List of faction weaknesses

[awisler]

i was thinking we should compile a list of all the factions general weaknesses and strengths, not necessarily on the campaign screen, but effective tactics/units to use against them. such as use this formation of these guys versus this faction ect.

im not the best at tactics and just attack with anything i can so ill leave it to you guys

[King Pie]

I'll start us off.

England
Weaknesses: None :p
Seriously though, the stakes that the Longbowmen deploy are only useful against cavalry. Infantry can just walk through them normally. Also, don't do what I did. Avoid having your own cavalry run through your own stakes, it kills (I lost a good general by doing that).

Milan: These guys like to use lots of Crossbowmen, especially since their militia crossbowmen are so good, and can be trained at just about any city. Make use of Heavy Cavalry. I very rarely have to fight Milanese armies that actually use infantry capable of stopping my cavalry hordes. In one of my older games, I was playing as England, and the Milanese got excommunicated, so I sent a crusade army down to Milan. On my way over, I ran into a half stack of just crossbowmen. I simply hired a lot of Pilgrims and Religious Fanatics and completely wiped them out without taking too many casualties, since the crossbowmen effectively have about 15 seconds to shoot, after which the battle is basically over

[Patton]

Lol

[Ahiga]

The weaknesses they list can be a little odd at times. Stat wise, Norman cavalry are on par or superior to a lot of European Late Cavalry, but I suppose it has a lot to do with hidden stats.

A real weakness of Spain is that almost all their units are exceeded by or matched by Portugal.

Byzantium lacks any sort of heavy spearmen, though strong in heavy infantry.

[PooFoo]

A real weakness of Spain is that almost all their units are exceeded by or matched by Portugal.

Only javelinmen and pikemen.

Otherwise, Spain has better cavalry and melee infantry (both versions of portuguese knights are inferior to their chivalric counter-parts, plus spain has gendarmes, and sword-and-buckler infantry).

And portuguese arquebusiers aren't that great when you consider their much lower range compared to ordinary musketeers.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Spain is the only faction that can actually recruit dismounted chivalric knights in the campaign.

[Ahiga]

Portugal has sword and buckler infantry (Conquistadors and regular, they only lack militia I think?). Portugal has feudal knights and Portugeese knights, which with the 2 handed fix, become far better than chivalrics (Which are comparable to Dismounted feudal).

Spain does have the Gendarmes, but Portugal also has one of the best pikemen. So there is a variety between the two, but very bare.

[PooFoo]

Portugal has sword and buckler infantry (Conquistadors and regular, they only lack militia I think?). Portugal has feudal knights and Portugeese knights, which with the 2 handed fix, become far better than chivalrics (Which are comparable to Dismounted feudal).

Spain does have the Gendarmes, but Portugal also has one of the best pikemen. So there is a variety between the two, but very bare.

Portugal doesn't have regular s&bs, they do have swordsmen militia however.

Chivalric knights have way higher defence which seems rather important in this game. The two-handed bug only really applies to cavalry. Polearm units are more designed for flanking units, head-on chivalric knights will beat any of the polearm knights (noble, english, and portuguese).

And chivalric knights aren't in anyway comparable to feudals btw. Sword-and-bucklermen however are nearly equal.

[Archus]

Portugal has sword and buckler infantry (Conquistadors and regular, they only lack militia I think?). Portugal has feudal knights and Portugeese knights, which with the 2 handed fix, become far better than chivalrics (Which are comparable to Dismounted feudal).

Spain does have the Gendarmes, but Portugal also has one of the best pikemen. So there is a variety between the two, but very bare.

surely that is decided by the fact the pikes would pwn the gendermes...

[Kalis]

Note: This is campaign only, not MP battles
Early-game = "2nd tier" units (wooden wall/castle troops, so longbows, billmen, etc.)
Mid-game = "3rd tier" (stone wall/fortress troops. e.g. yeomen longbows, armored swordsmen, etc.).
Late-game = everything after (large/huge stone wall troops, and citadel troops like pikes, muskets, etc.)

English:
Strengths:
- longbows are awesome! Retinue longbowmen can melee and shoot!
- best at defensive battles, with stakes + longbows.
- basically "invulnerable island" (once you kill the scots).

Weaknesses:
- Pathetic early-game offensively. Attacking = melee, yet their early-game melee SUCK (normal bills have 0 armor, and yeoman archers do not melee very well). In fact, they can't attack until they get to mid-game with feudal knights, which are incredibly expensive to upkeep (225!) They do better once they get armoured swordsmen (150 upkeep, stats like feudal knights), but that requires a good 5-6 turns after getting a fortress (to get the cash + build the components necessary to train armored swordsmen).
- complete lack of counter to cavalry. No heavy spearmen (you can use mercenary spears to sort of cover for it). But their armies really have trouble with mounted knights when attacking (no stakes!).
- armies fully trained at castles, so replacing casualties is hard (armoured swordsmen, retinue longbows, etc.)
- billmen suck. Heavy billmen are not as good as pikes.

