OK I am going to DL this new version. I do have one suggestion though. Lets give this one a bit of time before and if 1.8 is done. I have only been able to do one and a half campaigns per mod really. I have not been able to play a Muslim faction with medmod yet, and I have never played the HRE in MTW because I always felt it would be too easy. I still want to try all those things out.

In terms of games here is the pattern I see in AI faction strength up to and including 1.6.

Danes kill French and HRE and English (talked about in detail already). French survive but are pushed to a corner and slowly waste away.
Turks die to Egypt and Byzantine.
Crusades and other factions kill Byz and push them out to a small area where they waste away.
Either Almo or Spain completely replaces the other, seems random which one wins.
Italy gets some fleets at first and looks good but is totally replaced by Sicily.
Sicily ends up taking the Mediterranean.....and the mid east strating with constantanople and moving down. I think it is because they are pretty safe at the start with no real border and they do so much trade.

Golden Horde. These guys piss me off. They appear with these HUGE stacks and take 2 provinces and then.....do nothing for turn after turn. Then when they do move it is to take one lame steppe province at a time. They whittle themselves down on revolts etc until they are just another weak faction. I want them to come in and hand Europe its ass, or better yet hand me mine . When the mongols invaded europe the only thing that stopped them was the death of a Khan.

Well I am off to try HRE.