What do you think is the best country and why?
I think its the Germans ,they start off with the biggest military

I like the Spanish...
You are at the edge of the Catholic zone, so you have enemies to fight without being excommunicated. You are in a good spot for sea control. You own 2 iron areas, and 2 more are right next door.
The first 20-40 years are touch & go, but if you can take Iberia without & start working on sea control without running out of money, you have it made.

I like playing the English because of the challenge of capturing the lands without getting excommunicated. Normally I force the provinces to rebel and let them crush the rebellion, then make it rebel again, and keep that up until the other faction's army leaves the province, or is defeated. Then I defeat the rebels and claim the province myself. But this is a long term plan.

The other thing I do, because I am always being attacked by one christian faction or another, I retaliate to their attack in as many of their provinces as possible. The pope then warns me to leave their territory. In the provinces I took, if their troops retreated to the castle, I withdraw my troops, but if they fled the province, I keep it. I have never been excommunicated this way (But I was for attacking the pope when he really pissed me off! )

Germany starts off with the biggest military? I may have played with them once or so before but I don't remeber it that well.

I have to check it out. I like large armies.

quote Razer_uk

The other thing I do, because I am always being attacked by one christian faction or another, I retaliate to their attack in as many of their provinces as possible. [...]

I think the Germans are the best. They have alot of small starting provinces, so they can build a massive army quickly. And no, they do NOT have a bigger army than anyone else.

The danes, i think they are, in early period, they rule, they got 1 province, so thats your central power, and upgrade it to castle and bastillas and what nots on it, then, slowly invade.

They also have good sea building, and trading, and they got very good units to begin with.

i think the byzantines are the best; they have a huge emnpire in the early period,have REALLY good cavalry, and constsntinople is probably the best province in the game; it gives loads of cash, can build ships, and starts high up the tech tree.

I have seen everything you have written. Germans have too many neighbours and when you concuer France Hungary and Poland almost every time form alliance against me while my army is in worse case is on west and fighting against Spain and that rebelious France rats(without offense) I hate them I must keep a large aumont of army in France.
While Spanish have most richier provinces in the world.
If I remember I concuered everything till Palestine in about 10-15 years and defeated Egyptian army I couldn"t belive and even if I accomplished it with very expensive
mrc. in that struggle really helped Spanish jinets who can fight and throw javelins... Danes are great nation because of their Vikings(specially viking huscarels) but only problem with Danes is that They are poor and if someone wants to start with them I"d say that don"t attack Norwey
(Do not waste your time with it). I can only tell that Turkey rulez. I have only past game with them (normal difficulty)

I believe the Byzantines be the best (at the early age!) They came with the richiest and most powerfull provinci in the world, and it is already great developed! They can build awesome trebizond archers, and the tank of medieval times, the supreme kataphraktoy! Byzantine´s commanders and princes usually have awesome command skilss. They start on a perfect location! They are not excomungated! And, they don´t seem to be targets of crusades (not much...)like the muslims! They already began with a lot of rich provincies (altough undeveloped...), and they are near of many unclaimed provincies (easy to take... send your prince alone, and he will take that 800 peasants 200 archers army easily!). Just began to develop your provincies, conquering rebel provincies. when there are no more rebel provincies to take, go take other factions, and, when you have the ability to produce kataphraktoy, world´s yours

Egypt is great, too, but, at some time, they began to be targets of crusades from all over the world, even from your allies.

I have tested kapatrokhoi(custom battle)against byzantine infantry and feudal man at arms. Garantsha(or someone else
said:"then you build kapathrokois and world is yours"-only on easy difficulty. I suggest that everybody starts at least on normal. If you"d play"d you know but if you didn"t than I will suggest that you never ever create peastant because it is the greatest piece of shit in the whole game I would rather create slav Wariors (in Bulgaria
better than peastant because of little stronger defence and
large shield)and trebizond archers are the best archery in the game in that time(even later) and it is very usefull like light infrantry.Byzant is only in good position in northwest(on Balcan where it can easily fall in strruggles with Poland(because of Moldavia and Kiev)and more possibly
fall into a war with Hungary. (because of Serbia and Walachia)But if you are about to survive you MUST have most of army on borders with:Turkey and Egypt.(although Egypt willin most cases create only peastants on thousands and then real and only problem remains Turkey with spearmen,Turcoman horse and their special: Armenian hevy cavalary.)because of that it is reccomended to first defeat Turkey with Byzantine infrantry(possible to create in that time only in Constantinopole after constracting first building for production of swords)then, when you do that only Armenian hevy cavalary stays threat. (Beduin camel warior,spearmanand not to menshen peastant shouldn"t be taken seriously and only strong resistance will come from Armenian hevy cavalary,elite cavalary of muslim princes who is very week in comparation of kapatrokhoi and
the last is Ghazi infrantry with very week defence but excelent attack but also is fanatic whic means to fight till death or run when is very wasted)After concuest of Egypt,Turkey you may then be "invincible".(sorry for my bad english)

The Byzantines are the easiest faction to play. I think there is little doubt about that. The Germans, in my opinion, are the second best. I conquered most of the map as the Germans, but I was stopped in the east by the Byzantine Empire. I simply couldn't defeat them.

This message was edited by RustyMadman on Apr 12 2004.

Although in the manual Turks are difficult in early period,i have to say they're very good.Turcoman horses and Armenian heavy cavaleries can be built in pretty early periods and their large initial army compared with their lands allow them to an early attack against the Egyptians.In normal mode and early period,i suggest attacking palestine with Turks first so you can trap the Egyptian sultan in Antioch.If you capture the sultan you will take a huge amount of ransom,if you kill him you degenerate Egyptians and it will be easy to finish off them.Egypt will be in your comlete bondage within 10 years with this tactic.Don't afraid of the byzantines because they are too busy controlling their lands against balkan provices.After seizing the rich provinces of Egypt,it is time to bribe the rebel Asian lands.Before Byzantines attack them you have to bribe all provinces.I think it will be enough for a good start.
Turks have marvellous and much unique units.Without concentrating on one part of the army,they have all necessery units regarding to speed,power and morale.Turks don't have the BEST units but they have the BEST COMBINATION of units.Once I had a fight with golden horde and killed 5643 of their heavy troops with my 893 troops.I think the king of this game are the Turks.I say it in an objective perspective not because I am a Turk also

That will be the turks! started playing the expert level and they r just wonderful. start by grabbing the egytian lands then your only worry is byzantine. but they get outclassed easily by your janissary infrantry..almost completed the game already on with the turks..and this is in expert level