Gunpowder becomes availabe after 1290. In cities, you need to build the highest level Barracks to get access to gunpowder infantry...the quality of your units depends somewhat on which faction you're playing as. Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Venice and Russia (iirc) are the only factions that get Muskateers, which have much better range than the other units (such as Hand-Gunners and Arquibusiers(sp?)).
Medieval 2 Total War Gunpowder Units
Cannons require a whole new set of buildings in both Cities and Castles. Top tier ships don't become available until 1400, when a new structure (Naval Drydocks, iirc) becomes available. A couple of factions (HRE and the Moors) have mounted gunpowder units. For HRE, you need top level Stables in your Castles to recruit Reiters, which are a mounted unit carrying a type of pistol (short range). The Moors have (arguably) the best gunpowder unit in the game...Cammel Gunners. They have the same range as Muskateers, can shoot while moving, and since they're mounted, they can usually stay out of range of most other long-range units. You need to build the top-level Trade Caravan in Castles to recruit them.
The Apaches start off in the far north of the map and have huge scope for unfettered expansion before running into their neighbours. If you are quick, it is possible to grab the majority of provinces required to win the game without waging war on any other game faction. The Apacheans cannot build roads so travel can be a trial at times but careful use of Warpaths will ease the wait to reach new regions somewhat. The French will land in Florida and it is likely that you will need to fend them off. This is in fact something to be welcomed as you cannot recruit cavalry or gunpowder units until you defeat those units in battle a sufficient of times.
The Turks are a Domination-Focused Civ based on land warfare with a reliance on gunpowder units. After Gunpowder, you can get a free gunpowder unit after conquering an enemy city, gaining a new melee unit for to capture even more cities, allowing you to gain momentum in your military campaigns, so beeline for Gunpowder once you get close to the Renaissance era. His UA can also instantly upgrade units for free once you researched the technology of the unit, allowing you to save thousands of gold to be spent towards buildings, purchasing tiles, buying city-states, or more units. Lastly, each land unit yields 1 Happiness when garrisoned, working well with Honor's Military Caste, which can slightly help keep up with the Happiness penalties after conquering cities. Gunpowder unlocks the Janissary, a gunpowder melee unit that can heal itself after killing an enemy unit, making it a very potent offensive unit for your conquests. The Grand Bombard is a powerful siege unit available earlier than the Cannon, giving you the advantage in siege warfare, which pairs well with your Janissary units, at the cost of it being more expensive than the Trebuchet or the Cannon.
Number 3: Bowmen, musketmen, warriors, tribesmen. What do you notice about those titles? They are of separate units! What do those units do? Each weild only one weapon of war! I believe that those units should've been merged together somehow instead of repeating what was done with the Apaches and Chichimecs in Medieval 2 where they were divided between melee units and missile units. Contrary to what Creative Assembly was trying to portray is that Native American warriors preferred to fight at a distance instead of bum rushing into guns. But now you're forced to zerg rush warriors and tribesmen into gunpowder units and if you don't have experience chevrons, medicine men, or proper positioning, you get routed easily. In custom battles you can rack up experience chevrons but in campaign it's much harder. Bowman are also unreliable if you can't rush them in close enough to shoot their arrows (which they do painfully slowly). Yes they can sneak, but that bonus is mitigated when they get closer to the enemy units. Same thing goes for musketmen though they don't have to worry about getting as close.
d0d94e66b7