Accurate faction strengths and weaknesses

[Maklodes]

It seems that the actual strengths and weaknesses of the factions are only sporadically related to the claimed strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes they're just plain wrong, like claiming that Danish cavalry is weak while Byzantine heavy cavalry is strong. At other times, they're just vague to the point of meaninglessness (what does it mean to say that Portugal "lacks professional armies" or that Venice has "good colonial units?"). More broadly, some things just get left out (they don't mention that archery is a weakness of the Danes, Poles, and Scots, with none capable of fielding long-ranged missile infantry). I'm curious about what you would do to modify them to make them fit the game a bit more.

First, a list of the basic strengths and weaknesses as stated in game, for reference and copying/pasting.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Byzantine Empire
Faction strength: Good heavy cavalry and missile cavalry, capable archers.
Faction weakness: Lacks late period gunpowder.

Denmark
Faction strength: Has a good all-round mix of units, with the infantry preferring to wield swords or axes instead of spears.
Faction weakness: Lacks good heavy cavalry.

Egypt
Faction strength: Relies on powerful cavalry, particularly the Mamluks.
Faction weakness: Lacks heavy infantry, particularly in the late period.

England
Faction strength: Boasts superb longbowmen and strong infantry.
Faction weakness: Fields a poor variety of cavalry.

France
Faction strength: Fields the best heavy cavalry in the west, and good infantry in the late period.
Faction weakness: Relatively weak infantry in early period

The Holy Roman Empire
Faction strength: Strong all-round.
Faction weakness: Lacks the late period professional armies of England and France.

Hungary
Faction strength: Boasts a strong mix of heavy knights and skilled horse archers.
Faction weakness: Lacks good offensive infantry.

Milan
Faction strength: Boasts strong militia infantry, crossbowmen and late technology.
Faction weakness: Poor offensive cavalry.

The Moors
Faction strength: Can field a good mix of light cavalry and infantry, and effective spears.
Faction weakness: Lacks strong late period units.

Poland
Faction strength: Makes use of very strong cavalry.
Faction weakness: Somewhat mediocre infantry.

Portugal
Faction strength: Excellent light infantry and naval units, good light cavalry.
Faction weakness: Lacks professional armies.

Russia
Faction strength: Has a great mix of missile and melee cavalry
Faction weakness: Poor early infantry and missile units.

Scotland
Faction strength: Makes excellent use of spears and pikes.
Faction weakness: Lacking in cavalry, and the nobles often prefer to fight on foot.

Sicily
Faction strength: Can field strong militia, Norman knights and Muslim archers.
Faction weakness: Lacks good late period cavalry.

Spain
Faction strength: Excellent naval units, light infantry and cavalry.
Faction weakness: Lacks heavy infantry and spears in early period.

Turks
Faction strength: Outstanding mounted archers and Janissary troops.
Faction weakness: Lacking in heavy armour and early period infantry.

Venice
Faction strength: Boasts strong militia infantry, good colonial units and late technology.
Faction weakness: Somewhat poor cavalry.

Here's my attempt at revisions. I haven't done all of them and some of them weren't so inaccurate (Egypt seems about right, or possibly I just don't know much about them).

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Byzantine Empire
Faction strength: Good heavy cavalry and missile cavalry, capable archers, good selection of heavy infantry, and powerful early naval units.
Faction weakness: Lacks late period gunpowder, weak heavy cavalry and spears.

Denmark
Faction strength: Has a good all-round mix of units, with the infantry preferring to wield swords or axes instead of spears., with foot and horse alike being deft at penetrating enemy armor.
Faction weakness: Lacks good heavy cavalry archers.

Egypt
Faction strength: Relies on powerful melee and missile cavalry, particularly the Mamluks.
Faction weakness: Lacks heavy infantry, particularly in the late period.

England
Faction strength: Boasts superb longbowmen and strong infantry.
Faction weakness: Fields a poor variety of cavalry spears and lacks any missile cavalry.

[Aymer de Valence]

England
Faction strength: Boasts superb longbowmen and strong infantry.
Faction weakness: Fields a poor variety of spears and lacks any missile cavalry.

As England is the only action I have played out of those 4 you have currently revised, I would largely agree with you. However, by 'poor variety of spears' do you mean early or late campaign? Early campaign I'd say England has a pretty varied spear roster; town militia, spear militia, levy spearmen etc aswell as the ability to swiftly recruit Welsh spearmen. Even though none of those are particularly that strong

[dulciusexasperis]

As England is the only action I have played out of those 4 you have currently revised, I would largely agree with you. However, by 'poor variety of spears' do you mean early or late campaign? Early campaign I'd say England has a pretty varied spear roster; town militia, spear militia, levy spearmen etc aswell as the ability to swiftly recruit Welsh spearmen. Even though none of those are particularly that strong

I'm playing as England right now the only spearmen I think are worth anything ( my opinion) are the levy spearmen and mercenary Welsh spearmen. Spear miltia make good garrison units about that's about it. To bad you can't recruit some Scottish pikes as mercenaries

[Aymer de Valence]

I'm playing as England right now the only spearmen I think are worth anything ( my opinion) are the levy spearmen and mercenary Welsh spearmen. Spear miltia make good garrison units about that's about it. To bad you can't recruit some Scottish pikes as mercenaries

Haha yeah that would be awesome if you could recruit those; would make defending during sieges a whole lot easier!

