Most of the time, said AI factions were Egypt, the Almohads, Britain, Aragon (unpredictable ?) or Byzantium. Most games would end up with two AI factions + the player owning the whole map. MTW AI expansion was in all honestly, stupid as hell. Aragon was quite an easy faction to play, past the first few turns. Aragon was one of the richest province in western Europe, and so was Valencia. In MTW term, that faction was furthermore far from a minor. At some point in time, it was vastly more important and prestigious than both Castille and Portugal and was a very real threat to southern French holdings. as pointed out, Aragon was quite a powerful country throughout the Middle-Age. In ETW they seem to have gotten it right again.Honestly, In RTW CA failed with this since you always saw the same factions getting powerful.Д¬A made this better in M2TW but still certain factions never stood a chance. I remember that particular game because it was fun and unpredictable. I hardly remember any games from M1TW but I do remember the one where Aragon conquered half of Europe and I had to fight them of single-handed. The smaller the nation, the more memorable it is. This is Total war so it's not wrong in any way or form. Having France as a powerhouse in every game would just make the game predictable. The less you can predict who is gonna be the major player the better. They have huge expansion potential from their provinces as well, they can go splat Morocco and all the Barbary States, Portugal is begging to get munched the second Britain plays up, who should also lose the whole Carribbean to the much more capable Spanish colonies, and Italy is an all you can eat buffet!Д«ritain would suck if the computer played the game properly with the current province setup.ДЄnd I for one don't like that. The Spanish also have lots of provinces, they start off with enough for an excellent trading empire right from the start and again unlike the British, a proper city in the Americas. It's difficult to justify even one with the army they keep in Paris and the lack of Protestant preachers, the computer would be a whole heck of a lot richer if it actually built an economy. Ever noticed that the AI NEVER demolishes a town building to replace it with something more effective or even makes rational choices? Every single game I play, France has four Seminaries. The problem isn't the starting French province, it's how the AI uses it. The French have extensive American assets, if they didn't play like puddings Britain would have a very serious problem keeping the Thirteen Colonies alive long enough to take on the inexplicably powerful natives and claim the Colonies itself. I must say I do question the reasoning behind making both Spain and France one region nations and seperating the United Kingdom into three regions.Initial starting province numbers are.not in the favour of the British.

Empire total war france