Quote Originally Posted by satchef1
If all the nations in asia minor have large amounts of ships defending against sea attacks then build LOADS of assasins and send them at the weakest nation (the one with the least heirs). Killing the royal family will hopefully make the provences go rebel, giving you a gate in to Asia-Minor
Another option to the assassins idea is if you have some reaosnably high level spies, you can send them to a couple of provinces causing the loyalty to drop. If they can't reinforce the province with enough troops once they have tried lowering taxes, it may go rebel. Both methods may fail if you have to deal with border forts, but the assassins have an additional problem in the sense that you'll lose lots of them, unless you have some really high valor assassins.

If you can sneak a few into the HRE's weak provinces, it might be just enough to cause some rebellions. At the very least, the HRE will have to lower taxes, meaning you're cutting into their income, as well as pulling troops away from the front lines. In addition, if the spies stick around long enough, they can let you know if the HRE plans to attack (and where).

For lots of good information on agents, check out the Medieval: Total Subterfuge guide in my sig (or the thread in the Entrance Hall).