The Best A.I. Faction - Medieval 2 Total War Tier List 

So, from your experience, which A.I. is Best?

"You either die a knockoff of Spain, or live long enough to establish a colony in the British Isles" - Robertus Maximus

"His holiness the poop." Melkor 2020

To be fair, the AI for these factions is mostly accurate from a historical point of view: England, France, Germany, Milan and Spain: Do great throughout, and emerge as European superpowers by the end of the game. Byzantium: Does poorly, because their star is not shining anymore. Turks and Egyptians: They have a bad start, grow powerful in middle game, and when the Mongols or Timurids strike, they either survive or perish. I mean, that is it, either they dominate the East Mediterannean or die to the new conquerors. Venice and Sicily: Usually do very good in early and mid game, might survive the Middle Ages, although is mostly a 50-50. The Moors: Have a very good early and Middle game, but late game when the Spanish get their proper gownpowder weapons, it is a swift decline for them, so they either emerge victorious in Spain early or perish. The Danes: Have a good early and Mid game, but late game they are starting to lose influence, as the other Western powers outcompete them. Like in real life, the end of the Middle Ages starts a decline for Denmark. Hungarians and Poles: Do good throughout, especially the Hungarians. It is clear that they will not be outcompeted until they reach the end of the Middle Ages. Russians: They do poorly throughout, because the Middle Ages were simply a dark ages of division and conflict for the Ivans. They might barely survive the Mongols, but then they are still mostly ruined... This historical era is simply not theirs. Portugal: ' They either die a knockoff of Spain or live long enough to establish colonies in the British Isles '. The Pope: Evidently does good throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, as their influence peaked in this period. Scotland: They either conquer England or get themselves conquered. Fairly true if we are talking in a historical context.

when the Timurids appear in the game so late that Melkor forgot to mention them :_(

Milan is for me, the strongest and most pain ine ass faction of the game.They're annoying at the early, middle, late uurg I really hate them, mainly in the HRE and France campaigns

Degradation of Poland and Hungary from great to good might be risky. They like each other so much, that they can kick your ass together to prove you wrong ;) Üdvözlet Lengyelországból

When I played my first ever medieval 2 campaign it was the HRE because the HRE was where my ancestors came from, Germany. And I didn’t know that the mongols were in the game until I got the message about the mongols coming. And I was worried, because I had heard the stories from the past, how they were ruthless warriors who pillaged and raped as they went and that they were the largest empire ever, but I had never truly seen a mongol horde before, never seen them burn a man alive with a Hwacha. And at that point I held Egypt because of the crusade on Cairo, so my border was with the Ottomans, and then I saw the region color of Jerusalem change, and I’m like, oh no holy shit. And then they attacked me at Cairo. And they nearly destroyed Byzantium, which held and Constantinople, and they had killed the Turks. I held Rhodes and Iraklion because of an early game conquest of Venice. And when they attacked my castle at Rhodes I was shocked with the 3/4 stack they had mustered, and I only had about a 1/4 stack in Rhodes so I was utterly destroyed. So I mustered the men and retook Rhodes, and then I went on to Smyrna, and took it with ease. And then Mongol 1/4 and 1/2 stacks kept flowing in, so each turn was vital for retraining, and I held, but I couldn’t advance until I got the necessary troops to take Nicaea. Afterwards I turned towards Constantinople and took it, but it took me like 20 turns after the timurid invasion to defeat them. So to me they’re really good. And I remember toggling fow, and looking at like 20 mongol stacks and like 30 1/2 stacks across their empire. I thought they were unstoppable

"His Holiness, The *POOP* ".

A decade ago I remember having a campaign where the Byzantines actually did well.

Always enjoy your M2TW perspectives mate! Love this game and have been playing for many years. Thank you!

Makes every single video of his with a fez puts the Turks in the bad tier

The Byzantines always dominate in my campaign wtf...

We need a league table for all the times you've done the ai only games

When the Roman Empire becomes a meme faction.....

Agree mostly, I don't understand why you ranked Scotland so high when they lose more often than not to England, which is ranked lower on the same tier. And when I've seem them succeed its pretty much what England does when they take control of their home island. They invade into France but never much further. I'd push Poland and Spain into average as well. Aztecs are a meme faction. They don't expand and they don't build anything. They exist just to be cannon fodder for late era rosters.

