Guide to Faction Unit Rosters

[Queen Annes Revenge]

There are always a bunch of threads asking which faction to play. I thought I would help out by writing a brief guide ranking the unit rosters, to see which faction suits your style. At the end I included a quick 'difficulty of starting position' guide too. Enjoy.

I have ranked the unit rosters in a tier format based on troop type. A couple things to note: I have taken into consideration not only the quality of units but WHEN they become available. So while many factions in the late era field missile units comparable to England, I have taken into account that England gets longbowmen very early in the game which sets them apart from factions like France. Also, I realize that there will be contradictions from the strengths and weaknesses that are part of faction descriptions that are from the original game. Trust me instead . Finally this is based on changes as of M2TW version 1.3 vanilla. Thanks to brandybarrel as his FAUST guide was of infinite help. Factions are listed alphabetically within tiers.

Foot Missile Units
Top
England
Milan

High
France
Russia
Turks
Venice

Average
Denmark
Egypt
HRE
Hungary
Moors
Portugal
Sicily
Spain

Low
Byzantines
Poland
Scotland

Infantry
Top
Denmark
HRE*
Turks**

High
Byzantines
England
Egypt**
France
Hungary
Moors**
Scotland
Spain

Average
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Sicily
Venice

Low
Milan

*including Dismounted Gothic Knights. They are not recruitable in the game by default but every major and minor mod fixes this.
**including Hashashim.

Cavalry
Top
France
HRE
Hungary
Poland
Russia

High
Denmark
Sicily
Spain
Turks

Average
Byzantines
England
Egypt
Moors
Portugal

Low*
Milan
Scotland
Venice

*The knight order guilds can still provide these factions with fairly strong cavalry.

Spears/Pikes
Top
Scotland

High
Moors
Portugal
Spain
Turks

Average
England*
Egypt
France
HRE
Milan
Poland
Sicily
Venice

Low
Byzantines
Denmark
Hungary
Russia

*with English Armored Sergeants, same deal as Dismounted Gothic Knights (see above).

Navy
High
Denmark
Portugal
Spain

Average
(the other 13 factions)

Low
Russia

Cannons/Siege
High
France
HRE
Hungary
Portugal
Russia
Spain
Turks

Average
(the other 9 factions)

Low
Byzantines

Faction location guide
Starting location plays a fairly large role in determining the difficulty of playing a particular faction. Factions are listed alphabetically within their groups.

Easy
England
Moors
Portugal
Scotland
Sicily
Spain

Average
Byzantines
Denmark
Egypt
France
Milan
Poland
Russia
Venice

Hard
HRE
Hungary
Turks

[MrVamp117]

Good job on the list. It should be able to help out some new players

[dr_guerra]

While it's nice that you are trying to provide a guide for factions, I must say that I take issue with more than one of the things you've said.

For instance, Dismounted Dvor are phenomenal archers, so are Turkish Janissary Archers. They can easily go neck in neck with Retinue Longbows or Genoan crossbows.

You ever try using the archers Scotland has? They are freaking amazing. How the hell could you put them on low?

I'd put Spanish cavalry as the best, especially because of the monstrously overpowered Jinete.

Also, Turkish starting position is actually pretty darn good, as you have TONS of rebel settlements, and very very rich cities and lots of resources.

I'm not entirely sure why you think Moorish spears and pikes are better than the Portuguese and Spanish. They are pretty generic for a middle eastern faction.

Also, I'd easily put Scotland and Denmark as better infantry factions than the HRE, as they get much more powerful infantry MUCH earlier.

and there really is a whole slew of other things I disagree with. For instance, I think Milan and Venice's starting position is rather tricky.

[RollingWave]

Moors spear / pike is not top, it's well below average. just because they have a boatload of different type doesn't mean any of them are actually good, the only one that's somewhat respectable is Latuma spearman.. who can't upgrade armors. not to meantion they have no pikes at all. the only faction that I find have worse spear / pikes are England (who only has levy and milita) and Mongols / Timruids (who don't even have levis)

they're Infantry is also not high, it's top, Dismounted Christian guard beat the crap out of every other dismounted knights. it's ridiculas. combine that with super early game Hashishim and the free Urban militas it's nuts.

