Having played the Early period inside out (and being a bit bored of the battles with the Horde and the uber-Byzantines general) I tried to give my first serious shot at the high period (crippled Byzantines, smaller horde ... Sounded good to me ).

Picked the Sicilian in order to have a secured location to start with. Was quite amazed by the higher tempo of the whole thing ... Everyone at war, crusades sent every five years, Italy taking Scotland and Wales before the English... Even the Danes actually doing something else than getting large army of knights for no purpose

Made what I tought to be a decent cautious start (keeping my homeland, adding Egypt, Antioch, Tripoli, Crete and Syria in about 100 years, two ships in each square, 400,000 florins). Was doing ok in GA point just behind most factions other than the Hungarians who had already a substantial lead. When the game reaches 1320, new GA points calculation for me: 1 for keeping Malta (only homeland), 1 for 3 additonal provinces. This basically means that I am screwed except if can conquer all the non-catholic factions, and burn all other catholic factions with Grand Inquisitors (which is a bit too easy given the AI inability to defend against that ... but already did it to the Italians ... shame on me) ...

A combanition of all-out conquest and cheesy tactics that I do not enjoy too much (but conquering as much as possible with high tech unit could be fun) and I was wondering if anyone (i) could tell me if there is some turn of event before the end of the game that I can expect regarding the calculation of the Sicilian GA points ? or (ii) would have any suggestion for a faction in the high period that would be less at a disadvantage than the Sicilians?