Roman: Hey Seleucid! You and your faction are just a meme!!!! Seleucid: We'll talk again in a couple of centuries lol

Bizantines: they are a meme Video of 1000 turns timelapse 👁️👄👁️

Let's make tier list but from player perspective

I have never in my entire life seen Scotland capture one settlement. They just make a full stack of pike militia and walk around their capital.

Been having some very new campaigns with surprises. Strong Portugal, Poland rushing the east, Venice not stabbing me in the back.

the RTW music in the background is the best thing in this video ;-)

For some reason my first campaign Portugal took over all of Iberia, France, England, and parts of the HRE. Never saw them do it again, but still it left an impression.

Have you ever/can you even play as the Timurids? Would be fun to mod a game where it’s AI only until the Timurids show up and then you just play as them.

I’ve always found the Holy Roman Empire to be very powerful till late mid game where they stop expanding and usually stop producing troops and just crumble

maybe my game is weird, but i do see france doing well, like not great but quite a few times a have seen them taking caen and invading spain. ofcourse they have bad games but i woudn't put france in bad, i think they should be in avarage.

The french AI to be fair is surrounded on all sides by 4 pretty strong empires IE Milan, HRE, Spain, and England. HRE is also landlocked but in my campaigns the Hungarians never attack me and always act as a useful buffer zone on my eastern flank I’ve also had successful alliances with Denmark, The poles eventually try to make a move on me but by the time they do they are usually already in a war with Russia and aren’t really a serious threat.

I did an experiment on my England Medium campaign. The 2 turns for initial diplomacy with both Scotland and France vary based on map information. If I offer my map info: 1. Scotland will take Dublin 2. France will take Bordeaux This is significant because if I don’t, Scotland will forever stay in Edinburgh and France will lose Bordeaux to Spain. This means Map Info drastically changes AI early game behavior and movement too, not just late game and bargaining.

But what about the player controlled factions? Which ones do you think are the ones with the most potential?

I gave over a milion florins to scotland and byzantium to keep them alive but they just not progressing on any difficulty

In an England campaign back in 2017 or so, it was me and the Byzantines vying for world domination. Somehow they were aggressive as shit and made it to southern Italy before I pushed them back at Naples.

The aztecs do their job well, haha! Maybe sunset invasion mod is needed.

Scotland is clearly the best what do you mean you can speed run them losing

The Mongols: Puts a fully stacked army on a single ship. Gets sunk and they do it 2 more times and now they are crippled and the other AI factions can take care of that problem so I can focus on smashing the absolute living crap out of HRE.

hype

Yeah, i'm new to the this game (not the whole TW franchise just medieval 2) and i was playing HRE when all of a souden Denmark took over hamburg killing my faction leader but i had all my best armies and generals in Italy killing Veince with was the most powerfull faction out there. So Denmark had time to conquer anoter castles with they did so i'm mobilised a good army of trader knights, sergent spearmen, balistas, mailed knights, frankish knights and a lot of mercenary spearmen as they were the best unit i coud have at that time and i got there, took back hamburg, made anoter army, and took over Denmark in Europe now i just have to get ships and take them over before they make a huge army again, in fact they made 2 huge armies so i had big casualties

Personnaly, i always play France, and if you survive, you ez everibody

France AI is ridiculous. France has the best units, but the AI is just terrible

In my campaigns Milan always seems to dominate in europe. Deffinetly my worst enemys.

I'll take this advice for my next campaign, but maybe history needs to change and let Australia into this game just like we're in Eurovision, put us in Fez tier (I'm Aussie BTW) 😅

Ive had the moors lay siege on rome when k was playing as Sicily

Byzantium really is strange in this game… They have a very little variation of troops, but they are pretty flexible. The fact that you have access to horse archers at the start of the game gives you an advantage against western factions, particularly against italian factions and their militias. The only thing that you have to mind are pavese crossbows and heavy plate armour, impervious to arrows. Cataphraktoi are not that bad though, but you can’t over rely on them like Teutonics or Tzar’s Guard. The heavy infantry still smashes asses in the late game, but they don’t have armor piercing effect. You have to use your cards well, because you don’t have gunpowder and this really is crippling. I usually build very large empires with Eastern Rome, better than Scotland and Sicily

Melkor what is your outro I very intrigued

I absolutely love the time lapse divide and conquer vids, more please.