I think your seperation is a bit too blend, skrimishers should have their own catagories. it's hard to classify camel gunners in the same catagory as arab cavalry.

[Wheem]

I too, have a few disagreements with your listing.

First off, Danish Infantry is definitely top notch. It's far better than that of the HRE; they're really not even close to being in the same league. Run a few tests in custom battles if you don't believe me. Putting Dismounted Gothic Knights (weapon upgrade, 0 experience) against Viking Raiders (weapon upgrade, 3 armor upgrades, 0 experience) resulted in a Danish victory every single time. Stretching the line of the raiders so that they enveloped the Gothics resulted in killing the enemy captain almost immediately, and routing their troops with only 30-40 casualties on each side (every single battle ended up with more Gothic Knight deaths than Viking Raider deaths - even discounting casualties healed). Even without stretching the line out, though, the Vikings quite handily defeated the Gothic Knights (frequently earning Heroic Victories). There's also the fact that they're much, much cheaper, and are available basically from the get-go.

Non-pike 2h units are quite weak in vanilla 1.2 and 1.3 (I've heard Kingdoms strengthens them a bit, but I don't have it yet). That said, the ones with armor piercing attacks do have some limited use; none of the HRE's have AP attacks, though the Danish Norse Axemen do (which allows them to defeat Gothic Knights 1v1 as well, though the results were much more even than against Viking Raiders).

Danish Pike units are definitely not "low" either. Perhaps they don't deserve a "top" slot, due to a more limited availability than some other factions; but having an AP attack earns them a "high" ranking, in my opinion. (And perhaps Tercio Pikemen would earn Spain a "Top" slot)

[Alxaro]

Why isn't spain on "top" in siege weapons when portugal is? IIRC Spain and Portugal have the exact same cannons, and I never knew Moors had good spearmen (never played them)

[RollingWave]

Moors spearman roster

Spear milita: islamic version is weaker than catholic version, but they serve their purpose anyway: average

Berbers: decent enough, they have the exact number as sergent spearman with good bonus (desert and stamina) but they can only use one level of armor upgrade: average

Nubian: same stats as Berber without the bonus and a level higher on the tech tree, one of the most useless unit ever. does anyone seriously uses these guys outside of cosmetic reasons? beyond below average. utter trash, peasents may have more use than these guys.

Dismounted Arab cav: no formation ability, ok stats, low unit number. nearly useless espically for other islamic factions that gets saracen militas. but for moor they have limited use when you get very high level armorer in that settlement. well below average.

Latuma: very good skill stats, can only upgrade to leather armor. they're very good for a unit in leather armor... but they're still a unit in leather armor. great in desert wars though. as if the Moors need help there. above average overall considering the usefulness of very hardy ability in extensive fighting but leaves something to be desired?

so the Moors get 2 average 1 above average and 2 trash units with no pike. how in the world does that make them good spear/ pike faction?

histoically speaking they SHOULD be good though.

[clandestino]

HRE*
Turks**

I don't agree with about 70% of this list, but I will point out only this thing. As for both quality and time of acess HRE and Turks don't have best infantry in game. For the time when unit becames available you just can't beat Danemark who had both Viking Raiders and Dis. Huscarls early in the game, and for the quality : there are many units equaly good or better then HRE's and Turkish, especialy Turkish.

[RollingWave]

I don't agree with about 70% of this list, but I will point out only this thing. As for both quality and time of acess HRE and Turks don't have best infantry in game. For the time when unit becames available you just can't beat Danemark who had both Viking Raiders and Dis. Huscarls early in the game, and for the quality : there are many units equaly good or better then HRE's and Turkish, especialy Turkish.

no, Hashashim can be had very very quickly if your planing for it, all you need is a inn and train some assasins and get to a minor city. it's more than possible through some clever planning to have multiple cities producing these maniacs very quickly. statsically in my testing they woop dismounted fedual knights easily and is toe to toe with a small advantage against chivaric. that's evil, particularly for islamic factions that start out with cities that can get to guild very very quickly (some had gotten to these bastards in well under 10 turn.)

it's obviously taking a shortcut and exploiting game mechanics though. still it's there

[clandestino]

So you have to base all your game on aquiring Hashashim's guilds and training Hashashims. What about retraining, you have to get them back to the city with that gulid to retrain them. It makes you to dependable on single unit and that's not the way I like to play.

