Worst/Most annoying viable faction to play

[doctrellor]

I am curious, since we generally agree that Armenia is the worst one to play, but of the major powers... what one gives you the most stress and heartburn

From what I can tell, I would say the HRE...

Nobody wants to ally with you, everybody wants a peice of you, you have no good fall back lines, Excommunication is basically a given...and so crusades against you are also a given...

Is there a reason to play the HRE?

specifics:

1) I take Pomerania/Prussia and have to keep large garrisons there due to the Danes/Swedes....
2) I have to keep large garrisons in Lorraine/Burgundy due to the French
3) Tyrol/Provence has to be garrisoned due to the Venitians/Genoese
4) Franconia/Austria has to be garrisoned due to Bohemia/Hungary
5) Keep a navy im the Med & Baltic to keep folks honest...

so you have to guard every damn side, and the HRE aint made of $, and happiness sucks, so ya have to build towers/keeps/churches right away to keep rebellions away

I have taken out Venice, hit Bohemia hard to shut them up, keep large garrisons on my western front, before I launch some attacks on FRance to shut them up as well..

If I do have allies, if some idiot with more influence attacks me (like Venice), all my allies split...

HRE just seems to be a major headache...

[General Dazza]

All the things you mention above make it the best faction to play IMO - I really enjoy playing a faction with everythying against it - makes you enjoy victory all the more.

The way I eventually won with HRE was to :
1. avoid excomm at all costs
2. identify your key provinces and your plan for defending them - I usually pick one for troops, one for missiles, one for cav, one for artillery and one for diplomatic. With HRE also you have switzerland for swiss pikemen etc
3. build up forces - don't go attacking til you're ready to defend key provinces. In my experience you have to turtle for a while
4. I attacked France first - their forces are relatively weaker to others, and Flanders is a vital one to get for $
5. Be wary of the Danes and their vikings

Then just make your own way. But you certainly need luck. And take advantage of the fact that once you get warned off attacking one faction by the pope, you're free to attack another.

Re other factions, I've read that volgur bulgars on high are a nightmare. So that's my next campaign!

[macsen rufus]

ARMENIA?? Are you kidding?? It's about my favourite faction [/ false sense of aggrieved outrage]

But seriously though, you start in bit of a tight spot, short of cash and have to choose your enemies carefully, but once the first few years are passed it's a pretty powerful unit roster you have.

I am in more agreement on the HRE, but only in as much as I find nearly all the Catholic factions annoying because of the Pope. He is the most annoying thing on the entire map. With HRE your secret weapon is the mounted Xbow available from early, and of course Swabian swordsmen, both of which are great against Vikings. But I find the micromanagement of loyalty etc a bit irritating as well. With most factions it settles down quite nicely, but with the HRE you always have to watch your back.

Volga-Bulgars are another great faction, btw. I loved that campaign, GD - don't think I did them in high, though....

[The Unknown Guy]

In the pocket mod playing Byzantium on High is PAIN. Specially if you increase the rebellion risk.

[ULC]

Actually, I foud Lithuania quite challenging. It's units can stand on thier own during the early period, put after that your units are outclassed period. Also, since your pagan and nothing changes that, everyone hates you. War and rebellion are the name of the game.

Cumans are about the same but less signifgantly hadicapped by thier units, which are good to excellent.

Volga-Bulgarians on High is an absolute nightmare. You next to no way of defeating the GH like the Kievians, Cumans (Who can match cavalry at least) and Novgorod.

Poland happens to be difficult as well, as it's opportunities for free expansion have been curtailed. It's helped though by the splitting of "Poland" into greater and lesser.

A person not used to factions such as Aragon or has problems monetary wise, will find Bohemia and Armenia difficult to deal with, at least in the beginning. Once you can establish yourself with 2-3 more provinces your way is clear, although Bohemia has some provincial loyalty problems.

Venetians can be difficult, if only becuase they have been stort changed in nieghbors and provinces. Again, after the early game, they become rather easy.

Irish and Scots can be VERY difficult if only becuase they are forced to make war with the English if they want ot expand. The Irish are unique though in that to become a power they must have a very good navy, compared to the Scots who can at leats force thier way south.