What happened the the three red dots of death?

I would put portugak in the average tier. In most of my playthroughs they tend to take over western french settlements and some part of british isles like dublin and caermavron sometimes they manage to take some of iberian peninsula

Have you done a list like this for Rome?

In my last 3 champagins Denmark didnt get one settlement in fact in the last game they died becouse of a revolt :D

The HRE should be higher imo but I agreed with most of the rewt

portuguese invasion of wales intensifying

I think the reason A.I. Byzantines suck is that Byzantines only have one good early game unit. Vardarioti. The key to succuss in the early game is to spam them as much as possible, and destroy enemies in the open field. The A I simply doesn't utilize them. They spam their trash infantry, and Slythikon, and just lose early.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! PORTUGAL!!!! :( RIP

Why are moors lower than spain? They often conquer africa,spain and portugal. Sometimes spain is gonna do the same but it will not expand as much into africa so....moors are better i guess

Wait why are Skaven included here in Med2?

Venice 1°!

My top 5 before watching was Pope, Milan, England, Denmark, and Hungary so pretty close. I disagree with Poland over Hungary, while Poland certainly should never be taken lightly, I have never seen them dominate like Hungary does occasionally. Taking large swathes of Eastern Europe, Greece, going into Asia Minor and pushing the Mongols. For that I go Hungary over Poland. Also Scotland isn’t in my top 5. For me they take the British isles approximately 1 in 4, and never take large portions of Europe, stopping after Belgium and maybe the castle in Norway. If England takes the UK and holds a piece of mainland they can really dominate Western Europe

So the scots are the 2nd best ai?

17 seconds ago... damn last time I was this early was at birth😂

The English have never done well in games I've played (unless I'm playing them). I've never done timelapses like you though. I also know this is Vanilla, but in mods where the original factions are there, but on different maps, etc the Aztecs are ridiculously OP and just take everything over.

The algorithm put christ democratic party advertising in front of your vid. Never before did the algorithm fail so badly

I don't think Scotland's AI is that good. Every time I had played against them (For me), they always have there navy swim up and down the firth of forth and there generals are often static. I generally think at times the Scots AI gets very confused with the limitations of the land they are stuck with (by turn 100 they might not even have Inverness).

From my experience, the AI is most competent when it starts with fewer provinces and has rebel settlements to expand, like with Denmark and Scotland. But it can't handle large starting land and freezes as HRE, France or Byzantium.

Medieval 2 random a.i only campaign??

Wow last time I was so early that i could give the 2nd like the Byzantine empire held all of its territory.

the "god" faction in "god: tear seems legit. also don't mess with Scotland!

You left out timmy. I'm mad.

Im on turn 180, a bit close to get the new world whit spain, and i got 40 of 45 provinces to win, i got jerusalen too, timurids give me alot of truble on middle east, same whit mongols, but balista towers, and cannon towers do all the job, the ia of mongols and timurids is dont very smart on siege battles whitout siege artilery

U forgot timurids

Can’t disagree with this list. The winner of England and Scotland usually becomes the power of Western Europe. I would rank both the Turks and Sicily a few places higher. Sicily usually find a way to endure. I find the Turks will do well and at least survive unless they get hit with both barrels from the hordes.

😏

milan does well

Portugal a meme tear....😡

Glad to see my Scottish-Viking heritages coming in strong!

Hello

Damn the older games I feel are so much better than the new ones. I only got medieval 2 a couple of years ago so there's no nostalgia goggles but I personally feel like it's so much better than troy total war. I feel the UI is so easy to view and interact with than Troy. It makes so much more sense oh I click on city build buildings train troops. Troy you have to click on the army which melts into the background then click one of the tiny buttons at the bottom.

Hey where are the timurids? They supposed to be good or great!

Is it strange that absolutely hate poland(in the game) and have never actualy played as them, because I played as the Russians and Poland backstabbed me and I fought them for ever

Timurids?

Byzantium sucks in the hands of an AI, because their units sucks compared to the other faction(on paper) and bad unit stat = bad autoresolve result

Kyle rittenhouse did nothing wrong