and Timurids arrive and if they don't go to Russia. You're on the front line then.

As for the unit roster, the Mamluk Archer is a better dual-purpose, melee-missile unit than the Sapahis.

The Turks get Saracen militia too, but the Egyptians can afford Mamluk Archers and Saracens. The real strength of Egypt is the economy.

Still, I'm enjoying my Hungarian Campaign more than any other — MTW1, RTW or MTW2.

[andrewt]

I'm not a very big spear fan. I used them in MTW but felt they sucked in RTW and especially MTW2 1.0. I'm hearing good reviews lately in 1.2 so might try them again in a future campaign. I used saracen only a little bit with the Turks because I teched up really fast to JHI, then got Hashishim shorty after.

Egypt beat me to Jerusalem so I declared war early on and got their lands. Only problem is I conquered some of the crappy lands like Aleppo, Damascus, Edessa, etc. and held on to Yerevan and Mosul so my economy wasn't that good. That and I built those up thinking they'll be better down the road. Should've probably abandoned Yerevan and Mosul then made Aleppo and Damascus into castles.

As for Hungarians, it seems they reversed roles with the Poles. They had a more interesting roster in MTW but it seems Poles have a more interesting roster in MTW2.

[Hellenic_Hoplite]

I guess out of all the non catholic factions my favorite is the byzantine empire because it was the last of true roman culture.

[Brogie]

what are the russians like....do they still have anything to do with the pope and are the cossack muskets any good?

[Kobal2fr]

Russians wouldn't give a plague-ridden rat's arse about the Pope. Well, except he may launch crusades against them. So okay, maybe the occasional rodent body part can be given on occasion. Other than that, he's just a man with a weird hat fetish to them.
And the cossack muskets are great - the thing is, the road leading to them is very, very rocky indeed

[Brogie]

i think i'll be them in my nxt game, i fancy a challange, i think ive learnt the basics in my first game (m2tw,played rome,mtw for ages, never had shogun)on normal with the english who have some great units but are up in the corner away from the action of the mongols, and i am sick of fighting france. They attacka castle lay siege for 1 turn then run away

the moors, spanish and portugal fell easily...but i am only playin on Hard/normal

[Kobal2fr]

Well the early Russian game is certainly a challenge. First, none of your cities make any cash. Plus they're 10.000 miles apart. And then Poland attacks you with stacks of knights, when all you have are ragtag bands of militia spears and Khazaks because none of your castles has made it past fort&motte stage yet, and probably won't for another million years.
And then there's the Mongol hordes.
Happy times ! :)

[Brogie]

i like a challange, its about the struggle...no struggle...no victory

plus i'll dont use that much cav with eng so i'll have to elarn how to use thmem properly...never used horse archers..always stook tio foot archers as eng

[andrewt]

Those Polish Nobles at the start are very powerful. They're pretty cheap to support too so they'll have tons of them when you fight the Poles. You have to basically survive using Khazaks, Boyar Sons and creap spear militia with a crappy economy at the start of the game. I think conquering the coastal provinces and only a few of the inland provinces is a good start. Just don't get stretched too much.

Russia gets really easy in the mid to late game. Dvor and dismounted Dvor are just extremely awesome. If you control Stockholm and a few coastal provinces there, they give a ton of income.

[Kobal2fr]

Yup, but taking Stockholm gets the Über Danes on your back :/

[Brogie]

it will be a refreshign change to fight the poles, turks, hung, benz becuas i have never faught them in the campaign....think i'll start a new game with the ruskies tonight.......with the crap weather and flooding in england i dotn fancy going out...not so keen on leaving work....(hand up who should be working(*puts hand up))

[Grog]

I'm having great fun with the Byzantines atm (I'm turn 120ish VH/VH vanilla 1.2), everyone wants a piece of my under-garrisoned empire, but they are not getting it ;)

I decided to take the holy lands and most of turkey early on, just to spice things up a bit. You can end up fighting a lot of wars though, I've had simultaneous crusades/jihads called against me, and I am currently easily breaking mongol stacks with vard/heavy Cav as they push SW into Bucharest. ie: fighting full mongol stack+ 7/8*general in the open with general+ 7 vard +7 kata/latinkon mix. I usually lose 2-300 troops to wipe a full stack of mongols, and am retrained by the time the next stack makes it near, It helps that I have master swordsmith + armour factory at Bran (thanks to the two faced hungarians) and can supply good armoured vards from sofia and my southern fortress (forget the name)

All in all, a great faction to play for fast mobile armies and plenty of wars. Can get a bit tricksy early on with venice/pope and milan all coming for you, as vards are relatively expensive to run for a fledgeling economy.

[andrewt]

Yup, but taking Stockholm gets the Über Danes on your back :/

Well, they start with only 1 province and their troops don't really do well against missile cav.

[Callahan9119]

moors are the safest, people say egypt...but the infantry stink and there is alot of shenanigans going on over there with mongols, byzantines, timurids, sicily, venice, crusaders and the tricksy turks.

moors can make a fortress of spain and just start to swallow up europe at a measured pace, plus you can make a legion of urban militia, which lack some in stats, but the sheer numbers you can field in a short time can be unstoppable, camel gunners are pretty cool too. i knock out spanish and portugal fast the build a fortress, then after i get to high era my urbans pour out of spain like the forces of mordor and destroy

only egypt unit i really like are the naptha and kurd javies, mamluks are kinda subpar imo

i dont like cav armies, so i dont like turks, and even the janissaries die fast, bad defense...although i do like the feeling of recreating the march to constantinople and on to the balkans!

[Kovvers]

At which point does the moors infantry become better than egypts? Seems to me saracen militia are far better than anything the moors can field early on?

[HoreTore]

Lamtuna spearmen are simply great. Remember to give them the armour upgrade though, as they're not very good without it. They'll have an attack of 9 and defense of 14, which is about as high as you can get a spearman. Because of their higher attack, they're a lot more offensive than the standard spearman too.

@Kovvers: they're better when they can field christian guard, lamtunas and urban milita.

[Sheogorath]

I like the Russians meself, mostly just 'cause theyre the Russians. Cossack Musketeers only sweeten the deal.
And I like the feel of 500 Dvor's sweeping across the field peppering their foes with arrows prior to doing an about-turn and crushing the hell out of everthing before them.

[andrewt]

I actually think that dismounted Christian Guards are the best all-around melee infantry unit in the game. They don't have any armor upgrades but they're basically a lower upkeep dismounted chivalric knight with +3 attack.