[Martok]

In all honesty, the Turks remain my least favorite faction to play, regardless of whether or not I'm playing the game with a mod. I don't care for their starting position -- I have to war immediately against either the Byz or Eggies, which is rather against my playing style. Nor am I very fond of their unit roster, as it's composed of too many mounted missile units for my taste.

[Weebeast]

Would you consider Poland as major power? I don't like playing as Poland. It's a non-enjoyable game in general (losing in the end but no battles in epic proportion). That's too bad cus I like Poland in real life. I like kielbasa and I like Polish women :p

[Tratorix]

I personally find the Almohads the least fun. You have to engage in a major war with Spain very early( stupid jinettes ), you usually get raided by the Sicilians or Italians and then the Egyptians invade you. Not to mention that I find the Almohad unit roster to be one of the worst in the game. Aside from the AUM, most of their units aren't very good.

[doctrellor]

Would you consider Poland as major power? I don't like playing as Poland. It's a non-enjoyable game in general (losing in the end but no battles in epic proportion). That's too bad cus I like Poland in real life. I like kielbasa and I like Polish women :p

I have taken all of the russian steppes and been excommunicated for it.. so the Poles by going East and north can be a major power..

I would have to have significant garisons facing the HRE/Hungarians/Byz and make a decent Baltic fleet to keep the Scanivians honest..lol

In the by the Mongols arrived I backstabbed them, before they me.. and so I took Scandinavia ... so a lot of the map was a beautiful blood red color..:P

[Mongoose]

I really hate the English. First of all, the damn French and Germans attack you from pretty much the beginning, and start carving up all your mainland provinces. Then, you get hit with a civil war. Before you know it, you're down to 2 provinces and the Welish are pillaging London.

[cosminus]

Would you consider Poland as major power? I don't like playing as Poland. It's a non-enjoyable game in general (losing in the end but no battles in epic proportion). That's too bad cus I like Poland in real life. I like kielbasa and I like Polish women :p

I have no idea about Polish women but in my game I found Poland very nice faction to play. First of all I managed to in few turns to have shores to black sea and north seas, only by fighting rebels. By taking Moldavia and Kiev trade in Mediterranean seas is secured and with the aid of north side fleet I got entire map trade quicker than other any faction. Also until High started, I managed to stretch Poland from Navarre to Carpathia and to entire north of Europe, only factions on map been Polish, Byz, Spain (only in Iberia) and Sicilians. With a carefull plan ahead in development, Poland was for my a surprise game. Of course, as long as now I'm in just few years before Horde to emerge, I can be wrong, but my chalanger are Byz and I count on Horde to weak them.
My favorite faction is...Turks, because of JHI, even if I like to play catholics. From there, HRE is my baby, nice roster units, in Late especially.
I found Byz as unpleasant faction to play, because Kats and VG becoming later obsolete. Also I dislike Italians in Late, because of weak navy.

[ULC]

Although not truly hard, Spain has a bit of an uneviable starting position in Early and High. The Almohads need only reinforce Cordoba, whereas the Spanish need to garrison all their lands heavly. Still, the taking of Cordoba solves that . English I find rather easy personally. They Never have to worry about crusades (barring Excommunication), thier crusades, with management, are always the largest, they have excellent choices for a units. Theri only weakness as mongoose pointed out is their horrid mainland position. I was just playing a game of Volga-Bulgarians on High, and HOLY EXPLICITIVE BATMAN!!!!!!!! its hard ! Thier is noway you can match the Horde, at all! The solution I find, it to transplant your self to say Novgorod, or even Poland (which I did). Sure, a lot of people are going to want to kill you, but they're going to have some serious problems of thier own VERY soon.

[Gimli]

In MTW VI, I would have to say that the Danes are one of the hardest to be... You have so very little money to expand with and nowhere to really go except through Germany... Which isn't usually my idea of a Danish good time! In XL, the Volga Bulgars have it really rough, especially in the High period as the Golden Horde will show up and wipe them out in only a few turns! Also in XL, the Norwegians have it possibly the hardest of all! Nowhere to expand to easily, NOOOOOO money and only one province! Too bad, because Norway is cool!

[drone]

In MTW VI, I would have to say that the Danes are one of the hardest to be... You have so very little money to expand with and nowhere to really go except through Germany... Which isn't usually my idea of a Danish good time!

