Just starting a Spanish campaign after playing through as the Scots my first impressions are thats its actually pretty easy. On H/H went up to Zaragoza, waited a turn for portugal to fail and then took it after. Then using my spy I had a look at Pamplona. General and two militia spearmen. Easy spy opens the gates and take on the same turn.

Then it gets interesting. A large Portugal army shows up at the other side of the bridge leading into Pamplona. Now from experience bridge battles=slaughtered A.I. And I'm right. A semi circle of merc spears + militia spears and Jinettes on the surrounding hills gets me about 60 losses 180 kills and something like 460 prisoners. I ransom them for a laugh and Portugal pays all 4,000 florins

I decide to be adventurous and march to Lisbon. End up on a bridge and decide to park myself there for the time being. I train up another army in Toledo army to stop the French getting any Ideas. What do you know? half a stack comes merrily wandering down through the mountains and gets massacered by Jinettes.

Meanwhile my economy is utterly stagnant and making 79 florins profit so its time for Lisbon. What do you know? His holiness excoms Portugal as well. Then something truly sad happens. My main army is parked on a bridge with the exact same compostition except Jinettes with new javelins and retrained spearmen. The prisoners of last battle attack me on the bridge with reinforcements from Lisbon and the exact same thing happens. Semi circle of spears and Jinettes lobbing javelins. Lisbon is left with a pathetic garrison and I take it with no fuss.

In summation: Hardline on Portugal early, don't let them consolidate and get real armies together. Bridge battles, people say its an A.I exploit as it really has no clue what its doing but I call it tactics. Theyre an easy way to crush armies with no real losses.

Now I reckon I'm set going to sack Corduba to kickstart my eco and block the landbridge to africa. It looks set to be a fun campaign. I'm probably going to get to fight the Mongols now.