Easiest Factions to start with

[Drag529]

I find that the English and the Scott’s are the easiest faction to start with due to their location….
All you half to do is take control of the English Island and the costal to France….
and build up your income by building upgrade to you shipyards, roads, farms..etc etc/.

[homefry]

I think Venice is one of the easiest.

You don't really need castles because the militia army is so strong.

[Saibot]

In my opinion Egypt is also easy. Just expand quickly at the start of the campaign by taking, Acre, Damascus, Antioch, Adana etc. And mainly focus on you're economy. Once you've got the whole coastal area conquered the money starts flowing in and you can start conquering big time. By the time the mongols came (around turn 67 I believe) I had the complete Middle east and parts of modern Greece conquered.

[miserable09]

England is pretty easy to start with... Though lately I've been finding Turkey pretty good for a quick start as well.... Just sell off Mosul and the Little northern province and dig in with Iconium and Caserera.

[Captain Spanky]

The Moors have an excellent start imo, with a good economy and a great unit roster, at least later in the game. Its a great change of pace from other western factions.

[mbchudno]

any faction is fairly simple to start. they all have some sort of benefit (good starting units, location, strong starting economy, access to good trading resources...etc) Just make sure you exploit that benifit to the best of your ability fast.

[Captain Spanky]

any faction is fairly simple to start. they all have some sort of benefit (good starting units, location, strong starting economy, access to good trading resources...etc) Just make sure you exploit that benifit to the best of your ability fast.

Amen to that.

[mbchudno]

one thing to remember is regardless what faction you start, you have to play nice with others. Or at least make it seem like you do. Diplomacy is as powerful as army if not more so. Hell, its easy to wipe out faction by buying most of the towns from them and sabotaging expensive buildings in their castles, after tribute you are paying for towns runs out, they are out. Works specially well in mid/late game when you have high income.

As for war, wipe out factions only ones that nobody likes (excommunicated, ones who have no allies, ones who start wars on everybody), kiss ass to the pope (even as non catholic), keep alliances going with most of the factions, etc. This will help your economy and let you to concentrate on your world domination plans.

Campaign where you rush to take 20+ territories at the start will turn very hard all of the sudden when all the countries declare war on you by turn 50, screwing up your trade income and hitting you from all directions with full stacks of units.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

England and Scotland are the easiest i think... HRE is the hardest to start with.

however - mbchudno is right!

[Captain Spanky]

I always found the HRE easy to start with - providing you are speedy in destroying the Danes and taking the netherlands.

Also, what do people think of Milans start position? Youre surrounded pretty much from the offset, but I always find it easy to get going.

[FuriousSpurius]

I'd say England and Scotland are both pretty easy due to their island locale.

But Spain has always been pretty simple for me. The Moors are relatively helpless against a good combination of early horse units and you can claim Iberia in less than 20 turns. A good combo of coastal cities ensures good trade and farming in Spain isn't awful. Plus you can seriously rack up your priests' stats by converting Muslim Spain, so by the time the first or second papal election, you're pretty much set for the rest of the game.

[Lord Firkraag]

Byzantium has a good starting position. Sure it is not as easy as England's, but you have lots of rebel settlements available nearby, and your first cities are great money-makers. Plus the Turks are very easy to blitz in the early period.

[Hardor the Magyar]

France, Russia and Egypt are very easy to start, plenty rebel territories nearby, I found out France to be even easier than England.

[Lord Firkraag]

I started with France but I found them harder than most. The Pope hates you, Milan hates you, and very very soon they have full-militia stacks against your cities to the south while you are fighting the English to the north.

Spain is easier because you can ally with France and then concentrate southwards.

[Drag529]

I started with France but I found them harder than most. The Pope hates you, Milan hates you, and very very soon they have full-militia stacks against your cities to the south while you are fighting the English to the north.

Spain is easier because you can ally with France and then concentrate southwards.

Well if u start as France, and attack England another catholic nation off cores the Pope is going to hate you…lol that’s why you allies with them first than wipe the English off early in the game, include the Scots as well.

[Oploc]

Milan is easy, because of easy-to-get genese crossbowmen, England and france because there pretty isolated from invasion, same with egypt. XD

[Kahn]

I find that if you start off with a faction that borders another faction of a different religion, it's easier to make war, while still retaining friends. You can make your own little Crusade/Jihad while occasionally calling for official ones all while staying in favor of your fellow religious peoples.

Getting excommunicated isn't the end of the world, but it sure makes things difficult early on.

[Drag529]

lol ive never been excommunicated, but it must suck being excommunicated

[Bob The Fearless]

Well I'm just about to get Excom'ed in my current English campaign.

Trying to avoid it as it will have a bad knock on with some of my towns.

[General_Genocide]

Well I'm just about to get Excom'ed in my current English campaign.

Trying to avoid it as it will have a bad knock on with some of my towns.

Being excommunicated isn't too bad. The trick is to time your excommunication - the best time is when there is a crusade going on or recently there was one. This will buy you time to destroy the faction, or get your faction leader killed.

I used to fear the Pope like heck, but I found it easier to treat him like any other faction. When push comes to shove the Papal States are weak.