How to win as Milan: 1. Buy Bologna from the HRE - they have plenty of settlements at the outset and are happy to trade it. 2. Invade and capture Venice as soon as the AI marches its army east to attack rebels 3. Rush into Florence before anyone else takes it from the rebels. 4. Build these cities into a financial powerhouse while laughing at any faction that tries to come against your early game militia. 5. Spam priests and send them into Moorish lands to make the pope love you and take control of the college of cardinals later 6. Trade with the pope to give him a tribute of 100 per turn to keep him sweet. 7. Brutally invade any faction that gets itself excommunicated by attacking you after the pope is your best friend. This is my favourite faction, they have on paper one of the hardest starting positions but if you do the above you end up with a ridiculously strong power base.

Playing as denmark, got frankfurt, those green devils knocks, and there my frankfurt goes

Very solid faction due to the fact you can field entire very strong armies from just cities alone

ahah good italian (I'm italian). Famiglia ducale means ducal family -> duke's family

Faction (claps) Review(claps)

Famiglia ducale= family of the duke, I believe, a reference to how Milan was long ruled by a duke (after its theocracy was overthrown)

I started a very hard Milanese campaign, and I am trying to be the peaceful guy, but Venice, Sicily, Spain, the Byzantine Empire, and France declared war on me for no reason. The Pope is mad at me as well, and it didn't help that I declared war on the Moors. Lol my campaign is in a pickle now. Edit: I've now been excommunicated, and a massive Papal army even laid a siege on me, and I was forced to become a vassal state to France.

Love these faction break-downs! Thanks mate!

My favourite faction hands down. Strategically complex, open to a lot of developments (and trouble!), heraldically fascinating... how can you not love Mediolanum? Standard of Milan! :-D

Famiglia Ducale is the best cavalry unit for Milan in some ways. You can get a horse breeders guild by building the population in one of the Italian cities as quickly as possible while also upgrading the barracks and Mayor's Palace buildings. When the cavalry units become available keep recruiting and disbanding one horse unit each turn in that city. Do the same with dismounted feudal knights in one Fortress or Citadel after it becomes available. Between the horse breeder guild upgrade and swordsmith guild upgrade you'll get great experience bonus for Famiglia Ducale. Then advance the armor upgrade building in your Horse Breeder Guild's city all the way to the Armor Factory as Famiglia Ducale can get advanced plate armor. Then send recruited Famiglia Ducale with full armor and experience to your castle with the Swordsmith Guild. You'll end up with probably the strongest heavy cav in the game as it's unlikely the AI will go through a process to produce cav as strong. Hospitaller Knights can be nearly as good with a Horse Breeder Guild bonus and Sworsmith bonus.

Great Factions guides dude great work

22:40 i have to say, i ALWAYS give Ajaccio and Cagliari to the papal states, because they are 2 highly contested CASTLE regions that belong to an auto-excommunication faction, also their fleets will always defend me from sicilian, spanish, portuguese, moorish, french, venetian (sometimes english and egyptian!) fleets because plot twist i am actually the pope when i conquer antioch or alexandria with a chivalrous family member on the 10th turn and start spamming priests and merchants. Liked and subbed, rediscovering this gem of a game after a long time and enjoying podcasts instead of that annoying music haha

Thanks for the guide from 2023! The famiglia ducale part cracked me up when it says they're fighting for the duke in the description

great video, but i would suggest taking venice or holy roman empire. taking out a faction early puts you at a hug advantage over everyone else. but i am a very aggressive player.

11:25 Hand Gunners are absolute trash. They are not an upgrade of the arquebusiers. They have short range, slow rate of fire, and require a direct line of sight. Their melee stats do not justify their cost.

Worst thing for me when playing Milan was the pope just constantly kept sending inquisitors through my land, and I kept loosing family members because for some reason none of them spawned with much piety...

Gucci Thumbnail colours, you know this Video is gonna be good

The best way to play milan fraction: gather your troops send them to palermo, capture sizilian while they conquer tunis. Capture napoli afterwards. 2 free very big regions in 10 rounds and no need to worry about sizilian anymore.

Historically Genoa was more relevant during the medieval era than Milan ever was.

Congratz on 1k my friend i subbed when you had 300 good to see people in this community grow. keep it up! :-)

Gotta love the boys in the green

I appreciate Italian Spear Militia, Genoese Crossbowmen Militia, and (Italian) Cavalry Militia, with tier 3 armour. The idea of lanced militia cavalry is the cerry on top. They may not be the best fighters, but their gear is solid and look oh so good. 😎

Units known as musketeers were by no means around in the “high” Middle Ages, contrary to what is found in this game...

