Been playing Sicily for a while now. Half a year a turn. Very enjoyable, heh heh. Up to 1130 or so.

I'm interested in what anybody's got to say about overall strategies for this faction.


What I've done so far:
First I started to make an alliance with the Papal States. It went very easy actually, I was surprised. I also give them a 100 o' florins every turn to keep the relation either on Outstanding or Perfect or sometimes Very Good (thanks to the one who put that tip somewhere on this board, forgot who it was). But for some reason they don't accept Map Information even if they should. Say they can't offer anything in return. Ah, whatever

I was thinking to stay away from Western and Central Europe for a while and conquer North Africa first and I did. I never searched for that piece of land all the down in North Africa because there's this "invisible wall" or something alike I couldn't get past, but I just had to take another entrance into it. Seems Timbuktu's there, heh heh. It'll be absorbed soon. Those two islands Ajjacio and Cagliari are also in my possession.

HRE kept sending spies to Naples to cause unrest. And I couldn't really counter them because they were super spies. So for years and years that settlement needed much attention. I couldn't assassinate them or have them executed so I had to wait until they died of old age. HRE constantly blockaded my ports too but I could luckily counter them and blockade this one port in return. They are too busy, though, fighting in Central Europe so they don't have proper time to come take care of me all the way down in Italy where they have to cross the Papal States first by land and by papal standing - my trusty ally who favors me the most.
Their closest settlement (forgotten the name) lies just in North Italy in between Venice, Milan, etcetera. I suspect it's a way of the AI to cheat me into war with Venice and Milan when I start conquering HRE there as I'd come very close to 'em. So I lay low and use sneakiness to cause unrest in their towns and I kill off their killable characters to weaken them since I can't afford any armies to march over their corpses. I think that'll be the best and cheapest strategy until I can afford that, even if it's only to get some revenge at 'em.

I was thinking to take care of the closest and weakest enemies first. I immediately thought of the Moorish scum, fathered by scorpions and snakes, lol (well most factions are fathered by vermin anyway ). Not only is it far away from the rest of the aggressive Europeans, their religion is Islam so when I take care of 'em, the Pope'll be happy with me (even though he was happy anyway with the money he receives - the cheapskate power-hungry leech).
These Moors are now driven back to the Spanish lands and I established a truce with them. But it won't be too long 'fore I give 'em a little present. I must admit they've built up a respectable army or two at least. Since I can't afford that many armies (I only have one mainly consisting of militias) I actually established the ceasefire.
Remember that little present I spoke of? I'll be using spies and assassins trained in my settlement (which will have a Master Assassin's Guild) just below them (guarded by one big army) to infiltrate their wretched vile lands and kill all their family members (or as many as possible). I will train teams of two: one spy and one assassin and they'll get them all. Everybody: first for practice the easier targets like captains, but then come the generals, imams, spies, assassins, diplomats, and you name it.
I might even have more for 'em. More little presents to pose as nice friendly treats to my beloved foemen. I intend to cause a plague to make matters worse, to spread this finely crafted disease amongst their lands. And while I'm at it, I'll hit Portugal and Spain just to preemptively take care of them, and then I'll go further up to the Western European lands.

Currently I have only HRE and Egypt ('cause of a Crusade) as enemies in my diplomacy screen, but I don't really attack them (except as said HRE with sneakiness). Egypt is an annoying force regarding naval combat. They constantly block my ports and I still can't afford mighty armies, including ships. I can't even establish a ceasefire with them. Anybody know what to do about that?


In many of my previous games (also in RTW) I used to play very quickly, effectively, and aggressively but at some point it became boring and tiresome to just march in your armies and pick off any lands. So I decided to play it slowly, and I must say I enjoy it a lot more. But the downside of this is that because I don't conquer that many regions there's less money income.
Not that that's a problem that much, but while I'm preparing (spies, assassins) to take over the Spanish lands I need more money to build up some armies and keeping them without going into the -.
North Italy is mostly secure, so I probably won't get attacked from that direction by the HRE. It's just that Egypt to the east has a very lucrative position to suddenly strike me in North Africa, and the fact that the Moors have a couple good armies near my border left of North Africa.

Since the Pope favors me a lot I was thinking of calling a Crusade on their Moorish settlements, but it seems I can't pick any of 'em in the list. Is it because I'm too close to 'em?