I find the Danes to be fairly easy. Your infantry is the best in Early. Consolidate Scandinavia, make use of the iron in Sweden, and start pumping out longboats. Your early naval power should get you trade, as well as plenty of expansion options. It's best to leave the HRE alone (they will have enough problems as is), take out Britain, France, or head east for more land.

Most annoying would be any faction heavy on the missile troops and skirmishers. I'm just not very good with them.

[Gimli]

Good call on the trading aspect Drone. I haven't often thought of trying that...

[macsen rufus]

Also in XL, the Norwegians have it possibly the hardest of all! Nowhere to expand to easily, NOOOOOO money and only one province! Too bad, because Norway is cool!

Norway is a pretty cool faction if you remember two things: Viking valour bonus, and the Swedes are cowards...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

by 'the Swedes are cowards' I mean no disrespect to the RL nation of the same name, rather that there is a very easy exploit for Norway: simply set a unit of Vikings in training on turn one to maintain loyalty, then throw everything you have across the border into Sweden - they always retreat without fighting - end of faction and you now have Scandinavia's richest province in your hands, plus iron

From there, like any other Scandinavian faction, you can kick some butt...

[Haccapelite]

Am i just very very lucky, or just so skilled in this game, (yeah, sure, in my dreams.. :D) because i have found most of the factions you have been talking about here rather easy.

Originally posted by YourLordandConqueror
Poland happens to be difficult as well, as it's opportunities for free expansion have been curtailed. It's helped though by the splitting of "Poland" into greater and lesser.

I have only played the polish with the unmodded version of MTW:VI, but it was actually pretty easy. I started in early, and im currently in year 1270 or near that. I have conquered most of the Baltic coast provinces, all hungarian provinces, tha Balcans, excluding Greece and Constantinople, Kiev and a couple of steppe provinces. My western border lies on the line Austria-Bavaria-Frieseland, and my neighbor there is the overgrown Spanish kingdom.
The war against them is going rather well, although they have a strong army on my borders. The Golden Horde wasn't even a challenge, the only province bordering them was Kiev, and every invasion to that province ended up with a bridgebattle, which gave me a huge advantage and my halberdies + Steppe heavy cavalry +arbalesters raped those poor Horde-guys in every single battle. So now i have two nearly full stacks of halberdies with 8 valour and a nine star general with several moraleboosting virtues guarding my eastern border.(i killed the GH-khan in a battle, so it has been quite peacefull since then. Oh, except that they reappeared a couple of years ago.. ) I haven't touched that campaing for a while since i installed the XL-mod, but i think i'll get back on it sooner or later.

Originally posted by YourLordandConqueror
Irish and Scots can be VERY difficult if only becuase they are forced to make war with the English if they want ot expand. The Irish are unique though in that to become a power they must have a very good navy, compared to the Scots who can at leats force thier way south.

Irish are a peace of cake, just make one or two ships, pump out some Gael Ghaedils,(or something like that, you know what i mean..) bribe Wales and attack the rest of england. i kicked the english out of the island in just a couple of years only using Gaels and some miscellaneous troops (in one battle, i killed over 2000 englishmen with five or six units of Gaels and one Fianna Eirea-something and one unit of RK's. i lost about 40 men ) and when i conquered Normandy and Franconia my financial troubles vanished quickly. I started to make Sherwood foresters in mercia, and now my low-supportcost-elite-army is hacking it's way through the Holy Roman Empire.

[Haccapelite]

Holy sh-(am i allowed to swear in this forum?), i managed to make that reply-thingy work!
How can you edit your posts here? Because in my Irish-story, i didn't mean Franconia, i meant Flanders..

[Martok]

Holy sh-(am i allowed to swear in this forum?), i managed to make that reply-thingy work!

Welcome to the Org, Haccapelite! Yes, swearing is prohibited here.

How can you edit your posts here? Because in my Irish-story, i didn't mean Franconia, i meant Flanders..

I was wondering if you didn't mean Flanders.

Junior members cannot edit posts. Promotion to full membership usually takes a few weeks or so, so you just need to be patient for a little while.

[Haccapelite]

Originally posted by Martok
Welcome to the Org, Haccapelite! Yes, swearing is prohibited here.