Spain (and Portugal):
Strengths:
- best cavalry in the game in Jinetes (fast moving, javelin throwing, good melee, with 175 upkeep rather than 250!) Perfect for eliminating routing troops (including enemy knights and general's bodyguard!), killing off archers and crossbows, and flanking. They can't fight knights head-on, but they can keep them engaged (long enough for your spearmen to come running into them and finishing them off!) You can even train (and retrain) in cities (build a bull ring)!!!
- Almughavars are incredible units for early-game! You can use them as ranged attackers (far superior to xbows due to rate of fire!), and you can melee them too with 13melee attack (can't do that with crossbows!)!!!! 150 upkeep is incredibly cheap (vs say... dismounted knights at 225. Although armoured swordsmen are at 150 too, but armoured swordsmen can't beat them since you can just choose to skirmish with 13 attack javelins instead!). Even without spearmen, you can easily use your alamughavars to beat enemy knights. Good morale and stamina are awesome too
- great pikemen: tercio pikes and aventuros.
- both factions also get access to all gunpowder units! Muskets!!!!
- Portugal has even better early-game than Spain with better javelin troops.

Weakness:
- Portugal end-game requires castles (aventuros) which hurts econ a bit.
- Spain has no weaknesses.
- Toughest early-game. You start with 2 provinces (no econ at all), and you're fighting the moors! You do have incredible early-game troops though.

Note: Haven't used conquistadors yet. I would guess they're incredible troops too.

[Kalis]

Byzantium:
Strengths:
- incredible economy.
- incredible army early-game and mid-game! Great horse archers, and byzantium guard archers >>>> crossbows, and are strong enough to function as melee line troops! (so don't even need to use their infantry lol).

Weakness:
- late game. no gunpowder troops, no gunpowder artillery, and no pikemen (which are the ultimate line troops).
- has trouble dealing with heavy cavalry. Byzantium guard archers can do very well vs pikes (shooting them and then meleeing), and they can avoid + harass heavy infantry with fire arrows until it routs, but they don't really have anything vs heavy cavalry except spear militia (which suck due to no armour). Of course, they rarely face heavy cavalry in the first place!

Scots
Strengths:
- island invulnerability (once they kill England)
- border horses are awesome (like jinetes, although no javelins)
- mid-game pikemen (best "line units" mid-game)! and best pikes late-game!

Weaknesses:
- no real ranged damage to support pikes. Their best archer, has a missile attack of 7, and doesn't penetrate armor.
- no gunpowder units (but they do get gunpowder artillery!)
- early-game cannot stop heavy cavalry.

But overall, between pikes, heavy infantry, and cheap fast moving cavalry... scots can own

[Kalis]

Milan
Strengths:
- Armies trained from cities! Get cavalry from cities too (broken lances when they make a huge city)! You can get your cavalry from your general, from conquered castles (which you would turn into cities asap, but you get several turns of training cavalry from them), and from mercenary cavalry!
- Huge econ because everything they control are cities.
- Italian spear militia! They're as good as mercenary spearmen (better with armour upgrades). Dominate the beginning and early-game, and most of mid-game too!
- All gunpowder troops (hand cannons, arquebus, and musketeers) and gunpowder artillery! Monster ribaults! :: drools ::
- pikemen (although only at militia level)

Weaknesses:
- crossbows instead of archers. Rate of fire sucks and crossbows just don't seem to do much in major engagements
- Can't handle horse archers. No fast moving cavalry, and crossbows can't do much vs horse archers because of low rate of fire.
- Trouble with heavy infantry. Can't counter them very well due to lack of cavalry (and trying to get your cavalry to charge the heavy infantry without having spearmen around is impossible lol). Crossbows just can't hurt them enough or rout them. And Italian spear militia can't beat them in the melee. But frankly, the AI doesn't make enough heavy infantry to beat your italian spear militia armies. And in practice, your spears will rout everything else in their army, and then you can use all of your italian spears them to smash the heavy infantry.

Incredible early-game. They start to falter mid-game because of heavy infantry like dismounted feudal knights, but again, the AI don't use enough of them to truly have any effect. And they have great end-game armies too. Sure they only get pikemen militia, but they're decent enough! The only factions that have better are:
France, Spain, Portugal, Scots.

Venice/Sicily:
- same strengths and weaknesses as Milan if you go purely with cities.
- They have more versatility because they have good ranged archers who can also melee (muslim archers and venetian archers).

In general, I find you want to make everything into cities for early-game. Once you have at least 5 provinces, then you can think about keeping a castle for training castle armies.

