Creative Assembly have announced the first six playable factions for historical strategy bash Total War: Medieval 3, while also sharing a little insight on the process of choosing Total War factions. Of course, the optimal way to select Twarieval 3 factions would be to mock up a grand tournament, where designers adorned with the heraldry of each realm prove their mettle in the jousts, the melee, and the pas d'armes, while rival spymasters contrive to spike their goblets with arsenic.

Sadly, I don't think Creative Assembly have the budget to build a jousting arena, and poisonings tend to be frowned upon by modern HR departments. But they are, at least, letting players vote on 23 other playable factions they're thinking about adding. Online voting: the tiltyard of the modern era.

The starting factions are the Kingdoms of France and England, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Sultanate of Rum (aka the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire), the Byzantine Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire. I know precious little about medieval history, but these are broadly the nations and powers I consider to be period celebrities. The Spice Girls of the day, if you like. Yes, the Holy Roman Empire is Sporty Spice. France and England can duke it out as to who gets to be Posh.

Choosing launch factions for Total War games broadly comes down to four things, creative director Lief Walter explains in a blog post: brand familiarity, uniqueness of starting situation, variety of possible paths to the endgame, and uniqueness in terms of mechanics. There's also the question of "overall historical significance" - which isn't necessarily the same thing as familiarity - and what's covered by the game's world map. Total War: Medieval 3's map has approximately the same focus as Medieval 2: Total War, "reaching from Iberia in the west to Bagdad in the east, and from southern Scandinavia in the north, to northern Africa in the south."

With all that in mind, Walter offered a bit more detail on the reasoning behind the specific faction choices. Here it is in bracingly blockquoted form.

You could not really imagine a game about the medieval era without England and France as playable factions. They are very iconic – possibly the two most iconic medieval factions, certainly in the west, and tied to each other’s’ story through the Hundred Years’ War.

The Holy Roman Empire is the stereotypical feudal giant, a realm struggling under its own political machinations, fuelled by large ambitions, and engulfed in a century-long power struggle with the Catholic Church.

The Byzantine Empire is what ties medieval history to its Roman roots. Perhaps the most sophisticated realm at the start of the game, it grasps at straws for survival, while being beset on all sides by potential enemies.

The Sultanate of Rum embodies the small beginnings of the mighty Ottoman Empire and would emerge as the dominant power in the Middle East.

Finally, the Kingdom of Jerusalem – the iconic crusader state; at the heart of Christian ambition during the medieval era, and at the core of the many crusades that defined this era.

These are just the first six factions to be confirmed. "While we do not know exactly how many playable factions we will have on launch (we are certainly looking at past historical titles for reference points here), we expect that with six factions locked in, it would leave several additional slots to be assigned," Walter writes.

On which note, they'd like you – yes, you, the person with a full-sized black market edition of the Codex Gigas stuffed under your mattress – to cast your vote on a shortlist of 23 other possible factions that fall within the 1140-onwards time period and the intended launch map. "Your feedback will directly help shape our research and conversations during pre-production, and will be taken into consideration as we balance the playable roster for launch," Walter writes, "but please understand that we may need to exercise some creative control if the outcome clashes with another aspect of our design or production pipelines."

The shortlist of factions includes the Italian medieval city states and republics - "champions of mercantile and communal tradition, and counterpoint to Imperial ambitions in Italy." There are also a few kingdoms from Eastern Europe, like the Duchy of Greater Poland - "budding kingdoms between worlds; combining Christian, Cuman, and Orthodox influences". Northern European Kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Norway are described as "aspiring young realms that rose to great power by the end of the medieval period"

The Iberian powers are "Christian kingdoms in the melting pot of the medieval world, and exposed to a variety of cultures, religions, and influences", while the Muslim Almohad Caliphate is one of many "great dynasties with even greater ambition that forged lasting empires across large parts of Europe, the Levante, and the Near East." The Crusader state of Antioch is "a multi-cultural bastion of Orthodox and Catholic Christianity", while the Balkan realms have apparently "resisted throughout the centuries and forged their own path through medieval history."

Try as I might, I can't think of a 90s pop band comparison for any of these.

The devs have left out a few possible factions like the Mongols and the Great Seljuks who aren't entirely covered by the game's campaign map, though these may still exist in the game as non-playable entities. They are "also very aware of the general want to play as the Papal States; but we discussed internally that this playstyle would be so unique and special that it would reduce focus of development too much." Intriguing – any ideas about why the Papal States are such a development headache, comments thread historians? Anyway, you can read the full blog for details on how to vote.