[dulciusexasperis]

Haha yeah that would be awesome if you could recruit those; would make defending during sieges a whole lot easier!

Why is that though? What would be cool and more accurate ( I think ) is after you conquer a territory you should be able to recruit units like that. In. If you conquered some of Scotland you should be able to recruit some of their units... Mercenary of course.

[PapaRosario]

Why is that though? What would be cool and more accurate ( I think ) is after you conquer a territory you should be able to recruit units like that. In. If you conquered some of Scotland you should be able to recruit some of their units... Mercenary of course.

Many mods (Stainless Steel, for example) have this AoR system. There's a class of units called "local" which can be recruited by any faction that owns territory within a given area.

[Aymer de Valence]

Why is that though? What would be cool and more accurate ( I think ) is after you conquer a territory you should be able to recruit units like that. In. If you conquered some of Scotland you should be able to recruit some of their units... Mercenary of course.

It's a shame they never included this in Medieval 2 vanilla, and only started with Empire, but like PapaRosario said, some mods do allow you to recruit region-specific units

[Maklodes]

As England is the only action I have played out of those 4 you have currently revised, I would largely agree with you. However, by 'poor variety of spears' do you mean early or late campaign? Early campaign I'd say England has a pretty varied spear roster; town militia, spear militia, levy spearmen etc aswell as the ability to swiftly recruit Welsh spearmen. Even though none of those are particularly that strong

Actually, a struck out "a" and "variety of," so without the redactions, I wrote "fields poor spears." (Although perhaps my system of red inserts and strikethroughs creates more confusion than it's worth.)

I'm playing as England right now the only spearmen I think are worth anything ( my opinion) are the levy spearmen and mercenary Welsh spearmen. Spear miltia make good garrison units about that's about it. To bad you can't recruit some Scottish pikes as mercenaries

I'm curious: why prefer levy spearmen to spear militia? I thought they were identical, except recruitment location and spear militias being free upkeep.

I agree with Maklodes in general, except on infantry. The Byzantine castle infantry units are all inferior to the catholic ones, and their best infantry (Varangian guard) is generally inferior to the dismounted chivlaric knight.

I think you're right. What I was going for is that Byzantines have fairly affordable infantry -- dismounted byzantine lancers and byzantine infantry may not match DFK, but their upkeep is pretty low. However, on second thought, that's a fairly weak argument, because Moors, Portuguese, and Spanish all get militias that are equivalent to Byzantine infantry and equivalent to Dismounted Byzantine Lancers in all-but-armor-upgrade-potential, and the English armored swordsmen, Scottish noble swordsmen, Venetian heavy infantry, Moorish dismounted Christian guard, etc, also provide more potent infantry with affordable upkeep, so Byzantines are fairly middle of the road in terms of having decent "economy heavy infantry." They're better off than, say, Hungary, who have to rely on costly DFKs, but being better than a fairly badly-off faction (at least in heavy infantry terms) doesn't count as a "strength."

[dulciusexasperis]

I'm curious: why prefer levy spearmen to spear militia? I thought they were identical, except recruitment location and spear militias being free upkeep.

The levy spearmen do have better offensive and defensive stats. Though you do have a point about the free upkeep.

[Maklodes]

The levy spearmen do have better offensive and defensive stats.

Are you playing Kingdoms, or a mod? I don't think they have better offensive or defense stats in vanilla.

[dulciusexasperis]

Are you playing Kingdoms, or a mod? I don't think they have better offensive or defense stats in vanilla.

I'm playing vanilla I may be mistaken but I could have sworn they were.

[Symphony]

Early campaign I'd say England has a pretty varied spear roster; town militia, spear militia, levy spearmen etc aswell as the ability to swiftly recruit Welsh spearmen.

Town militia aren't spearmen; they don't get the penalty for spear infantry attacking other infantry, and also don't get the bonus against cavalry.

[PapaRosario]

Town militia aren't spearmen; they don't get the penalty for spear infantry attacking other infantry, and also don't get the bonus against cavalry.

