Holy Roman Empire

[PseRamesses]

I love playing the HRE mainly because of location. In my experience an early blitz is the best strategy.

Army 1, Heinrich the Champion takes Florence, ask for a crusade on Tunis. On the way there I take Ajaccio and Cagliari. When Tunis is secured I give it to either the pope or the Sicilians. Now, Heinrich´s stats are almost maxed out wich will help you in all future negotiations.
Army 2, from Vienna and Huremburg takes Prague, Breslau and Stettin.
Army 3, from Frankfurt takes Hamburg and Magdeburg.
Army 4, from Staufen and Innsbruck and Metz.
All finished by turn 5. Army 2&3 merge and march on Antwerp and Bruges which should be yours around 8 or 9.

I only keep castles in Innsbruck and Magdeburg. I ally with all my neighbours except Milan (and Venice sometimes). My alliances always contains a clause that they pay me 100f/ turn for 20-50 turns. This will keep the peace in most of my game for a long time. My main focus are Italy and the rich cities of Genoa, Milan and Venice. Usually Milan goes for Venice and eventually gets x:ed. This is what I´ve waited for.
I always calls the crusades and sends my faction leader, heir and sometimes others to keep their stats maxed and my rep as high as possible. This soon gets my rep up to very trusworthy and hardly none touches me from that point.

[sabaku no gaara]

I try to blitz the nearby rebel settlements early on and build roads in all my settlements, then grain exchange, then churches and happiness etc... I place good defending units on my Italian cities, and as soon as possible, I take 1 or 2 familly members and some merchant cavilry, put them on a ship sail to north africa and march to Timbuktu. after conquering timbuktu and arguin, the merchants in my 2 "colonies" bring in all the money I need, I wipe out Milan and take the city Venice as soona s possible as well, by that time the pope has demanded me to go on a crusade against Jerusalem and after taking that I try to take Accre and antioch to strengthen my position, if necessary I take allepo and gaza and give it to the french or an other Ally to keep the Egyptians and Turks occupied with those. after that I build up my economy and frontier defences (Zweihanders and forlon hope are the backbone of my defence, they can take on anything, 2 units of zweihanders once routed an entire spanish army of jinetes and dismounted feudal and chivalric knights after they breached my walls)

I don't like going on the offensive untill I'm sure my economy will survive long wars, and I usually focus on taking economicly important area's in a blitzkrieg. In the mean time I use spies and diplomacy to weaken some neighbours and strengthen others to keep everyone at war with all but me