The French - this is absolutely absurd!

Please excuse me for my bad English. I just finished my dose of MTW for today - it rather made me do it.
Ok, so I started High, conquest, Hard diff with French.
At the very begining I was pretty surprised to see a number of extremely good soon-to-be governors. There were at least 3 of them with 5 acumen and 4 dread, and 2 more with 5 acumen, so I had very good income in the begining. Was getting like 1200 per year in total + occasional Papal child support of 1000. I was also holding (obviously, it was turn 0) Flanders, Tripoli and Antioch which are very rich provinces, and had a caravel in Egyptian sea, so I was automatically trading with Egypt. So the start was pretty good.
My plan was to expand towards English - in more common language to obliterate them - I really needed a safe back and 3-4 provinces I don't need to guard. So, I was quickly training in Ile de France, rushing towards CSergeants and towards FSergeants in Toulouse and Normandy. I was also gettings mercs in Ile de France. I was aware that I, by all means, had to hold Antioch and Tripoli, so I was rushing for the same troops over there. It was quite a money spending spree, but as I said, economy was great. Then it all started.
HRE attacked me at Toulouse and I barely stood my ground there. It pretty messed up my plans, because I knew that if I expand eastward, I will never have my rear safe, but I was in a what-the-hell mood, so I took Burgundy. My king was 5 star, and I had better troops than them so it was easy. But they were amassing troops at neighbouring provinces, and I knew Burgundy would be really hard to defend given the number of boardering regions. So they attacked with full force while I was sieging, and I pulled back, only to come back with 2 full stacks the next turn and retake it.
Next turn, Egyptians attacked Tripoli (I was focusing my defense at Antioch, for no specific reason), and I had to retreat to the Keep, but then I knew it's gonna go downhill, cuz I lost trade with Egyptians, and my important province. Not to mention 3 of my lords were being besieged there. I retaliated from Antioch, and before you know it - Egyptians sent a Jihad for Tripoli. Given the serious lack of troops in the Holy Land, I trained 2-3 light troops in Cyprus and a Barque, and transported them to Antioch to help defend the province. I was still holding both Holy Land provinces, and training in both, but Egyptians had full stacks all over the place...
Once both of my separate realms stabilized, I decided that I was strong enough to quickly neutralize the English, and hold the HRE while doing that, and suddenly, I saw that English were in a civil war. Great news I thought, as they lost Aquitaine and Wessex in it - it was my chance to take Aq and have a bit more time to prepare for all out war. So I sent my already prepared troops in Toulouse to Aq, 1200 men against 200 rebels, and then, something really interesting happened. As I sent those troops, English did the same, and I was thinking of just pressing 3, cuz I didn't want an all out war before 2-3 turns of more preparations. So I pressed 3. In the meantime (in the same AI turn), Aragonese attacked out of nowhere, and I pulled to my stronghold in Toulouse, and therefore lost 1200 men, with one of my Lords to English. I ransomed the entire army for staggering 3300 florins, and lost my entire budget to that (I went to -800 the next turn and didn't go above zero for years to come). Luckily, that didn't put me into war with the English, but that was the only good thing about it.
After 2 turns (which included constant fighting with the Egyptians, a fighting on the defensive), I went for the English, and took all 3 of their French provinces with relative ease. Then I turned to the HRE and Aragon and had some pretty good results with them. I slowly started demobilizing my mercenary armies, that were pretty numerous, basically trying to regain my income (which was the highest, but my military output was immense). I defeated the HRE in Burgundy, Lorraine and Provence, and started consolidating my rule for just a few turns, refreshing my armies before the cash I've just plundered runs down the bellies of my soldiers. HRE too experienced a civil war, about 30-40% of their armies went rebel which was pretty good news for me. Given that Wessex was still rebel, I was no longer in war with English due to lack of any contact. And then, again out of nowhere, Italians strike Toulouse, Provence and Flanders. I defended all but Provence, and engaged a war where they could strike any of my shores. I was now focusing entirely on them and the Aragonese (I pulled back out of Aragon a few turns ago due to Papal warnings).
Of course, I completely forgot Pope's warning to stay out of Aragon for 10 turns, and got excommunicated. You can imagine the already pathetic loyalty (my king just died, btw) at this moment. But I still gave no quarter and was actually winning the 4 wars I was fighting. I got to Venice, and took everything on the way there, but pulled back to Milan eventually. Egyptians now, by my greatest delight, had a civil war of their own, which I used to take Edessa and Syria. I was pretty amazed by my show of skill, to be honest, as I was winning every single war I was fighting, although not easily at all.
On top of all that - Almohads attacked my Flanders, and Aquitaine. I was so totally surprised, and both frustrated and thrilled. I was officially in war with HRE, Egyptians, Italians, Aragonese, Almohads, and was excommunicated the same time.
I just HAD to come here and post this, whether anyone wanted to read or not - I will update soon!