[Mithrane]

You need to seperate Cavalry and Horse Archers. Otherwise, you need to raise Byzantium up to at LEAST High. They start with very powerful horse archers which are quite good in melee, as well. Though their lancers are lacking by comparison at end game, their mounted archers are always strong, no matter the age.

Other things on your list I would disagree with, but not too much to worry about.

[Old_Scratch]

Thanks for making a list, but I disagree with most of your rankings. For example, top foot missile should be Russia and Turkey. Both have awesome archers and they also have the best musketeers in the game. If you're excluding gunpowder, then France and Milan.

For top infantry, I'd choose either Moors or Spain. Denmark and Scotland are right up there too of course. Your top cavalry choices aren't bad, but I'd like to add Egypt and Denmark to it though. High armor and AP weapons makes them good for more than charging.

[Queen Annes Revenge]

I knew I would have to defend my rankings, so here goes.

For instance, Dismounted Dvor are phenomenal archers, so are Turkish Janissary Archers. They can easily go neck in neck with Retinue Longbows or Genoan crossbows.

You ever try using the archers Scotland has? They are freaking amazing. How the hell could you put them on low?

Scotland has no crossbows, no arquebuses/hand cannons/muskets. Their best archer has 7 attack.

Russia no doubt has amazing missiles, but the ones they get early in the game aren't very good, you have to wait to get them. This is why England/Milan are top tier; they have amazing firepower from the outset. Basically the same goes for the Turks.

Moors spear / pike is not top, it's well below average. just because they have a boatload of different type doesn't mean any of them are actually good, the only one that's somewhat respectable is Latuma spearman.. who can't upgrade armors. not to meantion they have no pikes at all. the only faction that I find have worse spear / pikes are England (who only has levy and milita) and Mongols / Timruids (who don't even have levis)

they're Infantry is also not high, it's top, Dismounted Christian guard beat the crap out of every other dismounted knights. it's ridiculas. combine that with super early game Hashishim and the free Urban militas it's nuts.

Berbers are the class of early spearmen. It's possible I overrate Lamtunas but their stats are amazing and their anti-cav bonus is 8. They can hold their own against enemy infantry unlike pikes. Maybe they should be high. DCG is nothing special, from my experiences, they equate to Dismounted Chivalric Knights.

First off, Danish Infantry is definitely top notch. It's far better than that of the HRE; they're really not even close to being in the same league. Run a few tests in custom battles if you don't believe me. Putting Dismounted Gothic Knights (weapon upgrade, 0 experience) against Viking Raiders (weapon upgrade, 3 armor upgrades, 0 experience) resulted in a Danish victory every single time. Stretching the line of the raiders so that they enveloped the Gothics resulted in killing the enemy captain almost immediately, and routing their troops with only 30-40 casualties on each side (every single battle ended up with more Gothic Knight deaths than Viking Raider deaths - even discounting casualties healed). Even without stretching the line out, though, the Vikings quite handily defeated the Gothic Knights (frequently earning Heroic Victories). There's also the fact that they're much, much cheaper, and are available basically from the get-go.

Danish Pike units are definitely not "low" either. Perhaps they don't deserve a "top" slot, due to a more limited availability than some other factions; but having an AP attack earns them a "high" ranking, in my opinion. (And perhaps Tercio Pikemen would earn Spain a "Top" slot)

What pike units? They have spear militia and Obudshaer as their anti-cav. Obuds don't have a very high AC bonus and are in fact grouped as heavy infantry, they are more geared toward jack of all trade types as opposed to anti-cav. They have outstanding early infantry to be sure but everyone kind of catches up to them late as they lack the dominant late unit to vault them to the top. I guess you have a valid point though as they are superior to pretty much every other high tier faction. I'll have to look into this claim about DGK but keep in mind that +3 armor is a pretty hefty equalizer and the HRE also boast Zweihander which come early for how powerful they are, and Forlorn Hope!

Why isn't spain on "top" in siege weapons when portugal is? IIRC Spain and Portugal have the exact same cannons

Right, don't know how I missed that, but it's fixed now, thanks.

So you have to base all your game on aquiring Hashashim's guilds and training Hashashims. What about retraining, you have to get them back to the city with that gulid to retrain them. It makes you to dependable on single unit and that's not the way I like to play.