Thank you, Martok. Ahh, thats good, nothing boosts a message better than a well chosen swear-word ;)

Originally posted by Martok
Junior members cannot edit posts. Promotion to full membership usually takes a few weeks or so, so you just need to be patient for a little while.

Okay, thanks for the information, I'll try to be patient. (a thing im not very good at, though..)

[Gimli]

Norway is a pretty cool faction if you remember two things: Viking valour bonus, and the Swedes are cowards...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

by 'the Swedes are cowards' I mean no disrespect to the RL nation of the same name, rather that there is a very easy exploit for Norway: simply set a unit of Vikings in training on turn one to maintain loyalty, then throw everything you have across the border into Sweden - they always retreat without fighting - end of faction and you now have Scandinavia's richest province in your hands, plus iron

From there, like any other Scandinavian faction, you can kick some butt...

Never tried that before!!! Now I wanna be Norway!!!

[Haccapelite]

Originally posted by Martok
Yes, swearing is prohibited here.

Oh ****, prohibited means the same as forbidden.. (and i thought i can handle english pretty well..)
I feel kinda stupid, good that i checked it from the dictionary. Dont use so hard words with me, im just a simple Junior Member. ;D

[Martok]

Never tried that before!!! Now I wanna be Norway!!!

Playing as the Norwegians is easy, albeit fun. Just take Sweden right away, and then swing through Scania and Denmark as soon as you're able. After that, it's just a matter of choosing where you want to go next....and you'll have plenty of options by then.

Oh ****, prohibited means the same as forbidden.. (and i thought i can handle english pretty well..)
I feel kinda stupid, good that i checked it from the dictionary. Dont use so hard words with me, im just a simple Junior Member. ;D

No worries, mate. We don't jump on newbies here -- unless of course you insult the noble camel.

[Noir]

Originally posted by Martok
...unless of course you insult the noble camel.

...or its noble rider(s) ;)

[Haccapelite]

Originallly written by Martok
No worries, mate. We don't jump on newbies here -- unless of course you insult the noble camel.

Well, i haven't even thought of that, it would of course be a very foolish deed.
(uh, may i just ask one question? Who is this noble camel that i am not recommended to insult? )

[Martok]

(uh, may i just ask one question? Who is this noble camel that i am not recommended to insult? )

The animal in general (Linky) is considered sacred in these halls. Anyone who's played as the Almos, Eggies, and/or Turks in the Early period usually develops a certain respect (if not outright affection) for these wonderful beasts -- many a battle in MTW has been won on the back of the Dromedaries.

That said, Lord Mithrandir and myself seem to generally be regarded as the chief guardians of Camel-dom here, and thus are probably a bit more protective as a result.

[therussian91]

Me being Armenian, I love playing as Armenia, but that's not the only reason: there is always this constant threat that you're under in the beginning of the campaign. However, slowly but surely, I've always managed to gobble up Anatolia, Thrace, the Levant, and Egypt.

Great faction to play.


Oh, and yes, the Danes on Early are very easy, due to their terrific Viking infantry. I remember I played an XL game (extreme) with them, and built a very good empire all around the Baltic and North Seas, as far down south as Poland. The only other super power at the time was Spain (and holy mother of God, they were huge). I decided to fight them, but was horrible defeated due to my failing economy (it was very strong before war), and because their total military outnumbered me by 14352345235 to 1.

[The Darkhorn]

No decent generals ...Too many places to defend with your weak forces ...Not enough money ...Initially landlocked ...Not ready to face the Mongols in time = The Vulgar-Bulgars. I died the death of a thousand lovebugs when I played them.

[Seabourch]

The French! The provinces are seperated , leaving you vulnerable to English invasions or HRE. You have spend the early periods of campaign building up military especially in Toulouse

[History Geek]

I just played poland high/vanilla MTW:VI, and they were quite annoying and therefore fun to play.

In the beginning I struggled with the HRE, when they were down I was hit on by the horde, and after that an incredibly strong russia. Those Boyars with 5-6 valor were litterary killing my poor digital subjects. My weak income and the obsolete units coupled with low influence kings and no generals with any command stars whatsoever gave me a good run for the money. Some in this forum suggested Poland easy, but that wasn't my experience.

/HG