Profesional Armies?

[General Tony]

Ok quick question, when it says a faction lacks profesional armies what does that mean exactly?.....Also anyone know of somekind of quiz or something that can give you an idea of what faction fits your basic/favored tactics best?

[AU4Brent]

They mean you can't recruit units from military academies (demi-lancers, gendarmes, tercio pikemen, etc). You might not even get to build military academies. I can't remember off-hand. It's not a big loss, especially if you're playing vanilla. Your castle units will be stronger, and you'll still be able to recruit high level units from your city barracks. Portugal doesn't have "professional armies", but they can recruit musketmen and Aventuros.

[Muagan_ra]

It dosn't really mean anything concrete - it's more of an abstract point. More of a historical, roleplaying comment than actual in-game conditions.

As for which faction you prefere, there are essentially "blocks" of military structure:

- Power: Western Europe, what with their blokes in armour and massive swords, hard-core knights and field artillery.

- Finesse: Byzantium and everything East of it, including the Islamic factions. Alot more light(er) armoured infantry, some niftier technology, fantastic cavalry and missile cavalry.

Eastern factions do have some good power-house type units, Western factions do have some more mobile forces, so there is room to manouvre. But, generally speaking, that's how it is.

That said, there are subdivisons - the Italians, for instance, are more militia orientated, and have much more powerful militia units than any other faction. Turkey, while having a mobile, cavalry orientated army, also have a rather unique Corp of infatry (the Janissaries) who are the equal of the biggest, beefiest blokes in the West.

Just play around with the factions in custom battles, and see what you like the feel of.

[General Tony]

Ok and in custom battle how would you suggest setting up the armies? like 2 or 3 different units at a time or more large battles? so basically how do i work towards getting a better feel for the units?

[AU4Brent]

I would go with full battles. It's hard to get a feel for what you like with just a few units on the screen. After you play a few battles, you'll develop your own strategies. You like those nifty cavalry charges? You'll probably be playing with France. You like infantry? England or Denmark might be fun. You like missile cavalry? The Byzantines have a ton. You get the idea. Just play around. Try a few battles where you're defending a bridge crossing. Those are wicked fun.

[Conquistatore]

Just set up a lot of battles trying a different faction each time. Make use of their unique units and advantages and exploit the weaknesses of the other factions. Alternatively you could run a few short campaigns to get the feel for the faction on the campaign map aswell.