Pick two factions for my next campaign

[Marcvs Antonivs]

Lately I've been playing Empire Total War, but I'm back to the good ol'Stainless Steel, and I thought that would be better to play an hotseat campaign and playing two factions at once, instead of getting tired of playing with just one. Thing is, I will never help each faction by sending money to each other, or besieging a town with both armies. But I've come to a dillema; don't know what factions to choose. I was thinking about 7 factions: England, France, HRE, Portugal, Spain, Denmark and Sicily. I will choose two of them, but they cannot border each other at the start of the game. What do you guys think it's the best combination? Will play on Hard/Medium with Savage AI, Real Recruitment, BGR II and Longer Assimilation. Thanks!

[Head of the Heavy Chargers]

Catholics... shall die. I pick Lithuania and Cumans! Paganism ftw!
Catholic rosters aren't exciting to me.

Kiev/Novgorod/Byz (border) is also nice and in the middle of the map.
Moors/Fatamids/Kwarezm?

I'd pick two factions with different rosters to fight boredom.

[ziserman]

I'd go for France or Spain to get nice cavalry armies, and at the same time with Denmark to get bloody infantry battles.

[Christonikos]

I 'd suggest Portugal/Spain and England. This way you will have two different goals, that will make the game interesting: Control Iberia and control the british isles.

[Marcvs Antonivs]

Indeed, two factions with different rosters would be better, but I was never inclined to choose any other faction than catholics. I was once very eager to start a campaign with the seljuks but left it at turn 3

[John Haukewood]

I'd pick Cumans and Kiev. The Kievan campaign is always the most exciting to me. Or Novgorod, but it lacks good trading ports generally.

[TheHarazzer]

1st suggestion
France and Denmark
Why ? Well with France You have strong cavalry and weak infantry , and Denmark is the opposite . This way you will have a nice mix of battles . Also the starting position of the both factions is pretty interesting . With France you can control the West of Europe and with Denmark the East of Europe.


2nd suggestion
Sicily and Denmark.
Sicily has powerful infantry. Also their cavalry is good , but only in early era. They have good archers (Muslim Archers). Their unit rooster is a mixture of spanish , italian and english units.
I've already said about Denmark.
The starting positions of these factions is pretty interesting IMO, because one is in the north and the other is deep south . Playing with Sicily and Denmark can be tough thought.

[Gogolometro]

HRE because is a hard choice. Big empire, a lot to manage, diplomatic dilema. not a very popular faction. But if you stabilasi your position, than you get best religious order, great units, both cavalry and infantry, big mercenary pools and different, good units in all eras, chance to have a good economy, an empire from Norths Sea, Batltic and Mediterana. HRE mean thinking imperial.
Sicily is a second good choice. You start with small faction, a great comercial posibility, excelent starting units, all advantages of a italian faction, the norman strong flavor who will help a lot against moors and byzantines. Is a underdog faction who can easy expand via blitz or not. Almost no weakness. Great plus, very good geographycal position.

[Marcvs Antonivs]

I decided to chose Denmark, but I'm still undecided about the other one. Never played as Denmark before, only in vanilla, so it's going to be new for me. I would like to choose HRE but they share borders. Portugal seems a good choice, thing is they lack good heavy infantry. Spain would be nice, but do not like much to choose my rivals.

[Gallus]

fyi, there is no "Spain" in SS. I'd choose Hungary for a second faction. Horse archers ftw!

[Marcvs Antonivs]

I mean Leon and Castille Spain is the generic/vanilla name for me

[Gallus]

Aragon > Castille
But seriously, pick Hungary. It's the exact opposite of Denmark. Not to mention it's AWESOME.

[Marcvs Antonivs]

Yes, it is indeed awesome, thing is I already have a single player campaign with them, which I already have all of the balkans, plus venice, plus almost all of Anatolia.

[TheHarazzer]

You can choose a muslim faction . They lack in heavy infantry , but have great archers , mounted archers and good cavalry.

[ziserman]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about Hungary, definitely the best HA/light cavalry catholic faction, choose them with Denmark

[Hallow]

Denmark and Portugal maybe? Far away from each other, very different objectives and different rosters, and they're both Catholic since that seems to be important

[ITC]

Scotland and TO

[freitach]

Denmark and Sicily.

Can split the world into 2 empires..
North Empire(Denmark): trying to get: scandinavia, the baltic, hre, poland, britisch isles, france
Souther Empire (sicily): italy, spain, north africa, greece

[Marcvs Antonivs]

Very nice ideas indeed, still pretty much undecided on what to choose besides Denmark Maybe Denmark/Sicily or Denmark/Castille... Never chose France not even vanilla, I like infantry based factions, specially England for its great archers. On the other end I like Hungary as well, very different playing style. Hmmm, what faction to choose

[Gallus]

Iberian rosters suck imho. Genova is also a good choice if you like being excommunicated.