Overall, all 3 factions seem like they were configured for "blitzing", with their 4armour spearmen.

Holy Roman Empire:
Strengths
- Tons of armies and provinces to start with. Surrounded by rebels too!
- Reiters! Pistol armed cavalry. The best unit in the game, bar none!

Weaknesses:
- Completely surrounded by other factions. They have no "safe area" like the sea guard one side or anything.

The comment about "no professional late-game armies" is silly. Pike militia do well enough, and you have pistol armed cavalry running around! Use reiters to melee and get rid of enemy ranged units and artillery, and skirmish with the pistols against everything else, and chase down routers!

Blitz the rebels, and you'll easily get into a dominating position. But if you sit around for a while, and get into a war with everyone else, I can see it being really hard as the HRE, since your settlements are isolated and you have fronts everywhere. But if you can get alliances on one front, and just focus on the other 1 or 2, it would still be fairly easy. Starting with so many provinces is just a huge advantage.

Never played:
France, Egypt, Turks, Moors, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Russia

At a guess, however...
- France has no weaknesses. In particular, their late-game armies seem incredible.
- Egypt, Turks, and Moors all seem to have incredible early-game troops, and are very city based. The Moorish and Egyptian armies seem to falter later on (because they lack armour, and thus, survivability).
- Denmark's swords and axe based infantry means they're slaughter everyone else (if you use mercenary spearmen to counter heavy cavalry) until pikes start appearing.
- Russia is completely isolated, which means they'll have a tough time expanding early-on. But their troops seem to be very horse archer based early on. And end-game seems to be cavalry + cossack musketeers who can also melee, so they don't even need pikes. Just hang around shooting the enemy to death, and then meleeing when necessary
- As for poland and hungary... no idea I'll probably try one of the other next.

[akinkhoo]

hmm.. imo...
Sicily is different from the italian citystate.. it have strong knight and dismounted fairly early (has fortress!). allowing them to dominate against the citystate are are weak against swordman.

for the italian citystate, their advantage lies in economy. with good militia, they can maintain low keepup while holding a large forces. the disadvantage is militia are still militia....

[Kalis]

well, it depends whether you keep the castle, or convert it for econ
I tend to just convert it to start, and make another castle later because knights are really unnecessary when you got italian spears, and you're just attacking rebels at the start.
More cities + low upkeep militia = better army than a castle army because of army size, upkeep, etc.

I mean, if I'm using a full stack army of militia, even if you're using swordsmen, I'll outnumber you 2:1 and win even though my militia are worse.
Course, the AI is pretty silly either way.

But seriously, italian spear militia are absurdly powerful.
Normal spear militia (with 0 armor) lose to everything but cavalry. They lose to peasants in melee, peasant archers in melee, and lose horribly to crossbows in melee. But italian spear militia? That 4 armor makes them beat anything but heavy infantry. And you should be charging heavy infantry with heavy cavalry, not engaging it with spears!

Egypt:
Strengths:
- Begins at tier 2 (unlike Europe, which begins with town miliita / spear miliita). And all nearby settlements are rebels and start off high pop!
- Economy. Huge pop settles = awesome econ!
- awesome starting troops. Desert archers (castle) have long range and can use fire arrows. Saracen militia (cities) are as good as italian militia. Mamluk archers are like a combination of heavy cavalry and ranged attack. Desert cavalry are less armoured jinetes (max 1 armour as opposed to 2 of jinetes - which makes them far less combat able, but 1 or 2 are still very useful for chasing down routers).
- cavalry can be trained in cities (arab cavalry from racing track / and mamluk archers from sultan's racing track)
- Naffatun (the naptha throwers). They're tier 2s (fortress, not citadel), and they kill + rout enemy troops like mad. Insanely cheap upkeep too (50).

Weaknesses:
- Crusades. Take jereuselum and you're gonna be fighting off the European crusades. Of course, considering how stupid they are attacking a city... this isn't really a big deal. With 1 full stack (and constantly retraining from acre, jereuselum and my other beginning castle), I easily defeated 5 crusading armies. Beat 3 of them on open field too!
- Mamluks are incredibly expensive to train. Mamluk archers are something like 900 to train. Still, they're sooo worth their cost
- Tier 2 units (nubian spearmen and nubian archers from castles) are worse than tier 1s (Saracen militia + desert archers). (Unless there are some hidden bonuses I'm unaware of).
- Brigands seem to pop up every turn (in my experience anyways, might not be the case in general). On the other hand, 3 mamluk archers can easily handle a 5-6 stack brigand army with no problem, even spearmen.
- Completely lack heavy infantry until their sultan's guard. Of course, with horse archers that double as heavy cavalry, and awesome spearmen, who needs heavy infantry?
- No pikes (aka. line troops), and halberd militia is really quite useless (except to support spearmen against heavy infantry, but again, you got heavy cav for that).

