Thanks for the advice guys

Following this advice I reverted back to an earlier save (the point just after I took out the Polish) and started trading. With costal provinces on the North and South end of things, it went relatively quickly. Soon I had TONS of money

The 1200s rolled around and suddenly I remembered the Horde I knew I didn't have much time so I teched up a couple of provinces and pumped Halbs and Xbows like crazy. Unfortunately, I had only produced enough for one stack when the Horde was suddenly on my doorstep.

Their first attack was in Kiev; where my halb stack was luckily enough. I chose to command the attack personally (saved just in case). This was a biggie. If I lost, there was practically nothing standing in their way (all my other forces were arrayed allong my border with the HRE where tensions had been rising and passing crusades had been cheesing me off).

Lucky for me, it was a bridge defense. As soon as the battle started I put the Halbs in a column formation and sent them to attack the lead group of MHC. They met on the center of the bridge and what do you know? The halbs worked A little help from the Xbows and soon I got message saying that I had killed the enemy king The Horde army routs and I win the battle. No heirs so the rest of the Horde goes rebel I beat the Horde in one battle (sort of - they would reemerge twice before it was over with)

I bribed the rest of them and took the Byzies and Const. before they knew what hit them. Commanding MHC is fun

Then I went west and took the 60% victory when it came. The Hungarians are fun, but there are other factions...

No if the Ruskies were only playable in early.....