I'm playing the English in my current game and have had some pretty cool events. This game is crazy.:
It started with the usual declaration of war between me and some rebel towns. I quickly trounced on them and showed them what a true ruler was. I had my sights set on some French vineyards though so the rebels didn't quite satisfy me that much. Planning for a nice war with them, I decided to make an alliance with the Scottish. They only held a town and a castle, what harm could they be up there. They eagerly took the alliance. Then it was off to war with France.
I had a few skirmishes with the French before finally catching one of their generals out in the open. Leaving his nearby castle wide open, I quickly seized the opportunity to grab it. The Pope, well funded by the French, stepped in and asked me to cease hostile actions. I relented ... for a time. Then i carefully crafted an assassination of a French governor before invading his town.
At this point the Pope stepped in again in an indirect way, calling for a Crusade. Feeling that the French were pretty weak, I signed a cease fire with them and asked for 500 gold/turn in tribute. To my astonishment they accepted. I loaded up my Prince and a large amount of troops and he went off toward Antioch while the King ran London.
After a long journey he did indeed make it to Antioch and ran off the Egyptian Muslims there. He gained considerable chivalry, piety, and gold, and every unit with him gained veteran status. Nice! The next turn my King died, and he was named the new King. That put me with a King faaaaar away from home, and a huge and very expensive stack of units. Not to mention the upkeep was extremely expensive.
Thinking the troops were worth shipping back due to veteran status, I loaded up a couple of cogs with them and set sail for England. In the meantime I was pinching pennies back home and had to ditch a lot of troops that had been sitting around at expensive upkeep.
The next turn Scotland breaks treaty and attacks me (due to the limited threat I now caused to them.) That same turn my cogs with veterans were ganged up on by Egyptian ships and taken out (and the troops with it.) I thought, "it can't get any worse." It did. France attacked next turn and took the town I had taken back.
So I went from rags to riches and now back to rags. This game is so damned cool. I never know what to expect next.