England (M2TW Faction)

Overview

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At the Games start in 1080, England's position is hopeful. They are surrounded by rebel settlements and already have castle's in place at either side of London.

From these castle's, conquering and developing the rebel provinces from Rennes to Antwerp can create a strong high period economy, especally if Caenarvon is converted to a city after being conquered. Another possible route the English king can take would be to unite the British isles first, concentrating all military efforts on quickly destroying the Scots in a short a time as possible (to avoid Excommunication), although less lucrative than developing a kingdom on both sides of the english channel, it is more secure.

Take note that the English navy is at best average and cannot be relied upon to transport troops through long streches of hostile waters like the navies of Byzantium, Venice or Portugal. A second weakness that England have is their complete lack of missile cavalry, relying solely on mercenaries if such a need arises.

In stark contrast to this, England's foot archers are amongst the best in the game, all but 1 unit being are with longbows (which are effective against armor) and all but 1 of these being able to deploy stakes to ward of cavalry charges.

Infantry

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Aside from the early period, English infantry is of a consistently high quality. Like all factions they gain the standard town, spear and archer militia, but also gain bill militia and heavy bill militia, although they both have a weak defense stat (standard bill militia being only 3) they are effective against amour and have a good attack stat, meaning that both units are far better suited to guarding a cities walls, as its likely that walls will be assaulted by foot knights. The best use of them, would be to use bill militia where its likely the enemy will use ladders, and heavy bill militia where they will use towers.

English infantry trained in castles is of an even higher quality, provided that the unit survives the charge, bill armed units (billmen, heavy Billmen, and dismounted English knights) are able to inflict heavy losses on almost any cavalry unit, and all make very effective flanking units.

England also has access to armored swordsmen, who are basically DFK with a cheaper upkeep and the possibility of more armor, which makes this unit so special is that it will last so long in the campaign without truly being outdated, allowing them to constantly build up experience.

Missile

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English archers are amongst the finest available to any faction, the English even gain the unique woodsman's guild allowing archers to be trained already with experience.

Due to their abilities to lay stakes that effectively cut off one direction cavalry can attack from, and their ability to, in a pinch, double as light infantry, its reasonably safe to leave skirmish mode off for these archers, and hide them behind a line of stakes. Due to these abilities, they, especially retinue longbowmen, are amongst the best units to have defending settlements under siege.

England also has the use of Sherwood archers, whose ability to hide anywhere, and their very high missile attack value makes them an almost perfect unit for ambushing enemy generals (hide them in woods on high ground away from your army, and simply wait for the enemy general to expose his back) Sherwood archers also have really cool caps, although this is possibly just my personal bias

English gunpowder armed troops are lacking and aren't really worth the price you have to pay for the infrastructure required to build them, espcally when yeomen and retinue longbowmen outclass them in terms of range and utility.

English artillery is also lacking (although for settlement defense they do gain the use of motors) with no real unit thats effective as field artillery such as a monster reburb or serpentine, and their best gun for use against walls being a culvaren instead of basalisks, grand cannons or monster bombards that are available to other factions.

All things considered, longbows will make up the core of most English armies.

Cavalry

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English cavalry is said to be lacking variety, and that assumption is correct, English cavalry is made up of knights available to all factions, then unique hobliters, English knights and demi-lancers.

Hobliters have their uses for chasing away routers and are the best equipped to catch missile cavalry, however its not likely they will see much use beyond turn 75.

English knights have a high charge value and are armed with armor piercing axes, making them highly effective at confronting other knights

Demi-Lancers are trainable from military academies, they are a faster, weaker version of the French lancers.

In conclusion

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England are a defensive faction, who are best suited to defending a hill. Their armies should be deployed with longbowmen in front of supporting melee infantry behind stakes with English knights, both dismounted and mounted, on the flanks to make sure no enemy cavalry tries to flank the army.

In terms of siege defense, england are possible the best faction, as stakes can be deployed in front of settlement gates or roads, and once the battle starts the longbows can be moved onto the walls where they can reap a heavy toll on any advancing foot knights and stand a good chance of winning any melee battle with the survivors. whilst their mortars hide behind walls and target enemy siege engines.

A possible way to force a defensive battle is to besiege a settlement then wait for another army to try and lift the siege.

England see their military zenith in the high period, so all efforts must be made to crush factions that are strong in the late period before they have a chance to bring their best units to bear (for example, Venice, France, Milan etc), unless harder battles are what you look for in a campaign, in which case all efforts must be made to preserve these factions