Quote Originally Posted by Cowhead418
[...] But I have also had a failed XL German campaign. That was quite a challenge - surrounded by seven hostile factions.
Yes, that´s a real tough one. Too much land to be considered small (and therefore an acceptable ally), low loyalty in most of the provinces, bad infrastructure, no chance at all to build up a navy and a couple of greedy factions at the doorstep. It took me three tries for one to sucessfully last beyond the first fifty years, and that only because I got extremely lucky with the French suffering a civil war AND capturing Genoa in a do-or-die attempt.