faction(s) with strongest late game?

[Arcinatus]

lately i have been rather fond of the late era (vanilla medieval 2...yes i know...i'm playing vanilla) anyway, i really love units such as musketeers...basilisks..etc

could you guys recommend good factions for the late game? i'm thinking of doing some i REALLY DONT USUALLY DO...which is basically take my surrounding area, maybe expand a little bit, and just put my resources into technology / economy (so..mix of eco boom / turtling i suppose)

[Georgy Zhukov]

Spain and Portugal have musketeers, pikes, conquistadors, and decent canons.

[Mythic_Commodore]

Venice is good.

[Random Emperor]

turks

[Shadow8]

spain, over powered late units

[Arcinatus]

how are they overpowered? sry i still dont completly know everything about M2TW :o
although when it comes to dawn of war just ask me anything about that >.>

[Angrychris]

they have horse back muskets

[jbersie]

HRE reiters are very nice units

[Angrychris]

HRE is superior to all

[Shadow8]

let me refrase that VANILLA spain's late era units are overpowered because they are the only faction that gets musketeers basilisk and conquistador-like units. this changed with kingdoms and mods.

[Napoleon1853]

let me refrase that VANILLA spain's late era units are overpowered because they are the only faction that gets musketeers basilisk and conquistador-like units. this changed with kingdoms and mods.

huh? Portugal gets Conquistidors..and gets a better musket then Spainish..so I think Portugal is better sorry

[Old Geezer]

Portugal's got the above-mentioned and has jinetes which because of their javelins can do damage to elephants. HRE's only good late unit is Forlorn Hope. Reiter? Pooh! Jinetes are far better. Reiters get too close to the enemy and get caught and killed by just about any mediocre unit and they are expensive. The zweihanders might as well be zweibacken - very ineffective.

[Hungary Horace]

Venice, Milan, Spain and Portugal are the best late game, Who ever said Turks is off their head and HRE - why?

By the way Sudanese gunners kick musketeers back to the stone age due to the higher damage they cause ( just need to advance to 100 yards and fire - English style) I also noticed they work well in a loose formation -is the same for Musketeers?

Also some-one metioned that spain get mounted gunners - I thought that was only in kingdoms exspansion- mounted dragoons.

[eggthief]

eh the turks get janissary units that are 1337 ownage, and the hre is just good all around their only weakness is their horrible position.

[pwf224]

Moors camel gunners pwn all

[Shadow8]

well you also have the timurids on mods and such, they have elephants, you can pretty much route any army in about 3 minuets with elephant and rocket launcher combo's

[Stuntdawg5]

Yeah, a lot of the armies become quite powerful in the late game.

Timurids (They aren't in the early game so I don't count them really)
France
HRE
England
Spain
Portugal
Turks
Russia
etc.

I think it works both ways. In the early game most of these factions are annihilated if you notice. That's because most of them have either a weak starting position or really weak units (HRE has both). So it balances out in the end.

[Shadow8]

france has some really bad starting units, they dont get anything good or unique untill much later in the game

[Sparkshot]

I don't see how the HRE are considered strong. They might be stronger than their earlier period units but I don't think they can compare to Spain, Portugal, Milan, Venice, France, or England in late period. Do Gothic Knights, mounted and dismounted make that big of a difference--not in my experience. Does Forlorn Hope make that big of a difference either, Broken Lances can tear through them. Also like someone mentioned earlier, I too haven't found Reiters that effective either. Plus, HRE doesn't even get Musketeer units which can shoot long range as opposed to Arquebusiers.

If you want a strong late period faction I would go with Portugal, Spain, or England respectively (because of their location). Milan, Venice, and France are a bit more challenging.

[eggthief]

forlorn hope vs broken lances? thats like comparing apples to pears and yes gothic knights mainly when mounted are one hell of an unit with a superb offense, reiters are good units i dont like HA's so they're not my thing but others can do some nice stuff with them and who the needs gunpowder infantry when u can tear your opponet apart with serpentines that arent as bugged as gunpowder inf.