When playing Islam factions it should be your strategy to rush an Assassin's guild ASAP because Hashishim are so outrageously better than other infantry of that era, even with their small number and retraining restriction. I had a hard time keeping Egypt and Moors out of the top tier.

You need to seperate Cavalry and Horse Archers. Otherwise, you need to raise Byzantium up to at LEAST High. They start with very powerful horse archers which are quite good in melee, as well. Though their lancers are lacking by comparison at end game, their mounted archers are always strong, no matter the age.

Probably a good idea with the horse archers, I may implement this later, but the Byzantine heavy cavalry in late era is pretty much trash compared to all other factions.

EDIT: I have moved Denmark to top tier in infantry in light of their vast early superiority. Feel free to post your disagreements so this guide can be tweaked, it is here to help people find a faction that suits them.

[RollingWave]

So you have to base all your game on aquiring Hashashim's guilds and training Hashashims. What about retraining, you have to get them back to the city with that gulid to retrain them. It makes you to dependable on single unit and that's not the way I like to play.

yes and no, they're the core of your army, but it's not like your going to be running out an entire stack of them.

besides, if you ever played with these evil bastards you'll realize how they almost never die in melee (2HP for the win!). the only times i ever lose a significant chunk was when i got rear charged by a general while trying to out flank 2 group of armored swords. and even then the lasted a while.

Berbers are the class of early spearmen. It's possible I overrate Lamtunas but their stats are amazing and their anti-cav bonus is 8. They can hold their own against enemy infantry unlike pikes. Maybe they should be high. DCG is nothing special, from my experiences, they equate to Dismounted Chivalric Knights.

except that this argument doesn't stand up to the test of something called stats.

Berber vs Sergent spearman

attack: both have 7 attack and 3 charge
defense: both start with 0 armor, 3 skill and 6 shield, the difference is that berber can only upgrade to 1 armor while sergents can go further.

Berber have the hardy ability, which is nice. fresh out of the box Berbers are a bit better than Sergents. but later into the game sergents end up better. (unless of course we're fighting in deserts)

Dismounted Christian Guard vs Chivaric Knights

attack: 16 attack and 3 charge for DCG, 13 attack and 3 charge for CK

defense: 7 armor, 9 skill, 6 shield for DCG, 8 armor, 8 skill, 6 shield for CK

Moral: 11, diciplined, highly trained for DCG : 9, normal, trained for CK

to add insult to injury, DCG cost 90 more to train but 50 less to upkeep, so after 2 turns they end up a lot cheaper than CK.

[eggthief]

I agree with only about half of what is on this list.

[Dewy]

the only faction that I find have worse spear / pikes are England (who only has levy and milita)

What is the billhook classed as. Its as long as a spear and better that will make england move higher in the spear/pikes section. If infantry(i think that what it is in the game) than england should be on top.

I beg to differ that the dans have top infantry early on. I lunched a massive army and ships arcoss and attacked all the islands. I have billmen and some longbowmen i attacked about turn 55 the dans are no where near the power of my army in battles of about 600 men each i lose like 200 and kill more than 500. You can not tell me that the dans have god infantry early on unless you mean less than 50 turns.

[gobbothegreen]

I beg to differ that the dans have top infantry early on. I lunched a massive army and ships arcoss and attacked all the islands. I have billmen and some longbowmen i attacked about turn 55 the dans are no where near the power of my army in battles of about 600 men each i lose like 200 and kill more than 500. You can not tell me that the dans have god infantry early on unless you mean less than 50 turns.

Well that depends on what combat difficulty you play with and what type of troops the enemy uses.
and as a player you will always win big victories but losing 200 and killing 500 isn´t to big a victory its what i would call an average victory.

[Wheem]

I beg to differ that the dans have top infantry early on. I lunched a massive army and ships arcoss and attacked all the islands. I have billmen and some longbowmen i attacked about turn 55 the dans are no where near the power of my army in battles of about 600 men each i lose like 200 and kill more than 500. You can not tell me that the dans have god infantry early on unless you mean less than 50 turns.

In my current game as Denmark, England hardly has any archers at all (even Peasant/Militia variety). That would not, however, be enough evidence for me to say that England had cruddy missile units.

