Starting off as spain

[Commander_Vimes]

When I started off as Spain i quickly grabbed the rebel settlements and allied with Portugal since there units all seem to be better than me then i declared war with the Moors and took there settlements at the same time with different armies for maximum impact, i conquered all the way up to Egypt but not actually Egypt because if i deafeat them i have to deal with the mongols i catupered the nearby french city because they were barely defended and his army was off somwhere else this made it quite easy to take France an it soon became my economic area, the pope gets angry with me "for shedding the blood of fellow christians" but he is not much of a threat, Poland attacks me, denmark attacks me, milan attacks me, venice and sicily. Since most of these people are behind each other they can only attack me one at a time portugal attacks me at the west. Problem: I don't have enough money too send an army to the west and too the east in debt,the Portugese became have quite powerul untis and it took me four armies per city i tried to make alliance with people at north or ceasfire no luck apart from poland who i had to pay for a ceasefire this was probably worth since poland seemed to be dominating up northwest and was probably the second biggest faction Problem: poland attacks hre who were my freinds, the smaller countries like venice and milan didn't attack me much on land but i lost alot of naval battles with them i finally defeat portugal which took ages, it takes loads of turns sending my forces upwards so meanwhile i build several fleets to blockade all venice and milan ports since they seem to be at war with each other this seemed to be their main source of income once i have got my forces up there i defeated milan and took one of the venice settlement the pope has me excommunicated.

What do i do now?
: do i attack the papal staes since weakly guarded and join up with the arab countries
:do i try to get a good reputation with the pope and only attack non-christian countries
:do i team up with poland first and wipe out the smaller factions
:do i try to remain peaceful with everone christian get a good reputation wait till america is discovered and attack that
:do i do any other suggestion from you

[carlisimo]

That's nearly impossible to read!

Try to reconcile with the pope (lots of gifts, or start over when either he or your leader dies). Then only attack Catholic countries when they've been excommunicated. Meanwhile expand in the East. Put priests in all the Muslim lands; they'll become cardinals before long and in a generation or two you'll control the College of Cardinals. Then vote for your own cardinal to become pope - if the pope is from your faction it doesn't help that much, but you do start out with perfect relations.

[Veritas]

Pleeeeease don't EVER use that font again. It's really hard on the eyes and hard to read.

[smitty]

I'm not sure how your people will feel in your cities, but if you wipe out the Papal States, I think that means no more pope! If there is no head to Christianity that could make a lot of your Christian cities rebellious. This of course is all speculation. I would recommend teaming up with Poland. It sounds like everybody hates you, so you might as well join the bandwagon that's butchering the 'everybody' team. Follow Carlisimo's advice with the priests becoming cardinals to increase favor with the pope and you'll find your enemies have a lot more reluctance to attack you. Joining a crusade will help too, and make sure to complete the missions the pope requests. Don't fret about ceasefire requests. All you have to do is sit around for 8 or so turns without fighting and then you can keep butchering. The nice thing is usually the faction you are warring with will attack you anyway, meaning they get excommunicated not you. Hooray, because now all of Europe is attacking them while the Pope is sending his thanks for piety.