Most difficult faction to win with?

[LadyAnn]

Howbout Byzantium in Late? :D

Annie

[Martok]

I've gotta go with the Polish as being the hardest, and the HRE a pretty close second. I've not really played Novgorod/Russians enough to comment on them.

In XL, I definitely agree that the Armenians are the toughest, with the Irish right behind them.

Howbout Byzantium in Late? :D

Annie

I confess I almost never play in the Late period. I imagine they would be fairly challenging, however. They only have Constantinople & Nicaea, and their troops are surely at least somewhat obselete by then.

[King Kurt]

I confess I almost never play in the Late period. I imagine they would be fairly challenging, however. They only have Constantinople & Nicaea, and their troops are surely at least somewhat obselete by then.

As usual my old friend Martok is right - I am currently playing a late Byzantine XL and it is really fun. You have to play a different game to normal - especially early on - you expand in small bites, usually capitialising on other people's problems. You frantically build a trading empire and econ upgrades and buy as many mercs as possible. In my game Nicaea had an inn from the begining and there was a succession of quality troops available. Once you have got a bit more critical mass you can play a slightly more conventional game, but the mercs seem to dry up and you don't really have the real quality troops others have. Your army has to be large to counteract this and that makes for a constant budget pressure. Despite having the largest income I get the insufficent funds message virtually every move. The troop problem is best illustrated by the infantry - your main line troops are either Byz infantry or armoured spears - now there is a challenge!!

[ULC]

Wll for me (nd I thnk the rest of you) THEhardest faction in XL would have to be th Volga-Bulgars...in High. You literally have no advantages (no polearms, no xbows), your economy is horrible, your surrounded by enemies, and you will always be outnumbered without the blessing of a bridge either! Has anyone EVER managed to win as Volga-Bulgaria in High?

[predaturd]

in vanilla the hardest to win with would be the germans

[PershsNhpios]

XL or MTW, the Polish are my favourite, and my most accustomed Kingdom.
I can win near to any battle with Polish units, I love their Political situation, their cavalry, they are close enough to the East to be influenced by the old Sarmatian ways, yet dear enough to the West to hold on to Catholicism and grand, Feudal armies.
Easy!

However, I am a very different player, I would feel uncomfortable as the French, English or Germans in any era - almost so that I would probably be defeated.
This is because I do not like the feel of being cast into an empire - especially not one under scrutiny - but prefer to use stratagem to create my own Kingdom out of little in a world full of empire.

[phred]

I haven't played XL in a while, but I remember the Crusaders on High to have a challenging start. You start with good troops but no infrastructure to build more and no inns for mercenaries. You're also surrounded by enemies. Once you get past the challenging start, you're on easy street with the rich middle eastern provinces.

[LadyAnn]

As usual my old friend Martok is right !

Of course, he's right! I told him! :p

Annie

[Ironside]

No mention of Aragon (for vanilla that is)?

Of course, it's almost only the opening that's hard, after that it can be very hard to predict if it's going to continue to be difficult´, as it's dependant on that some faction have grown very strong.

[predaturd]

aragon is easy if you get jinetes and take toulouse straight away and bribe el cid
then after that all you gotta do is ally with the spanish and kick the infidels off of iberia then conquer spain then youre as good as the spanish

[caravel]

For me Aragon is easy if you take out the Castilians as soon as possible and then deal with the Moors. The Castlians are by far your biggest threat.