Ireland or Scottland

[satthukaraoke]

I'm thinking about starting a new game and having difficult to choose between Ireland Longbow or Scottland Pikeman. Can someone give me a detail run down of the two factions please? Eh ... and no England, I lost count on how many time I played them.

[ssmarine]

Scotland has a better well rounded unit roster. The Infantry is badass and I love border horse you can flank anything with those speedsters.

[Xmecial]

It looks like the Scots Gaurds are better than thier Irish counter-part, besides; Noble Pikes rule, backed by a few Gaurds.

[Galloglaich]

And Scotland is Scotland! Scotland has William Wallace! Scotland is a badass faction! Scottish pikemen owns! And nothing feels better than fight for your freedom against those damn English!

[Nicholas H.C]

Bonny Scotland

[moosey]

Ireland does have some interesting units although i would only recommend playing them if youre straight from vanilla and fancy something slightly different, otherwise scotland all the way

[satthukaraoke]

About William Wallace, what is his trigger for the player? Since I don't think I'll ever fall down to two regions.

[Friesian]

He will appear in the last quarter of the 13th century (if you dont drop below three regions).

[Musthavename]

Ireland does have a fairly dull rooster, with (imo) the exceptions of Muire & Mounted Calivermen. Scotland is pike central, and also boasts Scot's guard. It doesn't exactly have great cavalry but Mailed Knights / Feudal Knights do the job.

Overall, you're probably going to get bored of Ireland quicker than you are of Scotland.

As for Wallace, theres about 3 triggers. He can appear after you go down to so many provinces, after you fight the English, or he'll just appear after a certain amount of turns, iirc.

[Confederate Jeb]

Sweet! I'll just save a princess for him!

[gracul]

Go with Ireland on vh/vh and with byg/rr turned off.
You'll be sending peasants vs armoured sargents and light men-at-arms
Something not possible with recrutation limitations.

[Chappy4756]

Ireland features the Easter Egg unit, the Chosen Few. Contained within are the dynamic warriors, Shane McGowan, Spider Stacy, Finny, Phil Lynott, Bob Geldof and led by their spiritual leader, Van Morrison. Their unique ability to drink their opponents under the table and steal their lands is indespensible. You need the Large City and highest level Tavern to trigger this unit. Faugh A Ballagh!!!

[The Noble Lord]

Scotland .

[Confederate Jeb]

Van Morrison

One of my favorite musicians ever!

[Dooz]

Dear lord, if the problems I had getting rid of Scotland in my English campaign mean anything, as opposed to the relative ease of invading Ireland, I say go with the claymores... imagine my shock when I finally kicked them out of Great Britain using my full and final resources, only to find a huge army lead by William Wallace spring up..... SO COOL!

And you know what, they're still not even gone. The reason I was finally even able to move north into their strongholds was because they had diverted all their attention East, where they had moved almost all their manpower and most of their navy to the frozen north regions of Denmark and Norway. So now, even though they've been kicked out of their ancestral homelands, they have a new base in a new land........ pesky Scots.....

[Musthavename]

Dear lord, if the problems I had getting rid of Scotland in my English campaign mean anything, as opposed to the relative ease of invading Ireland, I say go with the claymores... imagine my shock when I finally kicked them out of Great Britain using my full and final resources, only to find a huge army lead by William Wallace spring up..... SO COOL!

And you know what, they're still not even gone. The reason I was finally even able to move north into their strongholds was because they had diverted all their attention East, where they had moved almost all their manpower and most of their navy to the frozen north regions of Denmark and Norway. So now, even though they've been kicked out of their ancestral homelands, they have a new base in a new land........ pesky Scots.....

Problems with the Scots as England? This is the same scottish AI that puts their entire army on one Cog and sends it to Bruges (but I see that they never reach Bruges, hehehe). The only annoying thing is when the Scot AI (how the heck do they do this) take York in the first go.

Tbh, both are pretty much pushovers, though the Scots only become difficult if you leave them.

The thing I hate about Ireland is its really difficult to just rush straight into a war. You've got no ports and literally no standing army, so Scotland will almost always get a base on the mainland before you can even mount an attack. Scots are far easier to start with. Take York & Caernavon then decimate Ireland.

[Inhuman One]

Right now the poor skins keep me from playing these two factions.

The vanilla skins of Ireland really arent suitable for them, far too colorfull and some of the new scottish skins look really bad, especially those that get a kilt without the model originally having a kilt.

[Aleynasdad]

Scotland AND Ireland in a hotseat campaign..................... COOL!!!!!

[sabaku_no_gaara]

Don't the Irish have better gunners or something? or gun cavalry? not sure about this tough.

[Gorrrrrn]

Completed a late era Scottish campaign recently
good fun.

Main gripe was that many of the units's faces look like they are Planet of the Apes rejects.

(and why do they feature in the Mongol Invasion mini-movie?)

Helps if the western european heavy hitters (FRance, England and HRE) get removed fairly early on or reduced to a rump, so you don't have too many battles against technologically superior forces.

(How do we access the Scottish underground army - the Wee Free Men?)