Strongest faction.

[The Lich]

I must say I agree. As a swadian count I did many fights against nords and they just got slaughtered, even my lower tier infantry did best them in melee because my longbowmen did just vanquish them. Their units were not as tough as I was thinking. I even attacked ragnar's army of 255 men with my 80-90 small war party, only having a bit of A6 units and a bit of C6 units. Their infantry are doing well to bunch together, this gives them a great advantage against the cavalry and infantry charges. But once they turn their back after a suicidal cavalry charge, my longbowmen did the magic. After many waves, their strong infantry are dead, then even my low tier infantry was besting their infantry because they had only I2 left.

The AI is really problematic with them too. They simply leave their archers alone, once the cavalry charges those archers they are like looters trying to running away. Let me sketch you what happens:

Teal: Enemy (Nords)
Red: Me (Swadians)

隐藏: Initial formation and beginning movements

                                      Archer Archer Archer Archer
      -  - -  - >                   
    l                                   
    l                                        Infantry Infantry Infantry
    l                                        Infantry Infantry
    l                                                l
    l                                                l
Cavalry Cavalry                              v
  Cavalry                               
                                              Archer  Archer    Archer    Archer
                                                  Infantry Infantry Infantry

My archers are safely shooting the enemy infantry and archers. My archers suffer from no casualties at all, while the enemy archers suffer high casualties. Enemy infantry are marching onwards with their shields up, so they are safe from the arrows at the moment. My cavalry is waiting on the left, to flank the enemy and charge down archers (The thing AI can't do)

Then the magic happens before we get to this diagram. The enemy infantry get very close to my infantry and they tend to turn their offensive side early on. They began caring less about arrows and position themselves to my infantry. I do not really know the details here. Because I'm mostly busy chasing down enemy archers with my cavalry at this stage.

隐藏: How the battle goes

                                          ^              ^                                  ^
                                          l                l                                    l
                                          l                l                              Archer
                                          l            Archer            Cavalry
                                      Archer Archer Cavalry
                                    Cavalry Cavalry


                                        Cavalry  - - >                               
                                    Cavalry - - >  Infantry 
                                              Infantry Infantry Infantry
                                                    Infantry    Infantry
                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                  Archer  Archer    Archer    Archer

                                                   
When my cavalry charge their archers, their archers are simply off of the battle. They began running away, which simply makes them non-useful. Not to mention they will be dieing shortly. While on the other hand, my outnumbered infantry wins the battle with their infantry with the help of my archers. Also some of my cavalry tends to charge the enemy infantry from the left flank, which helps  too. That way, they simply got slughtered.

Of course, after this small round the enemy reinforcements arrive to the battlefield. So I simply have to order my cavalry to come back and my infantry to stand their ground. Then their second wave comes and I repeat. After 4-5 rounds, even when I have no cavalry left, the enemy infantry waves tend to come much more weaker (low tier units). In this case, even my ****ty infantry can best them with the help of my longbowmen. Well... lets say my archers are out of ammo. Even so, their infantry became so poor that I can beat the nords in their own game after this point.



Well my suggestion would be to not do anything to their archers. Nords are not rhodoks. They are not supposed to be defending and shooting from afar. Since their archers are a bit infantry-like, why don't they come closer to the main battle? That way they'll be moving with their infantry and won't be easy prey to my cavalry. Since nords are supposed to have strong-offensive infantry, they should be acting so. They all must bunch together and do a fast charge once the player army gets close enough. For that, their light armor even would be an advantage that they can charge faster too. This, of course, is just my opinion.

 

[Leifdin]

If you'd like, you could check this out: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,249784.0.html
I meddled with Nord units a bit. Main idea is to get rid of the filler units and to give Nords decent archers to provide cover against enemy archers and spearmen to provide cover against cavalry. However, it still doesn't help AI to win battles at all. They just don't look so sad, but they still get their arses kicked. Also helps in sieges a bit.

 

[The Lich]

Alright I'll check it out but one thing got me there thinking:

-Lethwin the Far Seeker is now woman

Why

 

[Hsuan]

Rhodok is pretty overpowered, both in map position and their unit
well, historically, a crossbowman takes almost no skill, enabling them to train further in their physical strength, this is the problem with the rhodok, their crossbowmen are just too strong,first they kill like 50% of your unit before you can get close, then you cant fight them in melee because their melee abilities are just so strong. also, they can practically ignore shields with crossbowmen, the bolts just penetrates the shield and kills the target.
Nord is overly nerfed, their spears can do some trick up on their cavalry-lover neighbors, but that's the only thing, their archer suck, throwers suck, and their other I7 are not even heavily armored.
Swadia can do well, but their position enables them to get gang-raped by all 5 different country
Vaegir is a weaker version of swadia, their knights suck and their bowmen can't match up against cavalries, shielded targets, or armored crossbowman
Sarranid is poorly re-designed, they can't do anything and their old strength for their archers was taken away.
Khergit was OK, mounted archers were supposed to be unique to them but they were added to the sarranids for some reason.

 

[The Lich]

Sarranid is poorly designed and khergits were supposed to be unique with their horse archers? No, I don't agree at all.
Floris mod troops are mostly based on history.

Öongolians-far east cultures (obviously khergits) are still unique in their own way. What makes khergits unique, is to be able to have mobile and mass cavalry. They specialize in light cavalry and hit-run tactics. They are the best skirmishers.

Vaegir horse archers on the other hand are not very competent from what I hear. They tend to be only good when stationary, which makes them more like fast archers rather than horse archers. Can be good against infantry but shouldn't be very competent against cavalry and archers. As they would be vulnerable when shooting, and non-accurate when moving.

