Feuds

[Concrete]

Greetings neighbours.
As I am new here and have been post-whoring a bit, I have been looking for threads asking oppinions about factions. Thoughout my posting in the aforementioned; I have re-kindled my hate for Genoa(/Milan).
I have sworn to never ally myself with them, and given the chance; to always conquer them.
My hatred stems back all the way to vannilla; wherin I was playing as France, and had an epic betrayal by my Genoan allies. And you can imagine all those quality spear milita hurting my beautiful French horses.
Oh, and I suppose I also have a personal vendetta against the Papacy... for obvious reasons; he hates his Catholic children as much as the Muslims.

Anyway, my inquiry is thus:
In your history of playing M2TW, have you found yourself hating a faction in every play through, maintaining that hate even as you play as different factions? Even if you have a tradition of removing said city from said faction's possession.
Furthermore; what sparked this feud between you and they?

- Turkey.

[meese]

Sorry but France has got to be it for me. Why? Their lancers are perhaps the most annoying unit to go against in the game Horse archers you can shoot down at least. Not lancers.

It didn't arise from any particular event, just the fact that they get lancers has been enough.

[gluteus maximus aurelius]

I too loathe the very existence of Milan/Genoa and seek to destroy them utterly in every single game I play, no matter if I'm the Fatimids, I'll sail my armies over and destroy the ers!!

This all stems from way back in Vanilla M2TW, when I was enjoying a nice game as the HRE, and was happily expanding through Denmark and France, and gobbiling up the occasional Polish territory. I'd always been distrustful of Milan before, having played France a fair few times where they continually attack you (at this point I only distrusted them, not loathed them), so I had Bologna fully stocked with troops and Bern and Innsbruck had some forces which could easily be mustered should the Milanese attack. Sure enough, by about turn 40 they attacked. Fair enough. So I beat off their militias and took Dijon and Venice (they'd taken that one fairly early on from the Venetians) from them, at which point I graciously decided to offer them a ceasfire. Funnily enough they accepted, only to attack me again no less than 3 turns later. So this time I took Milan and Genoa from them leaving them with only Ajaccio, and offered them a ceasefire in exchange for becoming my vassal, which they accepted. 7 turns later they decided to blockade Genoa, and so their doom was sealed. I guess it was their constant betrayals that really made me hate them, and the fact that they clealrly had no hope against me, and that I offered them peace when I could've crushed them, made me realise they're just warmongering fools and deserve to be slaughtered!

I also hate the Scots, but that's just because they're useless, and with England under AI control they just sit there for ages doing nothing, coz England is too stupid to go and conquer their rubbish selves

[StyggeKrumpen]

I will always hate the mongols. Everytime you get a nice empire going in the middle east they show up. And some how i always seem to have been ignoring the fact that they exist. Not ready and with probably a war going on somewhere else in my empire i am always in rage when they appear in my territory. Especially playing the RRRC comp. they are so bloody deadly that i never will play them or offer them any ceasefire no matter which faction i am playing. Did Genghis Die.

[Concrete]

Hahah, I'm not a huge fan of the French, but I happened to be playing them in the same game where Milan was extra aggresive.
Mongols is a good one too. Although I find them awesome if I'm playing a European faction, so they don't share the same hatred as Genoa.

[Gogolometro]

Bizantium, can earn a nice place there. You are KoJ and crusade Egipt? N o problem, greek are there to help muslims. You are Venice and not intention to atack them? No problem, greeks come to siege Ragusa. You play Teutons and gangbang Kiev? Greeks are on the way to help them. So if you play any of this faction, go own their provinces. Got DFK? Than make their units mashed potatoes. Mein Kaiser in on his way to Constantinople.

[Amon Amarth]

Bizantium, can earn a nice place there. You are KoJ and crusade Egipt? N o problem, greek are there to help muslims. You are Venice and not intention to atack them? No problem, greeks come to siege Ragusa. You play Teutons and gangbang Kiev? Greeks are on the way to help them. So if you play any of this faction, go own their provinces. Got DFK? Than make their units mashed potatoes. Mein Kaiser in on his way to Constantinople.

Be whare boy cuz the ghost of Constantine The Great will come to hunt your mens down!!

[Galain_Ironhide]

I've always hated the scots. No matter who I am playing as they always send a little cog out to attack one of my ports. Why? Because they like picking on things bigger than they are!

[Amon Amarth]

Well since that i discover the Byzantines in M2TW that i always play whit them no matter the mod, am a kind of "Byzanticoholic" and of course i`ll always find myself in struggle whit the italians states (the pope including) those Italian Spear Militia (in vannila) and Urban Militia in SS and the Papal Guards!!!!... Dam those Italians, and no alliaces they can hold, always stadback on you I hate them!!!! Aniway i also have a deep "love" for the Fatamids...

[Saint_of_Battle]

Yeah, Milan/Genoa are some annoying ers. With those numerous imba spear militia and being able to produce so high numbers just pisses you off..

Another faction that i really hate in SS, is Egypt... Numerous stacks!!! *******************!!!

[JorisofHolland]

I always go for Isles in the Mediterranean Sea. Even if I play England, I try to grab a port in southern France and go for it. This always brings me into conflict with Genoa and the Moors, sometimes with Sicily. In late campagins, also with Aragon.

