Venice

[Agent Miles]

I took a slightly different blitz path (VH/VH) in my campaign. On the first turn I started construction of the first level siege building in Ragusa along with a knight and two sergeants. I sent the units there on a long trip to Thessalonica bypassing the worthless Durazzo. The fleet near Iraklion took all of my forces there to land near Corinth and was then disbanded. I sent the King and all of the other military units in the north to Naples. I sent the spy to Thessalonica/Constantinople and the priest was sent as a scout to Naples/Sicily.
I then laid siege to and on the very next turn sacked Corinth after hiring some mercs. The cavalry and the other units from Ragusa met up with this force at Thessalonica, which was also sacked after a quick siege. Without HA’s from Corinth, the rest of the Byzantine armies were no match for my cavalry. I bulled my way through them and siege/sacked Constantinople.
While this was going on, my King’s army used the ballista from Ragusa and sacked Naples without a siege, while the Sicilian navy was unsuccessfully trying to get an army past my fleet into the Adriatic. I then waited out the Pope’s ban on attacking Sicily before eradicating that faction.
By turn 14 Sicily is gone and the Byzantines have only two weakly garrisoned settlements. My faction is largest and numero uno in everything except finance (where 15k florins in the bank earns me only second place). I can now take all the rebel settlements that I ignored and then spank little Milan.

P.S. On turn 37 I completed the elimination of the Byz and Milan factions (and took Antioch to complete the crusade). That's it for the short campaign. I don't think that I will continue, as this was a slam dunk.