Sarranids (arabic cultures-ottoman empire) have heavy horse archers. They are more likely to be less manueverable if everything is implemented correctly. Similiar to cataphraktoi in byzantine empire, the horseback shooting was used in 3-4 volleys to weaken enemy before doing a heavy cavalry charge. Not for skirmishing.
Besides, sarranids' strength was not their archers. It was the nearly-overpowered mamlukes that are on par with swadian knights as the best cavalry unit. The reason why they are considered a bit overpowered was it was easier to train (and feed later on) mamlukes, compared to knights.

 

[Leifdin]

Alright I'll check it out but one thing got me there thinking:
Quote
-Lethwin the Far Seeker is now woman

Why

So I could support and marry her, and thus become rightful King of Nords. Just a personnal change, but I always forgot to delete it(so I made it "official behaviour")

 

[J Awesome]

Everyone's got their opinions, but here's my take on them:

Swadia:  Theoretically has one of the most powerful troop trees (with exception of the lackluster horse archer, and the bow nerf hits a lot of the archers hard) with heavy cavalry, skilled archers, and surprisingly decent infantry; but they start in position to be potentially attacked by EVERYONE.  More often than not, the AI is off campaigning to get back some castle out in the Kherjit boondocks while Praven and Suno burn.  It also doesn't help that Uxhal is one of the worst cities to defend.
Of all the games I've played, I've rarely ever seen Swadia rise to prominence without player intervention.

Nords:  They usually spread across the map somehow, despite having one of the most lackluster trees out there (not even light cavalry to take out stragglers, and those high level throwers are a joke).  I dread sieging their cities, let alone get in throwing range of a Nord army, but I agree with a lot of people here that their tree is the most gimpy.

Rhodoks:  Rhodoks are in the ultimate turtling position:  Next door to the beleaguered Swadians, and defending against a northern Sarranid attack (who are often tangled with the Kherjits themselves).  Their troops are probably the best and most heaviest ground troops out there (though their cavalry is nothing more than the I3-4 pikemen on a horse, and the high-tier twohanders often spawn with one handed weapons and no shield.  What?  ) that can defend any city with extreme tenacity.
I've almost always seen the Rhodoks creep out from the mountains and slowly start to paint the map green.  IMO, this is the strongest faction that often needs to be curbed with player intervention.

Sarranids: Swadia of the desert, but with incredible horse archers, crappy infantry and archers that are built like skirmishers (good or bad, depending on your playstyle).  It's hard taking them on their own turf, because the Memluks, Hashams, and Iq'Atars will eat you alive.  Sarranids are great for outdoors battles, but sometimes leave a little more to be desired in sieges.  I notice that they usually hold their own, but sometimes lose Shariz to the Rhodoks.

Kherjits:  One of the factions I usually vote to exterminate in the beginning.  Not because of perceived power, but because 90% of the fights involve chasing horse archers for 15 minutes.  As mentioned, their cavalry and horse archers are their specialty (though the horse archers are a few pegs down from the Sarranids, because the Kherjit bows and arrows frankly suck) and open field battles are their strength.  Their high tier archers are surprisingly good, but the infantry are nothing more than speedbumps that eventually become cavalry.
From my observations, Kherjit map painting is wildly variable:  Sometimes they get wiped out fast, sometimes they grow to prominence.  Though, in any siege that doesn't favor attacking archers, expect them to get mowed down by the dozen.

Vaegirs:  The Vaegirs have some interesting points (blunt infantry, particularly nasty high tier archers), but overall their troop trees comes off as "Captain Generic".  Not bad, but nothing particularly exciting.  Maybe the lower tiers could get blunt weapons to make their troops more feared/give them a edge?
Usually they end up duking it out with the Nords, Kherjits, or both; then either expand or get swallowed up by their neighbors.  Plain Jane.

 

[Leifdin]

Nords:  They usually spread across the map somehow, despite having one of the most lackluster trees out there (not even light cavalry to take out stragglers, and those high level throwers are a joke).  I dread sieging their cities, let alone get in throwing range of a Nord army, but I agree with a lot of people here that their tree is the most gimpy.

Autocalc doesn't take bad troop tree in the account

 

[UniversalWolf]

In my current game the Sarranids are on the rampage.  They've captured every Khergit town except Ichamur, and all but maybe three of their castles, plus Wercheg defected to them.  The Khergits have taken a couple of castle from the Vaegirs, but not much else.  On the other side of the map, the Nords are getting pounded.  They're down to Sargoth, Tihr, and a couple of castles.

 

[Hsuan]

In my game, the sarranids are the passive players, but also the most stable
the khergits wouldn't mess with them and they stay neutral for like almost years already
me, as the rhodok marshall, wiped out swadian (although every time they try to revive their kingdom, 8 originally-swadian rhodok lord runs and join them) nord, and vaegir
4 lord that have bad relation with king has already ran off with their land to the khergits, which 3 of them ended up getting hated by the khergits then run to swadia, which then I wipe them off the map again then regain my territory back
right now there are 2 things that matters in day 700:
1. Loyalty of lords, if a lord joins your kingdom and got castle/town and has bad relation with king, watch out because he is very very likely to betray your king
2. Your properties, make sure your villages doesnt get looted, you can get lots of income for a town+castle combo (although town tariffs pays off a lot more)
There are 3 kinds of lord in this game:
1. The king haters, they get lands, then run off to other countries, then get hated, then run off to another until everyone hate them (takes like 3 game-year for that to happen)
2. The forever loyalist, they follow you every time if you are marshall, always help you and has 100 relation with the king (or close)
3. The shifters, they'll be like loyalists if their kingdom stays eliminated, once someone revive their kingdom, they will all jump back at the same time, keep an eye out on them, they usually won't be given fief though, and they usually don't bring their fief when they go back to their original faction, but that depends.