But I hate non of these factions. The only ones I really have are the ones who delcare war on their allies, no matter if I'm their ally or my foe is. When I see such things happen, I always send a force to teach the dishonourable cowards a painfull lesson. So I guess I hate the AI

[Abyrvalg]

Poland.
This faction always surprises me.
If I am just neighbour to Poland they will attack me no matter what faction I am playing.
If I play faction on other end of the map they will send ship to blockade my port.
If I play catholic faction and ally with Poland they will attack another catholic faction and get excommed and I can't attack my ally without huge rep hit. And Pope hates me cos my ally is excommed.
If I am catholic and not allied with Poland and they are excommed they will be reconciled at the same turn I besiege few their towns and Pope will get angry at me.
If I play orthodox faction Poland will wait until I'm engaged at few fronts and backstab me.
If I play orthodox faction and ally with Poland they will let themselves be destroyed by someone who will then attack me.
It is always Poland who do something stupid, arrogant or just unexpected in my games. And usually pointless.

Bizantium, can earn a nice place there. You are KoJ and crusade Egipt? N o problem, greek are there to help muslims. You are Venice and not intention to atack them? No problem, greeks come to siege Ragusa. You play Teutons and gangbang Kiev? Greeks are on the way to help them. So if you play any of this faction, go own their provinces. Got DFK? Than make their units mashed potatoes. Mein Kaiser in on his way to Constantinople.

Play Bizzies and you'll hate everyone.
Muslims want you eastern settlements, catholics want your western settlements.
Orthodox factions want other your settlements.
And everyone wants Constantinople.
And every damn crusade army will march through your territory. Arrrgh.

[sbroadbent]

Poland.
This faction always surprises me.
If I am just neighbour to Poland they will attack me no matter what faction I am playing.
If I play faction on other end of the map they will send ship to blockade my port.
If I play catholic faction and ally with Poland they will attack another catholic faction and get excommed and I can't attack my ally without huge rep hit. And Pope hates me cos my ally is excommed.
If I am catholic and not allied with Poland and they are excommed they will be reconciled at the same turn I besiege few their towns and Pope will get angry at me.

Odd, I've had the opposite experience. Whenever I've been allied to them they have been wonderful allies. I've left settlements practically undefended, and they ignore them, instead sending their forces elsewhere. Never been randomly blockaded, nor have I ever really seen them get excom'd.

Poland I've found more often than not goes east after Lithuania and the eastern Orthodox's, and in my Templar Game, pushed in through the excom'd HRE and Venice.

I can't say I have a particular hate for any particular faction though because whatever things the AI chooses to do, either do not generally make sense, or makes perfect sense. All depends on what decisions the AI has to make at any one time, unfortunately it doesn't often have a memory of what it has previously done.

[Massive_attack]

THE KHWARZEMIAN EMPIRE.

Because god damnit, im hungary and an iranian faction borders me in the NORTH-EAST.

What?!!!?!?!?!

*sigh* its so hard to kill that damn empire too, like trying to move a mountain. Damn mongols better hurry the hell up or the bloody persians will be in rome.

[SnjoNegri]

In vanilla Venice was insane and would launch a holy war on all its neighbors at once and usually win it. All of a sudden Venice owns 1/2 of italy and most of the byzantine and hungarian empires and the mongols havent come yet.

[Tetsu]

The Geonese and the Byzantium Empire. Both bastards that need to be destroyed!
As France, the Geonese attacked me, causing a cascade of events (HRE, Englad, Aragon all broke alliances wtih me) ending me up in a three front war. I was barely able to cling to my core territories, and lost the castle of Tolouse to the filthy italians.
I eventaully was able to kick england off the mainland, whereupon they sued for peace. The HRE threw stack upon stack on my castles at Lyon and Antwerp, and eventually accepted my peace offer because everyone else was fighting them. Aragon did very little, apart from some cheeky raids to the south when I left my castle at Bordeaux undermanned, they seiged it with a three unit stack.

Geona however, constantly bombarded me with assault after asssault, and the grounds around tolouse and clermont became blood red. Then the HRE (Who had since broken their alliance with geona) attacked them, giving me enough breathing space to take tolouse and marsialle, seal the passages to italy, and concentrate of punishing Aragon.

[Concrete]

I'm playing another game as France at the moment. Genoa attacked me out of the blue(pun intended) yet again, after using the war to take Lyon and Mariselle(guessing the name/spelling) from them, the pope intervenes, on the obvious side.
I made a truce with them(which was 'ver generous'). And then in another agreement, offered trade rights, and a small gift of cash, and map information, for their map information.
They declined, demanded the cash, or else they would attack.
Which I declined.
And I am now in the middle of marching into their cities once every nine turns the pope forgets about it.
GENOA...

[Gogolometro]

I think Genoa have a problem, is forced to expand. Same happend to Venice. These north italians are forced to atack France and HRE. Great backstabbers are Norway if you are Scotland player or England, Spain if you are England, danemark if you are HRE, Venice if you are HRE, Poland if you are HRE or Teutons, Novgorod and Danemark if you are Teutons, and so on. Is about strategic map. If is late campaign or 1450 in RR than because is less land keep it by rebels, alliances fail, is hard to keep a relation of trust with any faction, even relation of vasality fail often. Best thing is be prepared for anything and if you are close to Papacy kill the monster.

[EmberFlame]

Pope needs to have less interference in northern italy. Genoa and Venice cant kill each other without the pope getting himself in a knot, so they end up attacking other people-and if you happen to be the "other people" the pope gets mad and says "nou" to counter attacking.

Personally, I hate Moors. I like to play late campaign aragon, and for absolutly no reason they always end up sending as many men as they can afford at my island instead of fricking defending their lands and stopping castelle-leon from becoming OP. I usually have to kill a sultan or two (Or at least annahilate his army in battle, capture him, and then release him) for them to decide to frig off.

[merocaine]

Hungary, vast stacks of spammy crap pouring out of the balkans, forests, heretics, unrest, rebels, Catholics, it really gets up my Byzantine nose.