Italian here, good pronunciation on Famiglia Ducale which translates as Ducal Family. Even though I'm watching years later I really do enjoy your content. Hope you're doing well.

I think Milan is the strongest faction, it is defo my favourite. It is tough start, but you get away with just spamming cities - insane finances and get such broken "militia" army.

Milan is one of my most favourite factions as it is the nearest thing to Genoa, in its absence... I usually start the campaign by abandoning Milan and selling it either to HRE or Papacy, thus retaining only Genoa, and from there I entirely focus on overseas expansion... Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Tunis, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus and Outremer, later in the game Crimea and Constantinople and the path for trade domination is marked...

im guessing Famiglia Ducale means Dukes Family? aristocrat knights, mentions duke in description, possibly relatives or "adopted" in military unit or something .. seems logical

My advice, make milan your armor hub, build black smiths there, make genoa your soldier recruiting hub, take florence make it into a wooden castle. Take venice, berg, ajjacio, palermo, naples, buy bologna, plan on taking Rome eventually, get ship yard protect west coast of italy with at least 4 2nd level warships, geonise crossbow militias are awesome, 100 upkeep, mix in armor upgrade italian militia with heavy cav in small numbers, unstoppable

Cool vid dude

I convert all castles to cities, and only build level 3 city barracks. The rest of campaign is constructing art gallery, banks, guilds to groom family member. It is more satisfying to have Duke and Count with full stats and dozen retinues instead of knights.

It's also worth noting with Venice is you can take Milan out in four turns, but Milan cannot do the same to Venice. So Milanese strats need to bear in mind that Venice has powerful late game troops and shouldn't be left alone after taking Venice.

Mounted crossbowmen deal less damage but reload slightly faster than normal xbows.

always felt that these guys are too easy im campaign cause the crossbows. once you have got them you become almost unbeatable. Also it says they lack cav but with the templars you dont really need to worry about it. hungary was always a lot of fun

nice my favourite faction

Hope the exam goes well! In my games Milan always goes psycho and attacks the Pope (and everyone else) right at the start

i think the best Ally would be The Papal States, HRE always tries to get you anyway, which is a good thing since that gives you an excuse to take Bologna from them

Currently at war with Milan. I hate them I hate them I hate them. But during our very frequent clashes. I’ve gained 1 city to their none. Only took being seized 8 times. Backing out of sieges 3 times. 11 battles in the open field and bridge battles. For the most part I’ve won more than I lost but it’s hard to beat them without taking substantial casualties because of those crossbowman

Do you play any third age? If u do you should do this for the DAC mod. Although Galu have some vids like this on the factions of the mod its allways neat with somone else opinions :)

Eh, defence stats for archers etc are actually informing you, how many missiles they can take. And that's important. Most of them are not supposed to fight in mele

Famiglia Ducale basically means "the duke' s family".

Should do MTW Kingdoms.

Milan is the best faction according to me.. Strong militia units really helps defeating solid attacker with your local troops

You always mention that you don't want to repeat yourself with the siege equipment yet you repeat yourself with peasant(s) (archers), feudal knights, and the knights Templar and Hospitalars, which are available to every catholic faction except for Spain, Portugal and the holy Roman empire, whome get the knights of Santiago and teutonic knights respectively. Also the banner "siege" unit is available to all Italian factions. Sicily and Venice have their own version. The papel states have a cross that has a similar effect

VENICE also gets the Carroccio Standard

Does anyone know why Italian unique swordsmen (except Norman Knights) have slightly worse attack than Feudal Knights? Like, why would we want to upgrade high tier barracks just to get something that is worse even at the slightest? 🤔

I think Genoise crosbows are OP

will you also do these for barbarian invasion?

Hand gunners are not a better version of the arquebusiers. They have better melee stats but less missile damage and even less range.

Get good generals and they wont charge without Orders

NOT ALL FACTIONS HAVE THE SAME ARTILLARY!!!!

So you will be more active in February?

Please do Poland next

You dont need guide for milan Just spam Geneose crossbow man

Ducale means ducal

Milan is the most broken faction in the game lol. You can easily conquer the world without ever building a castle.

Playing as HRE right now. Milan is so damn annoying

These guys are just “The Mafia” the faction.

I hate these guys! Crossbow spam is really hard to deal with.

Best Campaign Faction in the game. France is the best faction roster in the game.

What live