Factions You Could Never Figure Out

[gollum]

The Almohads are slow starters, but if you play your cards right and build up armies and good cash flow (helped by trading with the Italians in the process), you can crush the Spanish and take Leon and Castile after which point you are set up for world domination (after you fight off crusades, subdue the French in land, the English at sea and kick the Germans in the butt).
Army wise the Almohads are versatile and with good melee capabilities a la catholics in early especially due to AUMs.

The Egyptians start also slow but very rich - you need to turtle by retreating your sultan to Egypt and make a strong garrison in Jerusalem, while you frantically tech up in Egypt and make farms in Palestine (that you can defend). Once you are set up in cash flow and army strength, take Syria from the Turks which will kickstart the EgyptoTurkish war, which the Turks will lose, which will kick off the EgyptoByzantine war, which the Byzantines, eventually will also lose. At that point you can consolidate in-between Constantinople/Georgia/Egypt, the holy trinity,until the arrival of the Mongols, tech up, trade with the Catholics when you don't massacre their crusades and get rich, advanced and powerful. After the Mongols are "convinced" to go conquer somewhere else, just explode in the Balkans and win.

Militarily wise the Egyptians are very solid in melee, due to Saracen Infantry around which you can built your armies. Once you can get Mamelukes (missile and melee) cavalry, you are up for lots of fun. Add some Nizaris from teh great mosque and few Ghazis for tin can openers and you are set to go, see and conquer.

HRE needs patiently to take one by one your neighbours out as quickly as you can so you don't get excommied. Start with Denmark, continue with Poland by which point the Italians will give you the chance to crush them and then the Hungarians. Once you have taken all those solidly out, you can do som close crusades (Pomerania/Prussia) to get influence, before you proceed to take over France, by which point you will have become unstoppable. It requires carefully balancing between teching/invading/diplomacy. The trick is to build up at your central core provinces at first: Franconia, bavaria, Swabia that enable you to move newly recruited troops wherever you want them quickly while your troop producing lands are secure behind the fronts.