They don't get a penalty versus other infantry, but they do have a bonus versus cavalry.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

type Town Militia
dictionary Town_Militia ; Town Militia
category infantry
class light
voice_type Light
banner faction main_spear
banner holy crusade
soldier Town_Militia, 60, 0, 0.8
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_withdraw, free_upkeep_unit
formation 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 5, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 5, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, melee_blade, piercing, spear, 25, 0.6
;stat_pri_ex 0, 0, 0
stat_pri_attr light_spear, spear_bonus_4
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, melee_simple, blunt, none, 25, 1
;stat_sec_ex 0, 0, 0
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 0, 1, 6, flesh
;stat_armour_ex 0, 4, 5, 0, 1, 6, 6, flesh
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat 2
stat_ground 1, -2, 3, 2
stat_mental 3, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 1, 290, 125, 75, 60, 290, 4, 70
armour_ug_levels 0, 1, 2
armour_ug_models Town_Militia, Town_Militia_ug1, Town_Militia_ug2
ownership england, scotland, france, hre, denmark, spain, portugal, slave, normans
;unit_info 5, 0, 7

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

; stat_pri_attr
; primary weapon attributes any or all of
; ap = armour piercing. Only counts half of target's armour
; bp = body piercing. Missile can pass through men and hit those behind
; spear = Used for long spears. Gives bonuses fighting cavalry, and penalties against infantry
; long_pike = Use very long pikes. Phalanx capable units only
; short_pike = Use shorter than normal spears.
; prec = Missile weapon is only thrown/ fired just before charging into combat
; thrown = The missile type if thrown rather than fired
; launching = attack may throw target men into the air
; area = attack affects an area, not just one man
; spear & light_spear = The unit when braced has various protecting mechanisms versus cavalry charges from the front
; spear_bonus_x = attack bonus against cavalry. x = 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12

[Aeratus]

This is an interesting idea. Here's how I would revise some of the factions:

Byzantines
- Good heavy cavalry and Excellent missile cavalry, capable foot archers.
- Lacks late period gunpowder, weak heavy cavalry, and weak spearmen.

I agree with Maklodes in general, except on infantry. The Byzantine castle infantry units are all inferior to the catholic ones, and their best infantry (Varangian guard) is generally inferior to the dismounted chivlaric knight. However, the Byzantine horse archer is the best light bow horse archer. As noted, the original description of "good heavy cavalry" has no in-game basis.

Russia:
- Has a great mix of powerful missile and melee cavalry, foot archers, and musketeers
- Poor early late melee infantry and missile units.

The original description of poor early infantry is totally off. The dismounted druzhina is one of the best early infantry, but gets outclassed later on. Similarly, the description of having poor missile units is also totally off, since the Dismounted Dvor and Cossack musketeers are among the best in their class.

Moors
- Can field a good mix of light cavalry, gunpowder cavalry, and light and heavy infantry, and effective spears.
- Lacks strong late period units. Weak late period heavy cavalry

"Lacks strong late period units" is wrong, obviously, since they have one of the strongest infantry units, the most devastating ranged cavalry unit.

The Holy Roman Empire
- Strong all-round.
- Lacks the late period professional armies of England and France. Poor selection of troops trainable in cities

[dulciusexasperis]

Exactly the creators of medieval should come up with that from the start, but stainless steel is sounding better and better.

[dulciusexasperis]

I right clicked on the levy spearman and the miltia spearman, the game has the levy spearmen up one point in both offense and defense. But your right it'd nothing major.

[PapaRosario]

I right clicked on the levy spearman and the miltia spearman, the game has the levy spearmen up one point in both offense and defense. But your right it'd nothing major.

That simply has to do with the upgrades that are available in that settlement. Either armor, weapon, or experience upgrades. In terms of base stats, levy spearmen and militia spearmen are the same.

[dulciusexasperis]

That simply has to do with the upgrades that are available in that settlement. Either armor, weapon, or experience upgrades. In terms of base stats, levy spearmen and militia spearmen are the same.

Oh ok I should have thought of that right on man.

[Aymer de Valence]

Actually, a struck out "a" and "variety of," so without the redactions, I wrote "fields poor spears." (Although perhaps my system of red inserts and strikethroughs creates more confusion than it's worth.)

Ahhhh but then that would mean hardly any factions have good spearmen, aside from the Byzantines and the Italian factions (Italian spear/militia isn't that bad really), but I do know what you mean.

I right clicked on the levy spearman and the miltia spearman, the game has the levy spearmen up one point in both offense and defense. But your right it'd nothing major.

Hmmmm that's surprising, in battle, I always find there's a noticeable difference

[Maklodes]

Ahhhh but then that would mean hardly any factions have good spearmen, aside from the Byzantines and the Italian factions (Italian spear/militia isn't that bad really), but I do know what you mean.

How do the Byzantines have good spearmen? I'd say theirs are probably the worst in the game. (They do get some experience upgrades at higher barracks levels, but they can't even upgrade their armor to the level of standard western Catholic spear militias.)

As for factions that get good (or at least decent) spearmen, well, Scotland stands out, but most factions get some sort of unit like armored sergeants, Italian spear militia, eastern European spearmen, or Saracen militia that is good in comparison to levy spearmen or Byzantine spearmen, at least. Most of them get it by the time of a castle drill square or a city watch.