what faction should i choose?

[Goldenboy24]

wat up

So i was wondering if you can give me advice on which faction i should choose if i like to use heavy infantry and missile units alot.

[Oxidious]

sounds like England then

[Selifator]

Venice and Milan also have a lot of good infantry and missile units.

[NobleNick]

England gets the English Armored Swords (13/22) which are excellent units and very cost effective, and an excellent array of longbowmen (long range, armor piercing and can use stakes).

Venice gets the Venetian Heavy Infantry (VHI) (16AP/16) which are also excellent units (best in game?) and very cost effective; and some Pavise Crossbows (close to the best crossbows in the game).

Milan has only 'OK' heavy Infantry; but gets the best crossbows (and most cost effective) in the game.

Turks get an excellent array (best in the game) of good ranged troops, and get the Janissary Heavy Infantry (JHI) (12AP/10). Don't let the stats fool you. They can chew through other HI, evidently due to animation considerations (though they are weak against arrows and cav charges).

If I was to rank these from a perspective of only infantry and ranged warriors, I would probably say:

1.) Venice
2.) England
3.) Milan
4.) Turks

[Selifator]

Strategical advantage of Venice and Milan: Some of their best units are trained in the cities, so you could use all cities, get more money, have big garrisons and retrain them anywhere!

[Captain Spanky]

What about France? They have a good selection of infantry, swords, polearms, halberds and pikes make for a lot of versatility.

However, while they do have some excellent missile troops, it does take time before they become available...

[N3rull]

England:
- Very good defensive (1x att/ 2x def sword & shield) heavy infantry, including Armoured Swordsmen, who are the cheapest and first class unit of this category.
- Good offensive heavy infantry : Dis. English Knights.
- Mediocre light and medium infantry - billmen aren't the most effective unit around, even though their charge hurts. Heavy billmen come too late, maybe Heavy Bill Militia may be of some use due to being 15/10 in plate, +6 charge, armour piercing and militia.
- Lack spearmen and pikes.
- Late period cavalry is strong, but at best mediocre when compared to Polish Guard and the like.
- Very powerful array of versatile longbowmen
-1) the power of the English archers is that they have 3 units of longbowmen, each one noticeably stronger
-1)+ and each one having stake-laying, long range and armour piercing traits.
-2) The first unit (Longbowmen) is available in Castle, which is fast.
-3) Also, archers can aim, fire and switch targets faster than crossbowmen, which allows them to adapt easily to combat situations. For instance, if they're in free fire mode against enemy infantry and a unit of cavalry enters their shooting range and runs towards them, archers will be able to shoot them before they're charged, unlike crossbowmen in most situations.
-4) Lastly, archers shoot at a greater angle which allows them to easily fire over men standing in front of them (meaning you can put a wall of H.I. in front and archers behind, if only you make sure there H.I. is not on a noticeably higher ground than archers) without having to lob their arrows (shoot almost straight up like mortars).


Crossbowmen are, however, by no means weaker than archers. In fact, they make up their inability to shoot over people and their slow reload & target switching with insane accuracy and power of the bolts.
A long range salvo from 120 of the best English archers may kill 0-5 of 40 Late period general's bodyguards, while pavise crossbowmen will eliminate up to 10 at the same distance.
If you favour crossbows, select one of the following...

Milan:
- Good defensive heavy infantry - dismounted broken lances and chivalrics, but they cost 225 upkeep (unlike 150 as armoured swordsmen).
- Offensive heavy infantry? Nah.
- Good medium infantry - italian spear militia etc.
- Good spearmen - look above.
- Good late cavalry and a lot of decent cavalry all the way through.
- Best crossbowmen - Genoese Xbowmen and Gen. Xbow militia.

Sicily and Venice are similiar to Milan. Sicily has good norman knights while venice... I dunno, didn't play venice.
Portugal adds some light missile cavalry and footed skirmishers to that.


Right, Spanky, France is a good choice as well, but its starting infantry sucks. In late period they have everything you might ever want - great archers (scots guard rules), great crossbows (aventuros rules), great offensive (dis. noble knights) and defensive (dis. feudals) heavy infantry, pikes, spears, muskets, and über cavalry, you name it.
They all come quite late, however.

[Captain Spanky]

Milan dont get chivalrics. They have Feudals, Broken Lances and Men at Arms. However Men at Arms are completely useless so I wouldnt bother with them.

And yeah, Frances late game roster is almost perfect. They only things they lack are Musketeers and stakes. But your right, the good stuff comes late.

[Dane324]

i would say France, bets all around units and great infantry, and gets some nasty missles in the late game. Also sick heavy cavalry

[Isotopesam]

Most of the factions mentioned are Catholic, so you will have to deal with the Pope if you choose to play any of em. And he can be a pain in the a$$.

[Laconian]

Byzantine is pretty good as they get dismounted lancer, byzantine infantry and Varangian Guard. They also get Trezibond archers and Guard archers who are one of the beat archer units in the game.

[Joel92]

milan has good militia units (free of upkeep, relative to the city lvl)
but what about the danes? they have good infantry

[N3rull]

but what about the danes? they have good infantry

but they have no good missile troops at all. Dude wants heavy inf and missile.

[paokmam]

Byzantines.

[Captain Spanky]

Infantry yes, but they have real trouble in the missiles department. Gotta love those Norse War Clerics though.

[The10thLegion]

English.

[Mauzeer]

If u like battle intensive game i would say play with Venice : they have great VHI , 2nd best crossbows (militia units) and solid (but nothing special) venetian archers.If u prefer less battle intensive game go for England :nice
armoured swords + (retinue) longbows

[Idaeus]

England, Milan, France, Denmark, HRE.

[townie33]

I wouldn't denounce denmark so quickly, they do get Norse Archers which could beat most early infantry in melee and can shoot fairly well, and I also have to agree that war clerics are amazing If you want to use a islamic faction then use the turks. Janissary archers can mess people up along with the JHI