Earlier on Egyptian armies can beat other armies head-on with other armies with the saracen militia (even take on crusading sergeants + knights!) + mass ranged support (mamluk archers, desert archers, archer militia)
End-game, no pikemen hurts. Without anything that can really front them properly, your armies are configured more for skirmishing.
Sudanese gunners, Naffatun, mamluk archers, and a few desert cavalry to chase enemies off the map. A few saracen spearmen and (maybe) those heavy infantry primarily to counter enemy cavalry.

[ironmaiden]

anyone have anything on poland?

BTW, just how different are the factions from this game compared to the same factions as in MTW?

[zerathule]

France :
Strenghts:
- Excellent late/high infantry (pikemen voulgiers)
- Excellent late/high missile (Aventuriers and Scot's Guard)
- Excellent Late/high cavalry (Lancers)
- Excellent Late/high Missile Cavalry (Mounted french archers)
- Good economy with towns covered by castles.
- Most versatile troop selection in the game.

Weakness:
- No light cavalry (like you need some)
- below average dismounted knights (who needs some when you have pikes and Voulgiers)
- Attacked from everywhere (hre, spain, portugal, milan, danemark, england)
- Vulnerable to missiles (pikes fall like flies to missile troops)
- Succeptible to overconfidence : like irl with the 100 years war, its easy when you play france to get a little too excited with your uber army and make enormous mistakes in battle.
- Rely in a solid and strict battle line, thus vulnerable to a skirmishing army.

Danemark :
Strenghts
- Hard hitting infantry (high attack and armour piercing units)
- Excellent and cheap melee archers (norse archers own)
- Fast moving infantry (vikings are light infantry)
- Good anti cavalry cavalry (huskarls and norse priests are very effective as a counter cavalry force)
- Easyly defended starting area (With hambourg you can easyly secure all scandinavia and danemark)
- Second best heavy infantry, just behind Swiss papal guard

Weakness :
- No anticavalry infantry
- weak range units (norse archers are basicly peasant archers on steroïds)
- Weak selection of militia troops
- Vulnerable to an army relying on cavalry.

[Commander_Vimes]

Spainortugal is has like all of its units better than it and they take ages to wipe out then

but once u have got rid of the portugese in a good position moors to the south french to the north v.good infantry and good gunpowder units

[Duke Gibbons]

Zerathule was definitely right about the French. The battles of Crecy and Agincourt in the Hundred Years War prove their impetuousness.

[Phaedo]

Poland:

Strengths:
- Some of the best knights in the game, bar none.
- Good horse-archers in the Lithuanians, well able to melee in support.
- Start off facing factions with little cavalry early on (Danes and Russians).
- Can hire hussars in cities.

Weaknesses:
-Tough starting position, little real opportunity for a stellar economy
-Very poor selection of infantry, topping out at spearmen from castles and halberd militia from cities.
-Poor missile infantry until the advent of arquebusiers.

I personally found that all cavalry armies are really the only cost-effective force available to Poland until gunpowder troops arrive.

[Town Watch]

this thread sounds promising . Too bad that I cheated in my HRE campaign,thus kinda ruining my game.

All my neighbours were at war with me. I had to keep huge garrisons in my castles, since poland, hungary, byzantium, sicily, milan, denmark heck maybe even england could all come and siege me. My economy was wrecked and my moneymaking Italian cities started to go rebelling. I didn't really have the money to upgrade my fortresses to citadels and large/huge cities. I also had to play these grinding siege defences half a stack vs full stack.

My computer is totally laggy in all my sieges, so I can't really play them personally and I have to usually rely on auto-resolve. Man I'd sure like to play this game with huge unit scale, highest model detail, full A-A, full anisotropic filtering, and atleast medium shadows. 3 stacks vs 3 stacks battles with fps over ~30 all the time and the game generally running smoothly, no lagging.

Christmas vacation is soon gonna be over and school starts again, so I'll be generally not allowing myself to play M2TW or buying a new computer until my course finals are finished, hopefully with decent grades

After some course finals it will feel awesome to come back to this game, and kinda reward yourself. Maybe with an E6600 and some killer graphics card based computer too.

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

HRE has a major weakness against some factions that have long range gunpowder units such as Portugal, Spain and others (they have musketeers for eg.) HRE hasnt got much to fight them on start of battle, because all units are far from anemy troops and usually musketeers can shoot you before you even get close enough to fire back. Sure a good way to fight against them would be using light cavalry and attack musketeers, but menytime players use pikemen to support them and so i dont really know how to play against them really. this is HRE grates weakness!
any ideas by the way?