yea the AI seems to neglect building enough ships. It was my first campagn as Egypt and I had Antioch genrating 3500 each year and of egypt and tripoli casshin in. So basically half of my 9000 dollar income was from trade. Then out of the blue, the byzantines my main trading partner attcks me so my income plumeted. Luckily I has built up over 100,000 florins of buffer money. So i just hired as many mercinaries as i could, Built as many troops and wiped out the bysantines navy then proceeded to take over the byzantines and most of eastern europe before the horde arrived. I ended up with about 20,000 florins left.

Is it just me or is assasinating the royal family of the horde cheasy. Thats what i did, but now i think it would have been more fun to have fought them. Thats what ill do on my second campagn. But im england now and i probably wont have to deal with them.