Play Denmark in some custom battles, or a campaign (and be sure to get at least light mail available for your Viking Raiders). Then you'll see just how fantastic their infantry can be

What pike units? They have spear militia and Obudshaer as their anti-cav.

Swordstaff Militia as well.

Obuds don't have a very high AC bonus and are in fact grouped as heavy infantry, they are more geared toward jack of all trade types as opposed to anti-cav.

Perhaps Obudshaer and Swordstaff Militia aren't "true" Pike units, but they're apparently there for the same anti-cavalry purpose. Their weapons do seem a bit shorter than pikes, and they don't carry a secondary weapon, but they do have the ability to form a spear wall. Both of those units seem to perform fairly well in anti-cavalry roles to me, but Swordstaff Militia at least, aren't so great against decent heavy infantry (I've had mine hold out for a while against Armored Swordsmen, Dismounted Feudal Knights and the like, but the kill-death ratio was uh...less than "optimal" )

I'll have to look into this claim about DGK but keep in mind that +3 armor is a pretty hefty equalizer and the HRE also boast Zweihander which come early for how powerful they are, and Forlorn Hope!

I don't have any real experience with Forlorn Hope, but I find Zweihanders and Dismounted Gothic Knights to be very disappointing (after the 1.2 patch at least).

Both units get relatively low overall defense when compared to similar quality shield-equipped units, and their attack values are only slightly higher (14 for Zweihanders vs 13 for Dismounted Feudal Knights). In some cases, their attack values are even lower than those of their shield-using counterparts (such as 14 for Zweihanders vs 16 for Dismounted Christian Guards). Not to mention, 2h using units attack slower and have those attacks interrupted frequently. Their only upside seems to be a higher-than-average charge value, which is of questionable worth, in my opinion (excepting city streets, cavalry generally performs better for flanking charges). As I said before though, the 2h units with armor piercing abilities generally seem to perform better than ones without. For instance, I generally get better results with Norse Axemen than with Zweihanders, DGK, and Highland Nobles. Still, I don't see any real reason to use them over Dismounted Huscarls, Viking Raiders, Norse Swordsmen, Dismounted Feudal Knights, or depending on the intended role - some form of cavalry.

Not to go too far off topic, but...Simply looking at the base attack values of most 2h units vs 1h units makes me wonder how the old shield bug wasn't discovered sooner. Logic would dictate that most 2h units would have significantly higher attack value than similar-quality 1h units. If they noticed that balanced battle results were achieved only when those attack values were very similar (or even skewed in the opposite direction), it should have indicated that something was wrong.

However, once the shield bug was verified and fixed; 2h units were not re-balanced along with them. The result is a generally underpowered (sometimes grossly so) unit type, and I find that annoying. I've heard, in passing, that they fare much better in Kingdoms, but since I don't have it, I can't personally confirm or deny that.

[RollingWave]

fighting the AI is rarely a good way to gauge the efficency of a unit

the game classify Billmen types as infantries. and at least from personal experience without moddnig they're pretty terrible. espically the basic versions. their defensive value is simply way too low to do much unless they're flanking. in strait up fighting they simply melt away before their damage play much of a factor. they do well enough in some situations though (wall defense occasionally gate defense if they're on the flanks)

they have the same standard defensive value as PEASANTs , that's just how bad they are. they're cheap as hell though. and since the English don't get proper spearmans might as well build these guys

[Dewy]

fighting the AI is rarely a good way to gauge the efficency of a unit

the game classify Billmen types as infantries. and at least from personal experience without moddnig they're pretty terrible. espically the basic versions. their defensive value is simply way too low to do much unless they're flanking. in strait up fighting they simply melt away before their damage play much of a factor. they do well enough in some situations though (wall defense occasionally gate defense if they're on the flanks)

they have the same standard defensive value as PEASANTs , that's just how bad they are. they're cheap as hell though. and since the English don't get proper spearmans might as well build these guys

Can i call you a noobie don't you know how o upgrade armour. With leather its like 8(still good)

I own with billmen and i never flank just learn how to use them, than they wll be your best buddy. Or get heavy Billmen nice armour there.

England has good archers its called longbowmen they are the best well one of the best and you get them early in the game.