No need to apologize for your English. Its good. I've seen native speakers of English do worse.

Nice to see you've been having fun. It reminds me of playing the HRE with everyone's hand against me.

Hearing stories this this makes me want to play MTW again! The HRE is indeed an enjoyable faction to play!

So I loaded this and continued playing.
The war that just started with Almohads was pretty painful, I had to retreat to my strongholds all over the place, and retaliate for God knows how many times. But I was slowly cornering them to provinces that had no ports, and obliterating them there. The real pain was my ruined economy, they were constantly ripping me off of my provinces, ones that were really valuable, like Flanders. But again, I succeeded in repelling all invasions, including those Italian and German, and took out entire Italian nation (excluding the ones out of Italy, I supposed it's Crete that remains in their hands). At one point, I had Wales, Wessex, Flanders, Aquitaine and Toulouse all besieged by Italians and Almohads lol!
Then I started my offensive against the HRE provinces - Tyrolia, Switzerland, Swabia. I did that to take the Swiss citadel, so that I could train my Grand inquisitors and devour kingdoms with them. Little did I know that I already have a citadel in Venice, so I started training them there, after much preparation. Then, yet again, an unwanted guest came to Antioch, Tripoli and Cyprus in the same turn - Byzantinians. I defended the Holy land and took their Lesser Armenia with great effort, but the bastards took Cyprus that I maintained to become a shipbuilding province in future. I was again fighting 5 enemies...
A civil war broke out among the Almohads, and Castille fell to the rebels, and as a result, Spanish reemerged in a neighbouring province, taking Castillian rebels with them. It was joyful to watch those blasted Almohads fight with the Spanish, as I regrouped and took Valencia (already had Aragon and Navarre). The also took my Friesland, and even reinforced it, which was awesome because there was no port there, and I massacred their 1500 troops there (I had a 5 star general, and at least 2000 of well armed CSergeants and other mercenaries). I then realized that, because Italian and Almohad threat from the shores was no more, I could direct my huge garrisons towards Iberian peninsula and take it all - I knew it's gonna be easy, and more important, won't require much defence there.
Out of nowhere, Almohads strike with 4 full stacks at my Palestine, making havoc there. I had just enough losses trying to repel them that I had to pull back to Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa. By that time, I took Egypt, but had to leave Sinai due to horrible loyalty. Egypt was thriving with 3 full stacks, but those had to stay there for defense. I soon lost Syria, and upon taking it, had to withdraw cuz of low loyalty. There were some minor skirmishes done by the Byz, that were easily repelled, but they inflicted losses too.
As I was already saying, I started amassing my huge armies in Aragon and Navarre, and it climbed to a number of at least 6 pretty good full stacks of men with a 7 star general among them. All was well, when suddenly, Pope himself, Hungarians, and Germans attack my Venice, simultaniously. Yes, that meant I was now in war with 7 nations of which at least 3 had enough ships to sink every piece of wood I sent out to set up some trade routs, and all that while I was planning to attack the 8th faction.
Funny thing is, I never attacked anyone first (except for the English earlier on, but I am in peace with them for quite awhile).

Given that this is becoming truely absurd, I will have to gather more energy to continue playing this...

Perhaps you should try to find a comfortable borders for your empire and consolidate your economy. Constant conquest can be sometimes dangerous, though I am not quite familiar with your situation.

Well, I don't have much experience with the French since my specialisation goes with the Byzantines and occassionally (very rare) with the Spanish... I also like High era as a beginning...Anyway, the most difficult situation I have experienced in my still unfinished game (and no hope that to be done soon) a war against the appearing Golden Horde and the Egyptians whilst the Hungarians did not dare to open a third frontier (fortunately). My lands were sensibly big from Serbia to Armenia, Lesser Arm. and Rum and Georgia. I remember I only repelled the Egyptians for almost 6-7 years without going on the offensive for lack of spare troops... The Horde required some troops...

More or less, i know what you feel.

P.S. The Egyptians are still alive spared in Sinai and Egypt. A good trading partner who is forced to concentrate his troops in Egypt... Petty vassal, I would say... And the Swiss speak Greek... :evilgrin:

That sounds like a great MTW game!!! Even though you seem overwhelmed you are having fun and holding your own despite all the obstacles. What a great AI this game has compared to CAs newer releases. It is great that the player actually feels threatened and feels pressure on all his different fronts. I am excited to get back into this relic of a game!!!