Medieval 2 Total War (Who's playing it now?)

I'm currently playing as the Holy Roman Empire. It's quite interesting. I'm at war with Venice and Milan; they declared war on me. The pope threaten to excommunicate me, if i attack one of Milan's settlements. By the way his a Sicilian pope, so he could show some supports towards his Italian allies. POPE HAS THREATEN THE REICH! HOW DARE HE!

Is anyone playing Medieval 2 Total War now? Tell me who you are playing as and how your campaign is getting along?

Wow that's such a great Pope. "If you attack this nation that declared war on you, then we'll send you straight to Hell. But if they attack you it's perfectly fine."

Currently I am playing as Sicily, and I reunited Italy (including Rome).

Now everytime a new Pope is elected I just kill them until a Sicilian Pope is elected.

In my game. The Sicilian Pope is so LAME!

I'm playing Crusades, and have almost recaptured all of Anatolia, whilst simultaneously making an enemy of everyone.

C'est la vie.

Keep killing popes till there can be popes no more!

My hard drive is lacking in space to re-install it. Otherwise I would and steamroll as Egypt.

I were playing as Russia until the mongols invaded... holy fuck, it's impossible to beat them all. when i finally destroyed all their army's, they just sent in another 10 full stack army's... now am playing as Portogal. far away from the mongols

As Hungary, the Mongols basically owned all or the Middle-East and Turkey, with Constantinople as their gateway into Europe I held them for a very long time, destroying 4-5 huge armies of theirs, then I moved on Constantinople and captured it. I played very defensively until the Timurids arrived, whom I created an alliance with. I forced a ceasefire on the Mongols and allowed the Timurids to fight them. I redeployed my forces West to conquer the HRE and ended the campaign.

Playing as Egypt and I've just had my first Crusade declared on me.
Took 'em long enough, apparently there was quite a bit of heresy at home because first the Crusaded against Venice and then against France!

I've already curb stomped my former allies the Turks (who attacked me!!) and they're trapped in the Northern part of Middle east.

Now I've got 5 Crusading armies I have to stop with my 2 stacks of nothing but horsemen/horse archers. ("our arrows will block out the sun!!")

venice and im being assulted from both sides by millan and the byzantines ive beaten back the byzantines but for the last few turns ive had to deal with full stack after fullstack of milianese troops....cheats ftw!!!!

After reading these comments, I've decided I'm just about to start playing.

Ehre sei de Reich!.... The Holy Roman Empire - just crushed the feeble Italian states, Hungary, Poland & Byzantine Empire... I am about to venture fourth unto Turkey.

I'm playing as Spain at the moment. Word of advice don't let Milan build up. Its a pain in the ass.

I'm just deleted it but I was playing a mod where I played as Mongols which extended the map easterdward slightly and was able to get up through the balcans when I was met by a ridiculously sized hre that owned Italy France and Iberia and Denmark they had supiriour numbers and slowly took out all my stacks before I could rebuild and started moving east then I made peace with Russian area(I decided to skip them at first) and moved my army's west and proceed to take them out it was too easy after that

Have you watched part 1 of Stalin's M2TW LP? xD

no, you have no idea what the pope is doing to me in my game. Im playing as the HRE and have conquered all of italy (exept for the pope). he declares war on me and when i beat back his army he excommunicats me.

i find it easy to manipulate the pope into excommunicating my enemies. i just send a single unit into enemy owned provinces and let them attack it. lowers their papl influence slowly, but surely.

anyway, my current campaign is as the Byzantine Empire, and i focused on eastern europe and greece first and foremost for my initial expansion. venice attacked my on the third turn, and sicily followed up by attacking in greece :x so i sailed an army from Constantinople to crete, and then to Sicily(the island), and managed to take them while their army was in greece. then i took naples and that wiped them out! the army in greece turned to rebels and i stopped worrying about it. from there i just focused on Venice, taking Ragusa and Zagreb, which they had taken, and now i am marching on Venice, but my spy shows a full stack in the city, with another full stack, and a half stack outside it, all of them appear to be the tougher italian militia, so i hope i can take it.

I've witnessed it in my campaign. They've got tons of full stacked armies, and they keep literally attacking my two owned provinces, Bologna and Venice. By the way, i've got tons of armies too, but they are a little outdated though, at least compared against Milan and Venice.

Yea, the problem with the Milanese is that their City troops are as good or better as their Castle troops.
Not to mention Genoese Pavise Crossbowmen which are so ridiculous that a full stack of knights gets destroyed by them if you auto-resolve it. (AI calculates it wrong with the Armor pen and the AD and AR value of the Pavise)