Quote Originally Posted by Bhruic
I only played on Early. I never saw Poland, Novogorod, Aragon or the HRE do well (as well as the Danes you mentioned). They always either caved (in the case of HRE), or just never expanded.
And I only played on early, and I've seen Poland trash the Mongols as soon as they arrived, same with Novgorod claiming all that neutral land and laying into Byzantium, and I have most certainly seen the HRE do well. If you're controlling one of the major factions around them or one of them gets into a ruck with someone else powerful, the HRE proceeds to start up the steamroller.