Hey, everyone,
I'm opening this topic to let you see what I've been up to recently, while playing Medieval II Total Wars.

OPENING
I'm a person that's quickly bored, so I switch campaign quite often.
I've got 2 campaigns running at the moment.
One on the Vanilla Version (Patch 1.3), with Hungary,
and one on the mod called 'Regions and Provences' with Milan (or Republic of Genoa).

HUNGARY
My first turns:

I first took Zagred and Bucharest. This was rather easy, and with the (retrained) veterans I snatched up Sofia.
Then I waited about 10-15 turns before really doing a next move.

My economy was developed over that time, and I trained a full stack army, for seen of 6 additional peasant to take 3 regions, in a row. With a rented boat (I didn't make Sofia a Stone Castle then, I first created everything possible in the Wooden variant.) I went to Caffa. It was easily raided/rushed. After that a siege was laid to Kiev, which was obviously harder.
On my way back to Bran (which is now my capital, a more central position) I also took Iasi. I think the Poles were to busy with the Russians and the Danes to get it, however... They tried it. The AI sent an army that was to small to take Iasi.

Now you might be wondering: ''Wtf, what difficulty must that be... easy?'' The answer, I'm afraid is no, I play on Medium/Hard. The Medium is for being able to do some diplomacy, on hard it's not diplomacy but just plain bribery (well it's already bribing until you drop, but on hard it would just be jet more expensive.)

When this move was completed, I retrained my troops, and made 2 half stacks and made the pope call a crusade on Antioch, I sent those stacks and I managed to get Aleppo and Antioch in one turn.
Because of the low difficulty, the Turks didn't even take Edessa or Adana, which I obviously did later on.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
Western Part of 'my empire': Zagreb and Budapest make good money.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I developed Iasi and Caffa like this:
Due to the low religion in those regions I needed castles for public order, so I kept the regions castles until I had 50% or more Catholics in those regions.


Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
I took Adana, my other stack is in Antioch, the public order drops totally when I take something out. Also on my way to Edessa. Please notice, this was just a few turns after a new period of rest, my cash gained very fast again, but will go away in a few turns.


After this succesful campaign in the Middle East I settled down and created a new army at home, to conquor Russia, they are not Christian, not allied to my allies (Egypt and the Turks are) and they have cool regions (like Smolensk and Novgorod.
I sent 2 full stack armies, to be certain I would succeed.
Status at the moment:
Army 1: Novgorod taken, on my way to Riga.
Army 2: Sieging Smolensk.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
On this screenshot you see two things:
1: I got myself Damascus.
2: In this campaign I gave a lot of attention to Merchants... with result, this is one of my 2 eldest merchants:



GENOA|MILAN
I'm playing with the Republic of Genoa, also known as Milan.
I started with buying off Bologna, I gave the HRE 2300 florins for 4 turns, a great deal.
Then my diplomat went to the Papal States for Trade Rights, and Alliance and to give and receive military access.
Then I created 3 additional diplomats, and I sent them all over the world for trade rights.
In my starting turn I sieged Florence right away
I created an army large enough to take Pisa, Ancona, Corsica and Sardinia. After that I started to make my economy work really good.
A few turns later I made almost more than 10,000 per turn because I had disbanded my army for almost 70%.
I got Pamplona, because the AI defeated the Spanish xD, and Valancia, I offered the Spanish my Pamplona for their Zaragoza and offered an Alliance as well.
My goal was to make a large empire in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea.
With my veterans of Pamplona and Valencia I took Barcelona as well, the French were busy fighting off the HRE and the English.
After that I focused again on my economy, it had suffered...
Soon I was 'rich' again and I bought of Marseille of France, together with Toulouse.
My hardy veterans had one task left, taking Granada and Carthagena.
Algiers, Tunis and the region west of Algiers (forgot the name) were taken by my crusading army (Sicily was excomunicated so I crusaded Tunis).

And this is where I am at the moment, I'm already taking over Palermo, and the pope took Napels, so Sicily will die soon.


Edit:
France and HRE are at war, I lost France as an ally, and HRE stayed.
I almost had Sicily, but they wanted to attack me in the back, so I just cease-fired them, which they liked.
I have over 250,000 florins now, because I'm laying back and enjoying my economy .


Pictures:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
My new Faction Heir: I got Puccio killed, he had terrible traits, he got them when he aged 16.


Sicily was fleeing away...


Crusade on Palermo:


Even the pope hates them:


My homelands:


Diplomacy: