Your favorite way to play?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I usually start a little bit of blitzing until I have some nice small kingdom that is easy to defend. If I play England I blitz until the UK is once again under my control and I have Rennes, Angers and Bruges. After that the attacks of the AI direct my next move. If the HRE attacks me I head north to wards Hamburg, if the French start messing around I attack eastward. When I play the Turks I stop blitzing when I control the entire middle east, Anatolia, Constantinople and Sarkel. After that it is playing reactive. My stile ensures that usually the AI will attack me with full stacks instead of small armies. I like to fight two stacks at a time when possible. I don't role play, I don't care about my blood line and I have usually no diplomats since they have nothing to do because my reputation is usually very untrustworthy or worse. Most of my generals have high dread, I don't use them as governors since then they will all become sexually insane alcoholics.

[Bronco]

Agree with some of the others on this board.

I also like make a rush to secure as much border as possible then turtle and tech up. I keep a large(but relatively inexpensive) army at each rough border(like if I'm German than a northern, eastern and southern army) and only attack in self defense. Then when I have my invincible armies I start methodical campaigns against any enemies.

[GMaximus]

Usually I take whatever rebel provinces that would feel convenient, then sit back, spam myself up with diplomats and spies, build a bunch of watchtowers and forts around my place and start improving my reputation around the world (after playing MTW where the Pope is always your mortal enemy, somehow I feel inclined to aid his puny and not nearly as agressive M2TW counterpart), make some good allies, maybe even get a vassal if I'm lucky. Usually I tend to avoid open war, and only make a single strike, then start haggling with the AI when it comes suing for peace.

[Paradox]

I tend to attack bordering regions and lay the foundation of my future empire for the first twenty or so turns. After I gain a vast amount of land and the tech level, economy, military etc. I need, I have a bad habit of turtling. Don't know why, but once I have that large of an empire I often become paranoid and play it safe, diplomatically, cold war style. Truth be told, I have only went through a single full campaign, I usually play short (mission) campaigns. Though if I was able to play the actual battles of M2TW, I'd probably be an insane blood-craving tyrant, like the Blitzkrieg master!

[Ramses II CP]

I think the way I play can best be described as 'never pick a fight, but finish every one you get in.' I expand through rebels to start, but then I like to trick the AI into attacking me, or sometimes just wait patiently for them to decide to do it on their own. There was a time when I tried to get ceasefires to make the game more interesting, but at this point in my MTWII spectrum I can see it's a waste of time. I really enjoy seeing the AI make a well prepared assault on my empire, even when I break it and go on to conquer their homelands.

For example in my latest BC campaign (With the new AI fixes installed) I expanded the KoJ through Abassid territory easily, but Georgia and the Kwaz had massive, allied empires north of me. I could've launched an attack while they were still expanding, but instead I settled back (Well, finished off Oman and forced Makuria to attack me, but both were weak) and waited for them to decide I was a target. When Georgia had knocked back the Kypchaks halfway to Kiev they suddenly attacked me at Hamadan and a few other places, making for some fun battles. Next turn six stacks of Kwaz troops hit me at various places, more fun battles!

Admittedly there becomes a bit of a grind where, no matter how impressive the armies they assemble the AI very rarely wins in the field, but it's fun to me to think of parts of my empire being massively important battlefields. Hamadan is the Sommes of the 12th century ME, and Tblisi is the Tarawa, etc. Georgia is in deep trouble now, but I'm going to play defense against the Kwaz until the Mongols show up. I want them to have someone to expand against before I get to them and start the spanking (I also want to see how far the Rajputs go, since they're about to wipe out the Ghorids and Sindh).

The most fun for me is when the AI surprises me, and things are harder than I expected. I fought a siege of Constantinople in the Turkish campaign I'm trying to write an AAR for that was shockingly close to being a loss. In fact, if the AI wasn't broken, I would've lost the city without making any mistakes in my defensive strategy. I love that fleeting feeling that there's an actual opponent in the AI.